Psychosocial Stress in Immigrants and in Members of Minority Groups As a Factor of Terrorist Behavior 1586038729, 9781586038724

Citation preview

PSYCHOSOCIAL STRESS IN IMMIGRANTS AND IN MEMBERS OF MINORITY GROUPS AS A FACTOR OF TERRORIST BEHAVIOR

NATO Science for Peace and Security Series This Series presents the results of scientific meetings supported under the NATO Programme: Science for Peace and Security (SPS). The NATO SPS Programme supports meetings in the following Key Priority areas: (1) Defence Against Terrorism; (2) Countering other Threats to Security and (3) NATO, Partner and Mediterranean Dialogue Country Priorities. The types of meeting supported are generally “Advanced Study Institutes” and “Advanced Research Workshops”. The NATO SPS Series collects together the results of these meetings. The meetings are co-organized by scientists from NATO countries and scientists from NATO’s “Partner” or “Mediterranean Dialogue” countries. The observations and recommendations made at the meetings, as well as the contents of the volumes in the Series, reflect those of participants and contributors only; they should not necessarily be regarded as reflecting NATO views or policy. Advanced Study Institutes (ASI) are high-level tutorial courses to convey the latest developments in a subject to an advanced-level audience. Advanced Research Workshops (ARW) are expert meetings where an intense but informal exchange of views at the frontiers of a subject aims at identifying directions for future action. Following a transformation of the programme in 2006 the Series has been re-named and reorganised. Recent volumes on topics not related to security, which result from meetings supported under the programme earlier, may be found in the NATO Science Series. The Series is published by IOS Press, Amsterdam, and Springer Science and Business Media, Dordrecht, in conjunction with the NATO Public Diplomacy Division. Sub-Series A. B. C. D. E.

Chemistry and Biology Physics and Biophysics Environmental Security Information and Communication Security Human and Societal Dynamics

Springer Science and Business Media Springer Science and Business Media Springer Science and Business Media IOS Press IOS Press

http://www.nato.int/science http://www.springer.com http://www.iospress.nl

Sub-Series E: Human and Societal Dynamics – Vol. 40

ISSN 1874-6276

Psychosocial Stress in Immigrants and in Members of Minority Groups as a Factor of Terrorist Behavior

Edited by

Michal Finklestein Projects’ Coordinator, The Community Stress Prevention Center, Kiryat Shmona; The Department of Social Work, Zefat Academic College, under supervision of Bar–Ilan University, Israel

and

Kim Dent-Brown School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, UK

Amsterdam • Berlin • Oxford • Tokyo • Washington, DC Published in cooperation with NATO Public Diplomacy Division

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Psychosocial Stress in Immigrants and Members of Minority Groups as a Factor of Terrorist Behavior Kiryat Shmona, Israel 1–3 April 2007

© 2008 IOS Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the publisher. ISBN 978-1-58603-872-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008930491 Publisher IOS Press Nieuwe Hemweg 6B 1013 BG Amsterdam Netherlands fax: +31 20 687 0019 e-mail: [email protected] Distributor in the UK and Ireland Gazelle Books Services Ltd. White Cross Mills Hightown Lancaster LA1 4XS United Kingdom fax: +44 1524 63232 e-mail: [email protected]

Distributor in the USA and Canada IOS Press, Inc. 4502 Rachael Manor Drive Fairfax, VA 22032 USA fax: +1 703 323 3668 e-mail: [email protected]

LEGAL NOTICE The publisher is not responsible for the use which might be made of the following information. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

Psychosocial Stress in Immigrants and in Members of Minority Groups as a Factor of Terrorist Behavior - M. Finklestein and K. Dent-Brown (Eds.) IOS Press, 2008 © 2008 IOS Press. All rights reserved.

v

Preface This book represents the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop entitled: Psychosocial Stress in Immigrants and Members of Minority Groups as a Factor of Terrorist Behavior. The meeting that led to this book was multifaceted. The assembly of experts enabled the discussion of varied attitudes from fresh and frank points of view, never previously brought together in dialogue. The book deals with the universal phenomenon of immigration in the light of globalization and the double messages of host countries, that on one hand encourage immigration and on the other hand have not made up their minds about the rights and obligations of newcomers in a country. Creating a theoretical link between concepts and terms allied to immigration and terrorism is based on my practical evidence from the last 8 years, worldwide. We do hope that the contributions by the participants will lead to more understanding and shed more light on the etiology of terrorism and on what has to be done to prevent it. We hope this will enable us to address the underlying issues that lead to the lethal actions which have led to the loss of the lives of so many innocent people. We are honored and proud to have edited this book. With the financial support and encouragement of NATO in April 2007, a special group of international authorities in the fields of terrorist behavior and psychosocial stress in immigration and minorities, gathered in Tel Hai, upper Galilee, in Israel. The participants in this meeting included experts from psychology, psychiatry, political science, social science and criminology related to immigration. Our mission was to discuss and understand more comprehensively the relationship between immigration and terrorism. Learning more about psychosocial stress in immigrants, who arrive in a new country and have expectations that are not met, would highlight new angles that policy makers have not previously attended to. In practical terms, we hoped that the discussions might lead towards interventions that will reduce the threat of terrorism. Immigration has been a channel for individuals to improve their lives by moving to a new country. However in the era of globalization, the consequences of these individual actions at the level of the society and the state can sometimes present problems. What is it that leads a tiny minority of immigrants to become involved in terrorism? Perhaps policy makers in the Western world, which encouraged immigration, could not foresee that the manual workers whom they had welcomed would raise a new, intelligent, sophisticated second generation who were exposed to their parents being humiliated and degraded. Looking at this aspect, research will lead to new understandings and new actions. The paradox about the actualization of economical solutions for immigrants vs. the lack of integration and unexpected rejection in the host country, leads to the growth of a second generation that develops more critical attitudes, sometimes including hostility, anger and alienation towards the host country that opened its gates to the immigrating blue collar workers. In 2005 I met Prof. Mooli Lahad in his office in Kiryat Shmona, Israel, and we discussed the issue of terrorism. Prof. Lahad who is PhD. Psychology, Human & LifeScience, Tel Hai Academic College and President of the Community Stress Prevention Center is a well known authority on conflict and its human consequences. We agreed that (1) we should investigate whether antisocial behavior in deprived populations of

vi

immigrants and minorities, in the western world may stem from psychosocial stress, and (2) we should look for new ways, attitudes and perceptions that may lead to a change in coping with these realities. We realized that combining knowledge between social scientists studying immigration, refugees and minorities, and scientists who study terrorism and criminology, might yield integrated knowledge. Prof. Lahad has been working with NATO and has faith in their open mindedness. It was his suggestion that we apply to NATO to support a meeting that would examine the knowledge about the links between psychosocial stress in immigrants and minorities and terrorism behavior and how this knowledge might pave the way to guide policy makers to improve the situation of immigrants and minorities and reduce the threat of terrorism in partial segments of these populations. The organizers of the workshop are very grateful to Prof Lahad for his suggestion, and to NATO for their agreement to fund the Advanced Research Workshops through the Security Through Science Programme. Dr. Michal Finklestein Haifa, 2007

vii

Acknowledgements The NATO Advanced Research Workshop and the resulting book were the major undertakings that called upon the generosity and wisdom of many people. We wish to acknowledge, first, the encouragement of this project by NATO’s Security Through Science Programme and particularly Professor Fernandous Caravello Rodrigues, Programme Director of Human and Societal Dynamics in the Threats and Challenges Section at NATO’s World Headquarters. We wish to thank Professor Mooli Lahad, the president and Mr. Alan Cohen, both from the Community Stress Prevention Center (CSPC) for the early and steadfast support in the idea of the workshop. Thanks to MCTC AND ministry of foreign affairs for the assistance in recruiting the contributors in the ARW, via Israeli embassies. Thanks to Professor Stevan Hobfoll, the Distinguished Professor and Director, Summa-KSU Center for the Treatment and Study of Traumatic Stress, Ohio, who offered a generous and invaluable advice in devising the programme and completing the project. His inspiring ideas and great conversations were a great help to bring this book to actualization. We must gratefully thank Ruvie Rogel from CSPC, for organizing the workshop. He deserves much credit for the management of innumerable details of the project under challenging conditions. The meeting would not have been possible without the kind staff of CSCP, Hagoshrim Hotel and Tel Hai Academic College, most especially Micky Laron, the producer of this ARW who provided the setting and technical support that facilitated our hard work. Last but not least, he book would not have been possible to be published without the devoted research assistant, Shira Meir. Thank you. Thank you all.

This page intentionally left blank

ix

Principal Contributors Alvanou Maria, Ph.D. Professor of Criminology-Hellenic Police Academy Terrorism Expert, ITSTIME Italian Team for Security, Terroristic Issues & Managing Emergencies, Catholic University of Milan, Italy

Amro Rateb, M.A. Director, General, Horizon Strategic Studies, Amman, Jordan

Balaban Natalia, M.A. Investment, Innovation and Modern Technologies Center, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova

Besevegis Elias, Ph.D. Professor, The Department of Psychology, University of Athens, School of Philosophy, Athens, Greece

Campani Giovanna, Ph.D. Professor, University of Florence, Department of Education, Italy

Canneti-Nisim Dafna, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, School of Political Science University of Haifa, Israel

Daly Oscar, Ph.D. Department of Psychiatry, Lagan Valley Hospital, Lisburn, Northern Ireland

Dent-Brown Kim, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Psychological Therapies, University of Sheffield, UK

Dokter Ditty, Ph.D. Roehampton University, School for Human and Life Sciences, Arts therapies division, UK

Eckert Roland, Ph.D. Professor, University of Trier, Germany

x

Finklestein Michal, Ph.D. Projects’ Coordinator, CSPC, Kiryat Shmona, Lecturer in The Department of Social Work, Zefat Academic College, under supervision of Bar–Ilan University, Israel

Gmaj Katarzyna, M.A. Program coordinator, research fellow, The Center for International Relations, Warszawa, Poland

Hobfoll Stevan, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor and Director, Summa-KSU Center for the Treatment and Study of Traumatic Stress, Ohio, USA

Kimchi Shaul, Ph.D. Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Tel Hai Academic College, Israel

Rochelio Alonso, Ph.D. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Paseo de los Artilleros s/n, Madrid, Spain

