Why have European Islamic communities generated more terrorists and terrorist attacks than North American Islamic communities or families?

[raharris1973]

Why have European Islamic communities generated more terrorists and terrorist attacks than North American Islamic communities or families?

Is it because of different base population sizes to begin with?

More discrimination in Europe to react against?

A different, narrower political Overton Window in North America than Europe, allows an American Muslim to be a bad-ass nonconformist politically discontented rebel without actually doing anything violent?

Dumber European policing?

Lighter European policing?

Higher average socioeconomic status of North American Muslim immigrants compared with Muslim immigrants in Europe?

American capitalism's pace keeps Muslim professionals mostly too busy professionally striving and the Muslim working class too busy surviving to get involved much in political radicalism or terrorism?

The premise is false and more North American Muslims have participated in Islamist terrorism than European Muslims, and more attacks have occurred in North America than Europe?

 

[LordsFire]

My first guess would be a lot simpler than any of this:

Americans have guns. If you try to run out and machete attack or 'truck of peace' somewhere in the US, odds are pretty good you're going to get shot. Considering that our cops carry guns by default, unlike a lot of Europe, that's probably part of it too.

Also, I don't know if the statistics actually bear out a lower proportional percentage of attacks. The % of muslims in the US is much smaller than most of Europe.

 

[Adjudicator]

Probably because Immigration to Europe from MENA is easier than immigrating to America, so there's a higher proportion of low-income people with limited attachment to what they view as an alien culture.

Also the geographic proximity allows radical imams to keep closer ties and contacts, and receive more financing, from the petrostates. American banking is pretty restrictive when it comes to overseas transactions. Add in that it's less "acceptable" for European governments to scrutinize imam teachings and behavior, and it's easy for the above-mentioned desperate immigrants to be fed with radical teachings.

 

[Cherico]

Europes situation with islamic migrants is basically akin to americas situation with Latino imigration only with a completely alien culture. I fully expect it all to blow up in their faces.

 

[WolfBear]

Why have European Islamic communities generated more terrorists and terrorist attacks than North American Islamic communities or families?

Is it because of different base population sizes to begin with?

More discrimination in Europe to react against?

A different, narrower political Overton Window in North America than Europe, allows an American Muslim to be a bad-ass nonconformist politically discontented rebel without actually doing anything violent?

Dumber European policing?

Lighter European policing?

Higher average socioeconomic status of North American Muslim immigrants compared with Muslim immigrants in Europe?

American capitalism's pace keeps Muslim professionals mostly too busy professionally striving and the Muslim working class too busy surviving to get involved much in political radicalism or terrorism?

The premise is false and more North American Muslims have participated in Islamist terrorism than European Muslims, and more attacks have occurred in North America than Europe?

It might have a lot to this with this chart:

jsmp: Immigration patterns

Education level of immigrants to Europe and US

jsmp.dk

In short: The US mostly imports the Muslim cognitive elites; Europeans mostly import the Muslim working-class. The Muslim working-class is, on average, more problematic than the Muslim cognitive elites are. On average. In turn, this is likely why US Muslims are less radicalized than their European counterparts. AFAIK, lower-IQ people tend to be more religious and bigoted, thus making them more susceptible to radicalism, on average. Though not a hard-and-fast rule since sometimes high-IQ leftists have also supported stupid ideas such as Communism and Wokeness (denial of group differences and possible genetic causes for them, suppression of free speech, et cetera).

The US does have its own working-class immigrant population, but consisting of Christian Latin Americans rather than Muslims. The US has relatively few working-class Muslims, thankfully. The US does have more problems with its black slaves' descendants population than it does with its immigrants, though--on average, of course. Even working-class Latin American immigrants don't cause that many problems, other than possibly being a burden on the social safety net in the long(er)-run (once one factors in their US-born descendants).

 

[Rocinante]

My first guess would be a lot simpler than any of this:

Americans have guns. If you try to run out and machete attack or 'truck of peace' somewhere in the US, odds are pretty good you're going to get shot. Considering that our cops carry guns by default, unlike a lot of Europe, that's probably part of it too.

Also, I don't know if the statistics actually bear out a lower proportional percentage of attacks. The % of muslims in the US is much smaller than most of Europe.

Well, I agree with all of this. Though I think also, a lot of it is that America is just simply better.

Sure, there are plenty of people who hate it..but a lot of them probably come here and like it, so they're less likely to engage in terrorist attacks.

 

[WolfBear]

Well, I agree with all of this. Though I think also, a lot of it is that America is just simply better.

Sure, there are plenty of people who hate it..but a lot of them probably come here and like it, so they're less likely to engage in terrorist attacks.

