open Democracy News Analysis - people flow: migration in europe - Comments

spamgreg on "Open borders, global future"

spamgreg — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:54:13 +0100

This proposal is interesting, fair and generous, but would be impossible or nearly so. All countries should apply it in the same time and at the same, slow rate, or the courageous (and stupid) precursors would be sank. A massive influx of immigrants very poor and uneducated because of poverty would pose enormous economic and social problems.

Already, in France where I live, the poor suburbs have big problems because of an immigration that is far under the one you suggest, yet already beyond what french economy can afford to give them a good environment.

As for the "all countries in the global north (...) absolutely depend upon migrant workers and permanent immigrants" and "... the threshold of negative population growth, a trend that cannot be reversed, and is not sustainable" : :

- this reduction of global human number seems desirable to me, or we shall all perish. What is clear to me is that a survival instinct has been toggled on, and I hope we shall stabilize gracefully around 9 billions before we hit the wall. So, no doubt the poor countries shall decrease on turn in a not-far future, and we should not count on them for compensating.

SpamGreg

mogens on "Sudanese adrift in Israel"

mogens — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:29:54 +0100

For me as a dane this is information, I have never heard about. I know there is a lot of discussions in the EU and NATO and the UN, about sending troops into Sudan. But of course there are people seeking refuge in countries providing something like a future. This article makes it clear, that this is not only a problem to be dealt with by persons in high places, this is about living people looking for a life worth living. Not only thousands of starving people with no personality in some camp. They are all humans who wants to dream and love and all the other things we take for granted. Sometimes I need a bang on the head to see the obvious.

Daktari on "Identity and immigration"

Daktari — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:46:34 +0000

I also enjoyed this article, and it brought to mind a question posed in the '90s by one social scientist/academic: 'Do people from different cultures live in different worlds, or do they live the same world differently?'.

In my early (naive) days I assumed the first; but I now believe people have much more in common than they think, or expect...

Pink Cloud of Death on "Identity and immigration"

Pink Cloud of Death — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 06:18:31 +0000

I really enjoyed this article, and agree with most of it. I am not sure that relations between Jews and Muslims have become so poisonous that we can't hold a decent dialogue.

Quie often we may be talking to each other without evening realising the other is 'Muslim' or 'Jewish'. Quite often my non-Muslim friends spark conversations about Muslims with me , without even absorbing the fact that I am Muslim. I suspect people now place emphasis on visible markers of faith. But I always keep protesting, oh, but I am a Muslim, but this always invites curious silences. We don't mean Muslims like you, dear.

I attended an all-Bangladeshi school in the heart of East London in the UK, my parents still maintain a halal home, don't entertain non-Bangladeshi people in their homes and their English neighbours all invite each other ot BBQs but forget to invite them. But peace still reigns in their housing estate luckily. Someone once said my family don't get racist trouble on their doors like the other Bangladeshis because my folks keep potted flowers at the front door - apparently there is something peculiarly English about this and this brings some familiarity and wards off hostility. Although after 7/7 bombs i London even the potted plants came unstuck and broken.

Even with this insulality, for want of a better word, I still feel reasonable comfortable inviting my Jewish friends to my home, and they feel comfy I imagine, inviting me to theirs. We didn't have a childhood in common but the future I hope is open enough for us to still fight for the things we believe in. I tend to agree there are sporadic bursts of anti-semitism in our midst - leaving aside, the reprisals of 9/11. Those of us who are not Jewish/Muslim probably hear about the other spoken about in an indecent tongue. But I suspect that 9/11 has disrupted a fragile tolerance towards Muslims which we should all be desperate to recover, resurrect and replenish for the good of our common civility.

My up-bringing as parochial as it was, served me well. But there is something different about the world now and i suspect this is because mainstream society is less certain about the future - and so the real poison and instability begins.