“Biggest Problem” in Europe?
I have received a consistent story from many of the Europeans I have met and traveled with over the past few months. Many of the travelers from Germany, Holland, Sweden and England (I have not spoken to Spaniards, Italians or French about this although we have seen France ban Muslim clothes and Spain get hit by terrorism so I would not be surprised if they share the same opinion) tell me that the biggest problem in their country is immigrants. As the EU accepts more nations into its charter, they are free to move to the other EU nations. Folks living in previous UK countries like Pakistan and India have also been emigrating to UK for years. Also, there is a lot of immigrants from Africa, Middle East and Asia. The story is that these immigrants are ruining their traditional ways, stealing jobs and expecting their new countries to accept their traditions from religion to cultural practices such as arranged marriages.
I say to myself, “get over it Europe”. It sounds like the same crap espoused by what I hope is a minority of Americans. Europeans seemed to fall over themselves adopting the EU and now they don´t like freedom of movement and open society as soon as Eastern Europeans join. There is also a real bigotry bent to the anti-Muslim, African and Asian complaints that I hear. I especially cringe when a German is railing against these foreigners invading their land. They tell me that these foreigners live in the same areas, hang out together and turn their backs to their new country´s traditions.
I try to explain that this is the tradition in America. The first wave of immigrants don´t learn English, they live in neighborhoods of their own kind and they retain their traditions as if they are still in their former country. But the next generation learns English and they start to adopt American traditions. Usually, by time you get to the third generation, they are fully assimilated although there are freedoms that allow them to retain traditions and beliefs and practices and these are added to the fabric of America and make it yet again a greater country. This has gone on for four hundred years and overall has been dominated by Europeans themselves!!!
The usual response if I was so brazen to tell them this much is that it just isn´t going to work that way in Europe. They want legislation to stop it. STOP IT!!! I want to roll over and laugh at them. Once in a while I bring up Japan and suggest that the Japanese may have cooked their goose for the long haul by keeping their society closed given the modern inclination to postpone marriage or not get married and have only a couple of children at the same time that social programs have made entitlements require a larger base of payees. This point is proven study after study in America that our economy and the future of our way of life is dependent on immigration (legal and “illegal”) because we have chosen not to produce our own increasingly larger generations and the next generation always wants better jobs leaving the basic jobs potentially unfilled. As far as I am concerned, opinions about shutting off immigration even when “illegal” (what legalities were there to be broken when doors were wide open and your family arrived via Ellis Island???) are usually ground in pure racism. It was OK when they were white from Europe (or black or Chinese slaves), but as soon as we got to Latin America and Asians, shut that door tight.
And now Europe joins what is only the inevitable for the whole world. It is nothing that can be stopped just as globalization cannot be stopped. If you can think out a couple of centuries, imagine when we start moving to India or China for jobs (or freedoms!!!) because their cycle has resulted in more jobs and less employable folks. For some of you, your worst nightmare. If you don´t think this is real, you would have been a Roman expecting the empire to continue on forever! My ass this is the “biggest problem” in Europe! By the way, I have met plenty of Europeans (hopefully the majority) who do not share the view that immigration is their biggest problem.
Tags: Travel, World
vagabondrick
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