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More Proof That We're All Migrants Whether We Like It Or Not!
There's been lots of debate in 2015 about Europe being swamped by migrants. Evidence is now backing up hypotheses that mass migration has been a regular, formative event.
Coming over here, bringing their farming and their bronze...... Media URL: http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/winter-2015-2016/article/scientists-sequence-first-ancient-irish-human-genomes
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Coming over here, bringing their farming and their bronze...... Media URL: http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/winter-2015-2016/article/scientists-sequence-first-ancient-irish-human-genomes
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Answers
There are many sides to this subject when it comes to discussing the current crisis, the way it is focussed on western Europe and reaction to it in these countries. I am not convinced that land mass or population density has much to do with any nation's ability to accept rising numbers of migrants in serious need of somewhere to stay. What does matter an awful lot...
14:52 Tue 29th Dec 2015
There are many sides to this subject when it comes to discussing the current crisis, the way it is focussed on western Europe and reaction to it in these countries. I am not convinced that land mass or population density has much to do with any nation's ability to accept rising numbers of migrants in serious need of somewhere to stay.
What does matter an awful lot is the ability to mobilise an organised response and the willingness to respond in an open way. Before all of this became the main topic of the news and numbers rose sharply, I would never have thought Italy and Greece likely to be capable of relatively calmly watching hundreds of thousands of people step in under the conditions we have seen. The reaction of much of the population of Lampadusa, who must now have been outnumbered by immigrants on their island for two years or more, has done them enormous credit. Even countries nowhere near the Mediterranean provided aircraft and ships to save people in dangerous craft from coming to grief. The UK was very late to make any contribution at all to this effort except to conspicuously try and stand somewhere outside it, ring alarms, man the barricades, etc.
Seventy years ago, the German nation was in the dock for absolutely outrageous conduct. I find the current German government's brave approach to the immigration crisis a very interesting contrast and I think history will conclude that today's Germans have to some extent atoned for their predecessors. But they may unfortunately find that by then there will be those who will point out that they exterminated Jews but saved Muslims and were part of the feud between the two - that both these religious groupings are first and foremost people will, in such a discussion, be secondary.
A very small number of people from the recent wave of migrants wishing to enter the UK and concentrating in Calais have been depicted as an assault on the very existence of the UK as we know it - the vast majority of the whole appears disinterested in the UK, whether because they feel they will be unwelcome or because they simply find the UK unattractive. Those who are in Calais are the proverbial drop in the ocean yet some people in the UK feel they pose an alarming threat. Germany is almost as densely populated a (large) European country as is the UK but their attitude has proven very different. This may at least in part be because they are wealthier and better prepared for dealing with adjustment to new situations than is the UK, but there will be other factors. I have come across some evidence that, internationally and in this matter, the UK is seen as unhelpful in a bad situation - and rather arrogant on top of the pre-existing record, that it prefers to posture with/in the past to performing in the here and now. Perhaps those who hold such views of the UK fail to understand how clapped out it is and that it simply is in no state to offer any help.
What does matter an awful lot is the ability to mobilise an organised response and the willingness to respond in an open way. Before all of this became the main topic of the news and numbers rose sharply, I would never have thought Italy and Greece likely to be capable of relatively calmly watching hundreds of thousands of people step in under the conditions we have seen. The reaction of much of the population of Lampadusa, who must now have been outnumbered by immigrants on their island for two years or more, has done them enormous credit. Even countries nowhere near the Mediterranean provided aircraft and ships to save people in dangerous craft from coming to grief. The UK was very late to make any contribution at all to this effort except to conspicuously try and stand somewhere outside it, ring alarms, man the barricades, etc.
Seventy years ago, the German nation was in the dock for absolutely outrageous conduct. I find the current German government's brave approach to the immigration crisis a very interesting contrast and I think history will conclude that today's Germans have to some extent atoned for their predecessors. But they may unfortunately find that by then there will be those who will point out that they exterminated Jews but saved Muslims and were part of the feud between the two - that both these religious groupings are first and foremost people will, in such a discussion, be secondary.
A very small number of people from the recent wave of migrants wishing to enter the UK and concentrating in Calais have been depicted as an assault on the very existence of the UK as we know it - the vast majority of the whole appears disinterested in the UK, whether because they feel they will be unwelcome or because they simply find the UK unattractive. Those who are in Calais are the proverbial drop in the ocean yet some people in the UK feel they pose an alarming threat. Germany is almost as densely populated a (large) European country as is the UK but their attitude has proven very different. This may at least in part be because they are wealthier and better prepared for dealing with adjustment to new situations than is the UK, but there will be other factors. I have come across some evidence that, internationally and in this matter, the UK is seen as unhelpful in a bad situation - and rather arrogant on top of the pre-existing record, that it prefers to posture with/in the past to performing in the here and now. Perhaps those who hold such views of the UK fail to understand how clapped out it is and that it simply is in no state to offer any help.
