It concerns the evolution of huge no-go zones in various German cities. You’ll notice that the construction of the largest mosque in Germany inside one of these areas did nothing to alleviate the problem. It’s also notable that the immigrant groups that are causing most of the trouble are not the Turks — who are the traditional foreigners in the area — but the more recently arrived and “stateless” Arabs:
In enemy territory- - - - - - - - -
In several German cities the police barely dare to enter certain districts, because they are attacked immediately. A visit to a “dangerous place” in the Ruhr District.
Just take another step across Viehofer Street, and a border has been trespassed. It’s invisible; there are no warnings in the available maps of the city of Essen. But behind the line other laws are enforced. At Viehofer Street the “danger zone” begins. That’s what the local police calls the Northern part of the Essen downtown.
Every other week some dozen policemen in olive-green coveralls enter the area in company with employees from the city’s civil services. The exact number is secret, “so that the foe can’t adjust”, say the police.
The “danger zone” encompasses three dozen streets. The civil servants enter gloomy tea-houses and oriental cafés, normally disguised as “cultural societies”, kiosks, telephone shops, internet cafés. It is a twilight infrastructure of the Lebanese “community”, holding around 5,000 persons in Essen. The civil service demands lists of employees and licenses. They are met with little courtesy and sour expressions as if they were entering alien territory. The city of Essen tries to counter a phenomenon well known to other German cities. Policemen talk of “parallel worlds” and “rooms of fear”. When confronted with such terms, the immigration-politicians cringe. But the experienced civil servants can’t come up with better terms. They don’t dare to enter such areas without protection, otherwise they risk riots and physical assault.
In the northern downtown of Essen trouble and crime are the agenda of the day. Robbery in parks, drug trafficking, fencing of goods, fights, black-market workers. “It is unbelievable that such a lawless place has evolved” said the Essen chief police inspector, Ditmar Jensen, in April 2007. That’s why the area was designated a “danger zone” by the Nordrhein-Westphal police. Since then, the police have authorized harsher control.
This is an unusual strategy in Germany, but no longer a breach of taboo, due to the resistance the almost 270,000 civil servants from state and local police have to confront on a daily basis in many regions. “The problem with violence against the police has escalated in recent years. The police have to concentrate increasingly on self-protection” says national chief of police Konrad Freiberg to Die Welt. “When a fellow policeman goes on duty, he never knows what might happen to him”.
According to the National Police, the number of violent episodes is 26,000 on a yearly basis, which means 60% more than in the 1980s. “People used to think that what the police did was all right. Today it’s automatically assumed that it’s wrong” says police commissar Stefan Kircher, who is in charge of the central precinct in Cologne. Kircher says that unauthorized persons interfere when papers are checked or arrest are made, and oppose the police. For some time now, the police have been trained how to behave in crowds of people. When a patrol enters a bar in order to arrest a criminal, another patrol of equal strength is needed to control the crowd. The police regret that many people seem to have developed a deviant understanding of law and order; increasing aggressiveness toward the police can be observed in all age groups and social classes. “It is not a problem limited to Berlin or the Ruhr district, it’s visible everywhere” says police spokesman Rüdiger Holecek.
Although native Germans dominate crime statistics, the police complain of increasing numbers of foreigners. “Some people, especially young foreigners, don’t respect the law-enforcement service,” says Freiberg. The experience with immigration makes the police feel an obligation to specify every incident in order to avoid accusations of bias against foreigners.
However, from the Berlin Police one can still hear the traditional, evasive language. There, not even when asked will the police admit the existence of special problem areas. “You can’t be so categorical,” they say. But police spokesman Holecek stresses that “in fact, the red alert is on all over Berlin”. Just look at the Marxloh district in Duisburg: “When a shield becomes a target” — a headline of the May issue of the National Police magazine “German Police”. In the article Holecek describes the flammable situation in Marxloh. “You have to talk about this, even if it’s not politically correct”, says Holecek.
Two policemen from Duisburg told him that when they tried to settle a dispute between some Turks and Lebanese at a road intersection in Marxloh they were suddenly surrounded and cut off from their patrol car. Drivers in the blocked line had to call police reinforcements on their cell phones.
