The refugee crisis

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I am really surprised that no one particularly wanted to discuss this situation.  What we have on our hands worldwide is a volkerwandrung caused by religious and ethnic intolerance not seen since WW II.  Here is an opening discussion point.

The remainder of the Kurdi family have come to Canada in the current effort.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Actually none of this is really new. Refugees have been a problem for decades now. We are only picking up on it now because for the first time since the Balkan conflict are those refugees reaching European shores in a suitably large scale as to become a problem for us. 

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The real problem lately is that we can no longer hide from the problem.  The UNHCR is swamped, and the refugees are so numerous that they have taken things into their own hands.

Everyone who beats the war drums for whatever reason should have to explain what to do with the people they destroy and displace.

[AkemiAzula 280]

In the paper one always reads how Cameron isn't listening to voters concerns regarding immigration.

The problem in the UK is we have already stretched infrastructure without a massive influx of refugees ( and being born in Adelaide and my grandfather being from Ukraine I am not ignorant of the feelings of immigrants)

The thing is that the culture issue is only one issue. The main problem is our national infrastructure and the fact our streets are certainly not paved with gold.

My great aunt and her son live in a council flat and barely get by on benefits, I will spend all my savings getting a mortgage on a flat and doubt I will ever afford things like holidays or a car...

Citizens (and yes I have dual citizenship so at least I am legally here) are struggling, so having a mass of newcomers hardly helps.

That isn't to say that there aren't hardworking refugees and layabout Britons.

Certainly most refugees wouldn't claim disability for a bad back and smoke weed all day like my cousin...

[krbe 193]

We're padding new arrivals, mainly because we're afraid of parallell communities. That being said, society these days is so conformist and thoroughly regulated that newcomers won't have a snowball's chance in hell to even enter it.

When it's being said that the continent of Europe is too full, the immigration apologists are claiming that that's rubbish. Look at America. What would have happened if everyone were stuffed into the same cities, instead of forcing people to branch out and colonise?

And then, Europe is doing absolutely NOTHING to support the wars that are ongoing. Yes; support the wars. The peace fetishism has ensured that we have no governments-in-exile, no export of arms and materiel, and terrorists are free to roam the lands. Naturally, people are fleeing. And the longer we behave like scared chicken, the longer the conflicts will go on. The West bombs, and the West leaves. There's willingness to stay on and fix things -- with force if needed -- and there's no willingness to support the forces that are capable, especially not on a regional level (Afghanistan springs to mind). If we can't do that, we have to avoid meddling, and rather focus on ourselves.

And yes, that includes closing this world of ours a little bit as well, whether we're talking about the movement of goods, money, people or information. Does this free or almost free movement really serve our interests?

[LexusInfernus 908]

2 hours ago, krbe said:

We're padding new arrivals, mainly because we're afraid of parallell communities. That being said, society these days is so conformist and thoroughly regulated that newcomers won't have a snowball's chance in hell to even enter it.

When it's being said that the continent of Europe is too full, the immigration apologists are claiming that that's rubbish. Look at America. What would have happened if everyone were stuffed into the same cities, instead of forcing people to branch out and colonise?

Oh please, we are talking about 1 million people on a population of 500 million. If Europe wants, it can easily absorb that amount of people. The problem is that there are significant political forces that do not want and are forming an obstacle. Rather than think of ways to welcome these people and integrate them into society all they do is either throw temper tantrums over how reality does not conform to their wishes or still have the ridiculous aim of keeping people out and therefor create this obstacles on purpose in the hope that refugees will somehow think Europe is a worse place to live than the warzone they fled. 

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And then, Europe is doing absolutely NOTHING to support the wars that are ongoing. Yes; support the wars. The peace fetishism has ensured that we have no governments-in-exile, no export of arms and materiel, and terrorists are free to roam the lands. Naturally, people are fleeing. And the longer we behave like scared chicken, the longer the conflicts will go on. The West bombs, and the West leaves. There's willingness to stay on and fix things -- with force if needed -- and there's no willingness to support the forces that are capable, especially not on a regional level (Afghanistan springs to mind). If we can't do that, we have to avoid meddling, and rather focus on ourselves.

