GP literally addresses your points. I think we’re very welcoming in most of Europe, adopt others’ traditions, and are not too imposing. Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances.
Dismissing any amount of integration is chicanery. We’re pro-social creatures, and knowing the lay of the land makes your life better.
compared to the rest of the world europe is absolutely not welcoming. heck, even as a native german if you move from one region in germany to another you are treated as an unwelcome outsider. less so in big cities where you are more anonymous but still. if you are lucky you can find "your tribe" and your children may be accepted if they grow up there. the only places in germany where i ever felt welcome was linux user groups, and other fringe groups which as a whole had more of an outsider status.
> heck, even as a native german if you move from one region in germany to another you are treated as an unwelcome outsider. less so in big cities where you are more anonymous but still. if you are lucky you can find "your tribe" and your children may be accepted if they grow up there.
This is standard for most of the world. Really, only some countries, all of them developed, are exceptions to this.
Are you white? Try being non-white. Chinese people, and most Asians - yes, the entire continent, or at least most of it - are deferent to white people.
> and even in the US for example than anywhere in europe
The US is one of, if not the most, welcoming countries in the world. Additionally, I suppose you probably lived in a city or at least a large town in the US rather than anywhere rural or more closed-off.
unlikely. friendliness is experienced from the first moment you meet someone. my personality can hardly influence that. asians and americans are simply more polite and friendly in their approach to people they have never met. of course if you are unfriendly then that may change their approach. but if that was the measure then people should be friendly to me in europe too. but they aren't.
and i don't know what XI has to do with that. politics doesn't affect how people interact. not that quickly anyways. i was around when the big exodus happened in the mid-10s, and after covid china opened up instead of closing down. i don't even need a visa anymore if i just want to visit china. so even by that measure china has become friendlier. but that's not the kind of friendliness i mean.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't want to integrate, I'm saying that "demanding" it is problematic. Imagine grandparents being brought over from a different country and they don't speak the language - should they be forced to attend language school? What level of language ability would be considered the minimum and does that also include reading/writing?
By all means provide encouragement and resources so that people can adapt to their new situation, but don't demand it.
I think that most people arguing for integration are fine with grandparents being left to their devices. Where they get antsy is when the next generation grows up self-segregated into their own distinct culture.
Yeah, I know. That’s why I say that no one is ever happy with where you set the limit. I think demanding A2 in language is reasonable, for example. Yes, demanding, even if it’s in a reasonably long timespan. We demand much more out of everyone born in the country, don’t we?
A2 is a pathetically low bar. I say this as someone who had to do A2 Dutch to pass the citizenship exams, it is a pathetically low bar to pass. I have some friends who passed the citizenship exam and can barely order food at a restaurant, yet alone hold/follow conversations.
See? Whatever bar you set, someone is upset. I agree with you, but demanding A2 is maybe a starting point, and incentivising B1 works well.
One issue is how the standard applies to different languages. A2 in French is enough to get by around Brussels, but B1 in Dutch is barely enough to understand people where I live now (dialects are to blame as well, of course).
Familiarity with one Latin-based language means other Latin-based languages “sound understandable”. I’ve no other connection to make with Dutch. But okay, that’s just personal experience.
I think most liberals have the intuition that laws should apply equally to citizens and non-citizens, and I think that's where a lot of the discomfort comes from when we talk about immigration. A citizen who doesn't meet those demands imposed on non-citizens (e.g., language, cultural assimilation, etc.) will never be at risk of deportation, simply because they were lucky enough to be born in the country.
However, it does seem that this Swedish party is willing to "repatriate" even Swedish-born citizens, so at least they're consistent.
It doesn't say that at all, Swedish-born citizens means at least one of the parent IS already Swedish, they aren't citizen at birth if none of the parents are swedish and that's just normal almost everywhere in the world.
You wouldn't expect your child to be Pakistani if you get birth over there as 2 German individuals.
