45. Obstacles for integration and tolerance

Some immigrants make little progress in integration. Some still do not master the host-country language. However, integration is not just a matter of language, and tolerance is not just a matter of good will. One must also have the mental ability.

Earlier in this blog (item 34) I indicated that people try to make sense of what others say and do by trying to fit it into mental scripts. When the proper scripts are lacking one cannot ‘frame’ and hence cannot ‘read’ the conduct of others, let alone respond adequately.

This is connected with deep differences in the life world. Some immigrants from Morocco originate from the Rif mountains, where the life world is still one of traditional, close, ties of family and clan. That is typically found everywhere in early economic development, in a simple, agrarian, local economy with little division of labour. In their history, more developed countries had that as well. There, the human being is fully wrapped up in small, closed, often relatively isolated communities. Within those, social control is strong and and there is little scope for external relations or internal differences of vision and attitude. Work and private life, the secular and the spiritual, the intellectual and the emotional are closely interwoven, in ‘thick’ all-encompassing relationships. Let me call it system A. There, rules can remain unwritten, because they are transmitted orally, in personal contact, and by role models, on the basis of familial, religious or personal authority.

As societies develop and become more complex, in division of labour, in urban economies, the human being takes part in a greater number of different groups or networks that each covers only one or few aspects of the life world. That yields highly individualized patterns of relationships. Most relationships are ‘thin’, limited, distant, reserved and limitedly personal. The richer, more personal relationships are more private, secluded from other relationships. Let me call that system B. There, norms and rules must be specified and public, and grounded in law.

According to Maslov’s hierarchy of needs, ‘lower’ needs such as those for food, shelter, safety, vary less between people than ‘higher’ needs of social recognition and self-fulfillment. Since the higher needs can be attained better in more prosperous societies, those societies harbour greater variety, in system B.

Someone from B justifiedly sees A as primitive, closed, suffocatingly unfree, authoritarian, lawless, undemocratic and irrational. Someone from A justifiedly sees B as loose, fragmented, impersonal, anonymous, cold, indifferent, materialistitic, exhibitionistic, a-spiritual, and aimless. That is next associated with democracy, which then is rejected.

Thus A and B are blind to each other and blind makes intolerant and blocks integration. Some immigrants see the world from the perspective of A, come to B, where they drown spiritually, clasp their own circle and traditions and may become vulnerable to missionaries that preach a return to the primeval age of A. Immigrants’ children are caught between A at home and B at school.