Europe is also better than Muslims' home countries and yet that doesn't prevent the bad apples among them from exhibit ingratitude towards Europe. I suspect that it's simply because Europe has many more Muslim bad apples relative to the US. That's what happens when your Muslim immigration is disproportionately geared towards working-class Muslims.

 

[Rocinante]

Europe is also better than Muslims' home countries and yet that doesn't prevent the bad apples among them from exhibit ingratitude towards Europe. I suspect that it's simply because Europe has many more Muslim bad apples relative to the US. That's what happens when your Muslim immigration is disproportionately geared towards working-class Muslims.

Absolutely a huge factor.

There's just more of them, period, so there will be more bad apples.

 

[WolfBear]

Absolutely a huge factor.

There's just more of them, period, so there will be more bad apples.

That's also a factor, no doubt, but I suspect that even if, say, Canada or the US will become 10% Muslim, they could still have less Muslim bad apples than France has because a much greater percentage of their own Muslims will be composed of cognitive elites. Else, they likely won't be allowed into the US/Canada in huge numbers.

 

[Marduk]

Why have European Islamic communities generated more terrorists and terrorist attacks than North American Islamic communities or families?

Is it because of different base population sizes to begin with?

More discrimination in Europe to react against?

A different, narrower political Overton Window in North America than Europe, allows an American Muslim to be a bad-ass nonconformist politically discontented rebel without actually doing anything violent?

Dumber European policing?

Lighter European policing?

Higher average socioeconomic status of North American Muslim immigrants compared with Muslim immigrants in Europe?

American capitalism's pace keeps Muslim professionals mostly too busy professionally striving and the Muslim working class too busy surviving to get involved much in political radicalism or terrorism?

The premise is false and more North American Muslims have participated in Islamist terrorism than European Muslims, and more attacks have occurred in North America than Europe?

a) Different sourcing of American Muslims. Both by country and social strata. The European countries with terrorism problems have a lot of low skill labor immigrant and refugee Muslims, if legal immigrant at all, while USA gets most through business and green card programs, which are willing to refuse on security grounds. Meanwhile Europe has a lot of recent ones arriving through "better ask for forgivness than permission" style arrivals in form of various kinds of asylum seekers, failed, delayed, successful, whatever that use West's legal systems to evade any security or economic conditions being enforced against their stay in the country.
It's quite ridiculous, consider UK's saga of legal struggles against Abu Hamza.
b) Scale effects. It has been noticed by many that the bigger proportion and concentration of Muslims there is in a country, the more active terrorist related ideological movements are. USA has overall far less Muslims by proportion than France or Belgium. As such they are forced to interact with non-Muslim society more than in the latter, especially if not geographically concentrated.
USA is in the same league proportion wise as China, Ireland, Ukraine and Croatia.
The EU countries that come up in the news with this sort of stuff tend to have 3 to 8 times more. If USA has increased its Muslim population eightfold, reaching the proportion France has, you surely would be hearing of more terrorist attacks.
c) There are various sects of Islam, which are correlated by country of origin heavily, and which are absolutely not equal when it comes to generating terrorism.

 

[WolfBear]

a) Different sourcing of American Muslims. Both by country and social strata. The European countries with terrorism problems have a lot of low skill labor immigrant and refugee Muslims, if legal immigrant at all, while USA gets most through business and green card programs, which are willing to refuse on security grounds. Meanwhile Europe has a lot of recent ones arriving through "better ask for forgivness than permission" style arrivals in form of various kinds of asylum seekers, failed, delayed, successful, whatever that use West's legal systems to evade any security or economic conditions being enforced against their stay in the country.
It's quite ridiculous, consider UK's saga of legal struggles against Abu Hamza.
b) Scale effects. It has been noticed by many that the bigger proportion and concentration of Muslims there is in a country, the more active terrorist related ideological movements are. USA has overall far less Muslims by proportion than France or Belgium. As such they are forced to interact with non-Muslim society more than in the latter, especially if not geographically concentrated.
USA is in the same league proportion wise as China, Ireland, Ukraine and Croatia.
The EU countries that come up in the news with this sort of stuff tend to have 3 to 8 times more. If USA has increased its Muslim population eightfold, reaching the proportion France has, you surely would be hearing of more terrorist attacks.
c) There are various sects of Islam, which are correlated by country of origin heavily, and which are absolutely not equal when it comes to generating terrorism.