Riiiight, because more war and bigger conflicts are going to be helpful here. Let me ask, who exactly are we supposed to support in Syria? Assad, a butcher who's only claim to power is that he was there first while there were no alternatives and so we just went with it? A bunch of rebels who have no real organizational structure or much of a post war plan? IS and Al Qaeda? And say that we decided to get involved tomorrow and we send our armies in. Then what? Who do we shoot at? How do we know who to shoot at? And what about after we are done shooting at stuff and we got bases all over the country, then what? How do we deal with a populace that doesn't want our troops there? How do we deal with the perception that we are occupying Syria? How do we prevent radical groups from using our presence in Syria as a recruiting tool radicalized youth? How are we going to ensure that the country gets rebuild, stays safe, develops a functional and growing economy, don't step on Russian, Turkish, Iranian, Saudi Arabian, Kurdish and Israeli toes? 

We have no plan, there is no plan nor a possibility of a realistic plan that involves a greater military involvement from Europe that won't make the situation even worse. We must realize that we are not the masters of the Universe or the masters of this world, our capability to bend the social, economic and political forces that are at play here, to our will is extremely limited. 

We must do what we can do, and what we can do is take in refugees who flee the violence. 

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And yes, that includes closing this world of ours a little bit as well, whether we're talking about the movement of goods, money, people or information. Does this free or almost free movement really serve our interests?

Yes it does. Remember that the roots of WW2 lie in the fact that Europe and the United States all decided it would be best to close the borders, restrict movement between countries and focus inwards. The Nazis rise to power were merely a symptom of that problem, and their ability to unleash a war was enabled to a large degree by British and French unwillingness to look beyond their own borders in the previous decades. 

Freedom of movement, be it of goods, people, services or ideas is one of the best defenses we have against another large scale conflict in Europe. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I used to look on the Americans as parochial, but they are very liberal compared to the Europe of the 21st century.  Everyone wants to sit in their own little tribal pond and croak like big frogs, but the ponds are smaller than postage stamps.  For the thousands of years of existence, the nations of Europe have only prided themselves on their tower of babel and haven't even developed a lingua franca.  They keep a whole profession of translators (who have no reason not to be biased) in business.  The Schengen agreement is mere puffing and lip service to the idea of a United States of Europe, which will never happen as long as the guy from over the border is a foreigner (in the Italian sense 'straniero').  There is no trust.  Not only that, but each little sub-dialect or obscure bit of language wants to be a nationality with its own territory.  Pretty soon each street will have its own passport.

[Meg 368]

On 1/4/2016 at 7:57 AM, A Nonny Moose said:

I used to look on the Americans as parochial, but they are very liberal compared to the Europe of the 21st century.  Everyone wants to sit in their own little tribal pond and croak like big frogs, but the ponds are smaller than postage stamps.  For the thousands of years of existence, the nations of Europe have only prided themselves on their tower of babel and haven't even developed a lingua franca.  .

How is that different from other parts of the world?  There are over a dozen languages spoken in India and at least twice that in China. Most aren't official languages but many countries have multiple "official" languages.

 

 

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The basic difference is that most of the other dialect speakers (and there are hundreds in Canada) do not seek to have their own territory recognized as a member of the UN.

We encourage people to hang on to their heritage and in Toronto there are newspapers published in over 100 languages.  At the same time, there is a serious effort going on to recover and re-establish indigenous languages that were nearly extinct.  These speakers often refer to themselves as a 'nation' but don't seek to become members of the UN.

[krbe 193]

On 1/4/2016 at 1:54 PM, LexusInfernus said:

 If Europe wants, it can easily absorb that amount of people.

Exactly. And that is the problem. In 'scientific' terms it sounds all so good. However

new arrivals do not dissolve like sugar in water, but lump together like palm sugar.

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Riiiight, because more war and bigger conflicts are going to be helpful here. Let me ask, who exactly are we supposed to support in Syria? Assad, a butcher who's only claim to power is that he was there first while there were no alternatives and so we just went with it? A bunch of rebels who have no real organizational structure or much of a post war plan? IS and Al Qaeda?

More intense conflicts will surely be more helpful. But that is a question about your Weltanschauung, whether you prefer shorter, decisive conflicts that ends in calm, or if you are partial towards simmering, low-intensity conflicts with killings and terrorism continuing for decades.

As for who you support: We're talking about war. What you're talking about is values. "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." You can't be picky about your friends.

