ABSTRACT
The development of traditional muslim identity seems to be less a question of breaking loose than of growing increasingly submissive to the extended family and to a system of authority where elders – including women – gain more rather than less relative influence. The extended family has come to comprise of an ambivalent and potentially conflict laden arena, which demands much sacrifice from the individuals within it in terms of self-sacrifice for it to function at all. Traditionally oriented migrants often confront their host community with what is perceived in the West as a repressive family system and the suppression of self-expression. The freudian paradigm – as popularly understood – in particular has come to constitute an ideological justification for individual liberalism that regards 'traditional man' as a psychological victim trapped in corporate units. While traditional collective units are seen as inhibiting free enterprise and political freedom, their weakening becomes a sort of tacit assumption behind notions of happiness.