Marxloh is officially designated “a district with a special challenge for renewal”; others call it “a social furnace”. Out of 18,000 citizens, a third are of foreign descent, most are Turks, and unemployment is high. With an enthusiastic city council and private initiative enormous efforts are being done to promote mutual understanding, and the biggest mosque in Germany is being erected without any conflict. At the same time, nevertheless, enormous differences in the perception of German law show up. Holecek quotes a Duisburg civil servant as saying, “what has been going on here for three or four years is a ticking time-bomb.”
Chief Inspector Andreas de Fries is all too familiar with the hunch that makes the little hairs on his neck start to rise when in the middle of the night he wants to see the papers of a suspect and suddenly, as from nowhere, he is surrounded by two dozen people who push and yell. “The voices come from all over, and suddenly you feel a stab in the back. So fast you can’t even see it,” says de Fries.
The 45-year old chief inspector is a big guy with a self-confident attitude. But in Duisburg-Marxloh a police uniform isn’t worth much. “ It was a development that sneaked up,” says police lieutenant Hans Schwerdtfeger, who worked with the traffic police at August Bebel Square for eleven years.
Both witnessed the Kurdish conflict in the nineties. They know a lot of the Turkish businessmen; they buy groceries from them. They adore the bridal attires on display in an exotic fashion-outlet in Weseler Street and they have personal friends within the community. All in all, Schwerdtfeger and de Fries like the people of Turkish descent in Marxloh.
But they worry about “stateless” people from Lebanon, Iraq or the Kurdish part of Turkey. “With the Turks and the Albanians the parents are helpful,” says Schwerdtfeger; usually, if a youngster makes trouble, a talk with the parent can solve the problem. But the youngsters who call themselves “Arabs” don’t acknowledge any borders or respect. There may be some hundreds in Marxloh and their behavior tends to engender a disgust for all foreigners. Eight-year-old boys kick old ladies, sexually harass women, throw water balloons at business windows, ignore traffic lights, and create havoc at road intersections. “They constantly provoke incidents, even in proximity to patrol cars,” says de Fries. As soon as you try to calm down the younger ones, the older, aggressive brothers show up. “This is our street,” they yell. Then it becomes dangerous. The Police President of Duisburg, Rolf Cebin, calls the problem by its name: “The gathering of various communities when the police show up is an increasing problem. One can’t avoid a sense of hostility towards the police.”
The National Police credit Cebin for her courage to say so and underscores that this gives inspiration to ethnic colleagues. She considers it her duty to change their social- and integration politics.
Meanwhile, in the neighboring city of Essen, the Northern downtown once again turns into “danger zone”. Just in the first four months since the new regulations came into force, 1,000 persons were controlled and 200 crimes registered. For half a year no more serious crime has occurred. Police spokesman Ulrich Fassbender is proud of this success, but dryly adds: “If we as police were less present, it would escalate immediately.”
An afterword from the translator:
Hmmm, typical Die Welt. As Blaise Pascal would say: “This letter is so long because I did not have the time to make it short.”
Hat tip: Steen.
35 comments:
Can someone please explain how European elites get away with the following foolishness? On the one hand, they insist immigration manpower is crucial for all those jobs the native population's unborn children are not available to do. On the other hand, the unemployment rate among immigrants is sky high.
Well, what explains this contradiction? There either is no manpower shortage or unsuitable immigrants were imported who are not known for their work ethic and allowed to swell Welfare rolls instead. Either way, the elite have messed things up big time.
And why are they not thrown out at the next election for such incompetence, importing a bigger problem than they had to begin with? Can you really fool all of the people all of the time? I didn't think Germans were such dummkopfs.
This is exactly how they want you to lose your country. Europe and the US need to get wise and tough before it's too late. Oh, and provide full body armor to the police.
Can someone please explain how European elites get away with the following foolishness?
They tell us EU will fix all our problems.
A district where the police are "immediately attacked," if they're not equally swiftly reinforced by local residents bearing arms, is a district in insurrection. It deserves the attention of the army. Loyal residents should be relocated until only the insurgents remain, after which the traditional razing and sowing the ground with salt will usually suffice.
But this is Germany we speak of, isn't it? A province of Orchidectomized Europe? So none of that is going to happen, unless American forces see to it.
Europe, we hardly knew ye.
It looks like Germany have got the ZUS too.
Zones Urbanes Sensible.
