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[mainiac]

I can't imagine many EU businessmen to be happy with that. It also looks like the beginning of another Greece all over again.

Ah yes, it exactly looks like an imbalanced capital flow due to countries being in a currency union but not having integrated labor markets.  That explains the situation to a t.

[Morrigi]

Russia, what the fuck already.

Well, even though the Russian statement is way out of line, it is not completely void.

As a Dutch person, I am horribly ashamed to have to admit that about a fifth of our population has happily voted for the party of Geert Wilders, which is a right-wing nationalist, xenophobic, populist party. And this is not a political whim just restricted to our little insignificant country. The Scandinavian countries, France, Britain, Greece... They all have seen a spectacular rise in influence of right-wing nationalist, populist parties with xenophobic sentiments.

There are reasons for that. Multiculturalism, in the hearts and minds of the people, is creating more problems than it's solving.

And anyway, is it so wrong to believe in keeping England English? Keeping Sweden Swedish, or France French?  Doesn't it set off red flags when a chorus of "Racist!" drowns out all meaningful discussion and debate about immigration in Europe? For some people, I believe it is. Hell, there's even been talk about banning the parties of these "fascists". Ironic.

[LordSlowpoke]

the main problem of multiculturalism is taking it from the colonies wholesale while totally ignoring that old and new world societies are not compatible

anything that comes after is a derivative

europe needs its own multiculturalism, or there will be race riots on our hands the moment there's not enough welfare to go around the masses that decide that they don't need nor want to integrate into the host country

thankfully, the amount of such people is still less than those who actually do integrate

answer is pretty obviously a strong eu but that's my answer to a lot of the unresolved problems of european society and politics

[nanomage]

@nanomage
Few tires and one of Yanukovich's man thrown into the trash bin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq0sRG4_Rn8
...

yeah I've looked him up. He well deserved it, though I'm a bit relieved that they didn't actually burn him dead.

[Descan]

Multiculturalism works for Canada. I think Scottish style civic nationalism would work better for the Old World. Canada doesn't really have an innate nation-wide culture besides our liberalism and (ironically) our multicultural attitude. Europe has thousands of years of extant culture, that is not innate to any ethnic group but is worth preserving. Immigrants taking on (some/most/all/pick) cultural traits of the host country would help a lot, but even that's not absolutely required? I'm kind of spitballing here, does anyone get what I mean?

[Helgoland]

We should stop regarding culture as something static. Cultures change, and always have changed, and immigration is just one of the many motors of such change. The question is: In what direction should the change go? Example: Turkish and Arab immigrants in Germany have made our culture richer, they even came up with our national fast food. But Muslim extremism is of course something we could do without.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Problem of EU is not letting immigrants in. Indeed, healthy nation can only benefit from influx of other cultures with new ideas

Problems are
1) Letting in too much creating situation when your culture becomes the one used to enrich culture of immigrants disintegrating in process
2) Creating a situation were foreign culture gets unfair competitive advantages

[smjjames]

Wat, no mention of the US being a melting pot of multiculturalism?

We're pretty much in the same situation as Canada.

Still, the point other people are making still stands, the old world has thousands of years of culture while the new world doesn't really have any innate culture.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It's worth noting that the Muslim population in the US is amongst the least accepting of extremism anywhere. Unfortunately, this poll does not divide between US-born Muslims and immigrants, but it's still significant enough that Europe should probably take a look at it before jumping to immigration moratoriums and far-right social policies.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

To be honest I never viewed American culture as anything but British culture with quirks. Or British-German culture

Yep, there are notable influence from all continents but it is like spices for a dish

For example if you were a melting pot, you would use not English but some mix of various languages forming a new one. Or at least your English would have hundreds of words not understandable in England.

USA is an assimilation pot.

[smjjames]

True, more of an assimilation pot, but the multiculturalism is still there.

Yes there have been anti-immigrant attitudes (and racism in some cases) in the past, but we've had to deal with the problems since day one.

[Baffler]

I personally find it very hard to look at the response from Europe in general to immigration and not see anything but petty racism and xenophobia. The same sort Europeans love to go on about happening in the USA, as it happens.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

To be honest I never viewed American culture as anything but British culture with quirks. Or British-German culture

I'm just going to step out while the British forumites yell at you.

For example if you were a melting pot, you would use not English but some mix of various languages forming a new one.

English is heavy on loanwords. If you kept America isolated from the rest of the world for a couple hundred more years you probably would get a new language. This isn't even getting into Spanish, which is (as I recall) at 10% spread in the US. There's a growing culture of bilingualism in the Southwestern states. You also have things like Cajun French in Louisiana, Gullah in the Carolina coasts, and AAVE is arguably divergent enough from American English to be a dialect.

Or at least your English would have hundreds of words not understandable in England.

Well, given that this is exactly the case (you call flip-flops thongs, Britain? Thongs?!)...

USA is an assimilation pot.

It's not a binary value. You can have multicultural assimilation, though it is rarer than destructive assimilation. Personally, I think that the way we do it is genuinely the best way to go about it. European multiculturalism has turned the very concept into a snarl word. Trying to maintain cultures in separation from one another like its done there is inherently conflict-raising. It promotes lack of understanding and unending cultural clash. You can't have one society and one law unless you have a common link, but that doesn't mean you have to destroy other people's cultures and force them to be the same as you, nor is it racism to expect migrants to make reasonable changes to get along with society at large. Such a xenocentrist narrative has so far not given much in the way of results. It enriches both host and migrant cultures to accept one another and discard malignant elements from both to achieve a greater result.

[LordSlowpoke]

One of the problems, Baffler, is that people seem to not realise how vital immigration is to the economy. They see immigrants and think 'I COULD HAVE HAD HIS JOB!'

No, you couldn't, because you don't want his job. You want a job that pays more that you have to do less in. Lots of businesses have said the immigrants are the ones that work the hardest.

Also, NHS needs immigrant doctors else there'd be an even worse shortage.

why exactly is the solution to the problem of a shortage of doctors to import doctors from somewhere else

it's stopgap as hell, when these die off you still will be left with not enough domestic doctors, do you plan to import doctors forever?

instead of saying "hey let's get doctors from somewhere else" you could say "hey how do we educate enough people to be doctors" but that's too much effort is it

[Phmcw]

True, more of an assimilation pot, but the multiculturalism is still there.

Yes there have been anti-immigrant attitudes (and racism in some cases) in the past, but we've had to deal with the problems since day one.

You also have one of the least solidaire society of the developed world.

Europe immigrant problem is just complesance to criminality, unwillingness to enforce the law in the gettho, and the decay of our institutions cause by mondialisation and privatisation.

We're broke and powerless, not overrun. If anything we have way more influence on the magrheb than the magrheb have on us.

BTW foreign doctor suck, importing them is a very bad idea and is causing problems. No universities are on par with those of the western world.