Solomon Zahava, Ph.D. Full Professor, Head of The Renata Adler Memorial Research Center for Child Welfare and Protection, Tel Aviv University, Israel

van de Put Willem, Ph.D. Director, HealthNet TPO, The Netherlands

Victoroff Jeff, M.D. Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine, CA, USA

xi

Introduction Immigrants and Immigration: A Duality of Acceptance and Rejection Mooli LAHAD1, PhD. Psychology, PhD. Human & life science It seems as though in the 21st century the term “immigrant” has become a synonym for troubles, poverty, social unrest and fears of the alien, extreme violence, terrorism and competition. More than that, there is a false equation between certain ethnic groups of immigrants and terrorism. However when we talk about immigration and immigrants we need to remember that many countries, if not all, owe much of their progress to the waves of immigrants throughout history that helped shape, change, challenge and develop those places they arrived in. Some of these immigrants became leaders, innovators, scientists, and even helped these societies to survive genetically by mixing new genes and preventing genetic deterioration. I can’t imagine one incident of immigrants arriving at the shores of existing lands that were not mixed with fears troubles and difficulties .Yet what this book is trying to look into is a modern phenomenon, no longer a “melting pot” The latter was a process by which the ancient kingdom of Assyria ruled, by mixing and exiling whole populations as a means to control them but also to make sure they “absorb” the culture and norms of the ruling state. A process that made the king of Persia Xerxes thousands of years ago so concerned when his advisor Haman said to him: “Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other people and who do not obey the king's laws; it is not in the king's best interest to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will put ten thousand talents of silver into the royal treasury for the men who carry out this business.” (Esther chapter 3 verse 8–10) Immediately the fear of the alien was provoked and the unequivocal decree was issued Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and little children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. A copy of the text of the edict was to be issued as law in every province

1 Professor Mooli Lahad PhD. Psychology, PhD. Human & Life Science. Tel Hai Academic College, President the Community Stress Prevention Center, www.icspc.org.

xii

and made known to the people of every nationality so they would be ready for that day. (Esther chapter 3 verse 13–14). This is but one of the documented cases of suspicious against a minority of immigrants. The first incident is narrated in Exodus chapter one verse 9–14. Let us be reminded that these were the same immigrants whose brethren (Joseph) helped the Egyptians, a few generations earlier to build a national system of storage of food as a means against the ultimate threat of existence: starvation and drought. Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt (1:9). This new King Pharaoh sees the numbers of the new immigrants, becomes suspicious and his xenophobia rises. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. The immigrants’ reaction wasn’t slow in coming: But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; And the ruling people escalated their reaction So the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly. (Exodus chapter 1 verse 10–14) Let’s look again into Esther's story. The fear of the immigrant is so strong that s/he has to hide their identity: Esther had not revealed her nationality and family background, because Mordecai had forbidden her to do so. (Esther, chapter 2 verse 10). What can we learn from these historical citations? Those immigrants are torn between their wish to integrate and their need to protect their identity and are thus seen as a threat. I am not an expert in the field but I wish to argue that in my mind the liberal approach of “let them keep to their old customs” was not only because of openness and multiculturalism but also as a result of several forces: 1- the reluctance to invest in the newcomers – the melting pot meant government investment in education and other services to make the immigrants change, 2- the feeling that the host culture is so strong everybody wants to be absorbed by it. 3- the naïve laissez faire The results, like as in many other examples of laissez faire is that this approach was interpreted by the newcomers as an uncaring, superior, uninterested and neglecting approach leaving them like the children in Bowlby’s studies with a feeling of abandonment and with all the known pathologies of neglect The outcome is to be expected: consequent on the lack of a caring ‘parent’ figure, we see high level of psychological problems (internalizing the aggression) for example amongst the younger immigrants as we learn from a recent survey in Israel (almost twice as many young immigrants are psychiatric patients as their proportionate number in this age group) or directing the anger outside toward the neglecting power (for example the riots in France in 2005 and 2007) And in the absence of the authentic parent figure, so the warm bosom of brotherhood, religion and extremism is a place that offers a different sense of belonging, a sense of feeling special: alternative attachment figures of the “stronger and wiser”.

xiii

The many articles in this book shed light on these assumptions and offer a clearer understanding of the forces pushing immigrants toward a hostile position toward the hosting states or pulling them into the culture education and norms whilst maintaining their identity. One thing is very clear, even with raising awareness of the potential link between immigration and terrorism – it is not the majority of immigrants that take part in the anti social activities. It is a tiny minority who cast a shadow over the entire group. It is also possible to assume that it is the presence of modern media and communication, which makes these forces look so vast and powerful. Perhaps it is the sophisticated means to communicate over thousands of miles in few milliseconds that makes this threat so visible and its potential collaborators appear so well linked. This book makes an attempt to study the process by which such terrorist groups develop, profiting from the failure to integrate but also study the processes accompanying successful absorption of those who manage to integrate and keep their culture. I would encourage the readers of the book to explore a new way of reading by writing to the authors, discussing the issues in the book by creating internet forum and by proposing to the various authors possible joint research opportunities. Prof. Mooli Lahad Kiryat Shmona, 2007

This page intentionally left blank

xv

Contents Preface Michal Finklestein

v

Acknowledgements

vii

Principal Contributors

ix

Introduction. Immigrants and Immigration: A Duality of Acceptance and Rejection Mooli Lahad

xi

Part 1. Immigration in the Era of Globalization: Risks and Opportunities Chapter 1. “You Just ‘Gotta’ Love Baseball.” The Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security 3 Stevan E. Hobfoll Chapter 2. Violent Events and Collective Identity Roland Eckert

16

Chapter 3. Acculturation Patterns and Adaptation of Immigrants in Greece Elias Besevegis and Vassilis Pavlopoulos

23

Chapter 4. Trauma and Loss: The Experience of Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel Michal Finklestein and Zahava Solomon

35

Part 2. Immigration as a Risk Factor vs. a Potential of Post Traumatic Growth Chapter 5. Palestinian Refugees in Jordan as a Successful Example of Immigrants Rateb Amro

63

Chapter 6. Chechens in Poland – Life in a Vacuum or on the Highway to the West Katarzyna Gmaj

71

Chapter 7. Immigration in Europe, Security, Terrorism Giovanna Campani

78

Chapter 8. Consequences of Illegal Immigration on the Economic and Social Situation in Moldova Natalia Balaban and Sergiu Galitschi

95

Part 3. Varied Perceptions, Ideological Attributes, and Factors of Terrorism in Immigrants and Minorities Chapter 9. Jihadist Terrorism and the Radicalization Process of Muslim Immigrants in Spain Rogelio Alonso

109

xvi

Chapter 10. Muslim Communities in Italy and Social Stress Minority Issues Maria Alvanou Chapter 11. “One Man’s Terrorist Is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter” – The Northern Ireland Perspective Oscar Daly Chapter 12. Inter-Ethnic Groups and Perception of Terrorism Shaul Kimhi and Daphna Canetti-Nisim

122

128 136

Part 4. Melting Pot vs. Multiculturalism and Preventive Interventions: Will Understanding of Deprived Rights of Immigrants and Minorities’ – Lead to Less Terrorism? Chapter 13. Communication and Social Engineering: Addressing Terrorism and Social Suffering Willem van de Put

155

Chapter 14. Immigrant Mental Health; Acculturation Stress and the Response of the UK ‘Host’ Ditty Dokter

168

Chapter 15. Territory, Migration and Conflict: What Might Work to Improve Muslim/Non-Muslim Intergroup Relations Jeff Victoroff

179

Chapter 16. Afterword Kim Dent-Brown

190

Executive Summary Michal Finklestein

192

Subject Index

205

Author Index

209

Part 1 Immigration in the Era of Globalization: Risks and Opportunities

This page intentionally left blank

Psychosocial Stress in Immigrants and in Members of Minority Groups as a Factor of Terrorist Behavior - M. Finklestein and K. Dent-Brown (Eds.) IOS Press, 2008 © 2008 IOS Press. All rights reserved. doi:10.3233/978-1-58603-872-4-3

3

Chapter 1 “You Just ‘Gotta’ love baseball.” The Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security Stevan E. Hobfoll Kent State University and Summa Health System Kent, Ohio,U. S.

Overview This chapter explores the pathways to integration versus alienation for immigrants. Beginning with the metaphor of the “love of baseball” in the U.S., which has long been a standard for immigrant acceptance as being an American, the chapter focuses on the demands on both the society to allow a pathway of integration and for immigrants to pursue integration for immigrant success. There is not a single successful pathway. Rather, there are several pathways that have proven successful and several that have proven unsuccessful. The stressful challenges that are both real and perceived that face immigrants are then explored with special attention to Muslim integration in Europe and in the U.S. The consequences of failure of Muslim integration for social unrest and as consequence terrorism are considered. The chapter also considers the role of external forces in the case of Muslim integration as pressure for religious Jihad is intermixed politically in combination with the social problems of successful integration.

The Love of Baseball as a Metaphor for Cultural Integration: The Consequences of Not Playing the Game for Social Distress and Terrorism Immigration of Muslims to the West comes at a time when there is worldwide cultural upheaval between the Muslim and non-Muslim world, what Huntington (1993) [1] called the “clash of civilizations.” These Muslims have often immigrated as guest workers, or with second class status for poorly paying menial jobs. They have entered a Europe with a history of hostility toward non-Europeans and non-Christians, and where there is an absence of traditions of immigrant absorption as fully-fledged citizens. This has further occurred at a time of the post Soviet-era breakup and subsequent upheaval that has further flooded Europe with available low-cost labor, as well as having created several areas of military conflict.

