Why are so many radical mass murderers second generation citizen immigrants?
While it will be weeks or months before we are able to fully analyze Omar Mateen’s obscene violence in Orlando, one fact about him stood out to me. It’s a common thread running through attacks like this across the US and Europe. The attackers who carried out the London bus and train bombings, the attackers in Paris, the terrorists in Belgium, the husband in the San Bernardino attack, the Fort Hood shooter, and Mr Mateen were all citizens of the countries they attacked, and second generation immigrants. the Chattanooga shooter wasn’t a citizen but had lived in the US 17 of his 24 years. Yassin Salhi, suspected of decapitating his boss and mounting his head on a fence in France was married, had lived in the area for more than ten years and had no criminal record. The parents of these men are mostly religious moderates, and the killers radicalized on their own.
Most Western countries have tightened their borders and began to more closely scrutinize immigrants but the sad reality is that all those efforts, and Mr Trump’s call to suspend immigration, have not, and would not stop a single attack.
Compared to traffic deaths and US gun deaths, mass murders by radicals are a rounding error, but they do cause societal disruption, multi-billion dollar government responses, and yes, (irrational) fear of immigrants.
Looking beyond the various ways government’s have failed to protect citizens from these attacks, I’d like to focus on just why so many have failed to assimilate the culture of their adopted homes. Is a policy of multiculturalism that no longer encourages assimilation a bigger problem than we admit? Are the UK, France, Belgium, and the US so racist that we refuse to assimilate them, or are other cultural factors at work that encourage them to establish closed communities?
While we concentrate on shutting down borders, spying on radical Imams, and struggling with what to do about citizens who adopt extreme views but break no laws, what societal forces are we missing, and more importantly, how do we change the environments that apparently exist across several Western countries to prevent their forced or voluntary marginalization? Immigration is not going to end. France and the UK are destined to be majority Muslim states in our lifetimes just as the US will cease to be majority White and several states will become majority Hispanic. While I have little concern any radical cultural shift will occur in the US, what does a poorly integrated Muslim majority portend for France and the UK? Will those states, and Europe continue to follow Western secular law that protects individual rights, or will they adopt Sharia law and move toward Theocratic governance? There are already Sharia courts and councils in the UK, so these are not rhetorical questions. How will the current progressive mantra that Western society and White men are the primary cause of most of society’s ills play itself out? White Christians are certainly on their way to being a minority here, and certainly in currently more secular Europe. Will they be viewed as a marginalized group worthy of protection or will the new majorities just laugh and say good riddance?
I’m not a social scientist, an academic, nor a politician. I do, however, believe there are some very important questions about the future few of us are asking, and I hope this short essay stimulates further discussion. To those who will immediately discount me as an Islamophobe, get over yourselves. The questions are valid no matter how you label them.
