Immigrants need to learn "local values" - say EUROPEANS

[muskrat89]

Amazing how they are experts on how other countries should be more open and tolerant - until they get some terrorism activity on their own soil...  Maybe I'm just cynical when it comes to Europe and their snobby opinions 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...9/international1346EST0547.DTL&type=printable


EU officials implore new immigrants to learn 'European values'
- CONSTANT BRAND, Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004


(11-19) 10:46 PST BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) --

European Union justice and interior ministers agreed Friday that new immigrants to the 25-nation bloc should be required to learn local languages, and to adhere to general "European values" that will guide them toward better integration.

Dutch immigration minister Rita Verdonk, who chaired the meeting, said all countries agreed to make integrating newcomers a priority, considering the growing ethnic tensions as EU nations struggle to absorb a steady stream of poor, mostly Muslim immigrants.

Just this month in the Netherlands, the slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a suspected Muslim radical unleashed a wave of attacks against mosques, churches and religious schools in a country once famed for its tolerance.

Tensions also rose in Belgium, where authorities arrested a suspect Friday accused of sending death threats to a senator of Moroccan heritage who criticized radical Muslims.

"It's not like we are against immigration," Verdonk said. "If you want to live in the Netherlands, you have to adhere to our rules ... and learn our language."

Highlighting a European-wide problem, Verdonk said that some 500,000 Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands don't speak Dutch.

For now, integration policies across the continent vary greatly. Public concerns over immigration have fueled electoral successes for far-right parties in several European countries, including Austria and Italy, where they have joined the national government.

Many Muslims have bristled at new rules targeting immigrants that they say amount to racial profiling that is insensitive of their religion.

Yet incoming EU justice and home affairs commissioner Franco Frattini told reporters in Rome that integration had to be an essential part of an EU policy.

"We can't imagine an immigration policy that focuses only on the prevention of illegal immigration, without considering the integration of those who want to enter a European country to live and work there in full respect of the law of both the country and Europe," Frattini said.

The EU ministers also set out a list of 11 nonbinding guidelines for governments and immigrant communities, including accepting basic European values, providing employment and education, knowledge of the local language, culture and history, and open access to local health care and other public services.


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/11/19/international1346EST0547.DTL

 

[pbi]

It is strange that they are having such difficulties, since for hundreds of years there have been very, very few European countries that did not have mixtures of ethnic groups in them, with the possible exception of the Scandinavia nations. The Europeans might also want to ask themselves how many thousands of European immigrants have moved elsewhere in the world, including to Canada, and then lived inside immigrant communities in which they never had to adopt local customs or local languages? Before casting stones...... Cheers.

 

[McG]

Knowledge of a local language does not seem like an outlandish expectation though.

 

[pbi]

No, of  course not, I am merely holding up a figurative mirror to the Europeans. Cheers.

 

[McG]

How could a country measure or enforce "accepting basic European values"?

 

[pbi]

How could a country measure or enforce "accepting basic European values"?

Indeed. Based on the values of whose culture? Danes? Poles? Italians? Greeks? Scotsmen?Serbs?. My commentary on the non-integration of some Euro immigrants in this country comes from the fact that I married into a Portuguese family. Now, while I am very happy with them, and in general they are excellent, hard-working citizens, I know that there are a small percentage who never fully integrate: my mother-in-law was one. We have entire communities in which it is not necessary to speak English (no...I don't mean Quebec!) Cheers.

 

[GerryCan]

I like the idea of this 'integrating' new comers into the country. I believe we should push this more in our country as well. In my opinion, if you chose to move to a foreign country for whatever reasons, you should make learning the language and at least some of the local customs your first priority. If not, you're just plain ignorant in my books. My grandmother is one of them. I don't want to talk her down, but in the 60 or so years she has been here, she has gone out of her way in great lengths to not speak english and instead speak her native german. That is just wrong if you ask me. I could never see myself moving to any other country and not atleast attempting to learn the language. It always bothered me that so many people want to come to our country, use our healthcare, education and many freedoms and at the same time spit in the face of everyone who worked so hard to build this country to what it is today, by simply ignoring what is going on around them.
Canada has 2 official languages, learn one of them.
We are a mainly christian background. You don't have to switch faiths, but respect that fact and we'll respect yours.

I think we focus too much on accomodating the people that are coming into this country and tend to forget about the people who have been here for generations already.

 

[clasper]

How could a country measure or enforce "accepting basic European values"?

Here in France, "basic European values" means liberté, egalité, fraternité.  The key point of those three is the third- franternity.  Frenchman (even the new ones) should feel fraternal towards their fellow Frenchmen.  In an effort to reach out to the local Chinese population (which has been notoriously segregated), the mayor allowed last year's Chinese New Year's parade to be held down the Champs Elysées for the first time, instead of through Chinatown.  It was an appropriate inclusive gesture, and the crowds for the parade were quite large (and not completely Chinese).  Of course there are other self-segregated societies in France, and Chirac has been reaching out by banning hijabs in public schools.  I wonder why immigrant Muslims don't feel as welcome as immigrant Chinese?

 

[pbi]

Of course there are other self-segregated societies in France, and Chirac has been reaching out by banning hijabs in public schools.  I wonder why immigrant Muslims don't feel as welcome as immigrant Chinese? 

For the life of me, I still don't understand how this restriction is supposed to achieve anything useful. It just sends the message" we can dress the way we want, but you can't. Now shut up and be like us". Cheers.