Find ZUS via www.Google.com
@laine:
"On the one hand, they insist immigration manpower is crucial for all those jobs the native population's unborn children are not available to do. On the other hand, the unemployment rate among immigrants is sky high."
Germany stopped to allow immigration for work purposes in 1973. The "foreigners" (often with German citizenship) we have now, are the descendants of work migrants ("Gastarbeiter"), or they came as refugees, asylum seekers or as spouses for those who are already in. Germany had her doors wide open for asylum seekers ("political refugees") until 1992, because after the Nazi experience, political asylum was enshrined into the constitution as a guaranteed right, enforceable by law. It's mostly not an economic policy that is to blame for the current situation, but general leniency and bleeding-heart humanitarianism. For comparison to America, one might also want to consider that Europe is far easier to reach from the countries of origin. There is no ocean between them and us, and the countries of origin as well as transit countries are often not cooperative. But even if they are, people can still throw their passports away once they are in. If we really wanted to take a tough stance, we would have to sink boats in the Mediterranean and build a protection wall like the one from the former inner-German border at the Eastern frontier of the EU, together with a firing order for those wanting to cross the border illegally.
"And why are they not thrown out at the next election for such incompetence, importing a bigger problem than they had to begin with? Can you really fool all of the people all of the time? I didn't think Germans were such dummkopfs."
People are afraid of agreeing with alleged "nazis", many seem to believe that Germans have no right to claim a certain territory exclusive for their own kind (that would be "nazi"), so we must be open to immigration *), it would be inhumane to send them back aso. A few years ago a refugee from the Balkans living near my home town was to be deported and, if I recall correctly, this man was also a convicted criminal. However, because his minor children were to be deported together with him, teachers from their school, together with their classmates, protested against the deportation, sent letters to the MPs etc. The local newspaper wrote a sob story, and nobody stood up in favor of deportation because nobody wanted to be blamed inhumane and "nazi". The politicians experience quite a lot of pressure against being tough on immigration. In the past decades every once and now a far right party experienced a surprising one-off success at state elections, but that simmered down soon after. Maybe the obedient nature and the "top-down" character of Germany's "democracy" plays a role, too: If our political establishment says that this or that party is unacceptable then people obey.
*) I found this story from an American talking to Germans about immigration on Lawrence Auster's blog, it might help to illustrate the German mindset further.
Can someone please explain how European elites get away with the following foolishness?
They won't. They just don't know it yet.
Islam appeals to the German mind for two reasons. First through its totalitarian nature and second through its promise to consummate the unfinished "great patriotic deed" of the Holocaust.
That seems too outlandish? Have you ever given a thought why America is so irrationally, unjustifiedly and viscerally hated in Germany? It is for exactly the same reasons Islam is embraced.
Nobody who doesn't understand that will ever understand the German mindset.
Another reason why Germans don't fight back against mass immigration is that they just don't have the energy left to permanently having to defend themselves against such anti-German smears as now from bystander. I don't know if I can stop anybody here from believing him, but let me try: If Islam appealed to Germans so much, why don't they convert to it en masse? Why the indirect approach by importing muslims? Why did the German government recently tried to fend off having to accept muslim refugees from Iraq by favoring Christian ones? Furthermore, yes, many Germans are anti-American, but there are other European nations where anti-Americanism is even more widespread. There are hundreds of different reasons why somebody hates America, and many of them come together with having a leftist mindset. Just listen to Obama, how he puts America down in his speeches.
Thank you, pasta, for saving me the time to have to respond to bystander's drivel. Another, more obvious point with regards to our "love" for Islam is of course, public opinion, which usually heavily leans into the "loathe Islam" direction (70% and rising). Just stage a poll in any average German city whether they want a mosque in their district. If only 60% disagree with the idea, you've probably already found the most liberal Germans.
And German anti-americanism primarily has to to with German leftism.
Right! It is my fault and the fault of others who dare to criticize Germany that the poor poor Germans have lost all their previously so ardent vigour to fight Islam.
You must be German to think up such a cowardly, self-excusatory drivel.
And why, pray tell, has Obama been such a smash hit in Germany, different from other European countries?
Yeah right! Because he is anti-American.
If you are not German, you have no idea about what you are talking. If you are German (like me) you are the usual history-relativising leftist or crypto-leftist German scum.
