7 ms·

At least in Poland, the nominal "right-wing" party (Law and Justice) does not scapegoat the non-Christian migrants - they just don't want them in our country, s

by lgieron 10y ago

At least in Poland, the nominal "right-wing" party (Law and Justice) does not scapegoat the non-Christian migrants - they just don't want them in our country, seeing how badly the attempts at integration went in many other European countries.

discordianfish 10y ago
"does not scapegoat the non-Christian migrants - they just don't want them in our country" - OH well, in that case... Any sorry for the sarcasm but "not wanting" and "leaving them to die" is a difference. Of course nobody wants to spend resources on refugees. But if someone prefers letting them die because integration is hard, then this is "right-wing".
- lgieron 10y ago
  Is not helping people starving or dying of Malaria in Africa/Asia right wing too? Both are some serious maladies affecting people very far from us, with whom we have nothing in common. As for the Syrians, they'd had to cross something like 6-7 borders before they even reach Poland. It would make just such much sense to ship them to US or Canada or Argentina. EDIT (probably a clearer way to make my point): Once the Syrians flee from the war zone to for example Turkey, their life is no longer in danger. So, them going from Turkey to Poland is not about saving lives, and cannot be posed as a moral argument.
  - discordianfish 10y ago
    I'm living in Berlin. We could probably met in person later today if we want. Yet, reading your comments make me realize how little we have in common. I'm pretty sure I'd find plenty of Syrian people I would feel more connected to. I don't think the geography has anything to do it, neither how many borders are in in between. And regarding Malaria, we should help as well. But that's imply not the point. You making it about this is typical derailing we see from all the right wing populists.
    - lgieron 10y ago
      Ultimately it's not about "feeling connected to" but about identity and interests - people are wired to preserve the interests of their group (nations) above others. Multiculturalism can work ok in rich and safe bubbles (such as some areas of Berlin), but my guess is that it will break miserably when put under a true test, such as a war. As Poland happens to share a border with an aggressive empire, it's a scenario we need take into account.
      - discordianfish 10y ago
        I can't even.. That we are discussing on this platform with people all over the world and your position is that Multiculturalism can't work. Seriously? And on a larger scale Poland move to the right is irritating a lot of Europeans. I would be worried about your EU status and how this affects you and your neighborhood.
        lgieron 10y ago
        According to studies done by Piketty, there's not a single case in the world where a backward country have opened themselves to global trade and it allowed them to rise to the first-world country status, while there are examples where it was achieved via protectionalism - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan. Knowing that, I think leaving the EU might do us good in the long term. (As for me personally, I tend to work remotely for US companies anyway, so in either case I won't be affected.) As for the cultural differences, my intuition is that this forum is not that diverse - not in fundamental ways. For example, how many people here condone religious dictatorships or sex with 9 year olds? And these are the kind of people who can settle in my multicultural neighbourhood, if I start letting them into the country.
        ThomPete 10y ago
        You are confusing two different discussions here. The refugees we talk about are hardly people who hang out on HN. Multiculturalism works when there is time to adopt new cultures into your own. Sudden influx is going to create obvious conflicts when the cultures are that different. And I say that as someone who is pro multiculturalism. But I am not ignorant to the consequences if done too fast.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - petecox 10y ago
