Immigration – the three options:
There is a great deal of controversy around how immigrants should behave and how they should relate to their host community. It is one that arouses great emotions on all sides. It would seem that the host community becomes extremely alarmed when their culture and way of life is displaced by large numbers of immigrants. Areas of the North of England seem to have been completely taken over by large numbers of Asians. The churches replaced by mosques, Western clothes displaced by Middle-Eastern/Indian costume. Many white people feel threatened and afraid to go into these Asian enclaves.
The same thing happened in other areas where large numbers of Eastern Europeans came in to take up field work resulting in a language problem and the opening of Easter European shops.
The endemic population felt threatened and forced out.
This tendency for immigrants to group together is a natural one. Being in a strange culture can feel threatening. Foreigners are often subjected to racism and threats. They group together for security and to have the familiarity of culture.
Ironically, the white population who appear to be most outspoken and outraged, are the same ones who are happy to go to Spain (and elsewhere) with their English flags and set up their fish and chip shops and English pubs, refuse to speak the native language and adopt the mores of the local community. There is a superiority and arrogance about it that is even more repulsive.
So how should immigrants behave? Presumably they came to the country because something attracted them? Should they then attempt to recreate the place they migrated from?
It appears to me that there are three options:
- Assimilation
- Partial Assimilation
- Retention of own culture and Apartheid.
In future posts I will address each of these options in turn.