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The way "foreign migration" is done in most of Europe is to isolate those people from the domestic population, provide them with the bare minimum in social serv
by hnbad 3y ago
The way "foreign migration" is done in most of Europe is to isolate those people from the domestic population, provide them with the bare minimum in social services to keep them alive and prohibit them from working while constantly threatening to deport them at a moment's notice. At least that's how it's done for asylum seekers and refugees.
Even historically Germany called immigrant workers "guest workers" because the expectation was that after spending 20 years in the country and building up our economy they would please go back to where they came from. This left most immigrants with one of two options: either full assimilation to the point of trying to out-German the Germans in order to fly under the radar, or sticking to their own entirely, resulting in what was first affectionally called "multiculturalism" and is now breathlessly reported on as "parallel societies". The middle ground, being integrated into Germany while maintaining some of their cultural identity was never seriously accepted as a valid option. Good luck if you also had the wrong skin color or eye shape or can't fake laugh about racist jokes about yourself.
And let's not get started on France's grandstanding about the Francophonique while shooing African immigrants into lawless slums to be neither seen nor heard until they get angry enough to set cars on fire and be beaten down by police again.
Europe's problems with immigration and refugees are entirely self-made. The handling of Ukranian refugees is evidence of this: as soon as Ukranians fled the war, European countries bent over backwards to lift all the sanctions that would normally apply to foreign refugees and treat them like EU citizens. Politicians would literally argue that it'd be inhumane to put Ukranian refugees into refugee shelters. And this had nothing to do with individual qualifications or skills.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoExactly this. I'm Canadian but have German family, and the difference in mentality is astounding. Europeans remain entranced by "blood citizenship" and archaic, essentialist, ideas of citizenship based around family descent and ethnicity. E.g. I could qualify for German citizenship/passport on account of ethnic-descent (on both sides of family) but people with the wrong last names, working hard and with a lot to contribute, can have a much more difficult time (though I understand there's been reform here.) I personally think that trying to draw lines around states on ethno-linguistic boundaries is frankly how a lot of the 20th century attrocities began. They are in large part artificial. I was hoping we were headed towards a multicultural future. But unfortunately I see political and cultural trends going the other way again, including here in Canada.
- galfarragem 3y ago> Europeans remain entranced by "blood citizenship" and archaic, essentialist, ideas of citizenship based around family descent and ethnicity. Why "archaic"? Is it weird that natives should have the main word on how their countries - built by them and their elders - should be run? I was an immigrant also and I never thought that: it's an egocentric and solipsistic view point that smells like neocolonialism.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoBecause it's a fiction. Germany has never been just "German", likewise for France. They've always been a hodgepodge of ethnicities and languages and dialects, and destinations and sources for migration. It's only in the modern (17-18th century and on) that you start to get this narrowing of definition and some attempt to actually eliminate diversity within (rather arbitrary) political boundaries. ("The language of the Republic is French." aka f*ck you Breton, Occitan, Alsace, various other dialects of French, etc.) If you pan the camera out over history, it's a bit absurd. FWIW my Oma was Alsatian, German (dialect) speaking and my father was born in France at the end of the war... but is German.
- hnbad 3y agoFor anyone claiming any European country is "originally an ethnostate" I recommend zooming in a little and looking at cultural and language minorities, especially endangered languages. In many cases even people born in those countries aren't aware of all of them and would consider at least some groups "foreign" despite them having been around for hundreds of years and often only recently marginalized. This seems to be well-known in France and Spain thanks to the existence of separatist movements but the only thing people usually seem to know about Germany is that some people in neighboring countries speak German dialects because the borders changed throughout history -- and it's far weirder than that. Many of these languages go back to "travelers", which in modern continental Europe is now only associated with Roma and Sinti peoples.