AS I write this, it is the day after Eid-ul-Azha in England and the Daily Telegraph has carried photographs and stories of the ritual slaughter of sheep in France and Britain.

Apparently, sacrificing animals is illegal in France, but given that there are four million Muslim immigrants there, the police are reluctant to make arrests. In many cases people have erected plastic screens to mask the blood and gore from the road as they despatch newly bought sheep in suburban fields. In Britain, local authorities have permitted this slaughter in abattoirs. In either case, locals have reacted to these photos and news items with some revulsion.

Another custom imported into the West by foreign immigrants is the business of forced marriages. A number of horrifying stories have been printed in which the plight of young women brought up in the United Kingdom and then virtually kidnapped and forced to marry relatives back home and endure conditions they have no experience of. This, too, has been criticized and parents have often been prosecuted.

These random reports of cultural differences underline the difficulties faced by guest workers in adapting their customs and lifestyles to fit into their new homes. Or in these cases, not adapting. For host populations, these frequently bizarre (and often barbaric) practices are a test of their tolerance. Britain has been much more accepting of cultural differences than most other European countries. The uproar in France over girls wearing headscarves to school simply would not have occurred in the United Kingdom.

In the current climate of political correctness prevailing here in the UK, it is considered to be ill bred to comment openly and disparagingly on foreign customs that fly in the face of local culture and traditions. The Brits have long become accustomed to the smells and aromas of subcontinental cooking; indeed they have taken to the cuisine like ducks to water. But things like West Indians driving fast and flashy cars with the music going at full blast raise hackles as well as eyebrows. Muslim women swaddled in traditional veils are objects of scorn and pity. Islamic radicals in Bradford fulminating against western values and demanding the enforcement of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie cause alarm and fury.

The subtext here is that if these people refuse to change their customs to fit into their adopted home, why don't they go back to where they came from? In this seldom-articulated debate, immigrants reply that they are not breaking the law by clinging to their cultural roots. They are generally hard-working, tax-paying citizens and are simply exercising the freedom of expressing their identity by dressing and behaving as they are accustomed to. And if the locals don't like it, tough.

When we complain of racism and intolerance - the most extreme example of these attitudes being the phenomenon of 'Paki-bashing' - we need to put things into context. Would Pakistanis accept foreigners buying and eating pork in Pakistan, just because their dietary habits permit it? Would we tolerate the skimpy dresses men and women wear in the summer? So before we accuse others of intolerance, it is important to examine just how tolerant we are.

But more to the point in a discussion of multiracial coexistence, we need to analyse the motives that brought these migrants to western shores, and how best they can cope with life in a strange and unsettling environment. Clearly, the vast majority are economic refugees who have endured great hardship in order to make a better life for themselves and their families. They are not generally bothered about what locals think of them as long as they are allowed to get on with their lives. Not very educated, their overriding concern is that their children are not 'contaminated' with what they perceive as the lack of morals in the West. They are particularly protective of their daughters, just as they would be back home.

These rigid parental attitudes cause the second generation of immigrants great emotional confusion and turmoil. Already different by virtue of their colouring, school-going children of migrant workers try to blend in by adopting the accents and mannerisms of their schoolmates. But at home, they are expected to behave as South Asian children with all that implies in terms of deference to elders, respect and obedience. Girls in particular are not supposed to meet boys, although their western girlfriends do so without any social stigma attached to this normal interaction.

This schizoid behaviour creates its own tensions and pressures as children are forced to lead two very different lives from an early age. In the working class areas, they are often subjected to racial taunts despite their efforts to fit in, and at home they have to switch back into the role of good Asian children. As a protective shield, and in an effort to re-assert their identity as they grow older, many of them become more 'desi' than they would have back home. For some, this search for identity takes on a fundamentalist form.

But this deliberate return to their roots causes greater isolation and alienation, and although racism is now muted, the fact of commercial life is that nobody wants to employ a ferociously-bearded man, no matter how qualified he is, just as women receptionists wearing head-scarves are not seen as the best advertisements for a company. So when complaining of unemployment among young immigrants, these factors need to be kept in mind.

It is not my purpose here to minimize the element of racism in the West. Although it has declined significantly in a single generation, it continues to mar relations between the guest and host communities. But more than colour differences, it is the contrasting cultures, traditions and values that separate the two. The fact is that Africans and Asians now play an important role in everything from sports to fashion to medicine. Educated immigrants are accepted as equals in the upper echelons of society because they do not make a point of flaunting their differences. The problem arises more among the working classes where both communities are generally poorly educated.

Third generation children of immigrants who have no first-hand knowledge of their homeland have far fewer hang-ups, and are therefore more easily accepted. Above all, they have acquired professional education and training and have been absorbed into a booming economy. In the United States, most South Asian migrants are better educated and without a social safety net, have had to sink or swim. In most cases, they have swum, and now form one of the most affluent ethnic communities. Very few of them have the time or the inclination to aggressively flaunt their cultural identity as they work harder than most other groups to get their share of the American Dream.

For most migrant groups, there is a need to cling to their identity lest it be submerged under a foreign culture. But courtesy - and practical considerations - demand that local customs and traditions be respected.