Anti-Immigration protests in Europe

Was reading an article on the Huffington Post about Cologne closing their famous cathedral in protest of the anti-muslim immigration protests that have been popping up all over Germany, led by a group known as PEGIDA. From what I've read of this group, they're basically racists and xenophobes posing as as a legitimate civil rights group.

From what I've gauged, the main point of contention in several of these countries appears to be the large numbers of muslims fleeing to these countries seeking sanctuary, safety and a new life from their war-torn countries. As such, the charge from PEGIDA is that these countries are rapidly becoming "Islamisized" to point where their historical heritage is being lost. As I don't live in these countries and have only visited a few of them, I haven't seen enough nor do I know enough to have an opinion on whether that is true. I would be interested to hear from those of you who do live in these countries however. France, the UK, Sweden, and the Netherlands appear to be the countries seeing the largest number of protests.

What are your thoughts on this issue and on this PEGIDA group?

I don't know about that PEGIDA group, but I do think immigration is a problem or becoming one. Just people with too different backgrounds, values, norms and cultures being put together, expecting them to mix up smoothly - the ideal of multiculturalism - but is just doesn't work like that. We are all equal, but we are all different and there will be tensions and dislike.

It's difficult to just ask someone from a country what it's like. Most people haven't got a clue what things are like outside their own city or town. In the UK though there are too many people, of too many backgrounds I might add, that are unhappy to be able to say it's a small gang of bigots causing trouble.

Well, a group like Pegida is very likely a reaction to fanatic radical muslim hate groups that openly preach in Germany (especially in Cologne and Berlin) that openly call to wage the jihad, try to rally people to follow them and join terrorist camps outside of Germany and even try to set up a caliphat within Germany.

Some of those criminal islamist fundamentalists are prosecuted elsewhere and fled to Germany and abuse(d) the comparatively lenient laws here to continue their attempts to rally people for their "fight against the unbelievers".

The right wing groups started to form out of fear that the officials in Germany don't do enough against these radical fundamentalists, and the fear unfortunately took a life of its own and spreads to encompass muslims in general, as more and more flee to Germany and a lot of people fear that they want to try and continue to wage their wars here and maybe in the long term try to set up the sharia here.

The latter fear has additionally grown as some Salafist groups within Germany started widespread campaigns to give out free corans and tried to openly convert people (while having books and texts in their groups' houses that call to kill Christians and Jews if they don't convert to the Islam), set up a "sharia police" that patrol through cities in Germany, trying to put pressure on people to follow the sharia here and comparative stuff:

- http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/salafisten-in-deutschland-islamisten-ziehen-als-scharia-polizei-durch-wuppertal-13137196.html (German only, sorry)
- http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/anderer-name-gleiche-mission-scharia-polizei-macht-als-pro-halal-duesseldorf-unsicher_id_4128134.html (German only, sorry)
- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koranverteilungskampagne_in_Deutschland (German only, sorry)

You might also want to check out
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metin_Kaplan
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Vogel
- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Abou-Nagie (German only, sorry)

- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mevlana-Moschee_%28Berlin%29 (German only, sorry)
- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafismus_in_Deutschland (German only, sorry)

I'm pretty sure groups like Pegida and AfD wouldn't be able to draw even a fraction of the people they do now, if there weren't so many vocal fundamentalist islamic hate preachers around here that try to wage their war within Germany, too.

The stats show that (at least in the US) anti-immigration is strongest where there are less immigrants and weakest where there are more immigrants. This is without counting the immigrants as part of the polled people, obviously. The people that are afraid of immigrants the most are those that don't actually know them.

This leads me to believe that this is mostly an ignorance problem. If they did know them they would realize they are not really a threat to their lifestyle or values.

We've seen it before with the LGBT and gay marriage. These past years in the US we have seen a dramatic shift in support of gay marriage, and when people tried to find out why the most common answers were "A friend/family member/acquaintance came out and I realized they were chill".

Can't imagine this being that different in Europe.

