A conversation in another thread has prompted me to start this thread to talk about what I believe is a thorny subject that is especially prone to polarization: Will you condemn “Great Replacement Theory”?
In the thread, some posts offered the suggestion that having concerns about large numbers of immigrants in a given neighborhood or concerns about major shifts in culture is "bigoted." This is one claim I have encountered numerous times, to be sure, especially among Western liberals who, in my opinion, are largely unfamiliar with the nuances of foreign cultures such as those of the Arab world and the Middle East in general.
For some context, I'm an Arab and have lived my whole life in Arab countries. As someone who has been pursuing immigration for the last 10 years for multiple reasons, primarily to have more freedom to be myself and to avoid prevalent hostility and safety challenges facing atheists in my region, I absolutely think that concerns about large-scale immigration and sudden or major cultural shifts are sometimes both justified and even responsible.
There is a huge difference between acknowledging that cultural differences exist and may cause issues with integration into another culture and saying that an entire ethnicity are inferior or deserving of worse treatment. The former is realistic and understandable; the latter is racist and ethnically supremacist. When I see people dismiss concerns about certain elements of other cultures—which have affected me and many people I know on a personal level—I can't help thinking that they are either unfamiliar with the cultures in question or are too invested in a certain political narrative to the detriment of realism and nuance.
To be clear, I completely believe that cultures are cyclical and change over different periods of history, and no ethnicity or culture is inherently "superior" or "inferior" to another. But at the moment, it is a fact that the cultures of the Arab world, for instance, are overall less accepting of certain groups than much of the Western world is. These groups include LGBT people, atheists, and non-Abrahamic (and sometimes even certain Abrahamic) religious minorities.
When immigrants recently rioted in Sweden because someone burned the Qur'an and wanted the Swedish government to ban the burning, this wasn't shocking to me at all: almost every religious person I know where I live supports imposing religious limits on freedom of expression to protect "sacred" books or ban blasphemy. And when I read that some immigrant neighborhoods in Europe are unsafe for women to walk in alone or while wearing certain kinds of clothing, I'm also not surprised: Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and multiple other Islamic countries have a sexual harassment and/or sexist epidemic. I have to avoid going to many areas in my own city when I'm with white female friends from Europe or the U.S. because of widespread harassment, for example.
Whatever the reasons that have led to this point are, we can't ignore facts or dismiss people who point them out as "bigots" just because the facts are unpleasant. I care much more about seeing increasing acknowledgement and awareness of the current problems within my culture and region than seeing Western liberals with little or no familiarity with either refusing to consider the possibility that yes, culture is meaningful and encompassing of many aspects of life and yes, it is sometimes both difficult and unwise to accept large numbers of people from another culture into yours without considering the social ramifications and the fact that many of them will simply not integrate or blend in well enough into their host cultures.
If recognizing that there are some legitimate concerns about mass immigration, the current state of some cultures, and smooth integration into new countries makes one a "bigot" or a "racist," then I guess I'm "bigoted" and "racist" against my own ethnicity and region. Of course, since such a nuance-free definition of bigotry and racism is diluted to the point of being meaningless, I prefer to reserve these terms for actual instances of such where there aren't solid, realistic causes for concern.
In the thread, some posts offered the suggestion that having concerns about large numbers of immigrants in a given neighborhood or concerns about major shifts in culture is "bigoted." This is one claim I have encountered numerous times, to be sure, especially among Western liberals who, in my opinion, are largely unfamiliar with the nuances of foreign cultures such as those of the Arab world and the Middle East in general.
For some context, I'm an Arab and have lived my whole life in Arab countries. As someone who has been pursuing immigration for the last 10 years for multiple reasons, primarily to have more freedom to be myself and to avoid prevalent hostility and safety challenges facing atheists in my region, I absolutely think that concerns about large-scale immigration and sudden or major cultural shifts are sometimes both justified and even responsible.
There is a huge difference between acknowledging that cultural differences exist and may cause issues with integration into another culture and saying that an entire ethnicity are inferior or deserving of worse treatment. The former is realistic and understandable; the latter is racist and ethnically supremacist. When I see people dismiss concerns about certain elements of other cultures—which have affected me and many people I know on a personal level—I can't help thinking that they are either unfamiliar with the cultures in question or are too invested in a certain political narrative to the detriment of realism and nuance.
To be clear, I completely believe that cultures are cyclical and change over different periods of history, and no ethnicity or culture is inherently "superior" or "inferior" to another. But at the moment, it is a fact that the cultures of the Arab world, for instance, are overall less accepting of certain groups than much of the Western world is. These groups include LGBT people, atheists, and non-Abrahamic (and sometimes even certain Abrahamic) religious minorities.
When immigrants recently rioted in Sweden because someone burned the Qur'an and wanted the Swedish government to ban the burning, this wasn't shocking to me at all: almost every religious person I know where I live supports imposing religious limits on freedom of expression to protect "sacred" books or ban blasphemy. And when I read that some immigrant neighborhoods in Europe are unsafe for women to walk in alone or while wearing certain kinds of clothing, I'm also not surprised: Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and multiple other Islamic countries have a sexual harassment and/or sexist epidemic. I have to avoid going to many areas in my own city when I'm with white female friends from Europe or the U.S. because of widespread harassment, for example.
Whatever the reasons that have led to this point are, we can't ignore facts or dismiss people who point them out as "bigots" just because the facts are unpleasant. I care much more about seeing increasing acknowledgement and awareness of the current problems within my culture and region than seeing Western liberals with little or no familiarity with either refusing to consider the possibility that yes, culture is meaningful and encompassing of many aspects of life and yes, it is sometimes both difficult and unwise to accept large numbers of people from another culture into yours without considering the social ramifications and the fact that many of them will simply not integrate or blend in well enough into their host cultures.
If recognizing that there are some legitimate concerns about mass immigration, the current state of some cultures, and smooth integration into new countries makes one a "bigot" or a "racist," then I guess I'm "bigoted" and "racist" against my own ethnicity and region. Of course, since such a nuance-free definition of bigotry and racism is diluted to the point of being meaningless, I prefer to reserve these terms for actual instances of such where there aren't solid, realistic causes for concern.
