We need our half-naked fakirs

To Become an American

Fareed Zakaria in the Post: Many Americans have become enamored of the European approach to immigration -- perhaps without realizing it. Guest workers, penalties, sanctions and deportation are all a part of Europe's mode of dealing with immigrants. The results of this approach have been on display recently in France, where rioting migrant youths again burned cars last week. Across Europe one sees disaffected, alienated immigrants, ripe for radicalism. The immigrant communities deserve their fair share of blame for this, but there's a cycle at work. European societies exclude the immigrants, who become alienated and reject their societies.

One puzzle about post-Sept. 11 America is that it has not had a subsequent terror attack -- not even a small backpack bomb in a movie theater -- while there have been dozens in Europe. My own explanation is that American immigrant communities, even Arab and Muslim ones, are not very radicalized. (Even if such an attack does take place, the fact that 4 1/2 years have gone by without one provides some proof of this contention.) Compared with every other country in the world, America does immigration superbly. Do we really want to junk that for the French approach?

The United States has a real problem with flows of illegal immigrants, largely from Mexico (70 percent of illegal immigrants are from that one country). But let us understand the forces at work here. "The income gap between the United States and Mexico is the largest between any two contiguous countries in the world," writes Stanford historian David Kennedy. That huge disparity is producing massive demand in the United States and massive supply from Mexico and Central America. Whenever governments try to come between these two forces -- think of drugs -- simply increasing enforcement does not work. Tighter border control is an excellent idea, but to work, it will have to be coupled with some recognition of the laws of supply and demand -- that is, it will have to include expansion of the legal immigrant pool.

Beyond the purely economic issue, however, there is the much deeper one that defines America -- to itself, to its immigrants and to the world. How do we want to treat those who are already in this country, working and living with us? How do we want to treat those who come in on visas or guest permits? These people must have some hope, some reasonable path to becoming Americans. Otherwise we are sending a signal that there are groups of people who are somehow unfit to be Americans, that these newcomers are not really welcome and that what we want are workers, not potential citizens. And we will end up with immigrants who have similarly cold feelings about America.

All I can really say is amen. Zakaria gets it; reading his column makes me wonder if it's naive in this day and age to think that policymakers might change their minds if only they were exposed to the truth in the form of his well-written column.

I mean, how great would it be if every day every politician and business leader who's in a position of amplification were to read one thing that made him or her rethink what they've been pushing.

When was the last time somebody prominent came out and said you know, I was wrong before, now I understand, thanks to this, or that.

People do change their minds--usually through personal experience, though, like the senator who's against gay marriage until their daughter comes out of the closet and gives them emotional and personal reasons to alter course, as well as political cover (well, everyone knows daughters have their dads wrapped around their finger, we can't hold this against him).

So much more civilized to actually engage in an an exchange of ideas, then act accordingly. Rather than wait for the fickle finger of fate to push someone who's usually stuck in their rut anyway into opening their mind.

Oh well. Until the day when it becomes fashionable again to engage in meaningful discourse, when talking points and arguing your side become gauche, the choir can at least explore Wikipedia's entry on Zakaria.

Which reveals that he's one of those astonishingly accomplished Indians, along the path blazed by Tagore and Gandhi, who understand Western culture better than most American or European intellectuals do. You might even call him India's response to Thomas Friedman.

Fareed Zakaria photo by Sigrid Estrada via Zakaria's site.