I think we are seeing a rise in anti-immigration support in Europe because they are going through economic harsh times (self-inflicted, mostly) and during these times many people are unhappy and extremist groups can get a lot of support by scapegoating outsiders. Germany has seen this before, but it's also happening in the UK with UKIP.

good post barrilete.

I haven't looked too much into what happened in Cologne beyond a Vice doco.

I did notice that they were at least quite specific in saying that they are opposed to extreme muslim ideology, and not to muslims as a whole.

BarrileteCosmico wrote: they did know them they would realize they are not really a threat to their lifestyle or values.

If they assimilate.

Yeah, assimilation is the main factor. Or one of them anyway. Also, there are numerous types of immigrants, as many types as there are nations in the world, really, or even more.

If Finland got 20,000 immigrants from Norway, I'd say in a poll that it's all cool. If Finland got 20,000 Islamic State symphatisers from Syria, I'd say in a poll that hell no, I don't want them here.

And the U.S. is kind of ahead of the game, because it's a country of immigrants to begin with. I'd expect them to be more accustomed to immigrants than many European countries are.

Finally, in reference to BC's post, it's also possible that people who don't mind immigrants have stayed in a heavily immigrant-influenced area while those who don't like it have left for those parts where there are not that many immigrants, which would for its own part explain the poll results.

DuringTheWar wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote: they did know them they would realize they are not really a threat to their lifestyle or values.

If they assimilate.

Even if they don't assimilate their kids will. My wife's family came to the US after escaping the USSR. Some of them, over 25 years later, can barely speak English and rely on the ex-soviet community for day to day interactions. My wife however was born in American soil and you could never tell she is not American.

Finally, in reference to BC's post, it's also possible that people who don't mind immigrants have stayed in a heavily immigrant-influenced area while those who don't like it have left for those parts where there are not that many immigrants, which would for its own part explain the poll results.

True, this could be the case for some, but I doubt it really enters the equation all that much when someone makes a decision whether to move or not. Factors like new job wages, standard of living costs, weather, crime, etc would be more important factors almost universally accross the board.

Art Morte wrote:

And the U.S. is kind of ahead of the game, because it's a country of immigrants to begin with. I'd expect them to be more accustomed to immigrants than many European countries are.

Well it's not so much immigration itself that rankles Americans. It's illegal immigration that's the point of contention so I think what we're seeing here in the States differs a bit to what is seen in Europe as these groups don't really seem to care that these folks are coming to these countries legally. It's the sheer numbers and the cultural impact that appears to be the issue. Here in the US, as long as you come here legally, pay your fair share as a US taxpayer and abide by US laws, you're free to do as you wish culturally. I do think that if the US was smaller in geographical size, like many countries in Europe, we'd probably be seeing similar problems. Because we do have larger areas of our country (I'm thinking states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Nevada) where there is simply more space to live and prosper, this allows for a much easier co-existence between immigrants and natives.

So ultimately, I do think geography does have a bit to do with this however as all of these European countries are much smaller than the US in geographical size, meaning there's more people per square mile/kilometer in certain areas, which are becoming cultural melting pots. More people of different cultures in smaller areas will naturally mean that area's cultural makeup will be impacted, for better or worse.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Even if they don't assimilate their kids will.

You are very optimistic. In Germany we have currently the 3rd or 4th generation of the original immigrants, and there are both "types" - those that have assimilated perfectly (which are absolutely fine) and such that set up a "shadow society" that doesn't want to assimilate at all.

Hence things happen like forecd marriage, so-called 'honour murders' of women that try to live 'the western way' and similar things. Many times the 'honour murders' are committed by the brothers of the victims who were already born in Germany, but who prefer to live according to their tribal laws and not according to the German law.

Here's some background, unfortunately in German only:
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/ehrenmorde-tatmotiv-kultur-1213953.html
(The title says "Motive for the crime: culture")

^ I'm glad she made that post because it exemplifies perfectly what is wrong in Germany.

