I’ve done a
couple of recent posts about the Czech Republic which touched on the issue of immigration. In the comments to the latest of these,
Marian CZ left some comprehensive and useful information about recent immigration into Czechia. Here’s an adapted version:
Immigration into the Czech Republic is almost exclusively non-Muslim. Most of the immigrants are Slovaks (about half of that number), Ukrainians, Russians, then Bulgarians (all Slavic nations), then Vietnamese.
Immigrant Slovaks are usually highly-skilled young people, especially medical doctors and engineers. They assimilate to Czech society extremely quickly, within a few years; the closeness of the languages and the cultures helps a lot. Slovak migration to Czechia has been almost continuous for the last 90 years and it never had any significant negative impacts. To compare it, it is no more bothersome than Scottish immigration to England or, hypothetically, Canadian to Maine, USA.
Russians and Ukrainians first settled in the country immediately after the Bolshevik revolution and the ensuing Civil War in Russia (1917-1922). Almost the whole Russian nobility and intelligentsia had to flee from the Bolshevik rule, and a lot of them settled in Prague. Prague is the most Western big Slavic city, not only geographically, but also culturally: for at least a century, it has been a magnet for Slavic immigration from almost anywhere else.
In the last 15 years, three basic types of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants have come to the country: either low-paid menial job workers (who usually leave after some time), or highly skilled scientists (especially physicists; maybe a quarter of Prague’s physicists are from the former USSR), and, third, very rich people who wanted to move their families out of the post-USSR chaos, or, later, from Putin’s grasp, to some secure country. The first group does not stay; the second assimilates very easily and quickly; the third is too small to change the cultural balance.
The Vietnamese immigrants are silent and extremely hardworking people, who usually own small businesses (groceries etc.). They do not have any inclination towards violent crime, though they perpetrate a lot of white-collar crimes like tax evasion. Their attitude towards hard work is archetypal, and it causes some consternation among the Czech population, which is usually more laid back about work. The second-generation Vietnamese usually speak perfect Czech and study very hard. I think that within 15 years Czechia will have a significant growth of Vietnamese doctors, scientists and engineers.
Welfare payments are modest by EU standards, and so only people who wish to work here immigrate to Czechia. The assimilation process is very fast, since immigrants are mostly Slavic (thus the language is familiar to them), and they have to speak Czech in their jobs (Czechs are notoriously bad in speaking foreign languages). Overall, I can say that immigration has been a success in Czechia, similar to the success in the USA.
For myself, not a single one of my four grandparents was a Czech, but I cannot even speak their languages and I am as much a Czech as you can get, except that I do not engage in any sort of binge-drinking.
- - - - - - - - -
Workers’ immigration to Czechia has been in process at least since the 1820’s, when the Czech lands industrialized rapidly. It brought an enormous influx of people from the rest of the monarchy: Germans, Slovaks, Poles, Jews, Hungarians, Croatians… The Jews were massacred by Nazis in WWII, the Germans were kicked out after the war, and the rest of the nationalities assimilated to the point that only their surnames point out a foreign origin. This even concerns a Greek immigration wave in the 1950s.
So far, I can say, this kind of immigration does not cause problems in Prague, which is by far the biggest recipient of the population transfer: the Czech beer culture will very quickly transform people into, if not Czechs, at least half-ones.
The biggest ethnic problems in Czechia, on the other hand, are not with recent immigrants, but with the Gypsies (Roma), who have been present in the Central European region for at least 500 years, but their primitive tribal culture produces high criminality and an almost total alienation from the mainstream population.
33 comments:
As I already stated elsewhere, the idea of Czech ruling elites that when Vietnamese "integrate successfully", you won't make any harm to the society if you import even more Vietnamese, is a very dangerous one. You can't assimilate a large number of Vietnamese, because they look differently and will never become true Europeans. After their numbers reach a critical point, they will create separate ethnic enclaves and will promote "special rights" for their community.
Remember please that our government wants to import about 45 000 Vietnamese this year - the same number that has accumulated within our borders until 2007. So, within mere 1 year, the Vietnamese population in Czech republic will double!