A) FWIW, some Muslims come here through the Diversity Visa Lottery, but even then, a lot of them appear to be educated, and we of course screen them:

The Diversity Visa Program Holds Lessons for Future Legal Immigration Reform

On paper, the Diversity Visa Program is not set up to bring in the highly skilled; applicants need only a high school diploma (or equivalent) or two years of mid-level work experience. Yet as this commentary explains, the green-card lottery has become a channel for entry of the highly...

www.migrationpolicy.org

We did have a couple of bad apples who were helped into the country by this program (though one was already in the country and his wife winning the lottery simply prevented him from being deported), but the overall risk is still extraordinarily low:

https://www.cato.org/blog/guide-diversity-visas-demographics-criminality-terrorism-risk

Terrorism


Many immigrants to the United States initially enter on one type of visa and then adjust their status to a green card or lawful permanent residency. A foreigner who is lawfully present on U.S. soil can apply for the diversity visa if they are otherwise eligible. That is exactly what the wife of Egyptian‐born Hesham Mohamed Hedayet did. He originally entered on a tourist visa, later applied for asylum, and only gained a green card when his wife won the diversity visa. Hedayet murdered two and injured four in a terrorist attack at Los Angeles International Airport in 2002. If he intended to carry out an attack prior to entering the United States, the diversity visa did not give him the opportunity because he was already here. Assuming he intended to carry out an attack before arriving, and there is no evidence of that as he was here for a decade before he murdered two people, the diversity visa was not the potential weak link in the vetting system.


Syed Harris Ahmed from Pakistan and Abdurasul Juraboev from Uzbekistan entered with diversity visas and were also convicted of planning terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. A handful of immigrants who had diversity visas at one point were convicted of material support for terrorism or other offenses aimed at supporting foreign terrorists. Hedayet is the only deadly terrorist who had a diversity visa at some point in his immigration history, although he did not enter on it – he murdered 2 people, or about 0.07 percent of all those killed by a foreign‐born terrorist in an attack on U.S. soil from 1975‐Halloween 2017.


The diversity visa is not an efficient way for terrorists to enter the country. As mentioned above, about 9.4 million people entered the lottery for 50,000 green cards in 2015. If a terrorist lives in a country whose nationals can apply, he or she would have had a 1 in 188 chance of winning the lottery in 2015. The terrorist would then have to get through the normal procedures applied to every green card applicant. Those are not attractive odds for a terrorist intent on attacking U.S. soil. Furthermore, there is no indication that Saipov intended to commit a terrorist attack before coming to the United States. Officials said that Saipov began planning his attack a year ago and then decided to use a truck two months ago, long after he entered in 2010.


The diversity visa is not a wise choice for foreign‐born terrorists who concoct their plans overseas. The small number of people murdered by foreign‐born terrorists who actually entered on the visa, eight out of 3,037 since 1975, shows just how rarely it is used for such purposes. Even then, betting vetting would have stopped Saipov as his terrorism plans were recent. Based entirely on the New York Halloween terrorist attack, about 177,394 diversity visas have been granted for each person murdered in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil by someone who entered on such a visa.

B) Canada is almost 4% Muslim right now and still has less problems because a lot of its Muslims are cognitive elites.

C) Yeah, AFAIK, Shi'as are less into terrorism than Sunnis are. Though it's not an absolute rule. Hadi Matar comes to mind.

 

[Marduk]

A) FWIW, some Muslims come here through the Diversity Visa Lottery, but even then, a lot of them appear to be educated, and we of course screen them:

The Diversity Visa Program Holds Lessons for Future Legal Immigration Reform

On paper, the Diversity Visa Program is not set up to bring in the highly skilled; applicants need only a high school diploma (or equivalent) or two years of mid-level work experience. Yet as this commentary explains, the green-card lottery has become a channel for entry of the highly...

www.migrationpolicy.org

We did have a couple of bad apples who were helped into the country by this program (though one was already in the country and his wife winning the lottery simply prevented him from being deported), but the overall risk is still extraordinarily low:

https://www.cato.org/blog/guide-diversity-visas-demographics-criminality-terrorism-risk

For all its faults, certainly better than Europe's humanitarian\geographic based routes whose selection process is "whoever can show up and bamboozle the courts", for all that's worth, in some setups the latter part being easier than the first one.

B) Canada is almost 4% Muslim right now and still has less problems because a lot of its Muslims are cognitive elites.

Sure, selection always matters. And sometimes between geography and legalities you don't even have the option - Canada would be telling a different story if "boat people" could reliably cross oceans.

C) Yeah, AFAIK, Shi'as are less into terrorism than Sunnis are. Though it's not an absolute rule. Hadi Matar comes to mind.

Well there's the Iran problem. But even then there are smaller groups like Tatars with their own smaller sects that can score even lower.

 

[WolfBear]

Certainly better than Europe's humanitarian\geographic based routes whose selection process is "whoever can show up and bamboozle the courts", for all that's worth, in some setups the latter part being easier than the first one.


Sure, selection always matters. And sometimes between geography and legalities you don't even have the option - Canada would be telling a different story if "boat people" could reliably cross oceans.

