My First Politically Incorrect Thought
They call it "Public Viewing": Masses of Germans gathering to watch a football match.
I used to be somewhat left-liberal politically with a whiff of rebellion in my mind which was the case because there were plenty of reasons for me to question authority in a practical manner. The reason for that was that I was growing up in a very conservative household with a lot of fun-free features and I always had my own mind. But it is also not unusual for young people to be something left, so my rebellious attitude and behavior was quite Mainstream, I guess.
It is now a about a decade ago that I finished school and moved out to attend university (far away from home). I tried to only bother my parents with a visit when it really had to be. My intention was to grow up and become fully independent.
Anyway, on one of my home visits after moving out, I walked through the inner city of my old home town. It is a decently wealthy, but unimportant small town in South-Western Germany. It was early afternoon when I went for the walk and since I had plenty of time, I could extensively look at the scenery that I used to be living in.
There, I was surprised how many Turkish/Arab/Muslim people I saw. It didn't bother me, I found it just very striking, because I didn't expect it. Accustomed to the more blondish and blue-eyed type of population, I suddenly almost exclusively saw Middle Eastern looking people and most women were wearing a headscarf. Very untypical for what I was used to and it was really not what I was expecting. I walked around for at least an hour and that was the consistent picture I got of the town. It was really surprising to me.
My conclusion from this episode was not in any way hostile and it didn't get angry about it or anything. I only thought to myself: "Well, that's now as it is. Doesn't mean anything bad. They are just people as everyone else, too" and didn't give it any more thought and soon forgot about it. My life was about studying and getting my new adult life going which was centered around university. There, I usually had a lot to do with students from all over the world including some of the mentioned ethnics. Therefore, my image of changing populations and different colors only got reaffirmed on that day.
Some time later in Summer 2006, the Football World Cup tournament was held in Germany. It was a huge event and the entire country was in the mood of celebrating. After all, it is something very big (at least in countries where football is a thing) and it doesn't happen too often and pretty much never in your country. Long story short: Everyone wanted to celebrate and there were huge public gatherings with big screens where people would watch the matches together. Especially when Germany played, the places were fully crowded.
Anatolia? Nope, Germany.
Personally, I'm not much of a group watcher, I am too invested in what is going on during the match. Cheering crowds and flags covering the screen are just a distraction that I really don't need. That's why I watched most of the matches alone at home. But there was one exception with a Germany match. I'm not sure which one it was, but it was during the day and I was somewhere else and so I watched it on a big public screen with a lot of people around me.
There it struck me again. I found myself in a huge crowd of Germans and they looked just like I thought them to be looking like. I wondered, where did all these Germans come from? Where are they hiding normally? I honestly thought, the country was filled up with people from all over the world to a degree that there were only a few ethnic Germans left. Especially that most of them were young Germans was a total surprise to me because of the birth rate differences by ethnicity. But on that match day and just in the one city area where I was watching the match, there were several big squares with screens and after the won match in their enthusiasm people were pouring out of everywhere. It didn't end and I was honestly surprised that there were so many Germans in that place (which wasn't anything special or central at all).
When I saw this, I remembered the other episode in my home town and wondered: What are Germans doing during the day that you don't see a single one of them in public and it seems like there are almost only Turkish/Arab/Muslim people left? Seriously, how can there be such an imbalance? After all, their population share is just about 5-10%.
Then I thought about what I do during the day when there is nothing special like vacations or a football Wold Cup. Well, I am either at work, or in school, or in the library, or learning, or relaxing, or pursuing a hobby or getting my life done.
And then I thought about what all the other Germans do when there is nothing special like vacations or a football Wold Cup. Well, they are either at work, or in school, or in the library, or learning, or relaxing, or pursuing a hobby or getting their life done.
And then I thought about the conditions it needs that you can hang out on the street on a normal day without being on vacation or without something like the World Cup:
- You need to be unemployed.
- You don't get an education.
- You are not interested in learning something.
- You have no hobbies.
- You don't have the need to relax.
- You are not interested in getting your life done.
There it was. All the prejudices compressed in one thought and terrifyingly to me, it was absolutely consistent and still is.
Today, @vieira published an interesting article with pros and cons of immigration.
The conclusion was that some immigration is beneficial for everybody, while mass immigration often represents a problem.
I added in a comment that the level of problem caused by mass immigration depends on the cultural difference between the immigrants and the natives.