> I think most liberals have the intuition that laws should apply equally to citizens and non-citizens, and I think that's where a lot of the discomfort comes from when we talk about immigration. A citizen who doesn't meet those demands imposed on non-citizens (e.g., language, cultural assimilation, etc.) will never be at risk of deportation, simply because they were lucky enough to be born in the country.
What you said makes no sense. Vanishingly few liberals believe laws should apply equally to citizens and non-citizens. If they did, they'd be for the complete abolition of visa/residency conditions altogether, simply allowing anyone to immigrate to the country. I doubt that even in the US more than 5% of people believe this. Any European country it'll be <3%.
Any visa/residency condition is a demand not imposed on citizens. Language and cultural assimilation aren't any different from other such conditions.
> Imagine grandparents being brought over from a different country and they don't speak the language - should they be forced to attend language school?
Yes.
> does that also include reading/writing?
Yes.
> What level of language ability would be considered the minimum
> I disagree. They should learn the language of their own accord or get kicked out.
I can't agree, even though we likely have the same goals. You want to filter for people who work very hard to do their best to integrate. You don't want to filter for being good at self-studying languages. Most people just suck at self-studying through not much fault of their own, they were raised that way. It can also be incredibly useful for non-language integration purposes, as it gives them hours of direct contact hours with natives which - again, for the dedicated ones, which are the ones we want to stay - often leads to social contact and further integration.
I get where you're coming from, but the tax dollars needed for such language schools are really negligible, and I've seen with my own eyes the benefits to integration that couldn't be had without it. It's just a good cheap investment. I'd still apply the same final bar as you would, FWIW.
> Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances.
Where I'm from (Northern Ireland) harassing women and attacking emergency services have been part of the culture for as long as I remember. Would you suggest that people arriving should actively take part in these behaviours?
I remember a discussion I had with a English teacher from UK who immigrated to Sweden during the 1990s. They said that in UK, when a government employee would visit a house regarding dept or some other problem, they would bring a large police escort and then they and the neighbourhood would had a big brawl that generally ended with the police winning and then most of the participants would go to the pub. It was just how things worked. The guy were majorly surprised that in Sweden, the government employee could just knock on the door and talk to the person with no police and no brawl.
I would assume that if attacking emergency services is the norm in Northern Ireland, so is police escorts of emergency services. That is not the norm in Sweden, through it has become the norm for certain regions where emergency services no longer feel safe going on an emergency call. The downside is that if the police is delayed, so is the emergency service, and naturally the quality of emergency service is reduce in those locations which some people say is a form of discrimination.
That’s… a tough one. Bit of a loaded question. I would say “don’t engage in anti-social behaviour regardless of the cultural milieu”, I’m sure NI has much better traditions to partake in?
But then we're getting a bit deeper into the issue. These are things that need to be considered if you want to mandate "integration" surely.
We now want people to integrate but we also recognise that there's a higher moral code which should supersede local customs. Is that correct? Then it seems like integration isn't the actual aim, but the shaping of people into a sort of ideal which is actually removed from local cultures.
We're also onto picking and choosing between the "better" and worse local traditions. But who is the arbitrator for which traditions are good and which are bad?
What if the purpose of integration is merely to bring people closer to the local average, ironing out the outlier kinks and helping them feel secure in society?
I did a bit of the integration course by choice, even though it’s not mandatory as a EU national. I found it fine, a bit boring because we grew up with most of these customs. The Flemish ‘traditions’ were all new to me, and I also realise I don’t follow them; but respect some if I’m invited to people’s houses.
I think we’ve made a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to integration. It’s neither super forced and awful nor useless.
Northern Ireland is definitely atypical. An English friend of mine moved over there a few years ago as his wife is from there and her family all live in the same area. I can't imagine him being considered as "integrated" for at least a few decades.
(My experience with Irish/Northern Irish people is that they're very friendly and welcoming, but I've only been there a couple of times).
Dismissing any amount of integration is chicanery. We’re pro-social creatures, and knowing the lay of the land makes your life better.