European Politics

Re: European Union

Canada for instance. A classical immigration country. It's very roots are based on immigration. If a Canadian doesn't have British or French roots, chances are they are Ukrainian, German, Russian, Italian, Scandinavian or Chinese.
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And Dutch! In the 1950s 560,000 people migrated to the United States, South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, leaving their war-torn and overpopulated home country behind.

However, all these kids were fluent in English by their third year (that's how I learned English after all!). How come sixth-graders in Germany can't speak proper German yet?
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English is a more easy language than German. ;)

Sorry that my answer is so short, but I can't put my thoughts well under words, now. I keep thinking that Canada's history is entirely different, thus not good to compare its identity with the German or the Dutch.

By the way, personally I don't think Holland has an identity and I don't mind. Maybe we have something with water, and I am proud that we can teach other countries about this aspect, but I have erased the picture of Holland being such a tolerant society. On September 11th, Wilders will deliver a speech on Ground Zero, and I am not looking forward to this presentation.

I think you are driving at stricter rules for immigration. I wish we could compare the Canadian, Dutch and German rules without being hours on internet to look it up. ;)
 
Re: European Union

Forostar said:
And Dutch! In the 1950s 560,000 people migrated to the United States, South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, leaving their war-torn and overpopulated home country behind.
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OK, I'm only familiar with pre-war immigration to Canada. Whatever, the point remains the same. ;)


You see Foro, we're both on the same side. We want our countries to be open, democratic and welcoming. We want peaceful societies that are fit for the future. The thing is, we live in countries that are quite different from each other, and therefore I believe the methods of achieving this goal must necessarily be different. In the current state Germany is in, the only way to be heard and to spark discussions is by using rude polemics. It's a sad situation, but it's how it is. Germany is a politically incorrect country, and therefore you can't pinpoint real problems by being politically correct. The thing is, Sarrazin himself is not offering solutions, he is naming issues- issues that other people chicken out on. I suppose that is what differs him from Wilders.
 
Re: European Union

Perun said:
The thing is, we live in countries that are quite different from each other
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Maybe not so different as you think. There are countless parallels.
 
Re: European Union

Perun stole my example. Germany needs immigration, but if you look at the model they've chosen compared to Canada's, it's an open door for anyone. That's not going to be healthy immigration, and Germany has this little thing about teaching people to be German. If you're going to allow immigration successfully, you can't be shy with teaching your children - and your immigrant children - to be German.

I think national language laws are important. No offense to the USA, which has this discussion from time to time, but in Canada, the national languages are French and English. You need to know some of one of those languages to get along. Don't know it? The government will help you learn it. Not all immigrants will learn it, but enough will to make their diaspora able to interact.

The bit about immigrants keeping their girls out of school scares me. Some Muslim immigrants tried that in Toronto; once the authorities got wind of it, the police started showing up every day and fining the parents. It is important to get every child into school, because that is where immigrants learn to be Canadian. I don't know how you'd do that in Germany. It's a different country, but if the problems are so big...then you have to talk about making a few changes.
 
Re: European Union

LooseCannon said:
I think national language laws are important. No offense to the USA, which has this discussion from time to time, but in Canada, the national languages are French and English. You need to know some of one of those languages to get along. Don't know it? The government will help you learn it. Not all immigrants will learn it, but enough will to make their diaspora able to interact.
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We have this too.
 
Re: European Union

Yes, and I think the point is that for some reason Germans don't want to teach people how to be German. Which means that they are having a hard time incorporating these ethnic diasporas, a problem Canada hardly has.
 
Re: European Union

Are double passports allowed in Canada and Germany? In other words, can immigrants keep a part of their own "identity" as well, as soon as they take Canadian or German nationality?
 
Re: European Union

LooseCannon said:
Yes, and I think the point is that for some reason Germans don't want to teach people how to be German.
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For some reason, yeah. That's how messed up this fucking country really is.


Yes, there are double passports here.
 
Re: European Union

Yeah, usually when I say "for some reason" about Germany, I'm referring to something the Nazi Party did.
 
Re: European Union

If that is also allowed in Canada, then I find it less strict as I thought. I don't mind the double passport issue, I actually am married to someone who has this. And I understand the affections with both countries. ;)

Wilders (and probably Sarrazin) wants to force people to choose. Or else the person involved isn't loyal enough.
 
