Back Seat Drivers
" petit bourgeois Christian Europe"
What are you, a Marxist? Is it the 1930's?
There are exactly seven "petit bourgeois" praticing Christians in Europe, these days.
The reaction against islam in Holland is secular, unless libertine homosexuals, and atheistic movie directors, are to be considered bourgeois and Christian.
The past is not prologue. Islam could well be a demographic threat to Europe.
My tongue was halfway in my cheek, but I was alluding to the culturally Christian middle class that, lets face it, has historically supported fascism in Europe. And I have no truck with Islamism either, but this 'demographic threat' nonsense is totally alarmist. France's Muslim population is about 5 percent of the total. It's easy to make 5 percent feel at home. You can start by letting them wear whatever the hell they want. (I don't wear a yarmulke, but the next time I'm in a French public building I will.)
I think that your summary of the racist rhetoric applied to Muslims in Europe is spot on, Jon!
This nonsense about the demographic threat posed by Muslims is beginnig to get on my marginally petit bourgeois nerves and is about time it was called by its proper name: racist claptrap. As you rightly point out the 'fertility-rate alarmist' presumes that Muslims are some uniform entity incapable of change (i.e. secularization, liberalization, assimilation, you name it), a dehumanizing rhetoric that has a long and stinking pedigree in Europe.
Yeah, those papist catholics have overrun europe too, what with their hardline clerics telling them to go forth and procreate, and warning against religious intermarriage. That's why we're currently facing the demographic threat of that particular implacible and alien cultural ideology� Oh, wait�
I'm glad we can agree on some fronts Jon. Always good to have your preconceptions confounded.
eh, not my email/website
I question the automatic equating of "right-wing" with fascism.
Fascism was a comphrensive totalitarian ideology that to a significant degree incorporated socialist principles. Mussolini was a former leader of the Italian Socialist Party. He split from the Socialist Party primarily on the issue of Italian participation in WW1, which he advocated. The Fascist ideology that he later adopted was an evolutionary product of his socialist faith rather than a repudiation of it. The addition of Nationalism and maintenance of a tightly controlled place for private ownership of business as central elements were intended to extend the appeal of Fascism to the middle classes.
No doubt that many European right wing groups espouse repellent ideas and policies. However few of them, if any, have any coherent ideology and the majority seem to be driven by single issues. Whatever they are, they are not fascists. Certainly, Mussolini would not recognize them as such.
Michael,
Fair enough. What would you suggest as an alternative appellation?
Anti-immigration extremists I think would be more accurate.
Unfortunately, reasoned debate on immigration issues appears to be impossible. There appears to be no permissible middle ground between either extreme.
In the absence of a middle ground for reasoned arguement and discussion and the cowardice of politicians in failing to take leadership and creating a middle ground, the fact that there are real issues to be resolved drives many into extremist groups and causes advocates of reasonable restrictions to be labelled unfairly as extremists and inaccurately as nazis or fascists.
Possibly your 'middle ground' is an entirely subjective one Michael? Where do you suggest it lies?
It's somewhat comforting to know that Europeans have the same displeasure for Muslim immigrants that Americans have for Latin American immigrants. The arguments on both sides of the Atlantic seem to be the same, i.e., infiltration of the culture, etc. Americans were making the same arguments about European immigrants in the 19th century.
Seems to me the best way to stop mass emigration from a region is to make that region a decent place to live. Very few Europeans emigrate to the US anymore because Europe is one of the most economically viable regions in the world.
The New York Times just had an article about the number of Africans arriving in the US now outnumbering the amount that were arriving during the slave trade.
If your homeland is a good place to live, no reason to relocate to the US and Europe, right?
Al,
I'd suggest that advocating immigration policies similar to Canada, US, Australia and perhaps New Zealand would be a good middle ground. These countries have had reasonable success in integrating immigrants.
Where do you think it lies?
Seems to me the best way to stop mass emigration from a region is to make that region a decent place to live
Aren't you in danger of making an a.s.s. out of u. and m.e.? One of the problems with discussing immigration is that opponents and (some) proponents of liberal immigration seem to share the view that it is A Bad Thing per se. Little is said about the positive benefits of immigration for a) the "host" country, b) the immigrants and c) the "donor" country. All benefit under liberal immigration:
a) The very reason immigrants immigrate is that there are jobs in the host country for them to do.
b) Immigrants get to earn a living for themselves and their families commensurate with their skills and ambition instead of remaining mired in poverty.
c) Donor countries benefit too i) remittance from immigrants is about the most beneficial form of "foreign aid" as it is targetted to individuals rather than filtered through a kleptocratic or incompetent regime and ii) the very reason immigrants leave is that there are low or zero job prospects, this suggests a labour glut (one example: universities churn out a fixed number of graduates in various fields regardless of demand). Anything which reduces that glut increases the job/salary prospects for those who remain.