I'm also liberal and tolerant, but prejudices shouldn't be confused with statistical facts. You would be a bad person (in my opinion) if you said that someone must be bad/uneducated/impolite/etc. if he is Turkish/Arab/Muslim/German. But I'm 100% sure that statistical analysis would show that ethnic Germans are on average more educated than an average immigrant in Germany, and there is no need for you to be ashamed of thinking something that's obviously a fact.
"Anatolia? Nope, Germany." :D
Cheers!
thx for the comment. I always considered myself a pro-immigration person. I find it just too exciting as that I could be against it. Most of the girlfriends I ever had were from other countries and I actually tested myself through all continents and the respective cuisines. That's some sort of accomplishment. Vietnam beats them all! ;-)
I guess, we have to draw a distinction between creative immigration and destructive immigration. The first kind are people with plans, dreams and a lot of will to make it and integrate and become part of the society while the latter is the one where people try to exploit the new place by convenience without ever becoming a part of it (or seeing themselves as part of it).
In Germany - the pre-Merkel border opening Germany - it worked surprisingly well with almost all nationalities and ethnicities. The big exception are people with a Muslim background. Around 1/3 of all Turks and 2/3 of Arabs/Maghrebinians don't integrate and they also actively try to stay apart. The exception when it comes to Muslims are exile Persians, Tartars and people from France Afrique. They usually are not different from the big rest statistically or in their broad social behavior.
Bottom line: What I would add to the big entrance is an equally big exit and consistently throw out everyone who can't behave. Every country needs that. With that, things would soon be sorted out everywhere.
I agree with you, but the problem is in defining "can't behave". You can behave in an extremely annoying way for everybody around you without committing any crime.
True. But that is something I wouldn't sanction. Something like that can be good socially, because it shows the limitations and weaknesses of the own system (plus the limits of your patience). At the end, when it's really that annoying, you can make it illegal and throw out the perpetrators. I still think that's enough. An example that annoys me a lot would be permanent honking in the traffic - as if that's of any use. But then again, I probably wouldn't make it illegal, but just less loud.
The thing is - you can't make honking less loud without making loud honking illegal.
And with the billion annoying examples such as permanent honking in the traffic, yelling around the markets, backward social attitudes, low personal hygiene, and similar staff often (but not always) found in certain groups, you realize that you can't really make regulations on all that, and even if you did, the police officers would simply lack the time to control and sanction all of those widely spread minor "offenses".
Which leads us (or at least me) to a conclusion that immigration should be very selective in the first place, as it's almost impossible to throw out the annoying but not quite criminal people later.
That's a good objection. I think, a major element is social control. If in a society it is deemed ok to yell and be smelly, people will yell and smell. But if you "make" this socially unacceptable, the result will be more hygiene and reservation. In the most cases more advertisement for soap should be enough.
The biggest problem for this kind of problem solving is when there are already pockets of parallel societies that you can't reach anymore, because they run a closed system. In this case, you need steamroller tactics like strict immigration or a mandatory military service where you teach the out-group how to wash and behave.
These out-groups are either completely harmless and just do their own thing (like the Japanese community in Frankfurt - you don't hear anything about them, but they are plenty). Or they are staying apart not by running an attractive parallel society, but by forcing its members to stay part of the group. In that case, you have all rights to go against the criminal behavior. As soon as the criminal and destructive parts are gone, you end up with A) a harmless out-group or B) the group assimilates on its own (like exile Persians usually do) or C) it's enough to use or enable social cohesion techniques.
Bottom line: If the people in charge are doing their job by going against destructive elements when they see them, I don't think there is a situation in which you need extensive force like strict immigration policies. The big problem is, neither the people in charge do their job (=politicians) nor the ones who should be observing them and tell the public about it (=journalists).
As I wrote in the answer to @yaanivapeji, you don't need to be a politician, but you need money. Then you can for example run a newspaper and tell everyone about negative developments.
Great points. I think that the reasons behind the bottom line problems you described are:
OK, this makes me feel depressed and helpless. :D
Welcome to the dark side.
Yep. You could say so.
You need to be a politician, so that this can all change or else nothing will change with the present crop of politicians Germany has.
I thought so for a long time too. But nowadays, I think it's much more effective to be rich and indispensable as innovator, employer and tax payer. This is real power and it can buy you (and your folks) freedom. When you are a politician on the other hand, you are tied to vested interests, you have to answer to the public constantly and you end up with maybe 5% power which you can use for the better while in most cases 95% are against you. It's like running against windmills - unless of course you allow yourself to be corrupted. Then it's a nice life. As entrepreneur you don't have these pitfalls.
I guess I am very disillusioned...
This post has received a 6.09 % upvote, thanks to: @doodlebear.