Re: European Union

Reading the immigration situation in Germany was a bit surprising to me.  I've been told that Germany has stricter immigration.  Guess not.  In the 80s, I clearly remember many Croatians working in Germany for a year or so and then coming back to their families.  The thing that was always stressed to us is simply, that Germans will take anyone in to work, but it is hard to find permanent residence there.  Maybe the Croatian workers misunderstood, exaggerated, or the laws have changed since the 80s.  Also I work with a muslim who was taken as a refugee by Germans, but couldn't stay there.  Canada accepted him as a citizen.  This was during the mid 90s when Bosnia was a war zone.  One of the common sayings we have here, at least in the province of Ontario, is that Canada will take anyone as a citizen.  

Recently, there has been some stir in newspaper articles about acceptance of Tamil refugees, and how some of them have ties to terrorism.  Different perceptions, really.  Sorry, I don't mean to hijack this thread and make it about Canadian immigration.  Just thought I add that, a lot of impressions are based on word-of-mouth and heresy.  It is tough for anyone to discover if an immigrant has a peaceful or a violent past.  

To go back to the German immigration issue, I wonder if the welfare system offers many immigrants an incentive not to try to integrate by learning German, learning about their neighbours, seeking work, etc.
 
Re: European Union

Genghis Khan said:
Reading the immigration situation in Germany was a bit surprising to me.  I've been told that Germany has stricter immigration.  Guess not.  In the 80s, I clearly remember many Croatians working in Germany for a year or so and then coming back to their families.  The thing that was always stressed to us is simply, that Germans will take anyone in to work, but it is hard to find permanent residence there.
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That was what the original idea was. Until reunification, Turkish, Yugoslav, Italian, Portuguese etc. nationals were brought into the country as guest workers to make up for the lack of native workforce. Naturally, that situation changed with reunification, but it turned out that most of the immigrant workers had no intent on returning to their home countries, mostly because they also brought their families at some point. This mostly applies for people from poorer countries like Turkey - who are incidentally not European, and Muslim, hence pose an extra challenge to integrate to society. Add to that however a massive number of refugees, in many cases from the Balkan wars, Kurds from Turkey, Lebanese, Syrians etc. etc. whom you can't just expel like that, and who also have no intention of becoming German. How do you deal with that? It actually is fairly difficult to become a naturalised German citizen (which also includes those with two passports), but this obviously does not apply for political refugees, whom you can't send back.

Genghis Khan said:
To go back to the German immigration issue, I wonder if the welfare system offers many immigrants an incentive not to try to integrate by learning German, learning about their neighbours, seeking work, etc.
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No, the welfare system is not the major problem here. Most immigrants actually do have jobs and income. However, these are often in businesses run by immigrants for immigrants, usually of the same nationality, so there is no social need for "Germanisation" (a bad word, I know). It is also often the case that immigrants are from poor rural areas, and miss their homes, feel de-rooted and so on, so they withdraw to conservative values and traditionalism. They often transfer the impression that they don't want to be here, but had no other choice. And they pass these values and traditions to their children. There are many reports of Turkish tourists coming to Germany from modern towns like Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir and so on, who are shocked by the backwardness and traditionalism their compatriots in this country exhibit. What is considered normal and Turkish here (and therefore defended by the pc people) is considered primitive by people in Turkey.

Now please note that I do not mean to generalise. There are many "integrated immigrants", who take pride in their heritage and yet are members of the society. More and more immigrants, mostly of Turkish but also of Arab, Iranian and other origin are taking offices in major political parties (the forerunner as always being the Green party, whose chairman is a Turk) for instance, there are many young people from immigrant families who speak flawless German and generally, only their looks and names point to non-German origin. Both realities exist.
 
Re: European Union

That's been done. It sucked. Big time.
 
Re: European Union

It's true. One only needed to look at the Wehrmacht's parts list in 1943 to realize they added their assimilated countries technological distinctiveness to their own.

(Consider the Panzer 38(t), the Char B1 bis, and the T-34, which was almost copied wholescale by the Germans.)
 
Re: European Union

Thilo Sarrazin apologized for some things he said, already.

I doubt if it will help much, though. Look at some of these quotes (a few are very funny though!):

"Berlin is burdened by two things: the 1968 generation and West Berlin slovenliness."
(On problems facing Berlin)

"The Turks are taking over Germany exactly as the Kosovars took over Kosovo: via a higher birth rate. I wouldn't mind if it were Jews from Eastern Europe with a 15 percent higher IQ than the German population."
(On birthrates in Germany)

"A large number of Arabs and Turks in (Berlin) ... have no productive function other than in the fruit and vegetable trade."
(On immigrants)

"I don't have to respect anybody who lives off welfare but rejects the state, doesn't do enough for his children's education and constantly produces little girls in headscarves."
(On immigrants)

"The lower the class, the higher the birth rates."
(On birth rates)

"Hartz IV recipients today receive more than a good butcher's salary of old."
(On welfare benefits paid out by the German state, a program known as Hartz IV)

