Mi Nación Es Tu Nación

In 2011 France banned the wearing of facial veils in public. The motivation behind the law was threefold: to help prevent criminals or terrorists from masquerading as females; to protect women from oppression and second-class citizen status; and to emphasize the French constitutional canon of secularism (the doctrine that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education). The ban enjoyed widespread support across almost all levels of the French political spectrum.

Fast forward to July 2013, when violence by Muslim immigrants erupted over enforcement of the law.

Riot police patrolled Sunday in suburbs west of Paris after cars were torched and a police station attacked amid tensions linked to authorities’ handling of France’s ban on Muslim face veils.

Some 20 cars were set ablaze Saturday night and four people detained in a second night of violence, officials said Sunday.

What made this noteworthy to me was the timing. I had just read a couple of articles related to assimilation of Muslim immigrants in France and the U.S.

The first focused on Manuel Valls, a prominent member of French President François Hollande’s Socialist cabinet. As a Socialist, one might think he is an unlikely person to criticize Islamic practices. Indeed, Valls has long been critical of the harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric employed by conservatives. But he's also a realist who isn't afraid to say what he means.

Manuel Valls is France’s most popular politician. Valls believes he has reached that apex in the polls because he speaks his mind, whether to give a lawman’s stark warning of looming danger or a trenchant political analysis of the need for reform in Islam as practiced in his country.

Valls, France’s interior minister and top law enforcement officer, covered both public safety and Islam during a recent conversation in Paris and then repeated these points to U.S. officials in Washington in late June.

“We all face a growing threat of radicalization of our populations and more terrorism at home, whether it is promoted through cyber-jihadism, battlefield experience or sermons in some mosques,” Valls told me.

He then plunged headlong into a subject that most European and U.S. politicians furiously dance around: Muslim minorities in the West provide a fertile recruiting ground for terrorist networks because of some of Islam’s practices and tenets.

“Part of my effort is to say clearly that we need a French Islam, an Islam that accepts the separation of state and religion, the equality of men and women, democracy as our form of government,” he said.

In other words, an Islam that rejects many of the foundations of Islam.

Good luck with that one.

Shortly after reading the piece on Valls I read an article by one of my favorite commentators, T. R. Fehrenbach. He made the same point on a broader scale.

As is often written, we are a nation of immigrants. Even the Amerindians came out of Asia.

What is not often mentioned is that Americans have been one of the most patriotic nations on earth.

Our brief persecution of people of German and Japanese ancestry during the world wars was both ignorant and shameful. In fact, America had fewer potential traitors than any advanced nation.

Heavily German-populated areas such as Milwaukee, sent regiment after regiment into the trenches in WWI. No act of treason was attributed to a Nisei, or second-generation Japanese-American in WWII.

The most highly decorated U.S. Army unit was pure ethnic Japanese. As for other immigrants, some of the best American soldiers are increasingly Mexican-American.

One of the reasons, I think (awfully politically incorrect!) is that immigration was a bit different back in the day. Most 19th-century immigrants believed their native political and social systems stank, and they fled to the U.S. not to get a job or make a buck but to live free.

Political refugees make better citizens and assimilate faster than those just seeking work. These cling to their culture as a defense mechanism, longer than others.

This is particularly true of people lacking education. It is a reason why Europe cannot handle its multiple ethnicities.

History is important, not just what we retain but what we shuck off.

My feeling toward immigration is this: mi casa, tu casa; mi nación, tu nación.

I believe the history of my family began the day we stepped foot on the United States. We dropped a lot of baggage, beginning with language.

America is not an exclusive club.

My house, your house. My country, your country.

And my history is your history, once you take the oath.

The common thread here is that immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- come bearing quite a bit of baggage. It is in the best interests of both them and their new homeland that they drop their baggage upon entry. After all, what's the point of trying to make your new home just like the old one?