Pentagon Board Report: "US 'alienating' world's Muslims"

Kids usually do get it right. I taught 5th grade last year and the year before. They rocked my world.

Eh, yes - you know that teacher or why did you post that?

As Freeduck pointed out, enlightenment can sometimes come from viewing things through a child's eyes.

at some stage there will be muslim public holidays in germany. have fun!

Actually, we are reducing the protestant and catholic public holidays - I think, people really wouldn't mind a lot, to get back any free days off work.

Oh come on guys - I mean, you, and Walter. I dont agree with much of anything australia has posted here, but here he's right. Of course there's a big difference between the many who have come to grumble about how they "feel like a foreigner in their own country", and Nazis. I can echo australia on at least one point: it may not be the most said comment here, but its surely a pretty widely held feeling. You really think everyone who feels like that is a nazi?

Sorry, but imho thats the kind of idiocy that saddled us here up with Fortuyn in the first place. For twenty years people saw their cities change, their neighbourhoods transform unrecognizably, and whenever they said something about it, those living in nice suburbs themselves would indignantly preach about anti-fascism and the lessons of WW2 and the danger of Nazis. But come on. Its only human to feel some alienation when everything changes around you. I have little understanding or respect for the middle or upper class whites who live in their leafy neighbourhoods and still complain about what a scandal it is, all those foreigners. But I can well understand people like my grandma's brother, who still lives downtown, right by where he grew up, and is now about the only white guy in his building, and feels pretty resentful 'bout that. I dont agree with him, I strongly resent his tasteless racist jokes, and the odd time we meet (he likes me, apparently), I will offer a counterargument whenever I can. But I still get where he's coming from, even if he's a radical case (and for the record, the rest of the family may not be such avowed anti-racists as we are, but still think he's too far out as well). And I think we should take the feelings of people like him (and the many who are not as extreme, but still share much of the same feelings) seriously, instead of just trying to intimidate them into silence by accusing 'em of Nazism or whatnot.

Most all of the Fortuynists here are no Nazis. Xenophobe? Oh yeah. Racist? Some of 'em, in this incoherent half-thought out way. Nazi? Hardly. If you quiz them - hell, if you quizzed Fortuyn himself - about foreigners, you got this jumbled up mix of resentment about "immigrant profiteers", sincere defences of their Turkish neighbour and their Surinamese colleague, the most primitive of bigoted prejudices and then again some plea for legalising all the illegals here now (and then close the border). None of that is necessarily all too sympathetic or coherent, but it does not equate with entrenched Nazism. Its a populist mish-mash of stuff, a combination of fearmongering politics and understandable enough sentiments.

When I think back of the 80s, and I remember our fear of the then-rightwing-populist Janmaat and his 0,7% of the vote - all our well-intended anti-racist manifestations (I mean, I was just a kid, but I happily tagged along with my mum) - I think, that was all good, it was all necessary, but in the meantime we did forget to just take people's feelings into account, to note just how tumbled up some of their lives were by the changes in the city. Not that any of that made Janmaat's answer the right one, but the thing is that we never even got to formulate a proper answer to some of those feelings of fear and unease, because the knee-jerk reaction was to cry "racism" or "fascism" as soon as the topic was even raised. That much of the Fortuynist critique I can recognize.

If someone feels bad about the many new people in town, talk with him, take him seriously, its understandable enough to feel like that after all, if not always necessary. Do say what you disagree with, do try to unnerve all the irrational prejudices, but for Gods sake, what use (and how heartless, if you think about it) is it to just start shouting "Nazi! Racist!" at him?

End of today's thinking-outside-the-box rant ...

Lol! Fair, Nimh.


A friend of mine, who did a lot of work and training in relation to discrimination issues, talked of a figure - 17% as I recall (but claim no absolute accuracy) - as being the concentration of people of a new colour, or culture, or gender, in a particular situation or suburb or country or whatever, as being the number where people began to perceive their company or field or country as "over-run" with the unfamiliar folk.

I'm sure there will be! It's a topic here already in schools - what holidays should the children all celebrate or not? Well the kids dont mind - the more holidays the better! And as JW just said, kids sometimes just instinctively get it straight ... let a thousand flowers bloom is what I say.

I think xenophobia very natural - and likely hard-wired to some extent - (though what the "in-group" is would vary culturally and the extent to which people grow in situations which more, or less, overcome it during their development) and it behoves us to understand, rather than demonize it.

Nonetheless, public nose-picking and farting and such are also, seemingly, very natural and hard-wired, and we strive pretty damn successfully to overcome them.

We oughta work pretty hard on our xenophobia, too.

The interesting thing I find is that sometimes such a direct correlation seems so totally lacking here. Well, you know - in a small town, just the hundred immigrants will make people whisper and complain, while another kind of town (but not even necessarily a bigger one) will swallow them up easily. And even in the big towns where now 50% of the population is of migrant background, there's always some share who greatly resent it and, say, vote far right (a quarter of em, or a third, or whatnot), and some proportion that cheerfully accepts their new neighbours - after all, the city was always a rowdy place of all kinds of things going on. People are just all different I guess. But I think its as often as not a question of personality, you know, disposition, as necessarily any question of ideology (even if theres some historical patterns of regions where xenophobia emerges first as well). I dunno. It all seems a mix of motivations, patterns, backgrounds, sometimes ...