The Federal Criminal Police Office appointed the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law to do a research of all cases of "honour murders". They went on and analysed every single documented case between 1996 and 2005, a timespan of 9 years. It yielded a total of 78 "honour murder" cases. However, those weren't all 78 cases of "brothers killing their sisters for living a western lifestyle". These cases also included broader crimes like "blood vengeance". Stuff like female cousin killing her male cousin because he abused her as a child, thus restoring her "honour". Or a husband killing the boyfriend of her wife. Crimes that practically have 0 cultural relevance and happen everywhere. 43 % of the victims were actually male. If you filter the cases to those were people genuinenly killed their own family members who "lived a western lifestyle to restore the family honour" based on archaic, religious beliefs you can count such cases on 1 single hand over a timespan of almost 10 years. Nevermind that 92 % of the offenders were neither born in Germany nor German citizens.

Here is the entire report as a PDF, directly from the homepage of the Federal Criminal Police Office: http://www.bka.de/nn_193902/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Publikationen/Publikationsreihen/01PolizeiUndForschung/1__42__EhrenmordeInDeutschland,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/1_42_EhrenmordeInDeutschland.pdf (on the bottom they have listed and described every single case in detail).

Now, after you got this information, read again how rwo makes it sound like "honour murders" would actually have any sort of relevance in Germany. With blatantly wrong information to boot.

rwo power wrote:Many times the 'honour murders' are committed by the brothers of the victims who were already born in Germany

I repeat. 92 % of the offenders were neither born in Germany nor German citizens and "many times" is something like 5 cases in 10 years.

Not that I blame her. The amount of "honour murder" newspaper articles, talkshow debates etc. is extraordinary. It's a farce, a pseudo debate but the average Joe laps it up.

Well, the honour *murders* are only the tip of the iceberg. There are other culturally imposed things like girls being forced to marry and unfortunately many such cases don't end up in the statistics.

I have studied at the university of Duisburg and two fellow students who were girls from Turkish descent (albeit born in Germany) were forced to marry men they didn't want to marry, but they went along because they were too afraid to go against their fathers and brothers. One of them explicitely told me her dad would probably kill her if she worldn't comply, but as she did what he wanted, of course nothing happened and she fortunately didn't show up in any criminal statistic. Unfortunately I have no idea what happened to her after the marriage as I never saw her again in the university for the new semester.

Frankly, if I would just read such stuff in the Newspapers, I would probably think "Let them kill each other for what it's worth", but the fact that I personally got to know girls that were affected by their culture that way (even though they were not physically harmed as they complied to the cultural pressure), makes me really angry, especially as I had no chance to help in any way as they were too much afraid to go for help and of course as long as there was no "real harm" done, the police of course would not do anything either.

Fußball wrote:Crimes that practically have 0 cultural relevance and happen everywhere.

Blood feuding (Honour/revenge killing?) is not normal everywhere, half my family is from Montenegro, a warrior culture, as with nearby Albania with the blood feuding, that is cultural. And that shit isn't normal in most western Europe.

Edit: Actually don't know whether those cases class as blood feuds. Simply revenge killings are also prevalent in some cultures more than others, as someone that's half Mediterranean half British you can take my word for that.

Some interesting quotes from an article from the Guardian that shed light on both sides of the issue -

“This is our third time. We were nervous at first until we realised how many other people like us were here, demanding a proper asylum policy, one that doesn’t disadvantage native Germans.”

- unidentified middle-class German woman with her partner at the anti-immigration rally in Dresden

“We want our homeland back” and “Send the criminal asylum seekers packing."

- banners from PEGIDA supporters at Dresden rally.

“I say to all those who go to such demonstrations: do not follow those who have called the rallies, because all too often they have prejudice, a chilliness, even hatred in their hearts.”

- German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a recent address to the German people.

“We are here to assert our rights,” says one middle-aged woman. “Germany feels like a foreign country. We’ll be obliged to read the Qur’an before long,” she jokes to her companion.

“Well, we look at cities like Berlin and Hamburg, and we think: we must avoid such scenarios here,” she explains.

- both quotes by a middle-aged German woman.

“Germany is not a land of immigration. No. We just want Germany to stay German!”

- Lutz Bachmann, middle-class sausage vendor turned ad agent. Now the leader of PEGIDA.