    Argentina is no stranger to Syrians, including an infamous president - Menem.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  The recent immigration wave in EU is not really about people who would be "left to die" if they weren't taken in. They are generally not fleeing from immediate danger, and they select their target countries of migration based on perceived chances of making a living (by work or by social security) and having a community where one could live (usually one's own countrymen). The perception of where one can make a living is received from often fanciful messages in social media that are of course frequently quite wrong. On the way, they pass through countries that are safe enough for them to stay. Countries that are safe for anyone to take holiday. Millions of people from EU have holiday in Turkey and Greece each year, for instance. Migrants come through these countries. They are certainly not being killed in Turkey, for instance, but they want more than that. This doesn't mean that the migrants are bad people. They are looking for a better life, just like any of us would do. They come from many, many countries that are run badly. I can't blame them for wanting to emigrate. And the availability of Internet and improved economical resources and improved connections have made migration more feasible than ever, particularly with the European taxpayer paying the bill at the receiving end through the asylum process. But the asylum mechanism meant for protecting persecuted individuals is largely being misused in this process. The public perception of the whole thing being a scam is strengthened by well-meaning but unwise poses and statements of politicians that later make them look ridiculous. For example, thousands of people from Iraq came to my country last autumn. We were told that they were here because otherwise they would be killed. They complained about the food served to them and they complained that they were given too little money by the government. Now a significant portion of them has decided to go back to Iraq. Obviously, they weren't about to be killed back then, nor are they now voluntarily returning to their deaths. They just found that climate is not nice, and there are no jobs for untrained people. So the taxpayer hands out money for them to fly back. That's what I call ineffective, and this kind of things gets voters mad. Calling these voters "right wing" or "Nazis" is not going to help. They well merely think: "I'm a reasonable person and they call me right wing; I guess the right wing is reasonable people then".
  - discordianfish 10y ago
    > For example, thousands of people from Iraq came to my country last autumn. ... > They complained about the food served to them and they complained that they were given too little money by the government. > Now a significant portion of them has decided to go back to Iraq. Obviously, they weren't about to be killed back then, nor are they now voluntarily returning to their deaths. > They just found that climate is not nice, and there are no jobs for untrained people. So the taxpayer hands out money for them to fly back. You have any sources for that? I'm trying to imaging someone fleeing by risking their lives and paying with all their savings and then return because they didn't like the weather. This sounds like right wing propaganda to me. And whether people consider themself as reasonable or not doesn't matter. It matters whether they are.
realityking 10y ago
To me this is hypocritical. - In WW2 polish were often refugees themselves. Something apparently now forgotten. Quick googling suggests that thousands of Polish people ended up in non-Christian countries like Iran (22,000) and India (10,000). - Poland and other eastern Europe are some of the biggest Schengen beneficiaries, that a common asylum system is part of that contract is often ignored. - In the Breit debate Poland is accusing the UK of scapegoating migrants while at home they're anti-immigrant themselves. - Eastern Europe wants military help to defend against a possible Russian threat but ignores how countries like Greece are completely overwhelmed with this crisis. In the end, the impression one gets is that Poland only wants European solidarity when it benefits them. As soon as it might get expensive for them, they much rather stay out of it. I look forward to the arguments, when the EU goes forwards with linking some of its subsidies to the number of refugees taken in.
- lgieron 10y ago