If you are going to whinge, as many do, about the "costs" of immigration it is meaningless if you ignore the benefits. I suggest that those "costs" are utterly swamped by the benefits.
"Where do you think it lies?"
No idea to be honest. My own view is that Ireland is well able to cope with greater numbers of immigrants than it currently does, and that we should have an honest immigration facility in order to offer a reasonable option to false asylum claims. The US allows for nationalisation by birth, which I personally voted against, since the 'back-door to other EU states' meant we were de-facto legislating for other citizenships without their representation.
I'm an ex-emigrant, and don't see immigrants to here in any different light to myself 15 years ago. The scaremongering about Islamic expansion and alien cultures is simple racism and insularity. Opposition to an extended immigration facility into this state seems to be linked closely to that manner of scaremongering.
And I've been an emigrant too. And a migrant, and have worked in a number of countries on work permits restricted to the sponsoring employer.
Several European countries are experiencing significant cultural resistance by Muslim immigrants to integration and assimilation. To simply dismiss these concerns as scaremongering is to turn aside from reality. These issues can be sorted out (Denmark has taken steps in this regard) but not if people deny they exist.
For a description of how arranged marriages are used to prevent integration see:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/06...09s01-
coop.html
"There are, naturally, no statistics on forced marriages in Norway. But HRS's figures for henteekteskap, or "fetching marriages" - in which one spouse is "fetched" from the other's ancestral country - are startling. Between 1996 and 2001, 82 percent of Norwegian daughters of Moroccan immigrants who got married, married Moroccan citizens. For Norwegian daughters of Pakistani immigrants, the corresponding rate was 76 percent.
Indeed, among immigrant groups from Muslim countries, the prevalence in Norway of "fetching marriages" actually increased between 1996 and 2001.
The trend, in short, is toward increased segregation, not increased integration."
Integration isn't the be-all and end-all of immigration. Distinct and separate religious and cultural minority communities exist in many countries. No-one has much problem with Amish, or Hassidic, or Chinese, or Sikh communities in various countries, and yet they are all to a greater or lesser degree distinct and separate within the broader culture.
You don't seem to differentiate between arranged and forced marriages either.
Plus, integration is really an issue for "post-immigration" policy rather than immigration policy itself. That is, the problems that exist in France, for example, are to do with the policies of marginalisation not only of immigrants themselves but also of natives descended from immigrants.
" And I have no truck with Islamism either, but this 'demographic threat' nonsense is totally alarmist. France's Muslim population is about 5 percent of the total. It's easy to make 5 percent feel at home. You can start by letting them wear whatever the hell they want. (I don't wear a yarmulke, but the next time I'm in a French public building I will.)"
That's quite disengenuous Jon, since I mentioned Holland, and not France - which does not in fact consider itself multi-cultural: but culturally French ( shockingly enough).
Holland on the other hand will let you wear what ya want, unless it's overtly Christian, and follows the dictates of multi-culturalism to the letter - allowing faith schools and so on. Not unsurprisngly this has not worked, and the Muslim groupings in Holland are not in fact assimilating as well as France, despite the liberalness of their hosts. Quite the oppositie, So give me the sane French assimilationist policies anyday.
How bad is bad? Well Holland is basically a mini Belfast, or worse. The two tribes are now in a low scale tribal war with outbreaks of sporadic violance. Two significant Dutch politicans need to sleep in safe houses, or prisons, both in danger of their lifes for criticising Islam.
As for the demographic "hysteria". Well it is all extrapolation, of course, but Islam will be the majority in many West European countries, within a century, if present trends continue - and much faster in countries like Holland.
You really have some hardcore nonsense to peddle there eoin, don't you?
The muslim population of Holland is 6%. I'd like to see how you extrapolate that to over 50% within 100 years. From my purely personal and non-scientific level, Holland is less encumbered with social division and extremism than France, but then you don't seem to have that great a grasp on what Belfast is like either, so why should I be surprised?