And German anti-americanism primarily has to to with German leftism.
Yes! Right! That is exactly why the NPD is so full of love for America.
I do not want to smear the comment section of an excellent blog with a senseless feud with some of those re-writers of German history, who are trying to pass themselves off as "conservatives". Go and burn in your own private hell.
Oh by the way, methinks "Pasta" is having a Selbstgespräch. One Blogger- and one Open ID from Germany supporting each other within minutes. Will wonders ever cease!
The blog owners ought to check IP numbers to prevent such sort of juvenile trolling.
The NPD's economic policiies are largely in line with the ones of "Die Linke". One could say that there are two different extremes of the political spectrum touching each other on their fringes, but that would be to simplify it to fit into the public picture of the easy "left-right" scheme. My personal opinion is that both the NPD and "Die Linke" are just different sides of the same leftwing coin. Both are socialist, both are anti-american/anti-Israeli, both are pro-muslim. It's the end result of the biggest coup of post WW2 history at work: having sold us nazism as a rightwing creed.
As for your idea that Germans are longing for the fullfillment of the Holocaust as some great patriotic deed, get serious. While it seems to be the most time-consuming past time of many German leftwingers to mourn for dead Jews while simultaniously making it harder for the living ones to stay alive with their unflinching support for thr "Palestinians", these are the same people who bear the responsibility for the circumstances as described in the above article: people with no backbone, people who abhor violence and the thought of anything related to military vigour and strength.
And if you are German yourself, you know damn well why so few people openly fight against mass immigration and it's symptoms. It's a safe way to get your carreer killed, especially if you are a public servant of any kind, and to get your life and family endangered without being able to count on the police for backup. And who wants to be called a Nazi in public, even among ordinary people? I certainly don't want to, and most others don't want to either.
And no, I'm not pasta. But if you seriously think it's so unnatural that three Germans comment on a Germany-related article on an international blog, go and check the IPs so that you can sleep well again...
No one seems to know how many of these ZUS (or no-go areas as they're known in England) exist.
Maybe GoV readers could write in to identify the no-go areas in their countries, and GoV post the results as a possible ongoing project?
The results may prove striking when considered as a whole.
As for the UK, parts of the following towns are regarded as potentially dangerous for non-Muslims, especially after dark: Bolton, Bradford, Coventry, Dewsbury, Glasgow, Keighley, Leeds, London ('Banglatown'; the Ocean Estate, Stepney), Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Southall. There are no doubt many more.
Neither 'no-go areas' or Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS) are particularly satisfactory designations as neither identify what makes these areas dangerous. I would like to suggest naming them 'Muslim Danger Zones' (MDZs). Not only is this a more accurate description, but is easily understood by most non-English speakers.
'Mo-zones' is another possibility.
Really, are the Germans any worse than the Brits? If anything, the latter seem worse.
(...)people with no backbone, people who abhor violence and the thought of anything related to military vigour and strength.
The Antifa don't seem to abhor violence, and they are coddled by the broader left and the authorities. This must be an example of Lawrence Auster's "unprincipled exception".
Bystander, in your own words, I would like to say: "Nobody who hasn't [read Bystander's comments] will ever understand the German mindset."
An almost 100% majority of the German people does NOT want to complete the holocaust. That is utter nonsense.
The fact that today's Germans are extremely anti-Israel, anti-American and (yes!) anti-German has to do with two facts: 1) the (justified) shame poured out over Germany for the holocaust and the death toll of two WWs in the 20th century was a full success. 2) White Guilt, the major political tool of international socialism after WW2 has Germany entirely in its iron grip. When major politicians like Joschka Fischer can speak publicly about annihilating everything German and "diluting the German blood" among the population of Germany, you understand that once more, Germany is "industrialising" an ideology. Whatever we/they do, we strive to do better than anybody else. From shame and guilt to aggression and destruction is a very short way. This time around, Germans are headed towards self destruction. And unfortunately I can see many signs of an increasing momentum towards the same goal here in the US. Israel, will head just exactly the same way if nothing happens to prevent it! Just two days ago I talked to an Israeli prof. He hates Israel, his heart bleeds for the palis! He hates the US, because he hates everything white, strong, solid, successful and hetero.
And by the way, GoV worked just fine without a capo, so far.