“When we won the World Cup, it felt great to be able to fly the German flag with a certain pride again, without feeling embarrassed for the war and all that,” says Julia Schenck, 32, a psychologist taking part in a recent counter-demonstration in Dresden. “People outside Germany were celebrating our openness and warm-heartedness. But it feels now like we’re regressing. There are many people who would like Germany to return to the era around about the 1950s before we were a land of immigration.”

- counter-protester Julia Schenck, who opposes PEGIDA.

You can read the article here

--------------------

My take on the above is that I'm really not sure what to think of the above. These regular folks appear to just be concerned and not really as militant as Bachmann and his organization are. They appear to be fear-mongers and agitators who are preying on sheeple.

What's puzzling about this behavior in Dresden is that immigrants only make up 2% of that city's total population and of that, only 0.1% are Muslim. If you'd believe those PEGIDA folks, you'd think the city was 80% Muslim Immigrant when clearly that isn't the case. In Berlin, the number is much higher, but still quite small with the city comprised of 14% immigrant (9% Middle-Eastern, 3% Asian, and 2% African). Religiously, 29% of the city claims some denomination of Christianity while only 8% of it is Muslim.

So now the question truly becomes: When one thinks of a German or what it means to be German, what do people see? The same could be applied to the UK as well with the rise of the UKIP party. The UK is far and away much more of a melting pot than most European countries so while parties like UKIP popping up are expected, it will be interesting to see how much of a soapbox they are given and how many sheeple join their flock.

Well, the Eastern Germany parts for some reason have a comparatively higher number of vocal ultra right-wing groups than the Western Germany parts, so the mood in Dresden will be more anti-foreign than in Western cities. Similarly, the Southern parts of Germany (especially Bavaria with the CSU party) are more against foreign immigration than the more Northern parts.

So you can't really talk about "the German" as in everybody is alike.

One of the problems that make people rally against the growing number of immigrants is actually not even religion or anything, but the fact that many cities are in high debt (e.g. Oberhausen has a debt of about two billion (billion as in the English billion, not the German one) Euros), and many cultural and social facilities need to be closed down for lack of money and still the towns are forced to build and support homes for people seeking asylum. That people are angry that libraries, theatres, kindergartens, even schools are closed, while the money goes to foreigners, should be no big surprise.

DuringTheWar wrote:

Fußball wrote:Crimes that practically have 0 cultural relevance and happen everywhere.

Blood feuding (Honour/revenge killing?) is not normal everywhere, half my family is from Montenegro, a warrior culture, as with nearby Albania with the blood feuding, that is cultural. And that shit isn't normal in most western Europe.

Edit: Actually don't know whether those cases class as blood feuds. Simply revenge killings are also prevalent in some cultures more than others, as someone that's half Mediterranean half British you can take my word for that.

I would classify husbands killing their wives and/or the lovers of their wives as "normal" murder cases that happen absolutely everywhere in the world regardless of cultural or religious background. Abused people killing their abusers as well. Maybe a Pakistani will be more prone to it than a Swede, I don't know, but that's besides the point anyway. What I'm saying is that in the afromentioned study of "honour murders" these sort of "looser" crimes that aren't necessarily based on cultural background were included and it still only yielded 78 cases in almost 10 years. Which makes "people killing their female family members because they lived a western lifestyle to restore their honour" (what rwo alluded to) a complete non issue in Germany yet people who argue against immigration will cite "honour murders" as one of the reasons why they are against it. It's like USA starting a huge debate, led by Fox (the equivalent in Germany is BILD), about African Americans forcing female family members to circumcision, hammering it into people so whenever a immigration debate is on someone comes up with such an example, even though it might happen once every 10 years in a family household of Somalian immigrants.

Fußball wrote:

DuringTheWar wrote:

Fußball wrote:Crimes that practically have 0 cultural relevance and happen everywhere.

Blood feuding (Honour/revenge killing?) is not normal everywhere, half my family is from Montenegro, a warrior culture, as with nearby Albania with the blood feuding, that is cultural. And that shit isn't normal in most western Europe.

Edit: Actually don't know whether those cases class as blood feuds. Simply revenge killings are also prevalent in some cultures more than others, as someone that's half Mediterranean half British you can take my word for that.