I am quite pessimistic because on mainland Europe they are dealing with the fall-out of the standard European model for immigration as it developed in the 50's which I believe was seriously flawed.
It was all about getting cheap labour (gastarbeiters)in for a few years after which it was intended they should just feck off back to where they came from. Despite self-laudatory Euro claims of tolerance and respect for other cultures, it was a fundamentally racist policy and the immigrants were expected to know their place and stay in it until their time to return to their home country.
The big question is:
Where is the middle ground that acknowledges and deals with legitimate concerns of natives, respects the rights of immigrants and addresses the failures of past policies? Should we not look to the European experience with open eyes to see what lessons need to be learned?
Al admits he has no idea where the middle ground is but scorns any suggestion that there may be a problem. This is constructive?
I fear that unless a middle ground can be established for reasoned debate the extremists will set the agenda, and it is exactly this effort by extremists that is the subject of Jon's post.
"Al admits he has no idea where the middle ground is but scorns any suggestion that there may be a problem. This is constructive?"
I don't believe that there is a 'middle ground' that's agreeable to anyone on this matter, just as there's no middle ground that finds acceptance on most other social matters. I just don't buy this 'extremism of both sides' starting point you're trying to set up. I meet people with all sorts of views on the subject, and it's no more divisive than any other issue.
I don't believe there is a problem with increased immigration figures. That's true. There is a problem of restricted access to a legitimate immigration process here, which forces some into bogus asylum claims, but that's easily enough resolved.
I also find it curious that you select a series of countries that are essentially entirely populated by immigrants as good exemplars, and then speak of a "middle ground that acknowledges and deals with legitimate concerns of natives". None of the countries you mention have as much in common with the history, society, or regional migration patterns as any European country. For better or worse, we have to look to the best of european solutions in this area, because then we compare like with like.
You conveniently ignore that you confuse immigration policy with post-immigration policy, the existance of non-contentious distinct social minorities elsewhere, and arranged marriages with forced marriages. I'm not sure where you believe you're offering anything constructive yourself.
Michael and Eoin seem to take it as given that integration or assimilation is entirely the responsiblity of the immigrant, but the institutions and culture of the host country need to make space for newcomers. This is a problem in Europe where historically nationality is based on continuity of ethnic heritage. To take a small subjective example: I'm eligible for Irish citizenship, but have been told by people who know and love me that I'll never be Irish, no matter what my passport says. That has implications for how I'm treated socially and officially, it has implications for my level of commitment to the country where I live, and it has implications for the way I self-identify. Now I'm a middle-class, property-owning professional with an Irish wife, and this irritates and alienates me in non-trivial ways. Imagine what it's like for a low-skilled non-Anglophone North African Muslim to know that no matter what he does, he'll never have full access to Irishness. It's a lot to overcome, probably too much.
Re: present trends: if immigration to the US continued along the lines it did from 1880-1920, America would be split roughly between Italians, Slavs and Jews. Present trends almost never continue.
"I'm eligible for Irish citizenship, but have been told by people who know and love me that I'll never be Irish"
If you walk and talk like an American, then you'll be perceived as an American. That's not social exclusion, simply human nature. The vast majority of people have no difficulty in accepting Samantha Mumba, or Paul McGrath, or Phil Lynott, or Setanta O hAilpin, or Jason Sherlock as 'proper' Irish. It's more a matter of attitude than ethnicity (not ignoring the real problem with racism that exists here). I work a fair bit with 'multi-cultural' organisations in dublin, and the line between acceptance and suspicion of apparent 'non-national's is much more ambigious than you'd imagine.
Jon is right in identifying that Europeans hold to clear ethnic identities, thus eliminating the possibility of anyone with foreign sounding names and accents being made to feel like citizens in all aspects of live. Even white Americans still indentify themselves as some sort of European descendent.
But Al is correct in saying that human nature has a lot to do with that given the American accent Jon will always have.
Although the US is a fairly unique example where immigration is concerned (it is entirely a nation of immigrants with no ethnic identity whatsoever), when encountering a person with a foreign accent we label that person as a foreigner, without regard for how long he's lived in America or been a citizen. I'm guilty of it, too. In the fourth grade I never thought of Alan Yeung as Chinese because he had an American accent. But Kaz Nakazawa was most definitely Japanese because he didn't speak English. We see these issues arise today in this country with regard to Latin American, Middle Eastern and African immigrants, who many people identify as non-American. But the same was true when Italians and Irish were the prevailing immigrant groups in Boston and New York. Now their grandchildren are entirely assimilated, despite having names like Seamus McFarley and Stefano Giovanni.