Besides suicidal Political Correctness, is there anything that prevents undercover police units from donning Muslim attire and following at a distance behind an ordinarily dressed undercover officer into these no-go zones and promptly arresting anyone who makes physical threats or initiates a physical assault?
A police force that refuses to crack down on known areas of criminal activity is actively surrendering their city to crime. At some point it becomes indistinguishable from aiding and abetting or being a physical accessory.
PS: “This letter is so long because I did not have the time to make it short.”
I am so using that line in the future.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 07/29/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
It's the end result of the biggest coup of post WW2 history at work: having sold us nazism as a rightwing creed.
This article never loses it's vigour. The idea that Hitler was a conservative or a right-winger is one if the biggest lies foisted on the world since... well, since Mohammed started nibbling his magic mushrooms.
CarnackiUK said... Maybe GoV readers could write in to identify the no-go areas in their countries, and GoV post the results as a possible ongoing project?
Such a project would provide a very useful tool. I second this request.
"And if you are German yourself, you know damn well why so few people openly fight against mass immigration and it's symptoms. "
Interesting point. Also, few fought openly against the NSDAP some years back.
Maybe if they had, then, things might have worked out differently.
Maybe if they would, now, things might end up differently.
Until the Germans, the British, and whomever, are given the okay to round up these unlawful immigrants and send them packing, they will just have to try and deal with the immigrants as best as they can. I think the Germans and British have far too much tolerance for these immigrants and their disrespect for authority. Every offender should be rounded up and deported pronto.
This is truly amazing. Even in the worst US ghetto where cops have to travel in numbers there is still a certain fear of the police. The "fear" in this instance seems to be totally absent. But I bet they were scared s***less of the cops in their home country. Why? Because there they crack heads and take names. The only things these savages respect.
@spackle
It's not surprising at all, in no way. If cops in the US are suddenly surrounded by a hostile mass of people that start attacking them, they either taser the crap out of them or go for their guns immediately. Moreso, if backup is called right off the bat, that backup will wear bullet-proof vests and carry shotguns or more, and nobody will make a fuzz if some of those violent attackers catch a bullet.
If you have two German police officers, a) their attire and uniform is in no way inspiring the kind of respect that, say, that of a cop or a Carabinieri does. That, and b) they will in 9 out of ten cases not wear any kind of protective clothing. C) They cannot simply arrest a group if they are insulted from somewher within the group - and if they find the culprit anyhow the group will turn against them as a whole. And d), once they are surrounded, threatened and attacked, they will back down and, at best, use some pepper spray and issue temporary "Platzverweise" (dismissals).
Oh, true, simply going by the letter of the law these are true self-defense situations that would allow officers to use their sidearms - but no one in their right mind would do something like that.
It would be like asking to be publically crucified, especially as there would be little guarantee that the officer in question would recieve the backing of his superiors. The media would fall over the case like a pack of wolves, and as the higher ups are depending on political goodwill for their carreers, an officer like that would not be lauded, but sacrificed to the PC-machine.
It looks as though there are going to be some police deaths in Europe from ethnic mobs protecting their criminals, another step closer to anarchy.
It seems as though in Britain, Sweden and Germany (maybe not France yet) the police force is among the institutions most advanced in dhimmitude. In Britain, they ask Muslim leaders for permission to chase after suspects into the "no go" areas and also confide information on their anti-terrorist activities.
In North America, the police are the last right wing hold-outs in the legal system whose motto is still law and order. All the rest, judges, lawyers, prison wardens, parole boards have bought into the leftist illusion of rehabilitation.
How long before our police are demoralized by the "catch and release" program run by our courts?
Laine,
"It looks as though there are going to be some police deaths in Europe from ethnic mobs protecting their criminals..."
"there are going to be..."
Funny thing to say in this current hour!
I'll just give you a case in the multicultural Portuguese safe-heaven of a policeman, well a black policeman, shot dead. Why?
He lived in this predominantly (like 99,99%) black no go area, Cova da Moura. His neighbourhoods thought it was not a good idea to have a cop in the neighbourhood...
He was shot on duty. His mother? That women suffered as well, but did not acused anybody. Nobody knows who did it... but everybody there knows who are the "bad boys"...
Just a case. Many more throughut Europe...
Between, the professional activity with a greater suicidal tax (people who kill themselves) is the police. So maybe they can be even more demoralised...
