Replies to Brooks

Though I predicted the NY Times would publish only 3 or 4 letters in reaction to David Brooks' OpEd column, Aug 4 - they published only 2 and neither took any swipes at President Bush. Make what you will of the letters and the judgement of the Editor who selected them:

To the Editor: Re: "Trading Cricket for Jihad" (Column, Aug. 4):

David Brooks is right to take on the misperception that the typical jihadist is impoverished, humiliated, jobless and trapped in an unchanging traditional society. He calls the conflict between the jihadists and the West "a conflict within the modern globalized world." But this is a problem that still has one foot in the traditional world and one foot in the modern. These individuals live somewhere in the transition between the traditional world and the modern world, whether in a non-Western society that is modernizing, or in a western society where they are undergoing the "instant modernization" of immigrants. Radicalism seems to be one of the prices of the modernazation process since at least the French Revolution. The best we can do is to contain the madness by force of arms whiledoing everything possible to foster the development of successful middle classes everywhere. Nick Balamaci, Scarsdale, NY

To the Editor: Re: "Trading Cricket for Jihad," (Column, Aug. 4):

David Brooks concludes that countries should encourage assimilation as a way to provide national security. In fact, countries that promote a strict assimilation can end up creating disenchanted migrant populations, who hear that they should join with everyone else but may find barriers to doing so. Assimilation policies also convey that immigrants’ cultures are inferior, which furthers resentment. Assimilate into what? Whose definition of culture wins? I don’t pretend to know what could have prevented the London bombings. There hasn’t been sufficient evidence that the problem is one of "immigrant adjustment" in the first place. Multicultural policies, joined with bold efforts to allow for social and economic advancement, create attachment to and respect for a nation by rewarding groups for adjusting to the rules. Assimilation may happen on its own but enforcing it can backfire. Pawan Dhingra, Oberlin, Ohio