And as for Narodni strana (National party), I lay some hopes in them 3 years ago, when they came to the fore thanks to the affair with the "Gypsy concentration camp in Lety", on which Czech socialist government then wanted to waste 800 million Crowns from the taxpayers' pockets. The leaders of Narodni strana seemed to be much more sophisticated than our former "right-wing extremists", the Republican Party, which was basically a conglomerate of simple minded populists led by their extravagant leader Sladek, symptomaticly nicknamed "Mr Bean".
However, now I am disappointed, because they obviously don't have enough intellectual potential to argue their political views in a resonable way. Instead, they want to draw attention to their party by circus actions in the public (e.g. "burning of the Islam hatred" at the Wenceslas Square, after which their leaders ended at police station because of an alleged endangering fire safety). Besides that, some members of their party uselessly provoke by silly articles aimed at Jews, which only gives another munition into their opponents' hands, who consider the as a Neo-Nazi group.
However, this doesn't result only from their political program, but also from the similarity of the name "Narodni strana" with many Czech Neo-Nazi organizations beginning with the same word (Narodni...). I can give you an example from an internet discussion forum, where someone proclaimed that Czechs should vote Narodni strana, and some other man excitedly exploded lamenting that no reasonable man would vote such Nazis, who just provocatively march in the front of the Izraeli Embassy. In reality, it was not members of Narodni strana, but skinheads from Narodni odpor (National resistance). Here you can see that the party discredits itself only by its mere name, and however incredible it may seem, many ordinary people can't simply distinguish it from extremist skinhead organizations composed of primitive yelling youngsters. I wonder that the people from Narodni strana haven't realized it so far.
In any case, the biggest ethnic threat in Czech republic are currently Gypsies. Although they make up only 3% of the population (300.000 people), I should mention that in 1970, there were only about 70.000 Gypsies on the Czech territory and only 1/3 of the increase is due to immigration from Slovakia. The data about their current fertility rate vary, some estimates say that it fell from 5 children/woman to mere 2.5 during the last decade, but when you read articles about Gypsy parents having 15 or even 17 (!!!) children (produced entirely for the purpose of welfare benefits), it makes you gooseflesh.
The worst thing is that this group has zero perspective in the European society because of their extremely low IQs in the 70-80 range, and attempts to "integrate" them are doomed to failure. Moreover, they behave very aggressively and according to police stats from early 90's, they made up 60% of all Czech prisoners.
Here you can see, how Gypsy living standards in Slovakia look like:
http://images.google.cz/images?hl=cs&q=lunik+ix&lr=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
The situation in Czech republic is only marginally better.
This is the first time I hear about the plan to import 45000 Vietnamese this year. I am not very comfortable with that. Hardworking as they are, such an influx of people cannot be assimilated in any easy way.
The Vietnamese community is already quite separated from the rest of the society, though it does not seem to pursue any self-determination goals. My colleague from Israel loosely compared the Vietnamese to the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) in Israel: a very different lifestyle and culture, almost shunning the public life (the basic reasons are however religious in the Haredim case, and cultural in the Vietnamese case).
The current layer of Vietnamese consists mainly of small businessmen, and is strongly pro-freedom and anti-leftist. Most of those people have regular contact with Vietnam proper, and they therefore harbor no illusions about the real meaning of communism: corruption, poverty and oppression. So, this group is quite immunized against lefty nonsense.
With the planned arrivals, I am not so sure. Menial workers usually do have a very different mindset. Therefore, the integration process could be further complicated with that.
As for the Gypsy: the Czech state must stop paying them for procreation. However, there are big regional and tribal differences in fertility.
The Gypsy are not a homogeneous group. For example, Gypsy people living in Karlin, Liben or Vysocany in Prague do not have numerous families anymore and their fertility probably does not exceed 2 per woman: the change is very visible in the street. This group also has the most positive attitude towards regular work, though in unskilled jobs (shop-assistants etc.).
