Buruma

The part of Buruma’s book that I would like to discuss is the issue of integration new immigrants into a very different society. The problem those new immigrants and the country face is how to find a new identity that encompasses everyone into society. Buruma summarizes this point on pg 240: "The issue is not the Holocaust, but the question of how to stop future Mohammed Bouyeris from becoming violent enemies of the country in which they grew up...[to] feel that this is their home too." Obviously, take the Netherlands and the new wave of Muslims that are moving into this society. How people in that country accept this new identity is the one of the most important parts of creating a new national identity. We must realize that no longer will our world be made up of homogenous culture, language or race. When natives start realizing that, we may be able to address this issue. Maybe what I'm about to prose is way to idealistic to actually work, but the discussion is there none the less. We first need to break down the racial lines that separate where people of different ethnicities live. In the Netherlands, immigrants lived in the Houge, a once middle class area that turned into bad real estate that immigrants now occupy. If the Netherlands and the United States as well, can find ways to bring immigrants into those typically "white" areas this would set off a series of events that would help people empathize with one another better. Once you get more diversity into neighborhoods, there will be more diversity within the schools and what a better way for people to know each other's cultures than having their kids play together at school. Even if you can't move those people into the neighborhood, governments need to sponsor more programs that will bring those kids from different areas who are different races into schools. For elementary and middle school, I attended Whitefish Bay Public Schools. Maybe not surprisingly, the vast majority of the school was white. I really believe that by bringing a different set of students to schools like these, kids can learn the importance of accepting other's ways of life. Hate, fear, and discrimination stems from ignorance. Not knowing why certain people dress the way they do, believe what they believe or act in ways different from our own. If we can educate our children to look at these differences as positives to be embraced, not feared, we are one step closer to accepting that new national identity. Our culture is changing and will change with the years to come in globalization. While we want to remember our history, like the Dutch soccer players dressing up at traditional Dutchmen, we also need to realize that our future self will not be funny men dressed in orange or in our case, Yankees in tights and powdered wigs. Our more homogenous past makes us who we are, but accepting other cultures into our own will make us who we will be.