If you don't believe I can provide you some links... (thougth I doubt I can find them in English...)
Zenster:
"Besides suicidal Political Correctness, is there anything that prevents undercover police units from donning Muslim attire and following at a distance behind an ordinarily dressed undercover officer into these no-go zones and promptly arresting anyone who makes physical threats or initiates a physical assault?"
You don't seem to realize the local situation at all. I don't know about Germany, but I do know about France.
What is exactly Muslim attire? Usually, it's expensive Nike sneakers and assorted trendy sportswear.
Unless you envision some faux-bearded imam with a white cap and an islamic robe. Are you really suggesting a policeman should assume such a disguise, and then reveal his real quality by making an arrest in the middle of a 95% Muslim neighbourhood?
How do you spell the word suicide, exactly? You don't seem to understand the extent of murderous outrage that would ensue from such a perceived act of blasphemy.
Actually, it's not even a question of dress. Anybody entering these city estates may be viewed as an enemy if his face is not familiar. And he might be confronted at any moment in order to be investigated.
Some time ago, a white Frenchman was beaten to death by some immigrants after taking pictures of a lampost his company used to sell. He was a stranger to the area. It was a drug-dealing zone.
So, to begin with, any plainclothes officer should be of North African or black ethnicity, in order to blend with the surroundings. This would make it more dangerous for him once his cover would be blown, since such policemen are perceived as traitors by their own community.
Then there is the fact that policemen, and firemen also, are regulary setup by the scum, throwing heavy objects from the top of buildings, firebombs, or worse.
In those estates, you can see people coming from very far away. The scum own the place.
It's urban guerilla already. These guys are not afraid of cops, they are not afraid of the law. Many of them are really out to kill a cop. For no particular reason. They say so. They have already tried to. It's quite likely, some day, they will succeed.
The level of hatred is intense. Normal civic rules do not apply any more when a low-level civil war is already going on.
I finally understand from the above description what is really going on in some French cities. I also understand how the future civil war will look like unless they are deported up to the last man right now. Frightening. Apocalyptic.
The article from "Die Welt" has now been transformed into a short video-clip and aired on one of Germany's largest TV-networks RTL
Robert Marchenoir: Anybody entering these city estates may be viewed as an enemy if his face is not familiar. And he might be confronted at any moment in order to be investigated.
Your refutation is excruciating. In reply I can only suggest that very large crowds of French citizens begin marching into these no-go zones in order to assert some sort of national identity. Yes, they need to be accompanied by large contingents of law enforcement or, even, military escorts.
While America may have a few regions (i.e., Compton, Hamtramck, Camden, inter alia) of such outright lawlessness, there is usually a degree of public or voter support for the clean-up of such criminal hives.
France seems to have willfully abdicated its sovereign borders to those who sneer at them and violently assault citizens or law enforcement alike.
Please rest assured that I appreciate your own more informed viewpoint. I can only express astonishment at how such flagrant lawlessness has not been met with Napoleon's traditional "whiff of grapeshot".
How has it come to this and how much longer can it continue? It is sadly true that many will not even lift a hand to defend themselves, but there are many that will.
A consistent among elites is their incompetence. Nothing they do works. The alternative view is that that's part of the plan - but if they're that clever why do they need to rule by deceit?
The situation they are creating will lead to their downfall - whichever way things turn out. Surely not even western elites could intend such a thing.
Western man generally does not fly into a rage at an instant - he avoids action if he can. We tend to be more controlled, but in war we're all the more deadly for that. We are being pushed to the brink...
Thank you Pasta and TC for some excellent comments. Its scary how much alike it's to the swedish non-debate. Both your comments and immigration history could as well describe the swedish system.
Found this pretty interesting:
"Joschka Fischer can speak publicly about annihilating everything German and "diluting the German blood" among the population of Germany´"
Our swedish politicians of both the left and right wing has said more or less exactly the same thing (about swedes of course)!! It is something fascinating reading about other europeans' experiences and realising how alike our problems are.
We don't have a debate in Sweden mostly due to the nature of our system which is pretty top-down and conformist. Think most swedes are afraid that they will be fired, called a nazi, expelled from the union and make yourself impossible if you speak out towards the insanity. I see no stop insight.