4

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

With a rise in the call for religious Jihad against the West, Muslims are often treated with suspicion and look with suspicion on their host country in terms of both their internal and foreign policies concerning Muslims and Muslim countries. Added to this is an unpopular war that the United States and Great Britain have waged in Iraq, which has only further flamed feelings of persecution and discrimination against Muslims, whatever the ideals or intent of that conflict. This chapter will examine the risk of social unrest in general and terrorism in particular, among Muslims in Europe, primarily, and to a secondary extent, in the United States. This is based, in part, on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory [2, 3, 4], a motivational stress theory that may be applied at the sociological level. Immigration has never come easy, not for the immigrant and not for the host country. By definition, there are bridges that must be crossed and obstacles that must be overcome. Typically immigration is voluntary, but that does not mean that it is not done under duress. Economic, social, and political pressures drive immigration and in the best case they occur when immigrants have a good fit with the needs of the host country, are welcome, and have not left dire or traumatic circumstances. In many cases, however, the host country is ambivalent about immigrants, or there exist portions of the host country’s population that are ambivalent or even quite negative and rejecting. Immigrants are often leaving their country of origin due to lack of economic opportunity, outright economic failure, social or political unrest, or marked social or political upheaval. The difficulties immigrants encounter range from simple aspects of recreating traditional foods and a semblance of their past culture from the Old Country to finding safety and eking out a living in a hostile new environment. This difficult transition has often led to unrest and social and political upheaval in the New Land. This is particularly likely when immigrants arrive during a time of social and political upheaval as was the case of the wave of Irish immigration escaping the potato famine and coming to the United States during the American Civil War. Called on to serve when the wealthy could buy out their draft obligation, circumstances led to one of the most terrible periods of riots the United States has ever seen. By the end of a week of turmoil, federal troops had to be called in from fighting the Confederacy to take back the city of New York from the rioters. By the time the riots were quelled, the rioters had killed many innocent Blacks and many Irish were killed by police and federal troops [5]. Baseball as the All-American Game Much has been written about baseball as the “all-American game,” both as a metaphor and as an actual pathway toward integration of immigrants in America [6]. The “you just gotta’ love baseball” standard is a reasonable one for both the host country and the immigrants coming to their new home. Implied in the “you just gotta’ love baseball” standard are two principles. The first principle is that the host country must set reasonable criteria for acceptance of immigrants. It must be an attainable standard in a relatively brief period of time. If becoming “truly American” or “truly German” or “truly French” means being entirely language fluent, fully acculturated, and looking and dressing like the host country’s inhabitants, it will require a generation or more in favorable circumstances. Of course, if being from the host country from time immemorial is the only standard for acceptance, as some would interpret to be the case for many European nations, then no behavioral change or amount of time will qualify individuals as accepted citizens.

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

5

The “just gotta love baseball” standard instead implies that immigrants are required to deeply love something that Americans love, as well as their wanting to make their home in America. They can still speak Yiddish, or Italian, or Spanish, at least at home and in their own neighborhoods, but they have to know enough English to argue about their team, and read the paper to know what is going on. It can even be read in the Yiddish or Italian newspaper, but they must be up to date, in touch with the news… and love their team and hate the teams they are supposed to hate. Said another way, the host country must set up a reasonable pathway for acceptance of immigrants, for considering them to now be Americans. The “just gotta’ love baseball” standard also implies a second principle that is incumbent upon immigrants. They must accept “enough” of what it means to be American and strive toward it—not everything, but an amount that shows clear dedication. They have to come not only wanting economic well-being, but to want reasonable cultural integration. This was so critical for immigrant groups in the United States that when a representative of the immigrant community became a star of the game, he became a cultural icon of that ethnic group. Hank Greenberg was the star for Jewish Americans, Joe Dimaggio the star for Italian Americans, and Jackie Robinson was the star for African Americans (although for African Americans they were hardly new immigrants, but they were seeking full social acceptance during the Civil Rights movement) were heralded by their respective immigrant communities with fanfare that knew no boundaries. This principle implies that immigrants want to become a part of the American fabric, they are not temporary residents, but want their place “at the game.” Again, these two principles were actually played out through the love of baseball in the United States [6], but it is the metaphor that matters. There has to be a reasonable route of commitment to cultural ideals that leads to social acceptance and immigrants have to travel that route. The standard of adoption of basic cultural traditions was posited during the great period of immigration in the United States at the turn of the last century by the Chicago School of Sociology [7]. They argued that immigrants are at risk of violating or having poor fit with the 1) roles, 2) morals/traditions, and 3) place (i.e., lacking place) in the host country. They come with roles that do not fit or even clash with the available roles in their adopted land. Often they both lack their old roles and are in limbo as to new roles. Given that roles govern much of behavior, they are at risk for behavior that is considered unacceptable. Immigrants bring their own morals and traditions, but these often clash with the traditions of the new culture. Thus, the male dominated culture of much of the Arab world in which women are sheltered at home, places men in groups on the street and in cafes, which is culturally inconsistent with modern Western society. This further clashes with women from the host country who are outside of the home, but at risk of being viewed as immodest and acting unacceptably brazen by Arab immigrants. Further, the tradition of female modesty keeps Muslim women at home or veiled if in public, which is seen as a direct clash with hard won advances of the women’s liberation movement [8]. Finally, there exists a lack of place for Muslims in Europe. Like many immigrant groups they find housing that is crowded, inconvenient, and often lacking in full public services. These areas have become further ghettoized when immigrants arrive in large numbers, further challenging place. Without full or near-full employment opportunities for low-skilled labor, immigrants further lack place at work. This is especially troubling when lack of place includes lack of good schools and

6

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

encouragement for education for movement into better paying jobs. This ghettoization of Muslims has not occurred in America, which is in striking contrast to Europe in, for example, le banlieue de l'Islam suburbs in France, the name given to the suburban Muslim enclaves around Paris. Indeed, the only near Arab concentration in the U. S. (Dearborn, Michigan with about 30% Arab) is an affluent Detroit suburb with political clout, hardly a ghetto. Further, and basic to the Chicago School’s model, was the hypothesis that economic opportunity and advancement was the key engine for change in the successful absorption of immigrants. This change in economic base, of course, also implies that cultural bridges have been crossed. However, it is often the product of work of excessive hours and creation of small businesses where family size can be used as an asset to gain family financial strength. It is questionable to what extent these opportunities have been available in Europe for Muslims as they have in the United States. This is, in part, a product of the degree of skills that immigrants have on arrival, their ability to link to previously arrived immigrants from their communities who may or may not have formed an economic base, and the openness of the new economy and school system. The Speed and Course of Transition Follows Several Potential Pathways The transition of immigrants to their new homeland can follow several potential pathways. These pathways are important not only as descriptors, but also because they have meaning for both the host country and the immigrant. In part, these paths are the product of opportunity and fit, but they also represent paths that both the host country and the immigrant group find more or less acceptable. Assimilation and immersion may be an ideal for the host culture, the immigrant group, for one but not the other, or for neither. These pathways are important because certain segments of the Muslim community and of the host communities are advocating for, or creating the conditions that will ensure two of the paths that are either historically linked with poor success or with outright militant rejection by the host country. Further, the final path is one that is historically linked with great social unrest and will predictably include terrorist actions by at least fringe elements of the Muslim community. Assimilation-immersion The first route is that of assimilation-immersion. For this route, immigrants are expected to lose their cultural identity, language, and linkages. They are expected to have no remnant of their former past in the extreme, or to have this past private in the more moderate case of, say, France [9]. This was the American ideal in many ways and was fostered by a high rate of intermarriage between ethnic groups. So, Henry Ford demanded it of his workers and actually taught classes in Americanism that included home visits by company officials to check that the home met the standards of America. These were argued as being based on hygiene and adaptation of the family to their new land. But in reading their literature, one quickly gets the sense that it was not considered hygienic to have the smell of garlic in the air, and there was much ethnic discrimination in Ford’s philosophy [10]. There was probably stronger religious discrimination during this period of American absorption than discrimination related to culture of origin and this fostered a path to assimilation for most immigrant groups as

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

7

long as they were willing to assimilate and keep their religion a private matter. This path is decidedly not the one advocated by Muslim immigrant groups [11] , nor is it considered to be the social-psychologically optimum path [12]. Blending The second path is one of blending without losing traditions, although traditions certainly tend to weaken over time. This is a common one for successful immigration. The immigrant group lives near places of worship and places of work, but does not ghettoize. Again, this was easy in America, because with many immigrant groups coming simultaneously, the poor places offered were offered to all who came. Jane Adams Settlement House in Chicago was a model and she later received a Nobel Prize for her work that served a rainbow of immigrant groups [13]. So, this path allows for intermixing, while preserving cultural traditions. It is a workable pathway for the first generation, and allows for enough familiarity for the second generation not only to blend, but to succeed. Within this pathway, the immigrant group gains political and economic power and can fight discrimination and gain advantages for the group through wielding of this power. The blending path can be seen reflected in the absorption of Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrant groups in the United States during the first half of the 20th Century, who clung to ethnic neighborhoods at the same time that they intermixed with the greater America. This attempt may also be seen in Muslim women wearing of a hijab, the head scarf that covers their hair as a sign of modesty and Islamic identity, but allows them to otherwise dress in a Western and even stylish manner so that they may blend. Separate co-existence The third path is one of separate co-existence. It includes the possibility of success, but what might be called “success under suspicion” as the immigrant and the host citizenry remain separate. Examples of this include Chinese and Korean communities in many large cities in the United States. The immigrant group carves out an area for their community and often works and lives within that community. It is possible to be born, live and die in such communities without ever knowing the host country’s languages and without ever adopting their norms of behavior. At its best, this pathway includes a full array of opportunities and cultural wealth in terms of schools, religious institutions, and banking and commerce. Unfortunately, the pathway of separate co-existence also occurs when the greater culture does not accept and will not absorb the immigrant group or where the immigrant group has deep suspicions or discomfort with the greater culture. In the former circumstances the greater culture insures the continuation of this state through undermining immigrant success and policies that do not break the pattern of poor fit and its consequent poverty. The nature of this pathway is one in which respect is not offered, jobs are not available, and both host and Immigrants retain great suspicion and separateness. The pathway of separateness is one of the pathways chosen for and by Muslims in many European cities. The separateness path is also one that can be seen to be taken by Muslim women who wear the niqab, or full veil and covering. Even as they walk in society, they announce their separateness. The wearing of the niqab is also a sign of protest through

8

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

separateness. For example, it is often worn in Britain as a sign of protest of government policies vis a vis the Arab world [14]. That the niqab is a sign of separateness can be seen in Western-leaning Arab states as well, where the niqab has often been discouraged or even outlawed. For instance, state television stations in Egypt have banned newscasters from wearing the garment, and a leading Egyptian University followed suit with its own ban [15]. Revolution The final pathway is one of revolution. This pathway is often an outgrowth of the separateness pathway, and a sign of its failure. It may be violent or non-violent, but it uniformly risks violence. It may occur because the host country demanded separation of the immigrant community and blocked their access to resources and integration, as in the militant outgrowth of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States (once again, acknowledging that African Americans are not immigrants any more than those who came on the Mayflower are immigrants. Their immigration to the U. S., of course, came through slavery, but the example still serves the point here). Alternatively, in this pathway the immigrant group demands that its laws become the law of the land, or at least the law of their world within the host country. To some extent, this was what occurred with Europeans coming to the United States in the early decades of the 20 th Century, as socialist views were brewing in Eastern Europe, in particular. Their socialist/communist ideologies were met with rejection that sometimes took the form of police brutality and imprisonment [16, 17]. However, this was not evidenced in any one ethnic group, although Jews were perhaps over-represented in aspects of the labor movement [18]. For Muslims demanding that Sharia law govern them, or even greater Europe in the sense of becoming the law of the land, is a revolutionary demand. It is the type of path that is seen by the host culture and its institutions as treasonous and a perversion of the welcome mat of the host country toward the immigrant; no matter that the welcome mat may, in fact, offer a rather limited welcome. The dangerous slippage of the pathway from separation to revolution and militancy can be seen in a recent survey of Muslims in Great Britain [19]. Almost a quarter of British Muslims said the 7/7 London bombings were justified because of the British government’s support for the war on terror. Further, young Muslims were about twice as likely as those over aged 45 years to justify the 7/7 attacks. In a perversion of all known evidence and logic, 45 percent believed that the 9/11 WTC attacks were a conspiracy between the United States and Israel. Most revealing, a third of those questioned said they would rather live under Sharia law in the UK than British law and 28 percent hoped for the UK to become a fundamentalist Islamic state. Sixty-two percent said free speech was not a protected right [20]. Those who could be described as revolutionaries by these standards constituted 9 percent of those surveyed and separatist were represented by 29 percent. Clearly, the first two pathways are the most likely to fit the “just gotta love baseball” criterion. However, the first path is unacceptable for many ethnic groups who wish to take pride in their heritage, be respected for their heritage, and pass traditions to future generations. The third pathway, fulfills a need to take pride in one’s heritage and passing traditions to the next generation, but is one that usually is accompanied by limited economic and educational opportunities. The separateness suggests it will not easily fit the “you just gotta love baseball,” criterion which means that the host culture will not consider it a sincere attempt to adopt the new country and

