As I wrote to Skandalous, give me some hard cases of the oppression that you've seen. Make the case that it is the French people's fault rather than the immigrants not taking the steps to integrate into French society. I've seen both views reported, but I still lay the blame at the feet of Chirac and his idealistic, yet unrealistic, policies.

Let's say that I decided to immigrate to Qatar with my wife and children. After moving there, we decide to continue dressing as I do in the United States. We keep speaking English. We wear religious symbols and open a Christian Church out of our home which we publicize. We ignore the culture and values of the community we live in, or we live in an area that is largely Americans. Will I be accepted into society in Qatar if I do those things? Will I have the advantages of a native of Qatar? Will my children? Will we instead be second class citizens? I submit that we would. It would be unrealistic to expect anything else.

What, instead, if we dress in public as the citizens of Qatar do? What if we learn the language? What if we practice our faith, but keep it to ourselves (until their society has accepted us)? What if I integrate with society? Won't I have a much better chance of escaping the status of "second class citizen"?

If I show my willingness to integrate and learn their languages and customs, the only reason they could discriminate would be skin color, which would be obviously racism. If, on the other hand, I remain an American in all but location, then I could be excluded for many other good business reasons.

One side alone can rarely be blamed for any conflict.

Oh, and it's been a while since I've seen your posts. Welcome back.

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan