I don't think it's immigration you mean but integration.

I lived in Goppingen in Germany for a bit and the Turkish immigration problem is huge there. The locals felt uncomfortable in certain areas of the town because it was 99% Turkish. They spoke in Turkish and shop signs were in Turkish. I wanted a pizza once and I might as well have spoken in English because they were inconvenienced having to converse with me in German.

A lot of the anti-immigration literature centres around immigrants refusing to speak the language and essentially living in London/Sydney/wherever and continuing their former lifestyle, associating with their own people exclusively and being hostile with the locals. Look at parts of England, Marseille and Western Sydney (joke). It's not multiculturalism.

I'm fine with immigration providing integration happens. People see the lack of integration as disrespectful and I to some extent agree.

In regards to fairness, is there ever such a thing if you're trying to become the citizen of another country?

-PB

People appreciate the effort of those that try. Hell I was terrible at speaking German at first but I did my best to improve and refused to speak to people in English.

Often they'd smile/laugh at my attempts at German. Yet they'd roll their eyes or similar when the Americans flat out refused to try and speak German first.

Yeah integration is a better description of the term. Which, ideally, is the result of immigration, so the two go hand in hand. I was responding to the others' posts about immigration, so I used the term, somewhat lazily.

But what you're describing I don't think amounts to a lack of integration. As far as I'm concerned, it makes life interesting if you've got like a Turkish quarter, a Pakistani quarter, an Italian quarter, a Greek quarter, a Jewish quarter, etc. It makes a city more vibrant and fun. London is amazing because of that kind of thing.

It wouldn't bother me in the slightest to see nobody speaking English or practically everybody speaking a specific language. Like think of the Hispanic influence in places like California.

One of my best friends is from a town in Sweden where there's a huge immigrant population. He thinks it's great. He has grown up with them and relates to them well. He's ethnically completely Swedish, but he feels he relates to immigrants better than native Swedes.

Nice to see people viewing the world from their ivory towers.

Sure, people can speak a bunch of different languages. Who cares.

But when it overrides the parent culture to the extent that it might as well not exist, well, is that what you want?

If I have kids I dont want them to go to a school with all immigrant kids. Its more to do with how they will be discriminated against in the future when they dont speak the language correctly. Yalla Yalla. I dont find it romantic.

I feel the same way. I wouldn't allow my kids to speak that way. And if I felt they were in an environment where they might adopt that sort of 'language' I'd yank them straight away.

Our "parent culture" is based on being a British colonial outpost... so I think multiculturalism has significantly improved on it.

And that's the point - it hasn't been "overridden," just international aspects have been integrated into Australian culture.

This. We live in a world of globalisation. Or at least, we should aspire to live in such a world, I think.

It's not like the Australian constitution is to be written and interpreted in Urdu. Do schools, universities, hospitals, public institutions, courts of law, etc. use, and instruct, in Chinese, rather than English? No, of course not. It will always be done in English. Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen and the (largely non-existent) great works of Australian literature will always exist. So much the better if we add other cultures to our own. It's not as if the fact that a bunch of people don't speak English does any harm whatsoever to anybody. We add international aspects. Pluralism and globalisation revitalise societies.

other cultures that dont share such utopian idealism will take advantage of this naivety and wipe you out

I don't quite get your drift, I'm afraid. Which language wouldn't they speak correctly? Swedish?

I don't think going to a school with a large proportion of immigrants would, necessarily, mean that students wouldn't learn to speak Swedish properly. Are you concerned that they'd learn some immigrant language and this would mean they wouldn't speak Swedish so well? I don't think this would necessarily be the case. If a kid has difficulties in learning then it might be somewhat confusing and problematic if he learns to speak two languages. But ordinarily, I think, speaking/learning two languages would be beneficial for both languages. You learn more about the tricks of learning both languages and more about how the language functions in terms of grammar, structure and vocabulary. We have French-Swiss friends who live in Cairns. Their children (born and bred in Australia) speak French at home and English at school. They speak very good French (maybe not perfect but still good) and they do better at English than anybody in their class. Likewise the guy who was dux of my year at high school, and topped English, has Chinese parents and, I think, speaks Chinese at home (even though he was born in Australia). I did Latin all through high school and as a result I find learning other languages easier than most do.