  In WW2, polish armed forces were an active participant fighting for the Allies, so the preservation of some of the polish civilians in Ally-controled territories was not a humanitarian help, but merely a part of the bargain. Not sure about Poland being Schengen beneficiaries (how to even compute that)? As for Poland profitting from the EU in general, I think it's hard to compute - we are receiving large handouts in exchange for completely opening our markets to western capital - which have crushed 99% of polish businesses, which won't probably ever reach the first-world standards (i.e., due to open market policies, we probably won't ever have something like polish Intel or Toyota,). It's a great deal for western capitalists (their multinational corps get to conquer yet another market), much less so for people of either western countries (whose taxes pay for the handouts) or Poland. I don't know about Poland accusing the UK of scapegoating migrants, do you have any sources? The Greece is overwhelmed due to EU's total ineptness in protecting its borders combined with the stupidity (maliciousness?) of EU's leaders, (see Merkel's Willkommenskultur). I agree that we (Poland) are partially responsible for the immigration crisis, in that we didn't call for stronger border defense for EU when the alarming signals started coming (years ago) - but there are countries in EU which are either much more influential than us or much closer to the problem, and they did nothing either. One last point - the current instability in Syria is rooted in colonial exploitation of the whole region by England and France. Unlike them, Poland never messed those people up, why should we clean up the fallout?
Freebo 10y ago
Yeah sure. They went so badly that Polish people flock them
Xylakant 10y ago
The primary issue of why integration attempts went badly is that there were practically none. Take the german example: In the beginning, people from turkey were accepted as Gastarbeiter with the expectation they'd return to turkey within a year or two. It took more than 20 years until the realization dawned that people that came to germany to work started building a life won't just pull up their roots again and return without a trace. That's how we ended up with the largely exclusively turkish chunks of Berlin. Similar things happened in France with the people from the old french colonies in the Maghreb: Push them off to the banlieue and best forget about them. Belgium the same - Molenbeck, afaik the Netherlands did fare no better. Not a shred of an active attempt at integration for decades. It's not a surprise this failed. However, if you look at the demographics in europe we either need to get better at integrating people from other countries and cultures or we need to get more babies - because there are no other options (barring any sudden development on the AI/Android front). I doubt forcing women to get more children is a viable option. Banning all abortions as Poland tries to is not going to help. This problem may not be as obvious in Poland as it's in Germany, but they're already suffering from brain drain - the young and educated move away from eastern Poland. Things will only get worse - so it's not a question of want or not want. We - as in all of us europeans - will have to deal with immigrants one way or another. And we can do it as unprepared as germany was in the 60ies/70ies or we can learn from that debacle and try to improve on that.
- lgieron 10y ago
  The studies show that second generation of migrant (from Asia and Africa) women don't have that many more children than Europe's natives (contrary to what the populist anti-migrant propaganda is pushing) - in most countries the difference was on the order of 0.3 - 0.5 children per woman if I remember correctly. Poland tries to address the fertility issue in a different way - we're letting in lots of Ukrainian migrants (currently there's 500k of them working legally in Poland, with probably another 500k working illegally). They are a much better match, as their language, culture, values and even parts of history are close to ours.
- jules 10y ago
  The part about no support isn't really true, at least in the Netherlands. There has been an endless stream of government programs, and billions upon billions of euros invested, which unfortunately had only a small effect. So I have little hope that the current immigration will go significantly better. I don't know if there's a magic trick, but if there is we certainly haven't yet figured out how to perform it. Even in cases that seem very successful the results aren't as good as you'd hope. The mayor of the second biggest city in the Netherlands is Moroccan, and he has said that he will not allow his daughter to marry a native dutch man. The theory that it's all about not enough support doesn't explain the fact that there are lots of successful groups of immigrants, like the Chinese. They have high employment rates and low crime rates. Therefore I don't really like the talk about the failure of multiculturalism.