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We must do what we can do, and what we can do is take in refugees who flee the violence.

That hardly contributes anything towards actual solutions.

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Freedom of movement, be it of goods, people, services or ideas is one of the best defenses we have against another large scale conflict in Europe. 

That presupposes that an area of freedom, security and justice be established; differentiating the zone from the outside. The porous southern borders of the Schengen has proved that the EU has failed.

On 1/4/2016 at 1:57 PM, A Nonny Moose said:

They keep a whole profession of translators (who have no reason not to be biased) in business.

Which translators? And how does this bias work exactly? Talk to the people who are serviced by these translators. Unless you're from France or Italy, English works perfectly well these days for the rest -- like French or German used to previously.

And if you read the documents, you'll notice that the problem of interpretation hinges on linguistic differences, not that the work of the translators are creating differences in policy -- unless, of course, you mean the mere act of translating by default taints a political process. 

[LexusInfernus 908]

1 hour ago, krbe said:

Exactly. And that is the problem. In 'scientific' terms it sounds all so good. However

new arrivals do not dissolve like sugar in water, but lump together like palm sugar.

No, that happened because there was absolutely no policy designed to integrate people into society for the past 50 years. We brought in a lot of people from outside of Europe to do our dirty work and we hoped that after fulfilling their contract they would go away again. They didn't and we never adapted our policy towards that reality. 

Look at Vietnamese refugees and Bosnian refugees. They are all groups that have either fully integrated into society or they have moved back after the conflict was over. Either way, they don't cost us anything and they didn't cause problems. 

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More intense conflicts will surely be more helpful. But that is a question about your Weltanschauung, whether you prefer shorter, decisive conflicts that ends in calm, or if you are partial towards simmering, low-intensity conflicts with killings and terrorism continuing for decades.

Except we do not get to decide how long a conflict last. I'm sure the Americans thought their little war in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq wouldn't last to long, but that turned out to be quite a delusion in the real world. Groups like IS will simply go up in the civilian population if you attack them with soldiers and they will revert back to their guerrilla roots, causing what you want to be a quick and intense conflict turn into a drawn out conflict that can't really be won. We can already see this happening in areas that get liberated by the Iraqi army. 

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As for who you support: We're talking about war. What you're talking about is values. "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." You can't be picky about your friends.

A war without values is something the United States tried to wage under Bush, and it gave us 'enhanced interrogation' and Guantanomo Bay. We were told all of that was necessary because gosh darn we were at war. Now look where that attitude brought us. 

We can be picky about our friends and it is vital that we ARE picky about our friends, especially if those friends are part of the reason why we are at war in the first place. 

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That hardly contributes anything towards actual solutions.

Any solution will take years if not decades to pay off, and until then those refugees remain a problem. Taking them in solves that problem, rather than passes it off to someone else. 

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That presupposes that an area of freedom, security and justice be established; differentiating the zone from the outside. The porous southern borders of the Schengen has proved that the EU has failed.

Failed how? To provide an effective border? Do you think that border would be any better if there was no EU? Do you think that these refugees would have never made it in if the EU didn't exist? The idea that a state can control exactly who comes in and who goes out is a delusion that only exists in the heads of politicians. Borders are imaginary concepts, not physical barriers, if people want to, they will get in. Even walls such as the Iron Curtain were entirely able to prevent people from leaving or entering. And really, I very much question whether we want to look at the Iron Curtain as a positive example of how to control our borders. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Most languages, even the Romance set, have different nuances that do not translate well.  The language I happen to know best is Italiano.  Take the word 'sophisticato'.  It can convey various meanings but usually comes out as 'adulterated' and in 'vino sophisticato' which is usually watered or mislabelled wine. 

I once had occasion to have a computer language manual (COBOL) translated from Italian to English by a commercial translation outfit who were not smart enough to seek some feedback from our company when the stuff they were getting did not make sense.  You could hear about 'the arithmetic of the running comma' or 'coherent elaboration of the flows' or 'the elaborator' to say nothing of the 'stamper'.  These fools actually wanted to get paid for this travesty.  Any first year student of Italian whose base was English would have done a better job.  Technical language can easily get lost in translation like this.  Treaties are often quite technical.