Karl, although Germany's attempts are admirable, they could take 10 million more people before their population density was the same as the UK's ... and, more noteworthy in the circumstances, they could take 57 million more people before their population density matched England's.
I appreciate that Germany is a bit more mountainous than England, but I think this sets the context for why the English are complaining about migration into the UK. It's crowded enough already. And, as you rightly point out, Germany is only next best - if you look at France, Italy, Greece, Spain and Ireland, they're way behind.
Now, when you take into account what most people who are against migration give as their reasons for being against it ... the increased instant need for housing, healthcare, education, policing and other infrastructure, as well as benefits of course, then you can't ignore the fact that we are already highly populated and not really in need of more people, especially when compared to other European countries.
This is why I believe that some kind of compromise has to be found by the EU on the migration issue. I think there's a strong chance that England, and thereby the UK, will vote to leave the EU if nothing is given.
I appreciate that Germany is a bit more mountainous than England, but I think this sets the context for why the English are complaining about migration into the UK. It's crowded enough already. And, as you rightly point out, Germany is only next best - if you look at France, Italy, Greece, Spain and Ireland, they're way behind.
Now, when you take into account what most people who are against migration give as their reasons for being against it ... the increased instant need for housing, healthcare, education, policing and other infrastructure, as well as benefits of course, then you can't ignore the fact that we are already highly populated and not really in need of more people, especially when compared to other European countries.
This is why I believe that some kind of compromise has to be found by the EU on the migration issue. I think there's a strong chance that England, and thereby the UK, will vote to leave the EU if nothing is given.
//Perhaps those who hold such views of the UK fail to understand how clapped out it is and that it simply is in no state to offer any help. //
Not half as clapped out as it will become is we allow the uncontrolled immigration of people from Third World countries, some intent on turning this into something similar. The society of 7000 years ago hadn't worked to build the lifestyle we now enjoy. Ours has - and it's not something we should willingly abandon.
Not half as clapped out as it will become is we allow the uncontrolled immigration of people from Third World countries, some intent on turning this into something similar. The society of 7000 years ago hadn't worked to build the lifestyle we now enjoy. Ours has - and it's not something we should willingly abandon.
Svejk's paper on the Assad regime is at http://
Naomi, your statement highlights my point about perspective. Every generation has seen itself as occupying the summit of achievement - this generation is no different. It would be amazing to be able to access the thoughts of Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans on the matter - but we can access the writings left by the richest cultures of the time. They express surprisingly similar views to some expressed today, covering the full gamut of offending our gods, not living like we do, coming over here and marrying our women, etc etc.
What goes round comes round.
Naomi, your statement highlights my point about perspective. Every generation has seen itself as occupying the summit of achievement - this generation is no different. It would be amazing to be able to access the thoughts of Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans on the matter - but we can access the writings left by the richest cultures of the time. They express surprisingly similar views to some expressed today, covering the full gamut of offending our gods, not living like we do, coming over here and marrying our women, etc etc.
What goes round comes round.
This is quite a good secondary source on Bronze Age Egypt Zacs:
http://
This is longer but still very useful for insights into the Mesopotamian (modern Iraq-ish) and Hittite (modern Turkey-ish) takes on filthy foreigners
http://
http://
This is longer but still very useful for insights into the Mesopotamian (modern Iraq-ish) and Hittite (modern Turkey-ish) takes on filthy foreigners
http://
Hi again Naomi. So far you've made your case repeatedly - you say I 'freely accuse others of xenophobia'. My views are based on 'lofty idealism' and 'airey-fairey idealism'.
If I can just as an experiment remove your value-judgements - that leaves me as suggesting there are xenophobic posters on this forum (patently the case); I'm idealistic (proud of that). Go for it, I don't mind, but it would be better discussion if you could put something into it instead of crying doom.
Like I have said, there isn't a generation that hasn't shared your belief that the world was about to collapse. Sometimes they were right. Often they weren't.
If I can just as an experiment remove your value-judgements - that leaves me as suggesting there are xenophobic posters on this forum (patently the case); I'm idealistic (proud of that). Go for it, I don't mind, but it would be better discussion if you could put something into it instead of crying doom.
Like I have said, there isn't a generation that hasn't shared your belief that the world was about to collapse. Sometimes they were right. Often they weren't.
It's only a summit if one is daft enough not to protect it ansthen it would become a temporary maximum achievement left in the past. The world is overcrowded with insufficient resources to offer all those already here a decent standard of life. We have limited control over that, but we must retain control over our own nations to ensure no permanent damage/slippage: from which we can aid others from a position of strength as much as we are practically able to.
Yes Zacs, I absolutely agree. We have no idea how mass migration events were viewed at the time in prehistory. We don't know whether they were welcomed, unwelcome or a mixed bag. But the technologies that came alongside them were definitely formative (domesticated crops and animals; fired pottery; metallurgy; wheeled vehicles).
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