Unless you mean that schools with large immigrant populations mightn't, always, have as high standards of education as schools with fewer immigrants? Or maybe the schools with more immigrants aren't in as good areas and the educational standards aren't as high? I don't know enough about Sweden to know whether or not this is the case. Sweden seems to do multiculturalism better than a lot of countries so I daresay there are higher levels of equality of opportunity across the board compared to other places in Europe and the rest of the world. But if going to a school where a large number of students are immigrants had lower standards than a school where most were native Swedes, then of course anybody would want their kids to go to the school with more ethnic Swedes. If it was the case that they'd get a better education there.

What so if you lived in, say Western Sydney, and your kids were friends with Lebanese kids. And your kids learned bits and piece of Lebanese and, for fun, they liked to talk to their friends in Lebanese and use the slang, you'd be put out by it? Let's assume they speak perfect English.

As long as they weren't rude or inappropriate, I'd find it fascinating.

I would be afraid that my child would not use correct grammar, use words that arent part of the language but are used by immigrants such as yalla or guz etc. But I would mostly not want my child to grow up with a ghetto accent. Which happens.

Most immigrants live poorer areas or ghettos. Its not suburbs more like satellite cities.

There is not as much integration as you think. Take your friend, that is called saturation.


You can link it to economics.

To be fair its not just Assyrians, Syrians, Iraqis or Iranians.

I know South Americans, Polish and Russian, and former soviet state guys that have been here for over 10 years and dont have any Swedish friends. I think a major hindrance is that it isnt needed anymore. These days they can surf online, read news from their old country etc. and watch their own shows and movies on tv. Even watch football in their own language. People dont need to integrate anymore and the ones that do want have things stacked against them.

Edited by scott21: 24/6/2015 01:17:01 AM

By the sound of it, it's more a poverty thing rather than a linguistic difference thing. I stand to be corrected but if Sweden's anything like Australia, those schools comprising of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds (and by the sound of it have lots immigrants) would have lower educational standards than those schools in more affluent areas (and probably fewer immigrants are there). Of course, kids are influenced, to a great extent, by those around them. So if they're just hanging out with with kids immigrant kids from poorer backgrounds, who don't speak Swedish so well, then it might not stand them in such good stead. Who knows, for some kids that wouldn't restrict their potential at all, but for others it would do. But I think this is correlation, not causation. I don't think that the fact the immigrants speak other languages or are immigrants would be to the detriment of your kids. Any potential detrimental influence would be the result of poverty and a poor understanding of Swedish. This isn't necessarily caused by immigrants or other languages, even though there's a correlation. I maintain that learning multiple languages is empowering.

As regards the "saturation" of my friend. Is that really a bad thing? He hasn't missed out. He has lots of friends who are ethnic Swedes and lots who are immigrants. He just kind of feels at home with the immigrants. To be fair, he's the exception, not the rule. He doesn't really relate that well to Swedes for his own reasons. But the fact that he gets on so well with immigrants and immigrants get on so well with him, well isn't that a good example of integration?

Working with Swedes, I found them, mostly, to get on pretty well with immigrants. There were some who didn't like immigration (but Jesus compared to the way a lot of Brits feel about immigration). I found it quite refreshing.

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 01:45:56 AM

There are many deep issue. Personally, in the last 5 years the country has changed very much. I think the country is going down the toilet and the people are helplessly watching. Australia is a good country to be in.

To answer the thread question

I think it is a good thing.

A language test is a good thing and knowledge test (recent or not).

People should know the words to the national anthem and pledge and understand what they are saying. It's not a massive ask and to go through a ceremony is a nice thing too.

I will become a Swedish citizen this year, only because I must take it to get some benefits. I don't want to but it's the only way.

I send in a form in English, they check if I have any criminal activities etc, they process my file, they send me an answer on an email.
It's very sterile.

Edited by mvfcarsenal16.8: 24/6/2015 07:27:20 AM

I think people severely undervalue our culture in saying that we're just another 'colonial outpost'. Jews and Muslims already bypass our divorce court laws. Sure it's not a big deal until the next group bypasses another law that isn't compatible with their religious beliefs. I might just be another bigot but I don't see how our laws are subject to alteration to suit a very small group of people and their religion. I see it as one rule for all.