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

9

its traditions. And, of course, the host country will ignore its limiting access to “the game” by immigrants. It also is likely to lead to ongoing social unrest due to the mutual suspicion it is likely to foster. It also may be linked to the final revolutionary pathway, which will almost always lead to militancy on the part of some members of the immigrant community toward the host country (meaning terrorism) and of the host culture toward the immigrant community.

Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory What is assumed in much of the discussion to this point in the chapter and, indeed, in society when it considers immigrants’ integration in the host country, is that adjustment is all a matter of choice. COR theory instead suggests that these pathways are largely a matter of resources, those that the immigrant group hopes to obtain and those that the host country allows, encourages, or limits them in obtaining. The basic tenets of COR theory [2,3,4] are explicated next and applied to the problem of immigrant absorption and the relationship of a failure of such absorption to social unrest and terrorism. The basic tenet of COR theory is that individuals strive to obtain, retain, foster, and protect that which they value. Therefore, people are directed to cultivate resources even when stress is not occurring. When threat of resource loss or actual loss occurs, people mobilize resources to offset, limit, or reverse impending or actualized loss. COR theory argues that because resource loss meant a threat to survival in evolutionary history and due to social conflict and issues of territoriality we are tuned to be in a defensive mode regarding resource protection and fear of loss. This loss sensitivity is a primary axis for the problem of the immigrant and for the host culture toward the immigrant. This is especially the case as emphasized as early as by Park et al., [7] in the 1920s, because immigrants lack place, have poor fit on traditions, and often do not have recognized skills in their adopted land. Further, because of the break with family and connections, they lack the network of ties that might help further the process of resource acquisition. For Muslims moving to Europe or the U.S., they are also exiting an honor and clan/tribal society and entering an individualistic, merit-based society with markedly different rules concerning the commerce of both economic and social resources. To the extent that countries screen out those who do not have recognizable skills or business acumen, they will receive Muslims with much better fit as Western education and individual entrepreneurship will have better fit with Europe and the U.S. economic and social structures. This can be seen, for example, in the successful absorption of mainly Christian Arabs, as well as Muslims, in the United States, where few single men without economic means or education have been allowed to immigrate. In contrast, an entirely different population was absorbed into France due to their colonial history in North Africa, or in Germany where Turks were specifically targeted for guest worker status in menial jobs. Resources are defined as those things that are centrally valued or that are a means of obtaining that which is centrally valued. One way to group them is as follows: 1. Object Resources (e.g., transportation, shelter, material goods) 2. Condition Resources (e.g., support system, employment, marriage) 3. Personal Resources (e.g., job and social skills, mastery, self-esteem)

10

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

4. Energy Resources (e.g., credit, money, knowledge) Stress then, according to COR theory, occurs in circumstances that represent a threat of loss or actual loss of resources required, or the end points that are necessary, to sustain the individual - nested in family - nested in tribe. That is, individuals are sensitive to their own resource needs, those of their family, and those of their tribe. It follows that stress occurs in the following three instances: 1. when resources are threatened with loss 2. when resources are actually lost 3. when there is failure to adequately gain a return on resources following significant resource investment. The circumstances of loss are especially poignant for immigrant groups. They have often immigrated due to major loss, typically have to leave much behind, and have difficulty fitting with the demands of the new country that will allow them to make the necessary gains that are demanded of them. Many Muslim immigrants will, therefore, already be experiencing much psychological distress. To the extent they face prejudice, unemployment, and poor neighborhood conditions, their view of the world will be one where psychological pain will easily be translated into blame toward the host country and its citizens. COR theory would predict high levels of depression, anxiety disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder and associated social disorder as a product of this combination of personal and social-structural circumstances. Add to this that Muslims do not have the tradition of seeking mental health services, and at least one avenue for partial remedies of these concerns are cut off. For Muslims in Europe and in the U. S., the issue of their governments’ foreign policy vis a vis the Arab world, and the consequences of that policy, furthers their sense of resource loss. This is fueled by concepts of international Jihad, which provides a specific interpretative filter for seeing events and how to respond to them. This is embodied in Muslims’ sense of perceived favoritism towards Israel in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, and more recently the Iraq war, led by the U. S. and Britain. This leads to a loss of sense of power and control, honor, and sense of social justice. It is not the intent here to argue whether these wars are fair and whose side is politically correct (if there is such a thing in Realpolitik). Rather, the point is that this is how these situations are widely perceived by Muslim immigrants. Further, after the attacks on the World Trade Center in the U. S., and the subsequent Madrid and London bombings, Muslims in Europe and in the U. S. feel an increased sense of being distrusted; another loss of a key resource, especially for immigrants who are striving to be accepted in their new lands. COR theory highlights several key principles that help to illuminate the economy of resource loss and acquisition and its social consequences. Principles of COR Theory There is not room here to explicate all of the principles of COR theory, but several key principles are necessary to understand and predict immigrant success versus failure and consequent social unrest. They are: 1. Resource loss is disproportionately more salient than resource gain

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

11

2. Because we rely on resources to offset losses AND because stress results from loss, at each iteration of the cycle there are fewer resources to rally in defense. Hence, initial loss begets future loss, making immigrants with depleted resource reservoirs particularly vulnerable. This means that the loss cycles experienced by Muslim immigrants will accelerate in strength and momentum. The issue of momentum of stress reactions is often overlooked, but is critical here because this translates to speed of social change and in this change, social unrest. Hence, protests can turn to militant action and suicide bombing, seemingly “out of nowhere.” It is not coming “out of nowhere,” but out of rapid social change due to the rapidity of resource loss cycles. As the cycles increase in strength, they are harder to slow or reverse. Our research has focused more on individuals’ reactions to such stress, but when examined on a social level we find increases in ethnocentrism and support for extreme violent political action [21]. The society in turn says to immigrants, “pick yourselves up by your own bootstraps,” but immigrants lack the bootstraps to reverse their experienced loss cycles. In such circumstances, where people lack practiced coping repertoires due to the newness of the demands and lack of traditional coping repertoires due to the newness of their experience with a culture or new circumstances (e.g., terrorism, disaster), they will turn to media and community leaders. These, most likely, will be leaders and media who speak their language and side with them. This often means blaming someone else. With a lack of European-trained religious leaders, Europe has imported religious leaders who at times come with radical, anti-European, anti-Western ideas [9]. Many religious leaders will not politicize the experience of immigrants, but others will see this as an important part of the agenda of international Jihad, and its deep-seated mistrust of the West. Such distrust will obviously lead to militant and separatist ideologies that will, at best, contribute to continued separatism. It may also move some of those who hear this message to the revolutionary pathway of demand for Muslim rule of law or outright militant action to bring this about through terrorist activity. The FALLS Model COR theory has also expanded on a set of principles that explain how individual and broader societal processes interact in resource gain and loss cycles, and it is this mesosocial level that this chapter turns to next. This has been termed the FALLS model [4], FALLS being an acronym for: •Fitting •Adaptation •Limitations •Leniency •Selection The FALLS model will be briefly elucidated next, as it aids an understanding of the processes at work that limit Muslim adaptation to Europe in particular. Fitting of resources means that resources do not just “fit” demands. Rather, they often need to be molded or altered to fit. The distance of resources of immigrants to new demands make this fitting more or less difficult. Hence, many Muslim immigrants

12

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

have an entrepreneurial background and immigration authorities may even select and reject on this basis. The skills implied in entrepreneurship do require basic financing and an openness to allow Muslim business, but entrepreneurs tend to be creative and may bridge gaps and obstacles. However, many immigrants have neither entrepreneurial skills nor education that fits Western demands. If workers are needed, skills training can help ramp up the abilities of an immigrant work force, as can be seen with the rise of Hispanic immigrants in business in the U.S. from lawn maintenance to law [21]. Unfortunately, past years have seen high levels of unemployment in Europe and discrimination that does not promote educational advancement of Muslims [23]. Even in their own lands, the fitting of resources to new economies for Muslim men may be difficult. Recent years have seen a rapid, remarkable increase in advanced education among Muslim women in Tunisia [24], with great numbers entering medicine, law, and teaching despite traditional Muslim standards being practiced by these women and in the culture, generally. But at the same time, the percent of Muslim men receiving higher education is falling. We do not know what obstacles are experienced by Muslim men that might prevent their fitting their resources to new educational demands. Clearly, the U.S. experience, with the vast majority of Muslim immigrants obtaining university education (58%, whereas the national average is 25% [24], suggests that it is not an impermeable set of obstacles, but obstacles are clearly there nonetheless, as will be addressed when we consider the Limits construct in the FALLS model. One significant obstacle for Muslim men and women in their Western adjustment is the inability to reshape the all important resource of honor, which is central to their cultural heritage. Immigrants, almost by definition, have a lower status in their new society and the misfit of resources means that further potential opportunities for honor are blocked. Added to this, what is seen as the Western dishonoring of Arab values toward women, when France tells Muslim women that they cannot have their heads covered in school, wearing the hijab [8], and there is little further opportunity for transformation of this precious resource. The issue of women cannot be overstated as a central aspect of resource misfit. For traditional Muslims, women are to be covered, modest, and subservient. For Europe and the U. S., women’s esteem is based on being equal - obtaining economic, social, and sexual equality. There is little transformation or reshaping of resources that can bridge this gap. As stated by a leading British secular Muslim, Imran Ahmad, “The veil is so steeped in subjugation; I find it so offensive someone would want to create such barriers. It’s retrograde.” [13]. and it should be pointed out that many Muslim countries banned extreme covering as part of achieving rights of women. Adaptation, Limitation, and Leniency Adaptation is a process of successive approximation, not an outcome. It is boundaries by expectations on the part of the immigrant and host cultures. It is seldom accomplished in one generation. Those immigrants whose goal is to adapt will experience an uphill process. However, to the extent adaptation is rejected as a principle (by immigrant or host cultures), conflict will arise. That is to a large extent what is occurring. Thus, adaptation becomes blocked due to two principles that explain structures that impact the translation of resources to register further resource gain and to protect against resource loss: limitations and leniency.

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

13

Limitations mean that resources of those who are disenfranchised have reduced currency. Their dollar is not a dollar. Hence, immigrants must often literally pay higher prices for goods and housing. The standards they must meet for entrée into the workforce similarly requires a higher set of standards. In the case of some closed unions or closed avenues of work, these limitations may be absolute, allowing no entry whatsoever. Limitations take many forms. A job skill must be “licensable,” people with accents, or certain accents may not be accepted for certain kinds of work, and young people may be forbidden from some neighborhoods where work might be more available. The phenomena of DWB “Driving While Black” in the United State is an example of this, whereby Black men are stopped, harassed, and often arrested for being Black in the wrong place at the wrong time [26]. A similar phenomenon is perceived to occur for young Muslim men in Europe [27, 28]. To limit social unrest and to keep the implied and expressed promises given to immigrants, a society must actively seek to correct limitations. Often this must take the form of affirmative action, which meets with conservative anti-reaction. But, most affirmative action is merely the correcting of social-structural limitations. This leads us to the issue of Leniency. Many individuals of a host country recognize prejudice and discrimination toward immigrants. What they are less able to recognize is that they themselves are treated by the system with leniency, meaning they advance even when not meeting the full standards for advancement and their legal and social infractions are overlooked. In this regard, positive status confers extra value to resources. Hence courts, jobs, and universities treat those of higher status with greater leniency. This has been termed the “glass escalator,” such that people who have status rise without apparent effort. Also implied in the glass escalator concept, is the idea that the social-structural forces that foster these phenomena are subtle. So, immigrants may not be blocked by prejudice, but may not “qualify” as others have been treated with leniency and fill positions and are excused hardship. So, Italian Americans easily enter construction trade unions dominated by other Italians, it is not that they better use their tools, and Episcopalians are overrepresented in most senior positions at Fortune 500 companies, despite no known cultural business advantage of such WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) paragons. The processes of limitations and leniency operate subtly and unsubtly through the process of Selection. Immigrants will select into certain roles, the host culture will select individuals for certain roles, and certain roles will be prohibited outright. This is a two-way interactive process. Jews were long denied entry into the trades or land ownership, so they became traders and doctors. They were selected by Christians and landowners to collect taxes and to be moneylenders, because they were literate and the New Testament forbade usury by Christians, so Jews became moneylenders and bankers. The Irish in the U. S. were denied work and rejected as Catholics, so they organized and took controlling positions in government, police, and firefighting forces in many major U. S. cities [29]. Jews’ literacy and the organizational ability of the Catholic Church and the experience of discrimination in their homelands may have readied Jews and Irish for immigration. Time, and much of those hard times, has also passed since Jews and Irish were new immigrants in the U.S. For Muslims, the process of selection in terms of where they are not allowed is widespread in Europe. Muslim immigrants’ own fitting of their resources for selection into entrée points into European society and its workforce may be too new and Muslims may lack the resources that allow for getting a good foothold into these societies and economies.

14

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

Conclusions As a final standard, nations not only demand adaptation, but the willingness to sacrifice for the host nation. This may prove the ultimate test for Muslims in Europe, as nations will only tolerate a “guest” under limited conditions and for a limited time. This will challenge both Muslim separateness and militancy, as it will demand the standard in the end of “you’re either fully with us, or you’re against us.” In the end, baseball is only a game. The threat of Islamic terrorism and the interpretations of Islamic Jihad toward the West are so great as to result in a cultural rift that will not inevitably be tolerated. Before this kind of judgment occurs, the logic in this chapter would predict increased militancy and terrorism in Europe. It will occur whatever solution Israel and Palestine come to as it reflects a view of the West by many Muslim immigrants, and of these immigrants by the West, that limit acquisition, retaining, protection, and fostering of resources.

References [1] Huntington, S. P. (1993). The clash of civilizations? Foreign Affairs, 72, 22-49. [2] Hobfoll, S. E. (1988). The ecology of stress. Washington, DC: Hemisphere. [3] Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. The American Psychologist, 44, 513-524. [4] Hobfoll, S.E. (1998). Stress, culture, and community: The psychology and philosophy of stress. New York: Plenum. [5] Bernstein, I. (1990). The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. [6] Boxerman, B. A., Boxerman, B. W., & Abramowitz, M. (2006). Jews and baseball: Entering the American mainstream, 1871-1948 (Vol. 1). New York: McFarland. [7] Park, R., Burgess, E. W. & McKenzie, R. D. (1925). The city: Suggestions for the study of human nature in the urban environment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [8] Werbner, P. (2007). Veiled interventions in pure space: Honor, shame and embodied struggles among Muslims in Britain and France. Theory, Culture, & Society, 24(2), 161-186. [9] Masci, D. (2005). An uncertain road: Muslims and the future of Europe. The Pew Research Center. Retrieved June 28, 2007, from http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=60 [10] Meyer, S. (1980). Adapting the immigrant to the line: Americanization in the Ford factory, 1914-1921. Journal of Social History, 14, 67-82. [11] Modood, T., & Ahmad, F. (2007). British Muslim perspectives on multiculturalism. Theory, Culture & Society, 24(2), 187-213. [12] Lafromboise, T., Coleman, H. L. K., & Gerton, J. (1993). Psychological impact of biculturalism: Evidence and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 395-412. [13] Adams, J. (1912). Twenty years at Hull House. New York: Macmillan [14] Perlez, J. (2007, June 22). Muslim’s veils test limits of tolerance in Britain. New York Times, p. A1, late edition. [15] Murphy, D. (2006, November 8). From Tunis to Tehran, the great veil debate. Christian Science Monitor. [16] Avrich, P. (1991). Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [17] Nelles, W. (1920). Seeing red: Civil liberty and law in the period following the war. New York: American Civil Liberties Union. [18] Liebman, A. (1979). Jews and the left. New York: Wiley & Sons. [19] The Evening News, The Edinburgh Paper (2006, August 7). 7/7 bombings ‘justified’ say a quarter of British Muslims. [20] Basham, P. (2006, August 14). Many British Muslims Put Islam First. CBS News Retrieved June, 22, 2007 from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/14/opinion/main1893879.shtml

S.E. Hobfoll / Ecology of Stress of Immigration and the Consequences for Security

15

[21] Hobfoll, S. E., Canetti-Nisim, D., & Johnson, R. J. (2006). Exposure to terrorism, stress-related mental health symptoms, and defensive coping among Jews and Arabs in Israel. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74, 207-218. [22] U. S. Department of Commerce (2006). Hispanic-owned firms 2002, 2002 Economic Census, Survey of Business Owners. Retrieved June 28, 2007, from http://www.census.gov/prod/ec02/sb0200cshisp.pdf [23] Silberman, R., Alba, R., & Fourneir, I. (2007). Segmented assimilation in France: Discrimination in the labour market against the second generation. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(1), 1-27. [24] Borowiec, A. (2005, June 8). Tunisia Leads Fight for Women's Rights in Arab World. The Washington Times. [25] Tarantolo, D., & Strum, P. (2003, June 18). Muslims in the United States: Demography, beliefs, and institutions. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, conference proceedings. Retrieved June 29, 2007, from http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1427&fuseaction=topics.event_summary&event_id= 15883 [26] Buerger, M. E., & Farrel, A. (2002). The evidence of racial profiling: Interpreting documented and unofficial sources. Police Quarterly, 5, 272-305. [27] Bowen, J. R. (2006, January/February). France’s revolt: Can the republic live up to its ideals? Boston Review. Retrieved June 29, 2007, from http://bostonreview.net/BR31.1/bowen.html [28] Gohir, S. (2006). Understanding the other perspective: Muslim and non-Muslim relations. Birmingham, UK: Muslim Voice UK. [29] Greeley, A. M. (1993). The Irish Americans: The Rise to Money and Powerr.

16

Psychosocial Stress in Immigrants and in Members of Minority Groups as a Factor of Terrorist Behavior - M. Finklestein and K. Dent-Brown (Eds.) IOS Press, 2008 © 2008 IOS Press. All rights reserved. doi:10.3233/978-1-58603-872-4-16

Chapter 2 Violent Events and Collective Identity Roland Eckert University of Trier, Germany Abstract: Conflicts arise and, no matter what they are about, turn violent if there are no institutions within which they can be conducted by other means. Such unregulated conflicts intensify the process of establishing unambiguous collective identities, which appear to safeguard personal integrity and dignity. This is a precondition of successful terrorism. What are the links between migration and violent conflict? In some cases the connection is obvious, especially when native people in a country with high immigration feel threatened. Among migrants, migration can lead to both relativization and radicalization of ethnic or communal identity. The return to specific traditions to "blood and belief, faith and family" (Huntington) is only one option among others, mostly caused by perceived fraternal relative deprivation (Runciman) of the group they belong to. The escalation toward violence and terrorism among activists is caused by the experience (or imagination) of humiliation and victimization (Montville). "Religion and violence are seen as antidotes to humiliation" (Juergensmeyer). Bloody events confirm − like unquestionable "base sentences" − an overwhelming reality of friend and foe and therefore are decisive for further escalation. Long term prevention therefore should hinder and avoid humiliating and violent events.

"Even regional conflicts have the potential to draw nuclear powers into a global holocaust"... Mack 1990, 125 Decaying state structures and ongoing civil wars in many parts of the world show, as at the time of Thomas Hobbes, that the state’s monopoly on the use of force is a necessary (though not sufficient) precondition for peace and freedom. September 5th, 1972 (when the Israeli Olympic team was attacked by an PLO commando in Munich), and September 11th, 2001, made clear once and for all that the use of political force by nonstate agents has extended its threat through global networks into the industrialized nations of the West. The main form taken by this force is terrorism, whose specific mechanisms and motivations therefore demand analysis. This cannot contribute to a short-term remedy but could perhaps facilitate long-term prevention.

Terrorism, Collective Identity and their Mutual Reinforcement Terrorism is part of a strategy of “asymmetrical warfare” that avoids open battle with the powers of the state or occupation forces while at the same time challenging them to

R. Eckert / Violent Events and Collective Identity

17

strike back. As such it represents an attempt to trigger waves of solidarity and support within population groups of which the protagonists claim to be the avant-garde [1]. Since the late 1960s terrorism has become increasingly internationalized and has been financed by private business and through fund-raising [2]. Yet the logic of action has remained the same: the immediate goal of this strategy is not “victory” but rather spreading fear and terror (which in some cases may indeed cause the enemy to retreat). The success of terrorist movements depends firstly, on whether they can win sympathy or even solidarity among specific segments of the population -- i.e. whether they command or can attract collective solidarity -- and secondly, on recruiting terrorists, a process that involves transformations of the subjective identity of these actors. Generally speaking, the engendering of collective solidarity as a background and precondition for terrorism and the transformation of the identity of those prepared to act as terrorists do not usually precede conflicts but form an integral part of the process in question. The creation of collectives and the transformation of identities are closely linked, but they may diverge. Terrorism in Germany in the 1970s, for example, was successful in transforming the identity of the protagonists but failed to harness collective solidarity because people expressed sympathy not with world revolution but with the state under attack [3]. How do the engendering of collective solidarity and the transformation of identities work? Two processes in particular can be used to cement imagined communities. Firstly, symbolic boundaries can be ideologically reinforced by essentializing the corresponding group affiliation [4] (“true” Germanness, the “pure doctrine”, “hindutva”); and, secondly, such boundaries become more powerfully evident as a result of conflicts, especially life-threatening conflicts with other communities. In such conflicts, individuals are reminded in existential and allencompassing terms of their protection by and solidarity with a collective, even if they would previously only seldom have considered themselves part of it, or only in certain situations. In this light it is not simply collective identities with divergent traditions that generate conflicts; it is also conflicts (whatever their object) that generate or are used to radicalize collective identity [5]. German nationalism emerged during the FrancoPrussian wars, Kurdish nationalism arose as a result of the central state’s definition of the Kurds as “mountain Turks.” As Marx argued, class consciousness is not linearly related to class structures as such, but constitutes itself in concrete conflicts (in his case between workers and capitalists). How does this happen? Conflict reinforces one dominant collective identity (among many others which people usually have) by means of fear and hope. Psychologists of perception speak of a heightening of contrast that takes place under conditions of stress. And the greater the fear, the more important it is to know which side someone is on. Neighborhoods and circles of friends are swiftly cleansed of potential enemies. Realms of good and evil are defined. Contrary to what Carl Schmitt (1933) [6] believed, the distinction between friend and foe is not the “essence of politics,” but a consequence and an instrument of conflict aggravation. Although at first there may be issues where compromise is possible (such as access for an ethnic or religious group to civil service or recognition of a minority language), ultimately what is at stake is the “essence” of the collective identity, which seeks out its own concrete signals and conflict scenarios on this basis. This results, for example, in Ayodhya being posited as the birthplace of a Hindu god as a way of entering into symbolic and real conflict with Muslims. The more energy and time invested in such an idea, the “holier” the idea becomes, the higher the cost in human life will be, and the more difficult de-

18

R. Eckert / Violent Events and Collective Identity

escalation will be to achieve. This is how groups are formed that are held together by collective solidarity, a capacity for suffering, and a readiness to perpetrate violence while engaging in a “cosmic struggle” [7]. Not all members of a potential collective take part in this process of essentialization of the communal identity at the same time and in the same way. A range of different interests emerge, such as those of war profiteers, whose social standing and material situation are nourished by the state of conflict. Their interests will often clash with those of former notables whose business depends critically on peace. They may also differ from other sympathizers with the collective living elsewhere, who contribute significantly to the financing of such movements even though their everyday life is not affected, as shown by the funding of the IRA by Americans of Irish origin. But participation patterns cannot be reduced to economic interests, and therefore the question of identity transformation remains. Sacrificing one’s life to a cause is hardly rational, but it can become rational if there is no other option, which may often be true in the case of child soldiers and juvenile attackers [8]. Sacrificing one’s life becomes entirely rational [9] if one has identified totally with the religious, revolutionary, ethnic, or national collective in question [10]. This can take place in two ways: firstly, training can lead to this kind of total identification, especially in juveniles [11]. However, I consider a more important influence to be humiliation and the experience of victimization and violence by the other side: “religion and violence are seen as antidotes to humiliation” (Juergensmeyer 2000: 187) [7] . “In many of the cases ... not only have religion's characteristics led spiritual persons into violence, but also the other way around: violent situations have reached out for religious justification” (Juergensmeyer 2000: 161) [7]. Both violence suffered and violence perpetrated change a person’s worldview. And this happens not only via personal experience but also by perception when people are affected, with whom solidarity is felt. They do so by posing inevitable questions: questions which have no clear answers, for one and the same experience can generate thoughts both of self-assertion via revenge and thoughts of nonviolence. Nevertheless, the former will be the more probable outcome, at least as long as there is no external judicial body to which either side can appeal and which is willing to help. This is because: "...ethno-national groups that have been traumatized by repeated suffering at the hands of other groups seem to have little capacity to grieve for the hurts of other peoples, or take responsibility for the new victims created by their own warlike actions." (Mack 1990, 125)[12]

Migration, Relative Deprivation and Violent Conflict So what are the links between migration, collective identity and violent conflict? In some cases the connection is obvious, especially when native people in a country with high immigration feel threatened. In Germany, the arrival of five million immigrants between 1988 and 1992 allowed fears of an overwhelming foreign presence to be stirred up, giving rise to xenophobic attacks [13]. The state-sponsored transfer of population groups from Java to South Kalimantan sparked the ensuing ethnic rebellion. Israel’s settlement policy in the "territories" is likely to have similarly aggravating effects in the Middle East.

R. Eckert / Violent Events and Collective Identity

19

Things become more complicated when we attempt to analyze the way migrants themselves contribute to ethnic and inter-communal conflict. There are certainly many Irish people in the United States, Hindus in Britain, Kurds in Germany, and Muslims around the world who support their ethnic or religious movements even if these are violent ones. But these are the same people who have learned to operate with different identities, adapting to various situations and focusing their ethnic or religious identity on the corresponding holidays and festivals. But precisely this “sectioning off” of ascriptive identity is ambivalent. The inherent process of abstraction from conventional everyday culture can lead to both relativization and radicalization of communal identity. Migration creates a life situation that poses many questions without prescribing specific answers. While the first generation is occupied solving practical problems and believes often in return to homeland. In the second generation this questions become urgent. One of the possible answers is a radicalization of group affiliation. In terms of cultural theory, this can be interpreted as a phenomenon of the selectability of meaning: not only can social positions be reached via achievement, but also ascriptive elements of personal identity such as gender, religion, and ethnicity become subject to individual choice – at least in terms of meaning for the individual. Via the media, via television, and via the Internet, a global market in identity models has been established. The attribution of existential meaning to ascriptive identities is then often an act of choice in this field, even though there are reasons for this choice. According to one estimate, only a minority of North African immigrants in France are practicing Muslims. At the same time, this group includes a considerable number of Islamists. Their fundamentalist development is due precisely to their removal from local and family traditions and their independent interpretation of the Koran. Similar causes have been documented for the emergence of the fundamentalist Caliphate movement in Germany [14]. In this light, it is not just the continuing existence of archaic group affiliations that jeopardizes the triumph of Kant’s vision of a cosmopolitan society — rather, thoroughly modern processes of selectable identity susceptible to radicalization in and via conflicts, are what pose a threat to world peace. Huntington’s concept of a “clash of civilizations” has not been confirmed. Increasing contact between cultures leads to a range of reactions, of which the return to specific traditions, to “blood and belief, faith and family” (Huntington 1996: 126) [15] is only one option among others, and not necessarily the dominant one. Moreover, fundamentalism in most cases is not violent (Marty and Appleby 1991: 814) [16]. Conflicts do not simply result from this return to traditional values. They may have quite different causes, including the collective struggle for land, for water, or for a share in the state’s exploitation machinery, as well as conflicts over public morals and cultural hegemony. When they lead to perceived (or imagined) fraternal relative deprivation (Runciman), the threshold is likely to be crossed.

Conflict and Event Conflicts, however they arise and whatever they are about, turn violent if there are no institutions within which they can be conducted by other means. Such unregulated conflicts [17, 18] intensify the process of establishing unambiguous identities, the construction of friend and foe, of good and evil. Contrary to what Huntington believes,

20

R. Eckert / Violent Events and Collective Identity

in the beginning it is not the shift to traditional identities that produces conflicts, but conflicts which produce (among other things) a reduction in the diversity of identities to those that appear to safeguard personal integrity and dignity – and these can (but need not) be fundamentalist ones. This happens or is planned and actively generated by “events,” especially bloody ones. In conflict and violence research it is generally assumed that conflict events (and the violent behavior exhibited in the corresponding situations) could be predicted (or at least explained after the event) from attitudes if only one were able to localize precisely enough which attitudes entail a propensity to violence. Then we should be able to recognize the conditions under which the hiatus inhibiting action is overcome. Here I shall not go into the psychological discussion about the (partial lack of) connection between attitude and action (on this see Estel 1983, 154–57, Esser 2001, 239-257) [19, 20]. Rather, I want to point out an opposite assumption: namely, that it is not so much attitudes that produce violent events, but violent events that produce new attitudes. What leads to attitude shifts via the mechanism of “outrage” is conflict involving collective identity and its representation in events (generally disseminated via the media). “Events” – no matter who produces and selects them and turns them into news – function in the everyday selection of information as unquestionable “base sentences” of people’s assumptions about “reality,” and thus produce a “new” reality in the way described by the Thomas theorem: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” They set new "frames in the sense of Tversky and Kahneman“(1981) [21]. Events may give rise to new cognitive maps and symbolic realities, which are then more than the sum of their previous parts. To cite some notable examples of this: the assassination of August von Kotzebue by a nationalist student almost two hundred years ago contributed to the constitution of a new reality, that of the “Holy Alliance”; while the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s response to an assassination brought about the collapse of the multiethnic monarchies of pre-1914 Europe. The shooting of Benno Ohnesorg forty years ago caused the membership of the German left-wing students’ organization, the SDS, to increase exponentially and popularized the Marxist-Leninist theory that capitalism led inevitably to fascism, which was the ideology of left terrorism in the 1970s. As also happened in the United States after students were shot dead at Kent State University, the quantified shift in attitudes in broader academic circles followed the events rather than preceding them. By the same token, Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland (1973) reignited the civil war. After the unforeseen end of the Cold War, the coincidence of net immigration to Germany between 1988 and 1992 of around five million people (ethnic Germans from the former Eastern Bloc, refugees, and asylum seekers) and an employment crisis (triggered by advances in microelectronics) set in motion a xenophobic movement in Germany that we are still dealing with today. When the Allensbach polling institute finds that today 83 percent of Germans associate Islam with terrorism, that is not necessarily a reflection of traditional intolerance in Germany, but also has to do with crimes that have been committed in the name of Islam and which are – doubtlessly illogically and politically incorrectly – ascribed to the Muslims in a generalized way. The escalation of the controversy about the Danish Muhammad caricatures shows how quickly even constructed events can contribute to the formation of attitudes. Terrorism is the attempt to set not only political agenda but new frames in perceiving or constructing reality. Critical situations have occurred more recently, too. In recent years police raids have been carried out after Friday prayer in the streets around mosques under the guise