[krbe 193]

15 hours ago, LexusInfernus said:

No, that happened because there was absolutely no policy designed to integrate people into society for the past 50 years. We brought in a lot of people from outside of Europe to do our dirty work and we hoped that after fulfilling their contract they would go away again. They didn't and we never adapted our policy towards that reality. 

Look at Vietnamese refugees and Bosnian refugees. They are all groups that have either fully integrated into society or they have moved back after the conflict was over. Either way, they don't cost us anything and they didn't cause problems. 

Of course the policy was never adapted if there wasn't any in the first place.

And the Western world has plenty of examples of ethnic Vietnamese and Bosnian organised crime gangs. Hardly 'fully integrated' at no cost and trouble.

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A war without values is something the United States tried to wage under Bush, and it gave us 'enhanced interrogation' and Guantanomo Bay. We were told all of that was necessary because gosh darn we were at war. Now look where that attitude brought us. 

 Just because you are forced to believe in some values doesn't mean they're not there.

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Any solution will take years if not decades to pay off, and until then those refugees remain a problem. Taking them in solves that problem, rather than passes it off to someone else. 

The refugees are not a 'problem', merely a symptom of the actual problem. But sure, if you want to view the refugees as a 'problem' that needs 'solving', surely rampant resettlement is the answer.

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Failed how? To provide an effective border? Do you think that border would be any better if there was no EU? Do you think that these refugees would have never made it in if the EU didn't exist? The idea that a state can control exactly who comes in and who goes out is a delusion that only exists in the heads of politicians. Borders are imaginary concepts, not physical barriers, if people want to, they will get in. Even walls such as the Iron Curtain were entirely able to prevent people from leaving or entering. And really, I very much question whether we want to look at the Iron Curtain as a positive example of how to control our borders. 

The EU has failed to provide a safe and secure border for the Schengen area. And the question of whether it is to be run by the EU or someone else, doesn't really enter into it. The fact of the matter is that the border to the south is voefully inadequate to guard the Schengen zone. In the north, there are fences, surveillance (camera and otherwise), military outposts, and frequent patrols to ensure that you are not crossing the border, taking pictures across it or even fishing in the river.

To what extent does the nationstate -- the bedrock of the international community -- exist if borders are imaginary concepts?

[Meg 368]

23 hours ago, A Nonny Moose said:

The basic difference is that most of the other dialect speakers (and there are hundreds in Canada) do not seek to have their own territory recognized as a member of the UN.

 

 

Good point.   I do not understand the concept of each ethnic group having its own country.   I imagine that's due to the fact that most Americans have ancestors from a variety of ethnic groups.   Most of us could not isolate ourselves within our own ethnic group if we tried.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Somehow, Meg, I don't think the pro-Confederacy group has any difficulty identifying itself.  The great melting pot seems to have a cold side.

[Meg 368]

17 hours ago, A Nonny Moose said:

Somehow, Meg, I don't think the pro-Confederacy group has any difficulty identifying itself.  The great melting pot seems to have a cold side.

 

True.  But that's a geo-political identity, not an ethnic identity.   Even those folks have ancestors from a variety of European countries.  I resist calling it a racial identity because they certainly don't speak for all white people.

A British friend once told me her parents had a "mixed marriage".   I asked how so.  She replied that she has an Irish mother and an English father.   That is rather laughable by US standards.   It takes a lot more than that for a marriage to be "mixed"

[LexusInfernus 908]

On 6-1-2016 at 5:05 PM, krbe said:

Of course the policy was never adapted if there wasn't any in the first place.

And the Western world has plenty of examples of ethnic Vietnamese and Bosnian organised crime gangs. Hardly 'fully integrated' at no cost and trouble.

Of course there was policy. It was just that it assumed that those people would leave and when that didn't happen they never bothered to change it, instead just covering their inaction with 'multiculturalism'. 

And really, Vietnamese and Bosnian gangsters are such a major issue that it would have been better if we never let them in? Right, those gangsters are no bigger problem than organized crime gangs from local origin. 

On 6-1-2016 at 5:05 PM, krbe said:

 Just because you are forced to believe in some values doesn't mean they're not there.

I'm not sure what you mean with that. Could you please explain? 

On 6-1-2016 at 5:05 PM, krbe said:

The refugees are not a 'problem', merely a symptom of the actual problem. But sure, if you want to view the refugees as a 'problem' that needs 'solving', surely rampant resettlement is the answer.

