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Comment by brbsix | Hacker News Reader

They are Islamists. They do not come from a multi-cultural society, e.g. a society of tolerance and acceptance. I think it would be quite deluded to expect something vastly different of them. Whether of not they will adopt Western culture and philosophy is a different question, but at the time of arrival it should be quite clear what culture and values they represent.

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Perhaps you mean they are Muslims.

Islamism is an ideology -- or arguably a catch-all term for a number of ideologies -- that want to force Islam into the government, law and everything.

http://www.danielpipes.org/954/distinguishing-between-islam-...

The average Iraqi or Syrian isn't Islamist. E.g. the Alawites in Syria aren't Islamists, and the former Baath party in Iraq wasn't either.

Honor killings were both legal and prevalent in Iraq under Sadam's rule. The Baath party also operated para-military militias that enforced "morality" rules mostly targeting prostitutes and homosexual. Extra marital sex was punishable in Sadam's Iraq and it was commonly enforced by either the family or the government which quite often resulted in death. The picture as far as Syria goes isn't that different the only major difference is that unlike Iraq Syria had and still has specific laws that target homosexuals rather than just "extra martial sex".

> I think it would be quite deluded to expect something vastly different of them

How about we treat their opinion as "unknown" rather than a foregone conclusion (for either side)? Is this too much to ask?

How about we work with the information we do know and approach the problem using logic and prudent risk management like we would with almost any other topic?

I suppose parent may have been extrapolating their willingness to integrate from that of other immigrants from Muslim cultures who have been living in France/Germany/UK for decades.

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