R. Eckert / Violent Events and Collective Identity

21

of searching for “criminal Islamists” and justified by the threat of Islamist terrorism. Little has ever been found, but it does not bear imagining what shifts in attitudes would have occurred and what friend/foe stereotypes would have been generated if a death had occurred on one side or the other in the course of these operations. It is to be hoped that both the Muslims and the security forces will manage to remain level-headed. Conflict and violence research often quantify attitudes in order to explain the outbreak of violence. In this way it often turns a blind eye to the critical situations themselves. But these situations are the point where political options have a real chance of determining the subsequent course of events. Therefore we should take up the question of the causal relationship between events and attitude formation. Existing identities can lead to conflict, but conversely conflicts, whatever they are about, construct new identities. One can criticize the way events (and not sociological statistics) generate interpretations of how the world works, and one can in particular brand as prejudice the generalization of individual cases to collective perceptions of friend and foe. But that is simply the way things happen. As long as prejudice research ignores the significance of “events” and regards prejudices primarily as causes rather than effects, it will be running the risk of itself generating prejudices. Terrorism is not the expression of specific cultural attitudes (be it Basque, Irish, Tamil, Chechen, Hutu, or Saudi), it is primarily a means of extreme political struggle which transforms every culture in a violent direction. The reciprocal legitimating of violence ultimately creates a stable cultural pattern on both sides. This leads to the question of how democratic and legal procedures can be protected against attitudes caused by bloody events. Terrorism is both a consequence and a cause of differences between communities radicalized by unregulated conflicts. In legitimizing violence, we may observe a “consumption” of various ideologies: nationalist, socialist and now religious ones. Juergensmeyer summarizes thus: “My own conclusion is that war is the context for sacrifice rather than the other way round” (Juergensmeyer 2000: 169) [7] . For these reasons, entering into the spiral of revenge, even if it is sometimes unavoidable for selfdefense, is hardly a promising approach. It is scarcely possible to regulate all conflicts, much less so if they are protracted. Yet in the long term the fight against terrorists will only succeed if it proves possible to halt the radicalization of the communities whose avant-garde the terrorists claim to be. Avoiding and preventing bloody events are efforts to this end. This is not a pacifistic argument, this is a strategic one.

References [1] Waldmann, Peter (1998): Terrorismus. Provokation der Macht. Munich: Gerling-Akad.-Verlag. [2] Hoffman, Bruce (2002): Terrorismus – der unerklärte Krieg. Neue Gefahren politischer Gewalt, 4th ed. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. [3] Eckert, Roland (1978): “Terrorismus als Karriere.” In: Geißler, Heiner (ed.): Der Weg in die Gewalt. Munich, Vienna: Olzog. [4] Wetzstein, Thomas A., Reis, Christa & Eckert, Roland (1999): “Die Herstellung von Eindeutigkeit – Ethnozentrische Gruppenkulturen unter Jugendlichen.” In: Dünkel, Frieder & Geng, Bernd (eds.): Rechtsextremismus und Fremdenfeindlichkeit. Mönchengladbach/ Godesberg: Forum Verlag, pp. 139– 176. [5] Eckert, Julia (2003): The charisma of direct action: power, politics and Shiv Sena. Delhi, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [6] Schmitt, Carl (1933): Der Begriff des Politischen. Hamburg: Hanseatischer Verlag.

22

R. Eckert / Violent Events and Collective Identity

[7] Juergensmeyer, Mark (2000): Terror in the mind of God. The global rise of religious violence. Berkeley/ Los Angeles/ London: University of California Press. [8] Reuter, Christoph (2004): My Life Is a Weapon. A Modern History of Suicide Bombing. Princeton / Oxford (Princeton University Press). [9] Wintrobe, Ronald (2006): Rational Extremism. The Political Economy of Radicalism. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press). [10] Berghoff, Peter (1997): Der Tod des politischen Kollektivs. Politische Religion und das Sterben und Töten für Volk, Nation und Rasse. Berlin: Akad.-Verlag. [11] Elwert, Georg (2003): “Charismatische Mobilisierung und Gewaltmärkte. Die Attentäter des 11. September.” In: Sack, Detlef and Steffens, Gerd (eds.): Gewalt statt Anerkennung? Aspekte des 11.9.2001 und seiner Folgen. Frankfurt am Main./ Berlin/ Brussels/ New York/ Oxford/ Vienna: Peter Lang Verlag, pp. 55–76. [12] Mack, John E. (1990): The Psychodynamics of Victimization among National Groups in Conflict. In: Volkan, Vamik., Julius, Demetrios, Montville, Joseph (eds.): The Psychodynamics of International Relationships, Vol. I: Concepts and Theories. Lexington: Lexington Books, pp. 119-129. [13] Eckert, Roland (2002): “Hostility and Violence Against Immigrants in Germany.” In: Freilich, Joshua D., Newman, Graeme, Shoham, S. Giora & Addad, Moshe (eds.): Migration, Culture Conflict and Crime. Dartmouth: Ashgate, pp. 211–222. [14] Schiffauer, Werner (2000): Die Gottesmänner. Türkische Islamisten in Deutschland. Eine Studie zur Herstellung religiöser Evidenz. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. [15] Huntington, Samuel P. (1996): The Clash of Civilizations. Remaking of World Orders. New York: Touchstone. [16] Marty, Martin E.; Appleby, R. Scott (1991): “Conclusion: An Interim Report an a Hypothetical Family.” In: Marty, Martin E. and Appleby, R. Scott (eds.): Fundamentalisms observed. Chicago / London: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 814–842. [17] Dubiel, Helmut (1992): “Konsens oder Konflikt – die normative Integration des demokratischen Staates.” In: Kohler-Koch, Beate (ed.): Staat und Demokratie in Europa. 18th scientific congress of the German Political Science Association, Opladen, pp. 130-137. [18] Hirschman, Albert O. (1994): “Wieviel Gemeinsinn braucht die liberale Gesellschaft.” In: Leviathan: Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 293–304 [19] Estel, Bernd. (1983): Soziale Vorurteile und soziale Urteile: Kritik und wissenssoziologische Grundlegung der Vorurteilsforschung. Opladen. [20] Esser, Helmut. (2001): Soziologie. Spezielle Grundlagen. Band 6: Sinn und Kultur. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. [21] Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel (1981): The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice. In: Science, no. 211, pp. 453-458.

Psychosocial Stress in Immigrants and in Members of Minority Groups as a Factor of Terrorist Behavior - M. Finklestein and K. Dent-Brown (Eds.) IOS Press, 2008 © 2008 IOS Press. All rights reserved. doi:10.3233/978-1-58603-872-4-23

23

Chapter 3 Acculturation Patterns and Adaptation of Immigrants in Greece Elias Besevegis1 and Vassilis Pavlopoulos National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Abstract. The purpose of the present study was to explore the acculturation patterns of immigrants in Greece in relation to their economic and psychological adaptation. The following research questions were examined: How do immigrants adapt to the host culture? How do they deal with the multiple pressures and challenges of “culture shock”? What is the relationship between acculturation strategies and the quality of adjustment? The sample consisted of 601 immigrants (43% women) from 35 nationalities who resided in urban and rural areas in the host country (mean length of stay: 8 years). Results indicated that levels of adaptation varied according to the cultural distance hypothesis, with immigrants from Europe and the Balkans doing better than immigrants from sub-Sahara African and Islamic countries. Most immigrants chose to integrate (46%); 21% assimilated; 25% were separated; and 8% reported an individualistic profile. Acculturation strategies were related to the quality of adaptation, i.e. integration and assimilation yielded the most positive outcomes and separation the most negative. Length of stay in the host country had an indirect effect on adaptation through the acculturation variables. Implications of findings for policy making are discussed. Keywords. Acculturation, adaptation, immigration

Introduction Population movements within or across nations, societies or cultures have been as old as the history of human kind. In the light of advances in communication pathways and the tendency towards globalization, immigration represents a major challenge for many societies as well as a controversial issue involving legal, economic, demographic, educational, social and psychological aspects, to name but a few. In the psychological literature, the term “acculturation” has been used to summarize the phenomena which are related to immigration and intercultural contact in plural societies ([1]; see also [2], for an in-depth review). Early conceptualizations 1 Corresponding author: Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy (office 504), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 15784 Athens, Greece; E-mail: [email protected]. The empirical findings presented in this chapter come from a research project that was funded by the Hellenic Immigration Policy Institute.