The actual problem will take years if not decades to solve. The refugees are a problem that is happening right now and needs action right now. We cannot ignore those people in the hope they go away if we handle the root causes of why they are here in the first place. So yeah, in the short term, settlement  of all those refugees is the only realistic and feasible option. 

On 6-1-2016 at 5:05 PM, krbe said:

The EU has failed to provide a safe and secure border for the Schengen area. And the question of whether it is to be run by the EU or someone else, doesn't really enter into it. The fact of the matter is that the border to the south is voefully inadequate to guard the Schengen zone. In the north, there are fences, surveillance (camera and otherwise), military outposts, and frequent patrols to ensure that you are not crossing the border, taking pictures across it or even fishing in the river.

The Southern border is a sea, you can't really build a giant fence with guard posts every hundred meters in the middle of a sea. Also, it may only appear that our land borders are safe, and I think the only reason it appears that way is because there are no refugees trying to cross into Europe from that direction. If we want an example of just how effective such measures are, we only have to look at the US who build a giant fence along the border with Mexico and stationed an army of border guards near it, it hasn't really done much to stop illegal immigrants from moving in. And I wonder how well they would do if they had to deal with the same numbers that we are currently facing. 

Walls never stopped people who are absolutely determined to get to whats on the other side of that wall. And these people have proven to be willing to risk everything they got to get into Europe. The only way to stop them is to show to them that getting into Europe and living into Europe is worse than living into a warzone. And I seriously question if thats something we should want. Are we so afraid of a group of people, so greedy and unwilling  to share only a small bit of our wealth, that we want to act like bigger villains than Assad or IS? 

On 6-1-2016 at 5:05 PM, krbe said:

To what extent does the nationstate -- the bedrock of the international community -- exist if borders are imaginary concepts?

The nation state, much like borders, is also an imaginary concept. It exist as long as enough people believe in it. If not enough people believe in it, you get failed states. 

Look, a border only means something if everyone agrees that its a thing, believes its a thing and behaves like they are a  thing. The moment one or more parties refuses to believe in your borders, contests your claim to a region of  territory, well you get a conflict just waiting to happen. And borders change all the time. Just look at the world map of 100 years ago. Look at Germany and see how much more territory they had in the East. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

With all this argument from the general to the particular you guys remind me of going sailing from hither to yon aboard my 29 foot sailing cutter.  The best analogy is slowly going forward while standing in a cold shower tearing up twenty dollar bills.

The subject is not the criminal gangs from X, but the plight of the current set of refugees starving slowly in camps, beating on the doors of Europe, and in general being victims of conflicts they clearly want no part of.  And a lot of these people are displaced because their homes have been invidiously destroyed by one faction or another.

[LexusInfernus 908]

5 hours ago, A Nonny Moose said:

The subject is not the criminal gangs from X, but the plight of the current set of refugees starving slowly in camps.

Yes, my point was that Europe has taken in large amounts of refugees before, people from the Balkans and before that Vietnamese boat refugees, without them causing any real problems, thereby disproving the argument that Europe somehow cannot handle taking in these refugees. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

We (Canada) took in a large number of boat people as well.  The result?  We now have a considerable number of Vietnamese and other Indo-Chinese restaurants, a number of new business run by Vietnamese immigrants and the usual small minority of miscreants who have either been deported or are in jail.

Since we are taking in a large number of people from the Syrian mess, but screening most carefully, I think we are getting the cream of the crop.  Many of them are university educated or tradesmen, and this is just when we need such an injection of new skills.

Too bad, United States, you let your jingoism close you off from a flow of such good people.

[krbe 193]

Angry Bavarian politician takes bus full of refugees to Merkel

Certainly a most unusual way to protest your central government, but the guys seems dedicated to his constituency at least!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

On 9.1.2016 at 10:17 PM, A Nonny Moose said:

Too bad, United States, you let your jingoism close you off from a flow of such good people.

Have immigrants ever contributed anything good to the US?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

6 hours ago, T Wrecks said:

Have immigrants ever contributed anything good to the US?

Irish stew, Italian food, Chinese food, Hollywood (Jewish immigrants), Princeton University, and on, and on.

[SteveMSim 275]

6 hours ago, T Wrecks said:

Have immigrants ever contributed anything good to the US?

