INTRODUCTION
The article entitled “Cologne Attacks Highlight Clash Among Cultures” is an editorial regarding asylum seekers and other immigrants from the covered with war Middle East countries in European society, or, to be more exact, in Germany, Cologne. To be even more specific, the article is about conflicts that developed between immigrants and German people in December, during the New Year’s Eve preparations, and their outcomes. The author describes events that took place at the end of Dec 2016 near Cologne’s train station and discusses their consequences including police reports and interviews with victims and different specialists. On 31 Dec 2016, about 1,500 male immigrants came to the station and shocked Germany and other European countries with unsuitable conduct and hardly admissible behavior the police could not cope with (Smale, 2016). The author states an argument that conflicts between the Middle East people and European population develop in terms of differences between their cultures, and none of the parties knows how to deal with these differences right, what, in turn, leads to negative consequences as described in the paper. For clarity of the events and support of the argument, the author provides the detailed description with time data and direct interviews with participants and police representatives.
THEORY
Functionalist Sociology
Functionalist Sociological Perspective states, “society is a system of interconnected parts that work together in harmony to maintain a state of balance and social equilibrium for the whole” (Mooney, Knox, and Schacht, 2007, p.1). A proponent of the functionalist sociology would criticize the article in the context of practical utility. According to functionalism, the main aim of human beings is to support world balance. However, acts of war do not mean world balance at all. The war in the Middle East forced civilians to seek safety abroad, and they came to Europe bringing with them their traditions and culture. This contravenes the functional theory. High levels of immigration led to the constrained clash of completely different cultures that have been separated from each other throughout history. Western and Middle Eastern cultures are both cultures with great history, but with different views and values (Rosental et al., n.d.). From this perspective, a functional theorist would agree with the article because Smale criticizes developed conflicts and unpreparedness of European population to them. Our society should work together to maintain peace and balance, but it does not do this in the modern world. According to functionalism, everything in the world has its place, but now the balance is upset. For functionalist theory, this is unacceptable and widely criticized. However, in her article, Smale also gives a cue that the only way of resolving the conflict is seeking for the ways that will help two different cultures to integrate into each other. However, the author’s suggestion is out of tune with the fundamentalist theory. Integration of two great cultures could lead to effacing the boundaries between them and further upsetting of the world balance. In this view, a functional theorist could disagree with Smale’s article and her opinion.
Conflict Sociology
Conflict Sociological Perspective “explains various aspects of our social world by looking at which groups have power and benefit from a particular social arrangement” (Mooney, Knox, and Schacht, 2007, p.2). Conflict theory states that certain social inequalities appear when people that have advantages actively protect these advantages. In our case, people with advantages are immigrants and asylum seekers. They lost their homes and escaped to Europe for protection and better living. European countries promulgate tolerance and understanding towards victims of war. They offered help, and refugees and immigrants accepted it. European Union established the Common European Asylum System that provides refugees with facilitated departure to European countries (Open Society Foundation, 2015). However, an endless flow of immigrants led to the stiffening of departure policies and following difficulties migrants underwent trying to get to Europe. A conflict theorist would agree with the article because refugees and immigrants want to assert themselves and to protect “their kind” and their compatriots on foreign lands. Experienced difficulties and inability to get better life migrants looked for leads to developing of different conflicts.
Symbolic Interaction Sociology
Symbolic Interactionist Sociological Perspective “emphasizes that human behavior is influenced by definitions and meanings that are created and maintained through symbolic interaction with others” (Mooney, Knox, and Schacht, 2007, p.2). Symbolic interaction sociology states that people’s behavior is associated with its symbolism or abstract meaning important for them. A psychology knows a term “self-fulfilling prophecy” that means “a false belief that leads to its own fulfillment” (Madon et al., 2011, p.578). A lot of symbolic interaction theorists refer this term to symbolic interaction sociology. Different researches and studies proved that under some conditions “self-fulfilling prophecy” has enough powerful effect on people’s minds and behave (Madon et al., 2011, p.582). It is a strong statement for symbolic interaction theorists. For our case, it is important to remember that our world is not completely free from racism. Of course, European ideas of tolerance and flow of high-level educated immigrants that come to work and bring new intellectual power significantly decrease manifestations of racism. However, over the last years, the situation a bit changed, and not the last reason of that was high unemployment of European youth (Debating Europe, 2014). Nowadays, under the conditions of endless immigration from the Middle East, the attitude towards refugees and immigrants becomes worse. They, in turn, feel this and reflexively start to behave the way the society thinks they should. Mentioned “self-fulfilling prophecy” is a good base for symbolic interaction psychology, but it fails in agree with the article. Smale states that the immigrants’ behavior shocked Germany and stoked “anxieties over absorbing refugees across Europe” (Smale, 2016). In other words, the behavior of immigrants was unexpected. From this perspective, a symbolic interaction theorist would disagree with Smale’s thoughts.
CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
Unfortunately, the article shows only one point of view on the happened events, and, thus, is limited. The author gives a significant amount of interviews with victims and different experts, but does not quote any of the immigrants that started the conflict and, hence, does not write about possible reasons that made them to act in inappropriate way. All of these make the article one-sided. Also, the author underlines the problem, but does not give its clear solution.
AGREEMENT
In her article, Smale makes a strong argument prevalent in the modern society. She states that the conflicts between the immigrants and European people happened because of conflict of two different cultures. Smales does not blame immigrants, but criticize German police and policies that were not ready and could not timely react on the conflict and solve it. “The officers failed to anticipate the new realities of a Germany that is now host to up to a million asylum seekers, most from war-torn Muslim countries unfamiliar with its culture” (Smales, 2016). Smale’s article is based on strong evidences and, thus, is very close to life.
References
“Are young Europeans becoming racist and bigoted?” (20 Oct 2014). Debating Europe. Retrieved from http://www.debatingeurope.eu/2014/10/20/are-young-europeans-becoming-racist-and-bigoted/#.VuS4B8dGpp0
Madon et al. (2011) “Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Mechanisms, Power, and Links to Social Problems.” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(8): pp. 578-590. Retrieved from https://public.psych.iastate.edu/madon/PAPERS%20ON%20HOMEPAGE/OFFPRINT.COMPASS.pdf
Mooney, Knox, and Schacht (2007). “The Three Main Sociological Perspectives.” From Understanding Social Problems, 5th edition. Retrieved from https://laulima.hawaii.edu/access/content/user/kfrench/sociology/the%20three%20main%20sociological%20perspectives.pdf
Rosental et al. (n.d.). “A Comparison of Cultures: the United States and the Middle East”. A Presentation by Dr. King’s Psychology of Human Development II Class. Retrieved from http://www.eccssa.org/htmlobj-903/eccssa-comparison_of_cultures_in_the_us___middle_east.psy_232_class.pdf
Smale, Alison (15 Jan 2016). "Cologne Attacks Highlight Clash Among Cultures." Retrieved from http://ra.ocls.ca/ra/algologin.aspx?inst=algonquin&url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA439922257&v=2.1&u=ko_acd_ac&it=r&p=STND&sw=w&asid=f7f36441b3e71ae2ed20c1cbb99bbecf
“Understanding Migration and Asylum in the European Union” (15 Oct 2015). Open Society Foundations. Retrieved from https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/understanding-migration-and-asylum-european-union
