padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
you're ignoring certain realities to make the 'conflict' look even handed, & end up blaming the victim = nice!...also there is an obvious power disparity; a small minority of socially excluded immigrants are not in a position to oppress anyone (or, in many cases, to improve their own situation or achieve integration), on the other hand, a small minority of confused and hateful xenophobes clearly is in a position to help facilitate integration or spoil it...
I thought I made it very clear that this was, in fact, exactly what I was not doing. but I guess one can only include so many disclaimers. I think you're confusing blame with analysis - no one's "blaming" anyone, or at least I'm not. you did see that literally everyone agrees with you that the minaret ban is both stupid & abhorrent, right?
the issue propelling this fear isn't really - or at least not solely, & probably not mainly - that actual small minority of immigrants. that is, there will always be xenophobia & racism, but their effects are greatly amplified by the larger context in this case. I suspect this vote against minarets isn't really a vote against Muslims in Switzerland so much as a register of various deep-seated concerns - political, economic, religious, cultural (I refer again back to the town hall meetings here in the U.S.). of course, we live in the real world & unfortunately when these concerns manifest themselves as xenophobic attitudes & policies immigrants get the short end of the stick. which is obv not a new story, or one confined to Europe.
I also think you're conflating the pundits with the people they goad into voting their fears. "confused" certainly applies to the latter but not all of the former. I think they're anything but confused, in fact; otherwise they wouldn't be able to marshal votes so effectively for what are essentially, AFAIU, fringe beliefs. look, when the West has just spent the last decade fighting two hotly debated wars in Muslim countries (not counting other hotspots like Somalia) , when AQ-style terrorism is a real (if awfully overblown) thing, when a tremendous # of young Muslims are increasingly alienated from the societies they live in, it's just silly to pretend this is all in the minds of angsty White Europeans. tho of course you're free to continue doing so.
this identity crisis does not occur in the minds of immigrants
the only thing I can say is that is absolutely 100% wrong. not only about Muslim immigrants in Europe, but about immigrants in new cultures anywhere. I'm not sure how you can claim otherwise; identity crises are kind of a fundmental aspect of immigration.