On the other hand, most of the Gypsy people in Ostrava live a toxic lifestyle of producing absurd amounts of offspring (while living in a 1-bedroom flat), engaging disproportionately in criminal behavior (including drug deals) and most of them are not even able to speak good Czech. There, the situation seems quite hopeless, not too dissimilar from "banlieus" of France. The only positive difference is that the Gypsy are not Muslims, and therefore do not consider themselves superior to the rest of the society.
Recently, a Czech politician named Cunek got some notoriety with his no-nonsense approach to the Gypsy minority in his home city. It keeps the press busy every other day.
War Lord wrote:
The worst thing is that this group has zero perspective in the European society because of their extremely low IQs in the 70-80 range, and attempts to "integrate" them are doomed to failure.
I find this very hard to believe, can you provide credible sources for this, otherwise it smells badly of racial slurs!
Bad education & cultural traits that runs against integration have been noticed even with the few gypsies that we have here, so that is a credible explanation. But general low IQ is unlikely...
Hello,
here are some stats and informations which could illustrate the situation in more specific way:
http://www.czso.cz/eng/csu.nsf/informace/aoby12130707.xls
http://www.czso.cz/eng/csu.nsf/informace/aoby121307.doc
http://www.czso.cz/csu/cizinci.nsf/t/C700543DE5/$File/c01b10t.pdf
http://www.czso.cz/csu/cizinci.nsf/kapitola/ciz_pocet_cizincu
The last link is just in the Czech language, so the first diagram describes rising numbers of foreigners with permanent residence and foreigners with long term residence exceeding 90 days.
Second diagram describes 5 most common nationalities amongst immigrants.
Heh! I finally figured out how to comment... (takes some of us more time than others).
The discussion of Gypsies is interesting to me having spent a month in Romania and Bulgaria not too long ago. In both instances our tour guides went into extended discussions about Gypsies, how to identify them by their dress and SKIN COLOR and to stay away from them at all costs. A description of their tribal nature, lack of education by choice and lawlessness was also included. In fact, in one town in Bulgaria where we stopped at the town square for the afternoon, we were told that if we see a Gypsie approach us at the market we should put down anything we intended to buy and go the other way. Part of the market was deemed off limits by this guide due to the number of gypsies that would be there.
I remarked to the tour guide (a local high school teacher working as a tour guide during summer months) that a discussion like that could never take place in the U.S. Especially one that identifies someone by skin color. I went so far as to say that he would lose his job in the U.S. if it got back to his superiors. His response was "You Americans are just crazy!"
I bring up this rememberance because it really struck me that social norms and taboos do not transfer uniformly the world over. I dare say most people in the U.S. don't understand that a lot of the rest of the world deal with social problems that are not existent in the U.S. and therefore have a warped perspective on "what is right..." Why can't everyone just get along and blah, blah, blah...
I was treated to a very similar discussion on my last trip to the Dominican Republic in regard to Haitians; how to identify them by skin color, etc. From both these data points I have concluded that our, the U.S., attitude toward others and what harm might befall us from dealing with them is quite different from other parts of the world. This is reinforced by our media that overlay the American experience on every other country when the reality might be very different on the ground.
All your posters have better understandings of Gypsies than Americans. The six million present here remain somewhat less conspicuous for a variaety of reasons.
The very best source we have for accurate understandings of Gypsy culture is found in "King of the Gypsies" by Peter Maas.
The root of the success of Gypsy non-assimilation for a thousand years is found in their rule against literacy for children. They understand they would lose children from the culture were they to be literate. No Gypsy child is permitted to go to school, or put down any roots other than with the band.
I deal with Gypsies occasioinally in my business, and have not noticed any deficiency in IQ, quite the contrary. Rather, they are more likely to view everything as prey.
War Lord,
"Here you can see that the party discredits itself only by its mere name, and however incredible it may seem"
Yes. And it is not only in Czech Republic, it is everywhre in Europe. It is ridicule but, as Fjordman puts it, if it is Nationalist, Ethnic, White/European, even if it is not racist, it is bad and those who vote in them should be crucified.
That's how Eurocrats and lefties will always get the power.
"Gypsies have zero perspective in the European society because of their extremely low IQs in the 70-80 range, and attempts to "integrate" them are doomed to failure."