"We are, on average, becoming dumber in a natural way."
(On the alleged danger to Germany of a decline in education caused by immigration from Turkey, the Middle East and Africa)

"I don't want the country of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be largely Muslim, or that Turkish or Arabic will be spoken in large areas, that women will wear headscarves and the daily rhythm is set by the call of the muezzin. If I want to experience that, I can just take a vacation in the Orient."
(On immigration in Germany)

"All Jews share a certain gene, all Basques have certain genes that make them different from other people."
(On cultural identity)

"Before someone just sits there on the 20th floor and watches television all day, I am almost relieved if he does a bit of under-the-table work."
(On tax evasion)

"If you take a look a closer look, it becomes apparent that weight loss is the smallest problem facing welfare recipients."
(On a study that shows that an increasing number of children arrive at school hungry)

"The civil servants are pale and foul-smelling because of the amount of work they have to do."
(On civil servants in Berlin)

"Nowhere does one see so many people shuffling around in public wearing track suits."
(On Berlin style)

"People are acting as if the Berlin government is planning to send children into concentration camps."
(During a 2002 debate in Berlin over higher daycare fees)

"Welfare recipients who have the strength for volunteer work should perhaps find the strength to look for a job and exert themselves there first."
(On payments to welfare recipients who do volunteer work)

"You are all assholes."
(On students who occupied his office in November 2003)

"No one needs an Opel. The car enthusiasts among you will surely confirm that."
(On German government efforts to save the carmaker from bankruptcy)

"The unemployed are at home more, they like it warm and thirdly many of them regulate the temperatures by opening and shutting their windows."
(On the energy consumption of German welfare recipients)
 
Re: European Union

@ Perun

So I'll summarize your posts.  Of the type of immigrant that does not integrate, the problem is neither that of welfare, gainful employment, or opportunities but a case of disinterest in their newly adopted country.  Adopted is probably not even the right word here.  I find this strange.  Most likely these type of immigrants have a mind-set that if they can successfully live in Berlin and other major cities, trade, work, co-operate among their own ethnic groups, they see no reason to have closer integration with ethnic Germans.  Due to a healthy economy, it seems that Germans are at a crossroads and need to figure out where to go from here. 

To compare this to Canada, there is a city (Brampton, if that means anything to anyone) not far from Toronto that has many non-European immigrants.  Most are integrated, from what I understand.  Though once in a while, one reads a case of a woman or an older person who has no contact with the outside world except for trips to the supermarket.  We have this situation here, though it appears that it is more prevalent in Germany.

@ Forostar

Some of those quotes are very stand-offish and beligerent, like Perun noted above.  I think I'll do more research on this Thilo Sarrazin.
 
Re: European Union

So the problem lies in what the nation wants for its society, heterogeneous vs homogeneous, right?  I find it interesting that the USA is called a heterogeneous society.  I think that on a national level that is pretty true.  However, its a country filled with homogeneous societies inside of it.  Many of the more urban areas are 'integrated', but it seems you still find the different societies inside of that urban sprawl, areas that English isn't spoken. 

It sounds like Germany is full of smaller societies, and the government is trying (or needs to try) to make rules about school, language, etc, yes?  Sounds like a multi-tier problem, not only trying to integrate the immigrants into whatever form the German nation chooses, but to work out welfare reform.  I'm always frustrated by people that aren't citizens of my country that use the welfare system.  I approve of welfare (I've said before), but I really get annoyed with it being over used, abused, and transgenerational. 

It sounds like this guy is really aggressive, and will spark tons of anger.  I don't necessarily approve of some of the things he has said, but I often think that someone needs to light a fire to change, otherwise its too easy to just let things spiral downward. 
 
Re: European Union

Wasted CLV said:
I'm always frustrated by people that aren't citizens of my country that use the welfare system.  I approve of welfare (I've said before), but I really get annoyed with it being over used, abused, and transgenerational. 
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Oh, don't get me started on Finnish welfare.  My friend gets 25 euros per day (except not on week-ends) because he's "unemployed".  In reality, he has a part-time job, hasn't really tried to get a better job, and lives with his parents, so he has no real expenses to speak of.  He's just waiting for his public service (the alternative to the mandatory military service) to start in December.  He makes more money than I will when I get a part-time job (in addition to studying), just by sitting at home, and he also has a part-time job with a relatively good salary.  It's more profitable in this country to be unemployed than employed with a small salary; how does that encourage people to do anything?  In addition, certain valuable jobs are criminally underpaid, for example nurses, and then politicians wonder why there's a shortage of people to do these jobs.
 
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