thomasquinn 32989 wrote:
Holly:
Something to bear in mind is that, despite nutbags like this murderer, most people, regardless of race, ethnicity or country of origin, don't resort to violence lightly. In fact, the vast majority of people will never do so. But, if you're a non-white immigrant in Europe these days, you face a tremendous amount of hate. Imagine you're a moderate Muslim who escaped from a fundamentalist regime and made your way to Britain. You get there, you do your best to learn English, and after six months, you can manage a basic conversation. What do you hear people say? "Those filthy towel-heads are stealing our jobs."; "there is no moderate Islam"; "Muslims hate the west"; most people don't talk to you (mostly not out of malicious intent), and of those that do, a fair number just hurl abuse at you. You try to get a job. However, it's crisis, jobs are scarce, and you don't speak the language that well yet. Plus, you look different from most Brits. Another six months later, and you're still unemployed. "See?", people say, "they only come here to get free money."
You feel awkward in summer, when you see women wearing much more revealing outfits than you are used to. You don't say anything, because you don't want to be impolite, but when a much more radical immigrant makes headlines by insulting women for their clothing, suddenly everyone looks at you. "You're a muslim; why are you so disrespectful of women? Go back to the desert, you animal."
Immigrants get ever more frustrated and ever more desperate. Those that attempt to integrate are on their own - they can expect very little help from the government, and practically no sympathy from the population. They get stuck in the cheapest, most unpopular neighbourhoods, which consequently turn into immigrant enclaves. See? Populists say, and they are widely believed, they don't want to integrate, they just bunch together. Meanwhile, 'civilized westerners' get applauded by roughly a fifth of the European population for saying things about immigrants that would get you sent to court if you said them about, for instance, Jews.
Yes, we have problems with a small portion of the immigrant population. But so long as we keep accepting that all immigrants get abused for the abject behaviour of a tiny portion of them, we are not going to solve those problems. In fact, we are forcing more and more immigrants into the hands of fundamentalists by our current approach. We need immigrants, for the simple reason that our population is ageing and an ever smaller number of people of working age has to provide for an ever larger number of retired people. Even disregarding the fact that it's just basic human decency, economic motives make that we should take responsibility collectively for integrating immigrants into our society.
Not a hundred years ago, people in America claimed that Italians and Eastern Europeans could never become Americans, because they were just "too different" and "inherently criminal". A hundred and fifty years ago people said the same thing about the Irish. So long as no one looked out for them, they remained the lowest class in the population, and thus also the group with the highest crime rate. But when the people and the government set up programs to help them, integration picked up, and America has many groups of well-integrated immigrants now. Europe can do the same thing, but we won't so long as the established political parties adopt the views and rhetoric of nativist, far-right groups as a vote-getter in times of crisis.
^ one of the top ten posts ever made on this forum.
Cheerfully awaiting the buffoons who will call you a radical leftist because you have perspective..