Well, that is, indeed, racist and you should not have said those words. Though, I agree and it is true. Do you know how we can integrate Gypsies? Get them a country! Gypsies, like blacks, seem to be good only in music but I will be crucified for having said this about blacks, though every study claim their IQ is even lower than the Gypsie's. How can we integrate blacks in Europe? We have a lot of them here?
Babs,
fortunately some Americans start to see that colour normally equals culture and that to say the other coloured people is... is not always racism. Romanians have been living with gypsies for more than 600 years, thy've been living under muslim rule for centuries too. They know the NATION exists to protect one community, not to be a Multicultural space. That's why I have faith in Orthodox Europeans... They don't mind get their hands dirty to save their people. I admire the Serbs a lot.
"For myself, not a single one of my four grandparents was a Czech, but I cannot even speak their languages and I am as much a Czech as you can get"
Oh really?
Go say that to a real Czech!
I am not saying cases like your don't occur but what Czhec folklore, traditions, etc do you know?
That's how mass immigration change cultures. You may be even a Czech but if all Czechs were like you there would be no Czech Nation.
This is Europe, not America.
So, you should not suport cases like yours because you are the exception, not the rule and many exceptions would destroy th Czech Nation.
No offense, plesae.
zonka, dozens of IQ studies of Roma in the Czech Republic, Serbia, and no doubt other places have shown the average IQ to be below 80. At least that's what the experts say. That doesn't automatically make it true as experts have been known to be wrong before. That said, since you are going against the grain and playing the race card you need to provide contrary evidence that will make us reconsider the results of intelligence studies done in the past. If you know how to use a search engine finding the studies I'm alluding to should not be difficult.
Avery Bullard,
I'm not playing any race card here. I'm simply asking for proof of the claims made to verify the thruthfulness of the claims. If such claims cannot be backed up by facts, then they are racist. So while I personally find it hard to believe, I'm willing to be pursuaded by facts.
If I was playing the race card I would just condemn the very notion off-hand. And no I'm not the one who need to verify the claims made by anybody but myself, that burden lies squarely on the shoulder of those who puts out such claims.
Afonso,
yes, I grew up immersed in the then-Czechoslovak culture, and yes, I know most of the folklore and traditions. Definitely not all of it, but I am not a folklorist either and the Czech folklore is really HUGE, with regional variations every few kilometers. Definitely more than Czech average, because people here are more interested in reality shows on TV than in their own cultural heritage.
Your hints that I am not a real Czech are entirely unwelcome and I do not want to hear something like that again, let alone from a person who has never met me to judge. So far, no offense taken, but next time, it will be.
As for migration of other Slavs to Czechia, please take note that Slavic nations are pretty much culturally compatible, definitely more than, say, Spanish vs. Portuguese, and more than, say, Americans vs. British.
From ScienceDirect.com:
"Out of the total of 60 Matrices, the Roma solved an average of 29, placing them at the 3rd percentile on 1993 U.S. norms, yielding an IQ equivalent of 70 . On the executive function tests, the Roma averaged at about the level of Serbian 10-year-olds"
The darker the skin does NOT mean the lower the intelligence, but if you are traveling in Eastern Europe, it is a good idea to keep a look out for gypsies, and one of the visual cues is skin color. I think it is funny that the victims I have seen get swarmed by gypsies have been the oh so open-minded multi-culti Westerners.
I think the primary cause of the low IQ is the lack of schooling, lack of being brought up in the proper environment, and most importantly, a horrible culture. Give them a state, don't give them an out or our support, and see what happens. Without a society to leach off of, they would either wither away or adapt.
Npabga,
frankly, I can't imagine any other state that would be willing to sacrifice territory to create a Gypsy national state.
No one would do that in Europe.
They are originally from Punjab, but that place is already crowded beyond any measure too.
Marian - CZ said...