24

E. Besevegis and V. Pavlopoulos / Acculturation Patterns and Adaptation of Immigrants in Greece

considered acculturation as a unidimensional, bipolar dimension in which the individuals are confronted with the opposing pressures of their ethnic group towards cultural maintenance, on the one hand, and of the host society towards assimilation, on the other. Recent research, however, has shown that ethnic involvement and hostnational involvement tap two separate, relatively independent dimensions in the course of acculturation. The latter is viewed as a developmental process as well as an Intergroup – rather than an interpersonal one [3]. Adaptation refers to the sociocultural and psychological (attitude and behavior) changes that result from acculturation. It is argued that the study of the acculturative processes is necessary in order to better understand findings from research on immigration, which are often inconclusive or even contradictory [4]. In a 1918-2003 review, Rudmin (2003) [5] describes more than 100 taxonomies of acculturation constructs. A widely used framework is provided by Berry [1, 6]. This includes country level as well as psychological variables. Psychosocial mediators or moderators of adaptation are traced among factors that existed before immigration (e.g., structural elements of the country of origin or sociodemographic characteristics of individuals) and among factors that emerge during acculturation (e.g., length of stay in the host country, group stereotypes, perceived discrimination). In this process, two questions are of specific interest for immigrants: (a) how important is it to maintain heritage culture and identity? and (b) how important is it to maintain contact with larger society? The combined answers to the above questions result in four acculturation strategies, namely integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization. From the perspective of the larger society, these correspond to multiculturalism, melting pot, segregation, and exclusion, respectively. The purpose of the present chapter goes beyond a detailed description of Berry’s model of acculturation. It is sufficient to note here that, despite various reservations (see for example the commentaries on Berry’s target article in Applied Psychology: An International Review [1]) and proposed modifications (e.g., [7]), Berry’s bidimensional model has been influential, inspiring a large number of studies. There is now enough evidence that acculturation patterns are related to adaptation. For example, the best outcomes have been widely reported for integration and the worst for marginalization while assimilation and separation strategies are usually placed at an intermediate level [1, 6]. The study of the complex interactions of acculturation with context variables, such as cultural diversity, types of constituent groups, attitudes, and government policies, is a real challenge in current psychological research on immigration. The present study Greece has been sending immigrants all over the world for the most part of the past century. This situation started to change in the early 1970s when some of these emigrants for various reasons came back to their homeland. In the late 1980s a large number of immigrants, mainly from Albania but also from other neighbouring countries of former communist regimes, entered the country. This transition from an emigration to an immigration experience is evident in the number of immigrants, which quintupled in the 1990s [8]. According to the national census of 2001, immigrants account for 7% of the total population, but the proportion of undocumented immigrants is calculated to be of similar size [9]. Moreover, about 100,000 immigrant children and adolescents are enrolled in Greek schools [10]. These numbers do not include Pontian

E. Besevegis and V. Pavlopoulos / Acculturation Patterns and Adaptation of Immigrants in Greece

25

remigrants of Greek origin from the former Soviet Union, who are given full citizenship status and are estimated to number about 160,000 [11]. This study is part of a larger project of the World Bank and it was assigned to the University of Athens through the Hellenic Migration Policy Institute (www.imepo.gr). Its purpose was to examine adaptation in relation to acculturation patterns of immigrants, thus addressing an issue not adequately covered in the Greek psychological literature. Previous research has focused on immigrants of the Diaspora returning to Greece (e.g., [12, 13]). Also, a number of recent studies examined the levels of competence in immigrant children (e.g., [14]) and adolescents (e.g.[15]) but not in adult immigrants, as it was done in the present study. So, our research questions and the respective hypotheses were formatted as follows: (a) What is the level of adaptation of immigrants in Greece? Data collected for this study allowed for the examination of two domains of adaptation, i.e., socioeconomic and psychological. Since there was no control group of native Greeks, this question was examined across ethnic groups of participants. Levels of adaptation were expected to vary in accordance to the cultural distance between countries of origin and the Greek society [16]. (b) What strategies are adopted by immigrants in order to deal with the multiple challenges of acculturation? Variable-focused (correlations) as well as personfocused techniques (cluster analysis) were used to answer this question. Based on theoretical and empirical grounds, integration was expected to be the most popular strategy. However, assimilation or even separation may be quite frequent, either because of the assimilative policies of the Greek state [16] or due to negative attitudes towards immigrants [17]. (c) What is the relationship between acculturation strategies and immigrant adaptation? In general, integration and even assimilation were expected to yield the most positive outcomes [1, 6]. A similar (positive) trend was expected between adaptation and length of stay in the host country [18]. These relationships were explored through variable-focused (correlational) analyses. A structural equation model that specifies relations between acculturation and adaptation was also tested.

Method Participants A total of 601 immigrants coming from 35 countries took part in the study. Their mean age was 35 years and their mean length of residence in Greece was approximately 8 years. They lived in 7 different areas, both in the mainland (56% in the greater Athens metropolitan area) and on the islands, thus covering an ecologically valid dispersion throughout the country. Women represented 43% of the whole sample. Immigrants’ mean education level was slightly above the middle of a 7-point scale ranging from 1=“incomplete Primary” to 7=“post-graduate degree.” Participants were approached through their ethnic associations in different parts of Greece, in State immigration offices, through non government organizations, or after personal contact. The basic demographic characteristics of participants are presented in Table 1. In this table, countries of origin were grouped into 8 clusters on the basis of geographical

26

E. Besevegis and V. Pavlopoulos / Acculturation Patterns and Adaptation of Immigrants in Greece

and cultural proximity. Almost half of the sample (46%) were from Albania; 15% came from other Balkan countries, mainly Bulgaria, but also Romania, Serbia, and FYROM; 18% came from the former Soviet Union or eastern Europe; 8% were from Islamic countries (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran or Pakistan); 8% were sub-Sahara African (e.g., from Congo, Ethiopia, and Nigeria); 3% were from Asia (China, Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh); 1% were from Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela) and the Philippines; finally, 4 individuals were from western countries (USA, Germany, Sweden). These proportions roughly represent the corresponding distribution of ethnic origin of immigrants in Greece [8]. The great diversity in the demographic profile across ethnic groups should be noted. For example, women represent about two thirds of the Balkan immigrants while almost all sub-Sahara African participants are men. The latter are evidently the youngest group; they also have the lowest level of education and the shortest length of stay in Greece. The Latin Americans have the highest mean age and length of stay. Western and eastern Europeans are the most educated. This variation reflects an ecological reality but, on the other hand, it hinders attempts to disentangle important demographic factors that may account for the similarities and differences across ethnic groups of immigrants. This point will be further addressed in the Discussion section. Measures and Procedure Data collection was done through structured interviews by means of a questionnaire for the coding of answers of the respondents. Questions, which were in the most part defined by the World Bank research project, referred to demographic information, immigration motives, decision making regarding immigration, the participants’ economic, professional and social status before and after immigration, as well as various aspects related to the everyday immigration experience, e.g., evaluation of pros and cons of immigration, plans for personal and professional development. Selected pieces of the above information, which were relevant to the aims of the present study, were coded into two domains of adaptation, namely socio-economic and psychological, on the basis of the acculturation literature and previous research (e.g. [19, 3]. Table 1. Demographic characteristics of participants Country of Origin

Female

Age (yrs)

Length of Stay (yrs)

Education Level

%

Mean

Mean

Mean

Ν

Albania

277

39.4

35.2

9.4

3.6

Former USSR and Eastern Europe

108

66.7

36.3

7.0

4.4

Balkan countries

89

69.7

38.0

6.2

3.8

Islamic countries

50

14.0

36.5

10.4

3.8

Sub-Sahara African countries

46

2.2

24.5

1.7

2.6

Asia

20

10.0

30.1

5.0

4.1

Latin America and the Philippines

7

57.1

43.6

14.6

4.3

Western countries

4

50.0

33.5

14.0

5.8

601

43.1

35.0

7.9

3.8

Total

Note. Education level was measured on a 7-point scale, from 1=“incomplete Primary” to 7=“postgraduate”.

E. Besevegis and V. Pavlopoulos / Acculturation Patterns and Adaptation of Immigrants in Greece

27

Economic aspects of immigration are considered to be part of sociocultural adaptation that involves the ability of the individuals to deal with daily issues in the host country. Examples of this facet in the questionnaire were: “my economic condition has improved since I moved in this country”, “what is your occupational status? [work vs. unemployed]”, and “do you plan to get your own job in the future?” Psychological adaptation refers to perceived levels of psychological functioning as well as to subjective and physical well-being. Representative items of this aspect in this study were: “are you satisfied with your life in this country, as compared to your initial expectations?”, “I have more freedom and opportunities in this country than in my country of origin”, and “I am isolated from my family members”. Questions were coded into dichotomous variables (1=“yes or agree”, 0=“no or disagree”). Positive responses to items with negative content (e.g., decline in occupational status, loss of skills) were given a negative sign (-1). Answers for each domain were then summed up to form the two adaptation indices. An additional set of questions referred to the frequency of contact with compatriots and the Greeks, as well as to the frequency of use of native and the Greek language. Responses to the above questions were intended to tap the two dimensions of acculturation, i.e., ethnic and host-national involvement [1, 6]. Ratings were given on a 5-point scale, from 1=“hardly ever” to 5=“almost always”. All interviews were taken on a personal basis. Greek, English, Albanian, and Russian versions of the questionnaires were available for those immigrants who preferred to write down the answers in one of the above languages.

Results Levels of immigrant adaptation The information provided by means of the questionnaire of the World Bank was assigned into two domains of immigrant adaptation, namely socio-economic and psychological, as described in the Method section. The socio-economic adaptation index consisted of the following items (percentages in parentheses correspond to positive responses): occupational status: work vs. unemployment (78%); monthly savings of at least €50 (62%); current work status: permanent vs. part time (61%); improvement of financial status after immigration (53%); plans for professional development (49%); general improvement of economic condition (41%); improvement of occupational status (23%); decline in occupational status (15%); and decline in financial status (13%). The psychological adaptation index comprised the following items: acquired new skills (82%); level of satisfaction as compared to level of expectations (63%); ability to provide family support (37%); lost skills (34%); immigration viewed as personal development (29%); isolated from family members (27%); lost networks of social support (25%); enhanced freedom and opportunities (22%); perceived discrimination (16%); and general health problems (4%).

28

E. Besevegis and V. Pavlopoulos / Acculturation Patterns and Adaptation of Immigrants in Greece

Socio-economic adaptation had a mean score of 3.0 (SD=1.9) with a valid range from -2 to 7. The mean of psychological adaptation was 1.7 (SD=1.4) with a valid range between -3 and 5. These two scores of adaptation domains are not directly comparable since they derive from different measuring scales. So, their transformed zscores were used in further analyses.

Figure 1. Position of immigrant groups on the socio-economic and psychological domain of adaptation

The position of ethnic groups of immigrants on the socio-economic and psychological adaptation indices is displayed on Figure 1. In this figure the positive correlation between the two domains of adaptation is evident2, i.e., higher levels of socio-economic adaptation are related to higher levels of psychological adaptation. Individuals from Albania, Romania, western countries, and former USSR had the highest scores. The Serbian group did better in the psychological rather than in the socio-economic domain. The position of Asian, Latino, and Russian immigrants was slightly below the grand mean. Sub-Sahara Africans and, to a lesser extent, participants from Islamic countries clearly had the worst adaptation outcomes of all ethnic groups under study. This picture was confirmed in direct statistical comparisons3: immigrants from sub-Sahara Africa, Islamic countries, and Serbia scored the lowest on socio-economic adaptation; moreover, sub-Sahara Africans had the lowest means on psychological adaptation, followed by immigrants from Islamic, Asian and Latin American countries, even after controlling for length of stay in the host country.

2 The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient between socio-economic and psychological adaptation indices equals to .33 (p