Alexander Graham Bell, a native Scot who is credited with inventing the telephone; Andrew Carnegie, another Scot who was a successful businessman and philanthropist; Albert Einstein, a Jew who was a native of Germany; Henry Morton Stanley, a Welsh immigrant who was an explorer of uncharted Africa in the 19th Century; Enrico Fermi, a native Italian physicist who built the world's first nuclear reactor; and so on and so on.  Collectively, immigrants helped build the United States into the most powerful nation on Earth.

[AkemiAzula 280]

And didn't the native Americans immigrate there from Russia a while back

I think any discussion on immigration in as multicultural a land as America has to be focused on existing infrastructure and the ability to cope with an influx of population.

The question to my mind is has America become overpopulated, or can/should America become more efficient with its resources and accept a higher population? Is there an ideal population? Should it be considered advantageous to Europe to accept millions of unemployed and backward males? 

Or is it all for the sake of charity? Or popular pressure? Certainly if you could wave a wand and make the refugees dissapear I suspect many would become wizards.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The real Americans were treated like dirt in the early settlement by the Europeans from whom most "Americans" today are descended.  We did the same thing, and the department of dirty tricks included the Company of Gentlemen Trading out of Hudson's Bay who traded blankets infected with small pox to them.  Up to the middle of the 20th century the motto was "The only good Indian is a dead Indian".

The initial immigrants into the now United States were a bunch of intolerant protestants who took everything they could from the native peoples and gave back nothing much.  They developed a very parochial society which is reflected by the treatment of the Irish immigrants at the time of the great potato famine.  The next time you use the phrase "paddy waggon" to refer to a police transportation van, think hard.  It is a racial slur.

In Canada over the past decade or so, we have been having a serious attack of conscience over the way the indigenous peoples have been treated, and recently the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has made dozens of recommendations, all accepted by the current government, for the amendment of the attempted genocides by the government.  The country is still spinning (slowly) from the results of finding out what some events in the Department of Indian Affairs were.

Immigrants?  Most of the population of this continent are immigrants.  If you were born here, trace your ancestry and I doubt you'll find Chief Kicking Horse in the list.  My grandfather on one side was an immigrant farmer from southern England, and on my mother's side he was the son of a Huguenot Frenchman who escaped from La Rochelle (France).  Good chance of horse thieves on both sides.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

On 9.1.2016 at 7:54 PM, LexusInfernus said:

Yes, my point was that Europe has taken in large amounts of refugees before, people from the Balkans and before that Vietnamese boat refugees, without them causing any real problems, thereby disproving the argument that Europe somehow cannot handle taking in these refugees. 

1993 Germany had about 430.000 requests for asylum, mainly from Balkan. In the years from 1953 until 1989 the total amount of asylum-seekers for this whole period was 900.000. From 1989 until 2014 it were 3,7 million.

One truth we have to face: if you look on the long term the amount of asylim-seekers in europe is growing. It is not a snap-shot we are talking about.

The refugess reaching germany last year isn't a homogenious group like the asylum seekers from Balkan. 54 % from syria, 10 % from Iraq, 9 % from Afghanistan and so on.

All different cultures. With our western view we like to say all arab, all muslim, all the same. But they have different religions, different languages.

Integration is a heavily underestimated project. It will become a serious business.

Did you hear about the things happened in Cologne on new year's eve? 640 reported offences by resident aliens, groups of men hunting women?

 

First thing we should burry is the thought that integration can be done with the snip of a finger.

 

Most of the Balkan refugees were never integrated. To my knowledge most of them left germany after some years.

Those countries germany took more than half a million refugees in 1993 from - they today refuse to take refugees themselves.

 

Integration - what does this word mean? How to give it a sense?

[Meg 368]

6 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

Integration - what does this word mean? How to give it a sense?

Integration:  to bring different parts together to form a whole or larger unit

An integrated society is not a homogeneous society.   An integrated society has people with different ethnic backgrounds, different religions, different races, etc.    When it is working well, they manage to live, work, and play together without violence.

I was amazed when I heard of "the troubles" in Ireland.  Protestants and Catholics fighting?   It sounded ridiculous.   The kids I went to school with were Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, whatever.    It didn't matter.    Yes, kids squabble but I don't recall anyone squabbling over that.