I wouldn't force any state in Europe to do such a thing, but I think of this scenario as a hypothetical thought experiment for those who bandy about "racism" against GoV posters. Gypsies (Roma) have no means of a running a state because of their clan based culture. Gypsies, as a people, balancing the good and the bad, are such a net loss to their host countries that removing the bad elements can only be beneficial
But...Seeing that that the old USSR once made a Jewish Autonomous Oblast' in the far east near Manchuria, I think one might be able to find them a place in the rapidly depopulating Siberia, If one isn't squeamish about the shades of Stalin in such deportations. (Though only a little over 1% of the people in this 'Jewish' Oblast' are actually Jewish)
For some readers who are not aware,
The Gypsies are believed (I read this from Bostom's 'Legacy of Jihad') to be refugees from the Muslim invasion of Hindu India...Thanks, Islam.
NP:
The Jewish "Oblast" was basically a joke ... Stalin was pretty much antisemite to the core and originally planned to cleanse European part of USSR from Jews by moving them there. But way too many doctors and engineers were Jews and this would collapse both the economy and the military production.
Today's Siberia might be depopulating, but its vast resources are under tight observation from both Moscow and Beijing. The Chinese attempts to colonize the Russian part Far East are already noticeable.
Combined my two posts, sorry
marian – cz
You state:
"The Jewish "Oblast" was basically a joke ... Stalin was pretty much antisemite to the core and originally planned to cleanse European part of USSR from Jews by moving them there"
Agreed. That is why there is only 1% of the population their is Jewish, no doubt who moved because of threats and pressure from more pogroms. Stalin the year before he died began to set up the eradication of the Jews via the "doctor's plot", where Jewish doctor's would be accused of poisoning Stalin. Of note, Stalin was going to say these Jews were only agents of the US, so if Stalin did not die (or in some minds, poisoned), we could have experienced WW III in the mid 50s.
marian - cz:
" Today's Siberia might be depopulating, but its vast resources are under tight observation from both Moscow and Beijing."
Not "might", but "is". Far more proportionally compared to European Russian.
From:
From: http://www.unhcr.org/publ/RSDCOI/3ae6a6b90.html
"Between 1991 and 1997 the population of the Far East was reduced by just under 9 percent, as against an average 0.4 per cent decline of the total population of Russia."
And combine this from
http://gsti.miis.edu/CEAS-PUB/200105Motrich.pdf
1989: 1,742; 1990: 15,000; 1993 100,000; 2001, from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 237,000 registered in the Russian Far East and estimates of 400,000 to700,00 illegals.
Therefore, this is a serious issue. However I think it would be stupid to deport Roma to the Far East, especially with many their members’ proclivity for crime.
Also, if demography is what decides the future, then there can be little doubt that Russia will be the loser. There are far more Chinese in the Far East than can be assimilated, let alone there are too few Russians, many of whom are dying off or moving to the Western Russia.
marian - cz
"The Chinese attempts to colonize the Russian part Far East are already noticeable."
Agreed and take care.
As long as Russia has its nuclear arsenal ready and people like Putin in charge (I dislike him heartily, but he wouldn't yield any Russian territory to the Chinese), they probably do not have to be afraid of losing that territory entirely.
However, if they lose the will, they will no doubt lose the real thing.
The Chinese have their own bunch of problems hanging over their heads in the future. The 1-child policy created an unnatural imbalance in the ration of young males and females, since most Chinese families prefer sons. And the aging problem is only exacerbated by the fact that soon, there will be almost 6 people dependent on each productive worker (4 grandparents and 2 parents). Already some Chinese provinces are backing off this policy and allow 2 children for couples of 2 sole-children, but the demographic wave is still going to come and it will not be easy to ride through.
I am against population transfers in peacetime, though I am not against them following a major war, like WWII.
However, I would not be an opponent of a penal colony established for European violent criminals. Temporary or permanent deportation could be the punishment for violent criminals instead of a sentence of 5 years plus. Just imagine the criminals working at Svalbard coal mines, instead of living on taxpayer's expense.
I believe this alone would reduce violent crime to very low levels. And, the best is: no one can escape places like Svalbard, not even allmighty Jihadi Mujahideen.