So Jon is sort of in the same boat that first generation emigrants to America are in. His daughter will have no problem, though.
al,
Now, what sets Phil Lynott, Paul McGrath, Samantha Mumba, et al. apart from your typical immigrant, black or otherwise? All were born in Ireland and all are either well-known entertainers or sports stars. So, yes, I concur that the Irish are happy to accept black famous people who were born in Ireland as fully Irish. But I was talking about immigrants and paths to integration or assimilation. If someone refers to my accent rather than my legal citizenship as a marker for my national identity, that is a barrier to my integration as an immigrant. (I'm conscious of moaning about this too much, since I feel pretty well integrated and happy here, even though people tend to stare at my horns and forked tail - what's up with that?. I simply want to make the point that fitting in isn't only the responsibility of the immigrant.)
Jason,
You obviously grew up in a different America than I did, maybe even a different neighborhood. Wait until I tell Mr. Hom you think he's a foreigner! What about Pop and Nana? Biddie didn't even speak English until she was 5 years old. Oy gevalt, my brother the racist.
Jon,
I bring up the celebrities simply because we both know who I'm talking about. My point is that ethnicity isn't a barrier to inclusion within the Irish gang. As your brother points out, it's more to do with a common language/dialect than anything else.
There's a bunch of non-national eastern european and west african kids I've met in Dublin, who have essentially become 'dubs' in a matter of a few years, and are treated as such by their native-born schoolmates etc. I doubt they consider themselves Irish yet, but they would, if you pressed them, identify themselves as dubs, northsiders/southsiders, etc.
I suspect that when the day arrives that you consider yourself a southsider (or whatever), and take on that mantle, will be the day you cross over the line into being Irish, whether you know it or not. I'm a firm believer that factionalism is a core component of the Irish psyche. The GAA will probably unwittingly, become the primary tool of integration for non-nationals over the next decade or so.
Jon,
You've misunderstood me. I totally agree that integration of immigrants is a two way street. The Germans in particular have failed in their responsibility by treating even the children of immigrants as temporary workers, gastarbeiters. I think other European countries' immigration policies were similarly disrespectful of immigrants and created barriers to integration.
On the other side, the practice of immigrants from some Muslim countries of arranging marriages with relatives in the "old country" also contributes to isolation and ghettoisation.
Intermarriage of 2nd and 3rd generation children of immigrants with other enthic groups and, for want of a better word, natives is a good indicator of how successful the two-way integration process has been.
There's likely to be a more particular reason for that, in my experience: This other story (scroll down to Leopold Bloom) in the NYT last year
''I'm Irish because I'm here,'' he says, ''but I'm not Irish.'' He remembered a turning point a number of years ago: a conversation he had with a friend and colleague at a TV station. ''But you couldn't possibly understand that,'' the friend said, entirely without hostility, referring to something in a play they were working on. ''You're not Irish, you're Jewish.'' '
Yeah, It must be the rampant anti-semitism at play in Ireland that's interfering with Jon's assimilation into Irish society.
No, what's interfering with my assimilation is I keep getting mistaken for a Canadian! But, Al, don't underestimate the extent to which Irish national identity is bound up with Christianity. This doesn't, of course, mean Jews have a hard time here (NB: Alan Shatter, the Briscoes, Lenny Abrahamson, etc.). It's not easy to find Hebrew salami, though, which feels like oppression sometimes.
"No, what's interfering with my assimilation is I keep getting mistaken for a Canadian!"
Work on the accent. Can you impersonate a Corkman?
Beyond that, I am curious as to what the problem is. Being Irish, as someone said (and being Irish I am too lazy to find out who said it), is not an ethnicity, it is a predicament. Today, for example: did you suffer serious anxiety when England were within a converted try of victory?
If you did it seems to me you are Irish, whether your friends have copped that fact or not. If not, why do you give a shit?
Well, I give a shit partly for the sake of argument and partly because this is where I live, where I'm raising a child, etc. Plus I'm a blogger: trivial anxiety is part of the job description.
As for the rugby, if had been watching at all I would have been suffering, I guess. Dick is the rugby fan around here. I didn't take Ireland's defeat to Spain in the World Cup very well at all, though. It helped that the USA advanced to the quarterfinals, of course, but McCarthy sent his squad out to die like dogs in the penalty shoot out. I'll never forgive him.
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