Well there's the Iran problem. But even then there are smaller groups like Tatars with their own smaller sects that can score even lower.

Yep, Europe definitely has some serious problems, as even the wife of an elite Afghan-American diplomat acknowledges:

I've Worked with Refugees for Decades. Europe's Afghan Crime Wave Is Mind-Boggling.

Afghans stand out among the refugees committing crimes in Austria and elsewhere. Why?

nationalinterest.org

Interestingly enough, even Canada has a problem with a refugee influx from the US:

Canada’s refugee road: a lifeline for some, a political headache for others

Roxham Road, linking New York state and Quebec, is by far the busiest crossing for asylum seekers, thanks to a legal ‘loophole’

www.theguardian.com

Quebec asks feds to close Roxham Road to refugees: 'We don't have the capacity'

So far this year, the RCMP have intercepted 7,013 asylum seekers who have crossed irregularly into Quebec from the U.S.

nationalpost.com

The asylum seekers in question generally aren't originally from the US, though.

I don't know just how adequately Iran's government actually represents its people, especially its youth, as evidenced by the recent extremely massive protests over there. And Yes, Tatars are even better. As are Kazakhs.

 

[ATP]

My first guess would be a lot simpler than any of this:

Americans have guns. If you try to run out and machete attack or 'truck of peace' somewhere in the US, odds are pretty good you're going to get shot. Considering that our cops carry guns by default, unlike a lot of Europe, that's probably part of it too.

Also, I don't know if the statistics actually bear out a lower proportional percentage of attacks. The % of muslims in the US is much smaller than most of Europe.

You nailed it.If americans only made march to protest violence,like in western Europe,their muslims would murder them,too.
And another thing - muslim who want become american is safe from other muslims who would kill him/her.
In western Europe,those who want become european are first target,and states do not defend them.

 

[Marduk]

I don't know just how adequately Iran's government actually represents its people, especially its youth, as evidenced by the recent extremely massive protests over there. And Yes, Tatars are even better. As are Kazakhs.

Considering the sheer amount of manpower they need to staff their political and enforcement organizations, they certainly have some notable degree of support, and they are actively spreading their ideology through the rest of Shia world.

You nailed it.If americans only made march to protest violence,like in western Europe,their muslims would murder them,too.
And another thing - muslim who want become american is safe from other muslims who would kill him/her.
In western Europe,those who want become european are first target,and states do not defend them.

That's part of scale effects. If there aren't enough Muslims of the same sect\culture in one place so that they can't form an insular community and\or dominate local legal system through politics, they have to learn to behave themselves, or they end up shot or imprisoned.
If they can live in a "no-go zone" where police looks for criminals only in most extreme circumstances, behaving themselves is optional.

 

[ATP]

Considering the sheer amount of manpower they need to staff their political and enforcement organizations, they certainly have some notable degree of support, and they are actively spreading their ideology through the rest of Shia world.

That's part of scale effects. If there aren't enough Muslims of the same sect\culture in one place so that they can't form an insular community and\or dominate local legal system through politics, they have to learn to behave themselves, or they end up shot or imprisoned.
If they can live in a "no-go zone" where police looks for criminals only in most extreme circumstances, behaving themselves is optional.

behaving in no-gone zones is not optional,but suicidal.Everybody who want live is good muslim there.

 

[WolfBear]

Considering the sheer amount of manpower they need to staff their political and enforcement organizations, they certainly have some notable degree of support, and they are actively spreading their ideology through the rest of Shia world.

Money can often make one do things that one otherwise wouldn't do. But in any case, even if only, say, 30% of Iran's population actually supports them, that's still plenty of manpower for them.

 

[Marduk]

Money can often make one do things that one otherwise wouldn't do. But in any case, even if only, say, 30% of Iran's population actually supports them, that's still plenty of manpower for them.

You think the half a million Basij grunts and over 10m of their reservists are well paid?

 

[WolfBear]

You think the half a million Basij grunts and over 10m of their reservists are well paid?

By Iranian standards ... maybe?

 

[Marduk]

By Iranian standards ... maybe?

The Basij Resistance Force

Ali Alfoneh The Basij Resistance Force is a volunteer paramil

iranprimer.usip.org

The Basij’s budget is modest. According to the 2009/2010 national budget, the Basij were allocated only $430 million – or less than $40 per member, on the basis of 11.2 million members. But as a corporation, the Basij reportedly accumulated vast sums through so-called interest-free financial institutions that the Basij and the IRGC established in mid-1980s and the early 1990s to provide social housing and general welfare to their members. As subsequent governments began privatization of publicly owned enterprises, Basij financial institutions used their funds to purchase the privatized companies.