Don't know if you outside Sweden understands what I mean with top-down and conformist. It isn't anything enforced as such. It's just underlying ideas filling the society which are very hard to go against. We also always take everything to the extreme in Sweden (welfare state, foreign aid, productivity mania, whatever), might as well call it a national trait. Now, we want to transform our society into a multicultural one by massive immigration of clients for the welfare state. (we don't have any work related immigration since 1976, only immigration for bleeding-heart humanitarianism reasons on a massive scale with incredible unemployment rates) Whole cities are being transformed to welfare dependent no-go areas and our politicians answer is that it's because our our extreme racism and history of intolerance. I find it rather irritating.
Having stumbled across this discussion whilst completing a detailed study of one of these 'no-go Muslim estates' -the aforementioned Ocean Estate in Stepney- I must say I have found the same reactionary conservatism in a great many sources. Though the resentment usually stems from working class resentment over competition for resources, here the majority of you seem to be educated (middle class?) individuals, the standard taxpayer who usually holds a great deal of sympathy for arriving immigrant populations.
These are the fault lines of a globalising world - the global poor chasing the global dollar/pound/euro. The Ocean Estate is not a no go area. I have spent many days (and nights) in the estate and though I find it almost intolerable that ANYONE should have to live there, I don't find it any more threatening than predominantly or entirely white areas in the UK.
The fact is that you are all voicing regressive opinions, the mixing of cultures and demographics is an unstoppable fact of the globalised economy, and the new world structure.
Nationalism spread over territories through improved transport, information and economic expansion. Internationalism is showing the very same traits, and it is irreversable. True the structure of welfare must keep up, and the fault lines will appear impossible to resolve, but the other factors which made nationalism work (with of course the unfortunate over-zealous incidents of National Socialism) will begin to emerge in the new interantionalism -linguistic unification (with 19th century France as a perfect and unlikely example), the basic fundaments of health and education (which need A LOT of work in developing countries), and an entirely new attitude to international law, partcularly as concerns economic protectionism and employment.
Right now can ONE of you honestly say that you would not migrate from Bangladesh or Somalia to give your family a better life?
And if when you got to your new host nation you would not head to the only region where there were others lie you, who spoke your language and had learnt to survive there?
Can you honestly say, as individuals who write with such elegiac notions of the loss of your safe and comfortable western cultures, that when you had found a poxy flat on a dilapidated estate in a historically impoverished area rife with conflict for resources and the sorts of racial assaults that emerged in the East End of London and continue to emerge across the world, that you would embrace the new strange and hostile place.
You know what you'd do? You'd shut up, keep yourself to yourself and you'd collect your cheque once a week.
And it would be a pittance, and you would scrape by like everyone else in the area. You'd suffer the lack of employment, but it would be far more difficult for you because you would struggle with the language and your religion (though i abhor the very concept) would not allow you to take certain work.
Life would be shit. But you would always maintain that it was better than the place you left, better than waiting to die, if that's not what you end up doing in the 'no-go areas' of the European metropolis.
It is only once we, as hosts, accept that cultural mixes will remain a factor in the modern city, and work toward engaging one another whatever the cost, that things will improve.
I bet you don't complain when an immigrant serves you in a bar, cleans the toilet at your work etc.. but they've GOT a job eh?
You are not racists, but you are part of a difficult phase in the process by which globalisation changes the world. You are the generations that will watch unprecedented change in cityscape and structure, you will resist it through voting in conservative powers and urging increased restrictions on immigration. You will be marginalised or incorporated into a new shape of things, one for which 'bleeding heart humanitarianism' might just be its saving grace.
Honestly, history marches on, and the only guarentee is the persistance of human survivalism. The answer to fixing the problems described above is engagement, discussion and planning. You cannot go back to the non-existant golden ages of the past, however irritating that may be.
Would we not ALL get the hell out of Bangladesh or Somalia if we had the misfortune to have been born there? whether flood or famine, war or the simple opportunities that the west espouses, it would be hard not to be drawn toward Europe or the US
Play nice kids, and don't hurt nobody...
oh and on the topic of Islam...
it will take a long time for the two cultures to learn from each other, but let's stop talking about it like crazy Huntington types and resolve to resolve the situation.
Muslims are not evil, and it's silly tripe like this that makes the whole situation worse.
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