I agree with practically everything in your above comment, and I think most will come to pass, but I wish I can find an article I remember reading, that Russia 2 years ago cancelled a planned lease of a million hectares to China for 99 years. Instead of war, I think it is more likely that Russia would sell (but call it a lease) chunks of Siberia to China, rather than to fight for it. China has nukes of their own, and I am not sure Tsar Putin would put his own neck on the line in a game of brinkmanship. I mean after all, the Communist government in China would most likely be under some of the same nationalistic pressures not to back down.
"I am against population transfers in peacetime, though I am not against them following a major war, like WWII."
;) I understand where you are coming from.
;-) And where do you come from, being so well-versed in Central European history? I admire the fact that you immediately realized that I was talking about the Benes decrees.
The expulsion of the Sudeten Germans in 1945-1946 was precisely the thing that spared Czechoslovakia from a bloody future a la Northern Ireland or Israel. The relations between Czechs and Sudeten Germans were soured beyond point of no return.
My first attempt seems to have been eaten by the computer.
Anyway, talk of IQ tests presupposes that the gypsies involved were cooperating with the test-takers.
I've known a few gypsies (more than most non-gypsies have at any rate) and find the notion of them cooperating in any test-taking procedure to be .... highly unrealistic. Rule number one, gypsies do whatever they do for their own reasons which may or may not be anything a non-gypsy can understand.
As for schooling, a gyspy women once put it very clearly to me (paraphrasing) "If they go to school then sooner or later they start thinking about right and wrong and that's just the end of them as gypsies" (what she omitted was that while schooling deprives them of the survival skills they need as gypsies, it doesn't necessarily give them the skills they would need in a non-gypsy environment.
Marian - CZ,
I am simply an American who tries his best to learn. I still know little, and with interacting and debating others cordially, I hope to learn more. So bear with.
Whether the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans prevented a long term bloody inter-ethnic conflict between the Czechs and Germans might be debatable, since Communism, as seen in Yugoslavia, put heavy pressure in preventing inter-ethnic conflicts. Though this does not mean that there would not have been short-term bloody reprisals in the Sudeten by Czechs and Germans alike in the years immediately after WW II.
But anyways, I mean not to moralize, since with the recent history prior to 1946, it is completely understandable not to trust and in fact to deport those who either caused or silently supported violence against the Czech nation. Compare this with today where a religious ideology of violence can launch attacks killing thousands, with no repercussions, but in fact gain benefits such as increased student visas and everyone in positions of power anointing said ideology as a 'religion of peace'
I cannot fault the Czechs for what they did, in response to the Czechs' suffering at Nazi Germany's hand. In addition, since there has been no ethnic conflict, I support the Benes Decree as the correct decree, since there has been peace. Even more so, since Germany was many times the size in terms of territory and population, the expelled Germans had a place to go while gaining security for the less numerous Czech people with no other homeland.
But in the end, many deportations can be abused and used not as a defensive measure, but as an aggressive tactic of war.
For example while I think the Benes Decree as acceptable in the post war context; the deportation of the people of the Baltic nations as well as the North Caucuses to Siberia, Polish people from the Ukraine, etc, etc. that occurred were not acceptable. Mostly it was because non-aggressive people were moved by a vastly more powerful and populous state. Those ethnic minorities deported had no other homeland (excepting the Poles, but still, they were innocent, generally speaking) anyways.
I would like to prevent moral relativism, and deportations are very slippery on that slope, too subjective to measure, and once you accept one, no matter how well founded and logical, it becomes too easy to fall into violence against the innocent.
For example what does one opine about the cleansing of Serbs from the Krajina region in Croatia?
Legitimate defense of Croatian territorial integrity against the “fascist” Serbs or uncalled for oppression of the innocent Serbs who have lived in the area for generations by the “fascist” Croats?
Along the same lines, what would this mean for Kosovo and Serbia- if one supports the Czechs decision with regards to the Sedeten Germans, what would be necessary to support the Serbs vis-a-vis the Kosovo Albanians?
We need to work on answering this problem.
Take care.