 

[camochick]

I think what the french were trying to do by banning all religious head coverings was the same as putting kids in uniforms. Trying to make everyone look the same to stop the fighting between the religions. If you cant tell what religion someone is then you cant attack them. I dont know if this is going to work. Its a nice theory but then again so was communism.

 

[pbi]

Its a nice theory but then again so was communism

Personally, I think its a stupid theory that was probably designed to cater to the rather significant racist right wing that has been a feature of French domestic politics for quite some time. How anybody thought this would achieve anything escapes me. Cheers.

 

[The_Falcon]

All I can say is that it looks good on the European Community.

 

[dutchie]

It's funny, but some assume certain things of certain European countries, and some of these assumptions are false:

1-"The Dutch are ultra-liberal/left wing". False. The Dutch are invloved (somewhat happily) in Iraq, and have been traditionaly a right-wing governed nation. If you recall about 4 years ago, an ultra-natioanlist/ultra-right wing Politician (Pim was his name) was assasinated. The interesting thing is that this ultra-right wing politician was openly and 'flaming' gay - not something you would see here in North America (probably). Yeah, they have no problem with legal prostitution and marijuana, and have a forward thinking medicare system, but they are actually very conservative in most ways.

2-"Europeans are more tolerant of other cultures due to their close proximity to each other". FALSE. My own opnion is that Europeans have their own unique flavor of prejudice/'zenophobia'. The French, when I was there, seem to have a particualr distaste for anything non-French, particuarly non-European. The average Dutchman/woman I know (and that's quite a few) despise certain immigrant groups, particularly the 'Morrocs' (Morrocans to you and I ). However, they have a large and long standing Sirinamese, Indonesian, and West Indies communities, and they seem to get along just fine. Of course, the Morrocan immigrant population is largely responsible for most low-level street drug dealing, thefts, petty crime, assault, murder, etc, so you can't really blame them. As well, regarding Europeans and tolerance, ethnic hatred/intolerance played a major role in both world wars, IIRC, and I don't think it has changed much.

We're evaluating the Europeans based on our own values and culture, which of course we have to - we have no other way. Our morals, norms, etc, and benchmarks are different, and this, IMHO, causes these weird 'inconsistancies'.

 

[Infanteer]

Your on the money their, Caesar.

The Economist had a good article on the fact that the most hardline stance on Islamic extremism was being taken by countries like France and Germany.  The blurb I found most ironic was the fact that French citizens who ended up it Guantanamo and were repatriated to France following indignation over American breaches of civil rights were subsequently chucked in a similar French prison by a judge when the landed in France.

 

[enfield]

I did a Refugee class last year, and it was amazing the stuff that Europe does to keep people out.
European officials are placed at airports around the third world to screen passengers for illegal immigrants. No visa, no flight= no refugees.
Visas are almost impossible to get without money or Western citizenship. Again, no visa, no getting to Europe means no applicaction for residence, refugee status, etc.
Europe, as a collective EU-funded program with stringent regional standards, has installed border protections measures in Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Southern Spain that make the Texas-Mexico border look like an open frontier. Razor wire fences, dogs, helicopter patrols, naval patrols, aggressive ROE's, the works.
The expulsion procedures were equally nice - secretive, no-appeal courts send people to chartered airliners that ship police-escorted illegal migrants to almost anywhere outside of Europe, often to the wrong country. A number of illegals have died on the way too, or on, these flights.

Europe, for whatever reason, believes itself to be a homogenous population. North American concepts of "multiculturalism" do not exist, especially in France, and the emphasis is on integration. And these massive minorities scare the hell out of the native population and authorities - hell, if I was in Holland and there 500,000 immigrants of a united ethnic background who didn't even bother to speak the language, I'd be worried too.

That said, my observation of ex-pat communities overseas is that they usually don't bother to learn the local language. How many of those 14,000 French that were in the Ivory Coast spoke the local dialect? Probably just a handful. We're not much better.

 

[Acorn]

Caesar,

A point or two on the Dutch and Pim Fortyn: the Dutch ARE quite liberal/left wing, in many aspects. The clash occurring in the Netherlands is one of cultures: the liberal, lassez-faire traditions of the Dutch, and the restrictive culture of Islamic immigrants. What is happening is that the Dutch are asking "you came here, so why do you think you can demand that WE change?"

Fortyn was openly homosexual, a tendency that would not be regarded as "right wing" by our current definition. However, he was clearly a Dutch nationalist, and disturbed by the effect of immigrants on Dutch culture. One wonders whether our 18thC French "right wing/left wing" definitions truly apply in this day and age.

Acorn

 

[dutchie]

Acorn:

Re:the Dutch ARE quite liberal/left wing, in many aspects - that's the thing. In some ways we see them as 'right', and others 'left' because of our preconceptions of what 'left' and 'right' are in North America....but it's not that easy.

The Dutch are funny: they have a live and let live mentality regarding a lot of things, but not others. For instance, you can smoke and possess 'soft' drugs, and openly solicit prostitutes, but they come down really hard on criminal immigrants (they like to deport them).   They are also some of the most business minded and capitalist people I have ever met, yet they have fairly high taxes, universal medicare, a strong 'social safety net', and a lot of other 'socialist' aspects to their society.

But anyhow, off topic.

Europe, IMHO, due to it's close proximity to the Middle East, will feel the crush of islamic immigration much more than we will/do. Consequently, friction between the Old Europe and this 'new Europe' will be significant. I can also see more terrorist activity in Europe due to this tension. Of course, the majority of Europe has been dealing with terrorism on it's own soil for a lot longer than North America has. Hopefully their experience will lessen the impact of these future attacks.