I would classify husbands killing their wives and/or the lovers of their wives as "normal" murder cases that happen absolutely everywhere in the world regardless of cultural or religious background. Abused people killing their abusers as well. Maybe a Pakistani will be more prone to it than a Swede, I don't know, but that's besides the point anyway. What I'm saying is that in the afromentioned study of "honour murders" these sort of "looser" crimes that aren't necessarily based on cultural background were included and it still only yielded 78 cases in almost 10 years. Which makes "people killing their female family members because they lived a western lifestyle to restore their honour" (what rwo alluded to) a complete non issue in Germany yet people who argue against immigration will cite "honour murders" as one of the reasons why they are against it. It's like USA starting a huge debate, led by Fox (the equivalent in Germany is BILD), about African Americans forcing female family members to circumcision, hammering it into people so whenever a immigration debate is on someone comes up with such an example, even though it might happen once every 10 years in a family household of Somalian immigrants.

I honestly don't get how you can be so cavalier about this Fußball.
Clearly the islamic invasion of Europe and the Western world is well underway. Those arabs are coming at us with all they have.
For years, make that decades, now they have been sending their soldiers, airplanes, bombing our capitals, toppling our goverments, occupying our territory with their armies, enabling corrupt puppet rulers, stealing our resources.
FFS we are pawns in their game of world domination, about time we finally stand up and fight back.
We've been silent and tolerant for far too long, this is about survival of our way of life!

Fußball wrote:

DuringTheWar wrote:

Fußball wrote:Crimes that practically have 0 cultural relevance and happen everywhere.

Blood feuding (Honour/revenge killing?) is not normal everywhere, half my family is from Montenegro, a warrior culture, as with nearby Albania with the blood feuding, that is cultural. And that shit isn't normal in most western Europe.

Edit: Actually don't know whether those cases class as blood feuds. Simply revenge killings are also prevalent in some cultures more than others, as someone that's half Mediterranean half British you can take my word for that.

I would classify husbands killing their wives and/or the lovers of their wives as "normal" murder cases that happen absolutely everywhere in the world regardless of cultural or religious background. Abused people killing their abusers as well. Maybe a Pakistani will be more prone to it than a Swede, I don't know, but that's besides the point anyway. What I'm saying is that in the afromentioned study of "honour murders" these sort of "looser" crimes that aren't necessarily based on cultural background were included and it still only yielded 78 cases in almost 10 years. Which makes "people killing their female family members because they lived a western lifestyle to restore their honour" (what rwo alluded to) a complete non issue in Germany yet people who argue against immigration will cite "honour murders" as one of the reasons why they are against it. It's like USA starting a huge debate, led by Fox (the equivalent in Germany is BILD), about African Americans forcing female family members to circumcision, hammering it into people so whenever a immigration debate is on someone comes up with such an example, even though it might happen once every 10 years in a family household of Somalian immigrants.

I downloaded the study but can't read it in German so I don't know what these cases are. If you want to say what you call "blood vengeance" is not a cultural factor I'd like to know relative to the population in question what western Europeans have a similar rate of "blood vengeance".

And it's not besides the point because it's what you stated in the part of your post I quoted. I understand it's not the only point you made, I didn't respond to the other stuff as I'm not in disagreement with it.

I can't give you exact numbers because when a white, western European, upper class man murders his cheating wife who was about to leave him, then kills his kids then proceeds to commit suicide, it won't be declared as a man who was following archaic, religious traditions to restore his honour. It will be declared a "family tragedy". Let me sum up some cases for you from the mentioned report.

Case 68: A 35 year old Turk with psychotic medical history shoots his wife and his nephew due to jealousy. He was suspecting both to have an affair.

Case 67: A 36 year old Turkish woman stabs her 49 year old cousin and brother-in-law for alleged sexual harrassment in her childhood.

Case 63: A 38 year old Kurd shoots the lover of his wife.

Case 59: A 48 year old Turk shoots his wife, who was about to divorce him, 1 hour after the court appointment. The suspect tried to convince his wife to come back to him but when he realized after the court appointment that he had to pay alimony to her he killed her.