Drove me nuts, wanted to make sure I remembered correctly, but here is why I think thee is some evidence that Russia may do to Siberia as they did to Alaska
renting part of Siberia as a pilot program
same info here
fixed first link
Further quotation from Rushton's study
http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2007%20Intell%20(Roma).pdf
Although previous studies of Roma IQ have been
conducted — all on children, mostly on small samples
of unknown representativeness — they do consistently
show an IQ range of from 70 to 83 (Bakalar, 2004;
Raven, Court, & Raven, 1995; Save the Children,
2001). For example, Bakalar (2004) reviewed 10 studies
in the Czech Republic and Slovakia with sample sizes
that ranged from 33 to 178, with ages from 3- to 18-
years, on both verbal and non-verbal tests, and with an
IQ range of from 71 to 82 (median=75; mean=76). The
most comprehensive of these used the Czech version of
the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III (WISCIII)
on a representative sample of 6- to 17-year-olds in
the Czech Republic. The 89 Roma children averaged an
IQ of 80 (Verbal IQ=82; Performance IQ=80) and the
1357 non-Roma children, an IQ of 101 (Verbal IQ=101,
Performance IQ=101). Bakalar also found that Gypsy
educational achievement was commensurate, with 62%of
Roma children attending special education schools in
comparison to 4% of the general population. However,
Bakalar missed the largest study of Roma in Slovakia
(N=728), which was reported in the Raven's Manual for
the Colored Progressive Matrices. It showed an IQ
equivalent for 5- to 8-year-olds of 83 (Raven et al., 1995).
Depressive reading. But here you have a link to a video from Czech TV News:
http://www.nova.cz/tvarchiv/?238d=13.01.2008&238m=p&238p=TNOVINY&238v=126367
The content is not so important (A Gypsy family repeatedly wants to get rid Czech taxpayers of a big amount of money - because of their own faults), but you can evaluate the mental level of these people from some sequences.
War Lord & npabga,
OK, I'm convinced that they score rather low on these IQ tests... Thanks for providing the links.
It would be interesting to find out why they score so low, whether there is a problem with the test, one objection to it can be found In this Slate article where Raven's Progressive Matrice was used to show that the mean IQ of Sub-saharan blacks were 70.
The instrument Lynn used to apprehend these depressed IQ scores is a supposedly culturally unbiased exam called Raven's Progressive Matrices. "To use an instrument developed in the West on semi and possibly illiterate people is a fool's errand," says Nisbett, a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan who studies cognition and social psychology. "Then they use the results to say that half the people in Africa are mentally retarded. It's laughable."
There are of cause other explanations such as inbreeding, genetic defects, etc. So I'll still take the IQ scores with a grain of salt.
This is a quite interesting thread - because it has nothing to do with Muslims, who do not seem to be a factor in Czech immigration. Those who still think the Czech Republic has a problem with immigration can be properly labeled as xenophobes and racists, IMHO.
And the Gypsy problem is an entirely different one - as was pointed out, they have been around in Europe for centuries, and thus are not "immigrants" in any sense of the word. Fitting them into the new Europe is one of its greatest challenges. Sending them back to ____, or giving them the former Jewish Oblast in Siberia, is pure racist fantasy. The Roma must be integrated into European culture and society - because they are, in fact, a historical part of that culture and society as much as that other great trans-national minority, the Jews, are. And, frankly, the route to discrimination, pogroms, and perhaps even genocide of the Roma lies with a return to the primacy of the European nation-state, not with a reinvigorated EU.
In fact, Gordon, there is at least one significant problem with high immigration into Prague: shortage of affordable housing and prices of property going through the roof.
A square meter of a standard (no luxury) new apartment costs about 3 average monthly salaries in Prague, which is quite crazy.
And it has nothing to do with xenophobia or racism; in fact, a lot of migrants to Prague are Czechs coming from other parts of the country.
Marian,
I was not trying to offend you, I was just trying to say that we should not support cases like yours - which, in fact, you seem not to support yourself - because it can only be an exception, never the rule.
Glad you're not offended.
You say:
"please take note that Slavic nations are pretty much culturally compatible, definitely more than, say, Spanish vs. Portuguese, and more than, say, Americans vs. British."