I think we're lucky in that we're yet to see the ramifications of 'secular ghettos' of particular migrant groups. You only have to look to Europe to see the huge problems with economic migrants/refugees flooding in and living in poverty with huge crimes rates and a host of social issues.

Whether or not it happens here, I'm sure if it does it will be our (meaning rich white Australia's) problem. I just hope we don't turn out like England.

We have ghettos already lol, Cabramatta springs to mind.

-PB

Yeh but have you ever been to Marseille? :lol:

Immigrants should learn how to speak English. How else can they get a job? What if someone in their family needs medical attention?

If you plan to live in a country than wouldn't it be in your best interests to at least learn the language.

I'll give a real life example of that. At few years back I was up at Mt Buller during the snow season and middle aged lady of Asian appearance knocked her self out on a wooden pole at the bottom of the toboggan hill.

I got to her first and she was in a bad way. The people she was with come running down and I said to them "don't move her i'll get some help" and im very certain they had no idea what I was saying so I used hand movements aswell. I go and fetch the ski patrol and as well approach they are trying to carry this unconscious woman with a potential neck injury up a steep hill.

Edited by scotty21: 24/6/2015 09:30:39 AM

What's with the ethnomasochism on this forum?

This country was borne out of the most successful culture in human history. What's with the widespread denigration of it?



Unfortunately, this is very true. Lots of European countries are projected to slide down the HDI rankings this century - even socialist utopia Sweden. Lot's of Jews have been driven out of cities for fear of reprisal from namely Muslim immigrants.

Is this the future you want?

As re the highlighted part. Basically true, I'll agree with it for the purpose of simplicity. That culture produced liberalism and a profound focus on human rights and civil liberties. Historically, that culture has both colonised (for both better and worse) and has been very accepting of immigration. The best values of that culture encourage opening up to the world and globalising. This isn't to the detriment of that culture, it just becomes infused with other cultures.

Classic Hegelian dialect.

Thesis

->

Antitheis

=

Synthesis.

As long as the most important things like Magna Carta, habeas corpus, etc. remain there's no drama. And they've remained for hundreds of years, so they're pretty safe.

Edited by quickflick: 24/6/2015 08:52:13 PM

you're out of your tree mate

Deep #classicCrackers

I think people are being far too simplistic. What often fails to get mentioned is how countries like Sweden (and to some extent Germany) actively reject and shun immigrants, making it very difficult for them to integrate. Its easy to say "people should assimilate", its very hard for people to do that if they are shunned.

Do people know the history of Turkish migration to Germany? They were brought in as guest workers during the post-war construction boom, but WERE NOT ALLOWED to become citizens. Germany tried to send these workers back after many had got married, had german-born children etc. They were given cheap accommodation when they came to work, and then prevented from becoming part of society. The german govt itself had a hand in creating these ghettoes.

I'm not saying there are not legitimate issues to raise, I am just trying to explain that there are at least 2 sides to every story, and that things are far more complex than just saying "why don't they assimilate".

When talking about France, and Marseille, as much of this issue is related to the French occupation and colonisation of Algeria, as it is about religion.

For the vast majority of immigrants, they want to integrate. They need support and to be given the tools to do so.

In any society where you have "ghetto-isation" persisting into the 2nd generation, you can guarantee that the issue has as much to do with the host society shunning and stigmatising the immigrants as it does about the immigrants themselves.

My father immigrated to Australia from Italy in the 1960s, and all the same things you hear about immigrants now he copped when he came over.

Likewise in the 1990s, there was massive fear mongering by people like Pauline Hanson and right-wing extremist groups like "National Action" about Asian immigration. The rallying call being "Stop the Asian Invasion".

History repeats over and over.

uwotm8

Just look up "Turks in Germany" in Wikipedia. It details the problems of integration due to German govt action. To be fair, i should have been clearer that i am more referring to social shunning than govt policy though. Northern Europeans portray that they are very advanced but they have a lot of problems with intolerance compared with countries like australia, including far right violence at a level not ever seen here.

I was referring to Sweden.