by lgieron 10y ago

discordianfish 10y ago

"does not scapegoat the non-Christian migrants - they just don't want them in our country" - OH well, in that case... Any sorry for the sarcasm but "not wanting" and "leaving them to die" is a difference. Of course nobody wants to spend resources on refugees. But if someone prefers letting them die because integration is hard, then this is "right-wing".

lgieron 10y ago
Is not helping people starving or dying of Malaria in Africa/Asia right wing too? Both are some serious maladies affecting people very far from us, with whom we have nothing in common. As for the Syrians, they'd had to cross something like 6-7 borders before they even reach Poland. It would make just such much sense to ship them to US or Canada or Argentina. EDIT (probably a clearer way to make my point): Once the Syrians flee from the war zone to for example Turkey, their life is no longer in danger. So, them going from Turkey to Poland is not about saving lives, and cannot be posed as a moral argument.
- discordianfish 10y ago
  I'm living in Berlin. We could probably met in person later today if we want. Yet, reading your comments make me realize how little we have in common. I'm pretty sure I'd find plenty of Syrian people I would feel more connected to. I don't think the geography has anything to do it, neither how many borders are in in between. And regarding Malaria, we should help as well. But that's imply not the point. You making it about this is typical derailing we see from all the right wing populists.
  - lgieron 10y ago
    Ultimately it's not about "feeling connected to" but about identity and interests - people are wired to preserve the interests of their group (nations) above others. Multiculturalism can work ok in rich and safe bubbles (such as some areas of Berlin), but my guess is that it will break miserably when put under a true test, such as a war. As Poland happens to share a border with an aggressive empire, it's a scenario we need take into account.
    - discordianfish 10y ago
      I can't even.. That we are discussing on this platform with people all over the world and your position is that Multiculturalism can't work. Seriously? And on a larger scale Poland move to the right is irritating a lot of Europeans. I would be worried about your EU status and how this affects you and your neighborhood.
      - lgieron 10y ago
        According to studies done by Piketty, there's not a single case in the world where a backward country have opened themselves to global trade and it allowed them to rise to the first-world country status, while there are examples where it was achieved via protectionalism - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan. Knowing that, I think leaving the EU might do us good in the long term. (As for me personally, I tend to work remotely for US companies anyway, so in either case I won't be affected.) As for the cultural differences, my intuition is that this forum is not that diverse - not in fundamental ways. For example, how many people here condone religious dictatorships or sex with 9 year olds? And these are the kind of people who can settle in my multicultural neighbourhood, if I start letting them into the country.
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        You are confusing two different discussions here. The refugees we talk about are hardly people who hang out on HN. Multiculturalism works when there is time to adopt new cultures into your own. Sudden influx is going to create obvious conflicts when the cultures are that different. And I say that as someone who is pro multiculturalism. But I am not ignorant to the consequences if done too fast.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- petecox 10y ago
  Argentina is no stranger to Syrians, including an infamous president - Menem.
ptaipale 10y ago
The recent immigration wave in EU is not really about people who would be "left to die" if they weren't taken in. They are generally not fleeing from immediate danger, and they select their target countries of migration based on perceived chances of making a living (by work or by social security) and having a community where one could live (usually one's own countrymen). The perception of where one can make a living is received from often fanciful messages in social media that are of course frequently quite wrong. On the way, they pass through countries that are safe enough for them to stay. Countries that are safe for anyone to take holiday. Millions of people from EU have holiday in Turkey and Greece each year, for instance. Migrants come through these countries. They are certainly not being killed in Turkey, for instance, but they want more than that. This doesn't mean that the migrants are bad people. They are looking for a better life, just like any of us would do. They come from many, many countries that are run badly. I can't blame them for wanting to emigrate. And the availability of Internet and improved economical resources and improved connections have made migration more feasible than ever, particularly with the European taxpayer paying the bill at the receiving end through the asylum process. But the asylum mechanism meant for protecting persecuted individuals is largely being misused in this process. The public perception of the whole thing being a scam is strengthened by well-meaning but unwise poses and statements of politicians that later make them look ridiculous. For example, thousands of people from Iraq came to my country last autumn. We were told that they were here because otherwise they would be killed. They complained about the food served to them and they complained that they were given too little money by the government. Now a significant portion of them has decided to go back to Iraq. Obviously, they weren't about to be killed back then, nor are they now voluntarily returning to their deaths. They just found that climate is not nice, and there are no jobs for untrained people. So the taxpayer hands out money for them to fly back. That's what I call ineffective, and this kind of things gets voters mad. Calling these voters "right wing" or "Nazis" is not going to help. They well merely think: "I'm a reasonable person and they call me right wing; I guess the right wing is reasonable people then".
- discordianfish 10y ago
  > For example, thousands of people from Iraq came to my country last autumn. ... > They complained about the food served to them and they complained that they were given too little money by the government. > Now a significant portion of them has decided to go back to Iraq. Obviously, they weren't about to be killed back then, nor are they now voluntarily returning to their deaths. > They just found that climate is not nice, and there are no jobs for untrained people. So the taxpayer hands out money for them to fly back. You have any sources for that? I'm trying to imaging someone fleeing by risking their lives and paying with all their savings and then return because they didn't like the weather. This sounds like right wing propaganda to me. And whether people consider themself as reasonable or not doesn't matter. It matters whether they are.

realityking 10y ago

To me this is hypocritical. - In WW2 polish were often refugees themselves. Something apparently now forgotten. Quick googling suggests that thousands of Polish people ended up in non-Christian countries like Iran (22,000) and India (10,000). - Poland and other eastern Europe are some of the biggest Schengen beneficiaries, that a common asylum system is part of that contract is often ignored. - In the Breit debate Poland is accusing the UK of scapegoating migrants while at home they're anti-immigrant themselves. - Eastern Europe wants military help to defend against a possible Russian threat but ignores how countries like Greece are completely overwhelmed with this crisis. In the end, the impression one gets is that Poland only wants European solidarity when it benefits them. As soon as it might get expensive for them, they much rather stay out of it. I look forward to the arguments, when the EU goes forwards with linking some of its subsidies to the number of refugees taken in.