Well, I don't agree. Go tell that to a Pole about the Russians or to Western Ukranians about Russians. It is far more complex. But in general I guess we can speak about a "Slavic Culture" though I only know a handfull of Slavs.
I agree when you say more so than Portuguese vs Spanish but it is because Spaniards always wanted to "eat" Portugal in the morning and we were always kicking their asses in the evening. I don't agree Slavs get better with each other than white middle class Brasilians with Portuguese or Canadians with English.
Some wonder where to put the gypsies. My view is: control their numbers and let them live in peace. Just make yourself sure they are not more than 1% of the population; get them special status as ethnic minoritiy with special protection for culture and traditions. I would like to create a new Israel to the Gypsies in Mekha though. One thing is for sure: Jews and Gypsies have no right to a State within Europe's borders.
Concearning other ethnic clensing I will always say this: All ethnic cleansing which is made during a War is legitimate, like Krajina. The Germans in Sudetland are another exemple, they lost, that is Czech.
But Poland, Poland is no saint. It atacked Checoslovakia alongside Hitler in 1938 and now Poland lies over Germany territories that were German for more than 8 centuries. That ethnic cleansing is immoral because it was not through war. It was against civilians who had their culture, home and lived there for geneations. It has the potential to be messy in the future unlike Krajina or Sudetland.
But our real evil ethnic cleansing right now is that of Kosovo.
A war shall be waged, we have to fight an oponent in order for us to win the right to... we can never win the right to if we are beaten people. That is coward, going to a war is brave.
The other criteria is how correct the reasons behind the war are.
I forgot!
Aboutthe Chinese, there are already 200 million male Chinese with less than 35 years who do not have a female Chinese in Chine.
I think they will all go to Europe try to get our beautifull woman, the beautiest on the planet.
Wait and see!
tpfkag:
:p
Allow me to restate my first sentence, which should be used as a touchstone for all my posts:
"I wouldn't force any state in Europe to do such a thing, but I think of this scenario as a hypothetical thought experiment for those who bandy about "racism" against GoV posters."
I think deportations can only be condoned as a last resort in the height of war or the very end of a war. No racism involved.
From tpfkag:
"And, frankly, the route to discrimination, pogroms, and perhaps even genocide of the Roma lies with a return to the primacy of the European nation-state, not with a reinvigorated EU."
Says who? Is the EU somehow inherently incapable of genocide? What makes you optimistic that an organization run by people (weak and fallible that is all too common) will avoid these failures? As of yet, it has not actually committed genocide with weapons, but who says these are necessary? Did the EU stop what happened in Democratic Republic of the Congo or what is happening now in Darfur (allowing genocide by lazy omissions, lacking 10 helicopters with regards to Darfur, and preferring to have those ‘expendable’ Bangladeshis and AU nations as their rent-a-peacekeepers)? Don’t forget that the EU is not particularly democratic, and does not support all forms of free speech, but in fact squelches it. Do you support the EU if it stifles and outlaws opinions you disagree with? Because that is what is happening.
I assume (I try to give people the benefit of the doubt) that you don’t prefer the destruction of the European states and the cultures they safe guard. I think (with no basis, however) that you are against the homogenization of laws and cultures and the importation of foreigners (majority of the same ossified Islamic culture, becoming more unified religiously and culturally thanks to petrodollars) who within 50-100 years will outnumber the Italians, Germans, Swedes, French, and Spaniards, leading to the long-term destruction of these and most other European cultures/nations/ethnic groups. So instead I would like to ask you, keeping in mind demography and statistics, what the EU would look like culturally, politically, and democratically in 25, 50, and 100 years? I am young enough that I could see all 3 of these anniversaries. If you deign to only answer one question let it be this one immediately previous.
The destruction of a nation without guns is still a genocide. And this is what I feel the EU will be doing in the long term. Though I should state that this is not ALL the fault of the EU. If more Europeans would have kids instead of outsourcing child rearing to the 3rd world, there would be less of a problem.
marian - cz: The answer to a housing shortage is - build more houses. Not stop the free movement of people goods to where they want to be.
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