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Originally Posted by Zunaid
Insightful comment, Navo. I too have wondered about this proclivity amongst the 2nd generation abroad. Another interesting phenomenon has been how some first generation immigrants try to keep hold of the mores and sensitivities from the time they left the old country. While things have evolved back home, they haven't. This seems to be particularly true for those who tend to socialize only amongst their own kinds and never try to mix with the people of the country they have immigrated to.
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I concur with you guys entirely. Its one of the first things that struck me when I went to Toronto on my own for the first time. Not to generalise, but it was especially common in the 1st gen immigrant community who were relatively recent arrivals from the less fortunate socio-economic groups from the home countries. They are often times the ones least equipped to make it fully in the very competitive Toronto job market, hindered if not by language proficiency and education, then by the fact that in this alien cold landscape and society they just cannot adapt as quickly to (at best) integrate and (at the least) coexist at a similar wavelength to the broader Canadian environment.
Religion is often a pillar of familiarity for the immigrant experience in these situations, and it is common to see that out of the rootlessness of the immigant experience, native/homeland culture might be put behind in order to perfect commitment to the faith instead. I would even suggest, that because of new definitions within the religious movements, a foreign "Islamic" culture is adopted in the lifestyles of these certain groups.
However, I think the Muslim experience and history in Canada and North America is significantly more evolved, and you find within an articulation of how to coexist and especially after 9/11 a more defined understanding of what it is to be Muslim in a democratic liberal society.
In Australia, it is not as mature as yet, and you see tensions and factions within the Muslim communities themselves. I'm sure these factions exist in North America too, but there is something mainstream there to overshadow extreme offshoots most of the time. Perhaps 9/11 has forced the community to unite more whether under ISNA and with lobby groups such as CAIR.
Furthermore, Australia is culturally still very Christian (unlike Southern Ontario) and here the conflicts tend to have an inter-faith dimension, rather than one of faith vs secular society. It is interesting that in Britain though, that despite there being a strong articulate group leading Islamic discourse within and with British society at large, most followers of the faith there probably would not identify with them as much as they would with the cultural islam of the south asian diaspora. As an example think Myriam Francois-Cerrah vs Anjem Chowdhury!