One thing I'd easily agree with you on. I find it a lot more easy to find some patience in my heart for someone going off about foreigners if I know that, you know, he grew up or lives in some part of town that's now all changed or something, than if you know he's from a town where immigrants dont even make up 5% of the population in the first place. Or where they're all comfortably shielded behind their garden gates and two new cars in the driveway (and still going on about how this country "can't afford" having so many migrants ... like they dont remember how much better they have it than their parents, like they're tottering on the brink of impoverishment or something ...)

(Can you tell I dont feel like putting up an immaculate intellectual argument here? <grins> I'm just rambling ... ;-))

Nimh - I thought of you when reading this article and got to the part where he mentions "numbers" LOL. (Remembering the "Bookie" thread fondly).

I'm not sure how accurate he is...France 50% Muslim by 2050? And he mentions Texas....I thought it was already 50% Hispanic.

Anyway, kind of interesting, considering where this thread has gone.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4079

(Not my day...first I forgot to include the link, then I posted it in the wrong thread....LOL)

Don't worry me none - I like rambling discussions.

And - I take your point about different folk - it would be damned interesting to research what makes it easier for people to accept difference, wouldn't it? Apart from the obvious stuff about exposure.

I have a major attachment lens thing going at present - so I am wondering in that direction....you know, the more secure our early attachment relationships went, the less we feel threatened...


But - there are more possible lenses than starts in the sky, prolly.

When I am in Germany I stay with a family that live an hour out of Munich. It is a typical bavarian village, if you know what that looks like. The last ten years have resulted in a big influx of Turkish Immigrants, a large Mosque and the council is currently deciding on a Moehtzen(not sure if i spelt this correctly).
Now a lot of the people in this town feel resentment, not much about the foreigners, but that their town is changing and they feel like a minority. This does not mean they are nazis. I don't think racist either, I am not sure what you call it.
The only point I am making is that it is not wrong to have healthy debate on migrant levels and types. I am flexible in my thinking and have become more tolerant from reading opinions on here. But just because a person questions immigration, does not mean they are racist or a nazi. I think it is vitally important when considering immigration, to have a bit of forward thinking and consider what will happen in 20 years, 50 years etc. That is the only point i am making.

Difficult to guesstimate, I would have thought - especially since the best birth control device appears to be education of women.

Another aspect of this which no one seems to bring up, is that since 911 the normal hard working people from muslim nations have suffered enormously. Last year i travelled through Morocco, Cyprus and Lebanon. A large percentage of Moroccoan peoples income comes from crafts, rugs etc which they sell to tousits and foreingers. Since 911 the tourism has almost dried up to nothing. Cyprus's hotels occupancy at hotels, usually avg 85% are now 40%. Lebanon is even worse. I feel sorry for them because they are normal hard working people trying to make a living in hard circumstances. These extremists who want to carry out so much damage should think that not only do they destroy lives of western society they indirectly destroy lives of the muslim faith too, as the examples i just gave.

Australia - I think you are being most disingenuous here.

If you intend to debate these issues rationally, if fiercely, good on you.

However, you have made any number of postings here designed to, at least, portray yourself as an extremely bigoted and extremist person - if not blatantly racist. The fact that you appeared to consider Muslims as a "race" and made a number of absolutely outrageous statements about them gives evidence for this, all by itself.

I welcome you and your comments if you are now prepared to debate rationally - but please do not attempt to pretend that you have simply been raising difficult issues honestly, and you have been treated badly just because people disagree with you.

I can see potential problems with a country having a large amount of muslim migrants. I have nothing against muslims but recognise that they may bring potential problems that other races or religions may not. All I am saying is that the government should look closely at this issue before embarking blindly without thought. That does not make me a racist. It just means I have concerns. I am open to persuasion. But one strong view I do have is that a country has the right to pick and choose who they take in.

Well, australia, an hour away from Munich, you'll notice that everyone not being a Bavarian as a foreigner: well liked as tourist, but not as a resident.

This is the impression, about a dozen of German people I know, made down there.

I really don't think, we have a problem with Turkish immigrants.
The major problem we have, is with the children and younger population, which came from the foremer Russian states: mostly all Germans.
(And that's not only from hear-say, like from higher police officers in conferences, I attended, but I'd been the "social moderator" of a ghetto like village of those Germans for some time [had been the former Canadian and Belgian village inside a German town].)

Walter, maybe you are correct. I cannot tell the difference between the former East Germans, polish, czech, russian and original germans. But I have heard similar stories about complaining about the russians etc. I will try and spend more time in states north of bavaria and maybe get a different perspective of things.

I mean, Bavaria really is a part of Germany I do like.
But - besides Munich and bigger town, like Nuremberg - it is the most conservative part of Europe I know.

What is seen e.g. in my place quite normal (re foreign popukation) would be impossible there.

Next time you are here, stay at my place for some time - and get some more and different ideas to mock about.