Major question about an integrated society:  what holds it together?    If the ethnic backgrounds, religions, races, etc are different, what is the common thread that holds a society together?      That is the question that integrated societies have to answer.

Here in the USA, it is the Constitution.  This is the set of rules that we agree to live by.  Yes, it can be argued that we aren't doing a very good job but the point is, that is what holds us together, that is what we signed up for.    Truth is, our system doesn't work well for people who didn't sign up for it.  (See the above discussion regarding the native population.)    We basically pushed the native population aside, set up shop, then announced how we were going to do things and then brought in people who wanted to do things that way.

Integrating Europe is a different situation.   The different countries are somewhat homogeneous within themselves.  They evolved where they are.  There is a strong sense of belonging to that land, that group, that culture.   Injecting different people into the mix isn't the same as having everyone go somewhere else, as was the case in the USA.

Europeans see their cultures differently than Americans.  Over here, people often have English-Irish-Scottish ancestry without seeing the need to split that into three separate parts but I've been told by people over there they the cultures are very different.   It reminds me of doing a jigsaw puzzle.    First, separate the blue sky pieces from the green forest pieces.   Once the rest of the puzzle is done, go back to the blue pieces.  Only then are the different shades obvious.   So the different shades of English-Irish-Scottish look obvious over there.  From here, not so much.

I do not know the solution to Europe's problems.  I do know that all of us are being told to move over and make room for other people.  That is taking many forms.   Much of the social change in the last 50 years in the US has been to tell the White Christian Heterosexual Male to move over because other people count too.   Some refer to this as a war (war on Christianity, war against white people, war against men, etc.) but it all boils down to:  you are not the only person, or only kind of person on the planet.  Other people count too.

and that is the crux of the problem:  the number of people on the planet.   It can reasonably sustain 4 billion people.   We are currently at 7 billion.   We will continue to step over each other until it all collapses somehow.

 

 

 

 

[AkemiAzula 280]

I do believe the world is overpopulated, and urban areas often are where quality submits to quantity.

I honestly couldn't say what will happen this century. Another world war? Who knows. But Cologne may well be the start of a slippery slope.

It doesn't matter if the thousands of refugees are rapists or friends of Ned Flanders, they all need resources and infrastructure.

And at this site of all we should know that too little infrastructure and resources and too many sims leads to big problems.

Meanwhile the issue that started all this is still carrying on with no end in sight to the middle eastern situation.

It wouldn't surprise me if times change fast and in matters come to a head before long.

[LexusInfernus 908]

4 hours ago, Meg said:

Integrating Europe is a different situation.   The different countries are somewhat homogeneous within themselves.  They evolved where they are.  There is a strong sense of belonging to that land, that group, that culture.   Injecting different people into the mix isn't the same as having everyone go somewhere else, as was the case in the USA.

Good point, but I don't think its entirely accurate. I mean, sure, a country like Poland is very homogenous. Like 95% is Catholic and white. Injecting new people into that mix might be a bit painful at first. But countries like France, the UK, the Netherlands, and to lesser degrees Spain, Italy and Portugal, those are all old colonial empires. Before the age of decolonization, these empire were vast territories with numerous different cultures living within them. Not that it was perfect, far from in it in fact, but to some degree these nations have a history of living together in one way or another, with other cultures within their own borders. 

Furthermore, Europe does have a history of integrating others. Germany for example took it upon itself to turn East and West Germany into one Germany again, integrating their Eastern brothers into their Western society. And they managed to do that just fine (that is not to say that there weren't any difficulties). During the Balkan Wars, Europe also took in a large amount of refugees from the Balkan, and again managed to do that just fine. Vietnamese boat refugees, again, integrated just fine. Even now, what you often see is that once refugees are settled, the protests die out, and people realize that those refugees aren't all that much of a problem. 

This is the key problem I think. Its not that we can't integrate these people, its that we don't really want to integrate these people. Because for one part, we are 'scared' of them, of how they will affect our society, and for one part because there are large political parties in Europe who exploit that fear and deliberately sabotage our efforts to integrate these people. This is also what is different with all the other times we integrated large groups of people. Back then, while some people might have complained, the overwhelming political consensus was that it was possible and necessary and we made work of integrating these people into our society. Right now, the political consensus can at best be described as 'unwilling'.