Case 58: A 17 year old Albanian tries to kill the 11 year old brother of his sister-in-law. Background: Child custody dispute between victim and offender families.

Case 57: A 36 year old Kosovo Albanian tries to stab his 21 year old ex girlfriend. A few weeks before the crime the victim had ended the relationship via telephone. The offender couldn't take it.

Case 55: A mentally ill Yazidi shoots his allegedly unfaithful wife.

Etc. etc. etc.

I'm fairly certain stuff like this happens in white, western European / middle American upper class families as well which is why I said "crimes that practically have 0 cultural relevance and happen everywhere".

And I'm saying stuff like that is more likely to happen in some places than others. Thanks for those examples, not that I wasn't already aware that in some places it's popular to consider your spouse your own property, as well as any offspring for that matter.

And of course, the Albanian case would be the most bleeping nuts lmao

It all goes back to the war being fought in the Middle East. Half the immigrants to those countries still support the sharia and will hold on to their morals which obviously clashes with western beliefs. It's a real complex problem were I don't see how none will be happy with each other.

This will give a rise to a new war in Europe or forced assimilation of immigrants.

The only solution I see in all this is if the US end the war on the Middle East and leave Israel to the Arabs. Less immigrants will arrive and only those who want to escape the sharia will immigrate and the same Israelis who would be without a country of their own.

I think it all goes back to 2 factors:
1. The types of immigrants the country imports.
2. The economic state of the host nations.

Europe in both cases have lenient naturalization programs for refugees. Who (lets be real) dont contribute a whole lot in helping solve the current economic crisis of their host nation. They become a prop for any opposition campaigns. And most people will believe what they see on TV.

Its probably different in North America because we get immigrants who are able to come here on their own merits and potentials / or are able to aid to the economy right away. This also explains why Americans are so against illegal immigration.

rwo power wrote:Well, the Eastern Germany parts for some reason have a comparatively higher number of vocal ultra right-wing groups than the Western Germany parts, so the mood in Dresden will be more anti-foreign than in Western cities. Similarly, the Southern parts of Germany (especially Bavaria with the CSU party) are more against foreign immigration than the more Northern parts.

So you can't really talk about "the German" as in everybody is alike.

One of the problems that make people rally against the growing number of immigrants is actually not even religion or anything, but the fact that many cities are in high debt (e.g. Oberhausen has a debt of about two billion (billion as in the English billion, not the German one) Euros), and many cultural and social facilities need to be closed down for lack of money and still the towns are forced to build and support homes for people seeking asylum. That people are angry that libraries, theatres, kindergartens, even schools are closed, while the money goes to foreigners, should be no big surprise.

Yeah I think a lot of this still goes back to the geographical size of the country itself. Were Germany as large as the US, I don't think this would be an issue as you'd have immigrants spread out far enough that the local governments would likely be able to help them much easier without impacting the natives. Though this also appears to be down to style of governing as well since Germany and the US are setup much differently in that regard.

I just think that when you have such a high number of people flooding into a country the size of Germany, there's always going to be problems economically, which will bleed over socially and culturally. It's up to the German government to find a way to appease their natural-born citizens without alienating their immigrants as well.

I guess it's a tough topic for me to wrap my head around completely as the US was founded by immigrants with the express intent of taking in and welcoming immigrants. I think countries like Germany want to do the same and have a good track record of doing such in the past post-war. This just appears to be something that has been simmering in the background for quite some time and the recent unrest in Syria and elsewhere has exacerbated the situation to the levels we're seeing now.

Hapless_Hans wrote:I honestly don't get how you can be so cavalier about this Fußball.
Clearly the islamic invasion of Europe and the Western world is well underway. Those arabs are coming at us with all they have.
For years, make that decades, now they have been sending their soldiers, airplanes, bombing our capitals, toppling our goverments, occupying our territory with their armies, enabling corrupt puppet rulers, stealing our resources.
FFS we are pawns in their game of world domination, about time we finally stand up and fight back.
We've been silent and tolerant for far too long, this is about survival of our way of life!

That was bloody brilliant.