lgieron 10y ago
In WW2, polish armed forces were an active participant fighting for the Allies, so the preservation of some of the polish civilians in Ally-controled territories was not a humanitarian help, but merely a part of the bargain. Not sure about Poland being Schengen beneficiaries (how to even compute that)? As for Poland profitting from the EU in general, I think it's hard to compute - we are receiving large handouts in exchange for completely opening our markets to western capital - which have crushed 99% of polish businesses, which won't probably ever reach the first-world standards (i.e., due to open market policies, we probably won't ever have something like polish Intel or Toyota,). It's a great deal for western capitalists (their multinational corps get to conquer yet another market), much less so for people of either western countries (whose taxes pay for the handouts) or Poland. I don't know about Poland accusing the UK of scapegoating migrants, do you have any sources? The Greece is overwhelmed due to EU's total ineptness in protecting its borders combined with the stupidity (maliciousness?) of EU's leaders, (see Merkel's Willkommenskultur). I agree that we (Poland) are partially responsible for the immigration crisis, in that we didn't call for stronger border defense for EU when the alarming signals started coming (years ago) - but there are countries in EU which are either much more influential than us or much closer to the problem, and they did nothing either. One last point - the current instability in Syria is rooted in colonial exploitation of the whole region by England and France. Unlike them, Poland never messed those people up, why should we clean up the fallout?

Freebo 10y ago

Yeah sure. They went so badly that Polish people flock them

Xylakant 10y ago

The primary issue of why integration attempts went badly is that there were practically none. Take the german example: In the beginning, people from turkey were accepted as Gastarbeiter with the expectation they'd return to turkey within a year or two. It took more than 20 years until the realization dawned that people that came to germany to work started building a life won't just pull up their roots again and return without a trace. That's how we ended up with the largely exclusively turkish chunks of Berlin. Similar things happened in France with the people from the old french colonies in the Maghreb: Push them off to the banlieue and best forget about them. Belgium the same - Molenbeck, afaik the Netherlands did fare no better. Not a shred of an active attempt at integration for decades. It's not a surprise this failed. However, if you look at the demographics in europe we either need to get better at integrating people from other countries and cultures or we need to get more babies - because there are no other options (barring any sudden development on the AI/Android front). I doubt forcing women to get more children is a viable option. Banning all abortions as Poland tries to is not going to help. This problem may not be as obvious in Poland as it's in Germany, but they're already suffering from brain drain - the young and educated move away from eastern Poland. Things will only get worse - so it's not a question of want or not want. We - as in all of us europeans - will have to deal with immigrants one way or another. And we can do it as unprepared as germany was in the 60ies/70ies or we can learn from that debacle and try to improve on that.

lgieron 10y ago
The studies show that second generation of migrant (from Asia and Africa) women don't have that many more children than Europe's natives (contrary to what the populist anti-migrant propaganda is pushing) - in most countries the difference was on the order of 0.3 - 0.5 children per woman if I remember correctly. Poland tries to address the fertility issue in a different way - we're letting in lots of Ukrainian migrants (currently there's 500k of them working legally in Poland, with probably another 500k working illegally). They are a much better match, as their language, culture, values and even parts of history are close to ours.
jules 10y ago
The part about no support isn't really true, at least in the Netherlands. There has been an endless stream of government programs, and billions upon billions of euros invested, which unfortunately had only a small effect. So I have little hope that the current immigration will go significantly better. I don't know if there's a magic trick, but if there is we certainly haven't yet figured out how to perform it. Even in cases that seem very successful the results aren't as good as you'd hope. The mayor of the second biggest city in the Netherlands is Moroccan, and he has said that he will not allow his daughter to marry a native dutch man. The theory that it's all about not enough support doesn't explain the fact that there are lots of successful groups of immigrants, like the Chinese. They have high employment rates and low crime rates. Therefore I don't really like the talk about the failure of multiculturalism.