August 5, 2007: About four
percent of the British population is from South Asia, or is of South Asian
ancestry. Half of those are from India, 36 percent from Pakistan, and most of
the rest from Bangladesh. About half the South Asian population is Moslem.
While 84 percent are satisfied with their life in Britain, only about half
believe they have more opportunities in Britain than in the old country. About
a third did not think of themselves as British. While half felt they were not
treated as British by non-Asian Britons, three-quarters believed their Asian
culture was being diluted by living in Britain. Nearly forty percent believed
you had to adopt a British outlook to get ahead, but only twelve percent of the
South Asian population said they did that. Economic success does tend to be
linked with the degree of assimilation. Â
While Britain is the European
nation most agreeable to assimilation, it is also, like other countries in the
region, hostile to migrants. They are tolerated, not welcomed, as they are in
the United States. As with the United States, natives, and legal migrants are
hostile to illegal migrants.
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The Moslem South Asians who
cling to their old culture form a pool of supporters for Islamic radicalism and
Islamic terrorists. In the past, European nations considered their unhappy
migrants as a potential source of criminals. Now, some of those criminal minded
foreigners are turning to Islamic terrorism.
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