Opinion: Intramarriage Keeps Immigrant Communities Isolated

June 30, 2003

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0630/p09s01-coop.html?entryBottomStory

On June 30, 2003 The Christian Science Monitor ran an opinion piece by Bruce Bawer, an American writer living in Norway, on a study of non-Western immigrant patterns. The article read, "While non-Muslim Europeans live in democracies, most Muslims in the same countries inhabit theocratic enclaves where they are expected to tread a narrow path - or suffer the consequences...Such is the conclusion drawn by "Female Integration," an explosive new book making headlines and the talk-show circuit here. It's based on a recent report to the Norwegian parliament by the Oslo-based Human Rights Service (HRS) and is being viewed as a window on larger Muslim immigration patterns in the rest of Europe. The book's comprehensive statistical analysis of immigrant marriage patterns in Norway shows that members of most non-Western immigrant groups are, in overwhelming numbers, not only marrying within their own ethnic groups, but marrying partners - often their own cousins - from their countries of origin."