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Comment by watrami | Hacker News Reader

I volunteer for a "Tafel" in the center of Munich for about four months now, and here the main issue is related to immigrants. I can state with confidence that about 19 out of 20 people coming there have an arab background, and the vast majority have more than 7, sometimes even 10, people in total in their household. And you can see from the cards they need to show, that most of them are children.

Many of the migrant kids I've met can't speak any German. Even kids that are already 10 years old. Thus I believe this situation will escalate even further in the future, as it will be very hard for these kids to get a proper education without the needed language skills.

It makes you feel really bad to see them growing up in such an environment without much chance for a better life. But ultimately this is due to their parents decision to have so many kids, even if they can't afford simple food.

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>Many of the migrant kids I've met can't speak any German. Even kids that are already 10 years old.

Meanwhile, Sweden has no language, income, employment, or skills requirement (<http://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/B...>) for obtaining citizenship.

>Thus I believe this situation will escalate even further in the future, as it will be very hard for these kids to get a proper education without the needed language skills.

In completely unrelated news, Arabic is now the second most spoken language in Sweden (<https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_po...>).

> It makes you feel really bad to see them growing up in such an environment without much chance for a better life. But ultimately this is due to their parents decision to have so many kids, even if they can't afford simple food.

Is it ultimately the fault of the parents, though? It's easy to place to blame on individual parents, but more interesting to study the misses/wrongdoings of the educational system. Schools tend to cast immigrants children on the side very early on, and not even try to teach them anything (their future as low-wage workers for the industry has already been decided), at least it is so here in France and your suggestion that 10 years old children can't speak properly the language used by everyone around them seems to indicate the situation is the same in Germany.

If anything, it's a sign of deep social disintegration on a broader scale, probably due to a mix of institutional racism/classism and public policies aiming to dismantle public services.

It should be illegal for kids to not be in school, but since it involves a "migrant background" (or some other factor) that makes it ok?

Seems like lack of enforcement by some authorities.

Sure not all of them are going into a Tafel, still...

There is compulsory education in Germany, even for foreign children. I have not heard of any exemption to that.

I'm not sure mandatory indoctrination is a healthy sign for society. Study-at-home was rather strong in France historically, due to public schools being so reactionary and authoritarian (or on the other side of the political spectrum, due to teaching sexual education and evolution), and there was an entire public institution (CNED) dedicated to that.

However in the past decades, the government's attack on home schooling has coincided with the introduction of more and more nationalist/racist doctrine in public schools.

Don't get me wrong, i'm strongly in favor of public education, as long as it's in the interest of the children (for example Montessori methods) but public schools in much of the world are the exact opposite of that.

In Canada similar situation is playing out. Lack of assimilation and heavy reliance on the social safety net, is leading to animosity.

Why would "assimilation" be a goal? Of course giving children opportunity to learn (including the local language) is good, but pretending a single culture and way of life needs to be shared among everyone is an imperialist construct.

Not everyone born to a land shares the same culture. There are huge cultural shifts between faiths and political sides, for example, and it's not a problem. A society that is not multicultural has a settler's mentality which is profoundly racist.

For example here in France, at the same time the colonial process aimed to destroy local cultures in the colonies in Algeria/Indochine/etc, public schools were used as a weapon to destroy the local cultures and languages in Bretagne, Alsace, Occitanie, etc... A few generations of beating children who spoke their native tongue, suggesting that french was a somehow superior language (and assimulation was a requirement), was enough to annihilate most local cultures.

EDIT: I also don't understand why "reliance on safety net" would be a bad thing. There's a reason such mechanisms are in place, and one's contribution to society can hardly be measured in purely economic terms.

It’s the two factors, failure to assimilate and heavy use of social safety net.

It’s the combination of failing to respect the local culture and refusing to contribute and extract benefits without giving back.

You wouldn’t like if I moved into your house, didn’t respect your way of life and just ate your food.

> failing to respect the local culture

Assimilation and respect are not the same. If anything, there's strong incentives for immigrants to respect the local culture and to assimilate. I dare bet there's more respect for the flag and symbols of a nation from immigrants than from natives themselves, in proportion.

I've often found myself in situations where immigrants despite facing very rude situations were telling me all the great things about France, and praising Napoléon's conquests. And it's required of them as part of the legally-mandated racist assimilation process (in France at least). Many french people i know spit on the national flag and despise Napoléon for being a bloody tyrant and colonizer.

> extract benefits without giving back

Source? Even if you do have stats, they would be skewed by the fact illegals are often unaccounted, and that most immigrants (students, asylum seekers) are not allowed by law to work and declare income. Also, measuring in purely economical terms fails to account for participation in society outside of work: school trips, local associations, arts, militant activities...

> You wouldn’t like if I moved into your house, didn’t respect your way of life and just ate your food.

Of course not, but my house is my house and i don't appreciate anyone dictating me how it should be run, not even the State. Outside of my house, there's an abundance of food and housing and other resources. Who am i to dictate how other people should live? Who gets to decide what's "respect" or not? There's not a single way of life that's fairer than others, and even within a same ethnic group / region you'll find plenty of different ways of life and cultures.

What is a mod ?

Fixed the typo.

The problem will multiply. If people are incapable of integrating into one of the richest, most well-run, and liberal countries on the planet, then entire family groups should be sent back, with a once-off €50,000 as motivation (still representing a substantial saving in lifetime welfare costs for society).

It doesn't make sense to be taking care of refugees in Germany when they could take care of themselves for a fraction of the price in their regional homeland.

As long as these groups have food, they will continue to multiply, until the generous capacity of the host population is extinguished. Its classic R vs K reproduction strategy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory

> The problem will multiply. If people are incapable of integrating

It's not and never been that people were incapable of integrating. Usually it's that they're refused the opportunity by being recognisably other and easy to discriminate against in various more or less overt ways.

I've a bunch of french journal clippings about first diaspora italians, they read exactly like your ilk. But once they speak french it’s pretty hard to differentiate an italian from a southern french or corsican.

"Incapable of integrating"??? The biggest constant here is the attitude to Difference in German Society. A fellow engineer, of Arabic (Tunisian) origin but raised in Germany, told me that when she was little girl, she was a very good student - including in German language - and on the occasion of her test being the best of her class, an angry colleague said: "they shouldn't have given you a better grade: you're not German!". Having lived in Germany for 8 years, I got stories like this from immigrants raised in Germany, all the time. At some point I started to consciously choose my words to make sure there wasn't any bias when I heard the telling of this kind of story when I asked something of the sort: "how was it to grow up in Germany?".

The same is true in every imperialist culture, like France, UK, Russia, China, India... The claim to be superior to others is a huge problem.

That is true of every culture, period. In France, white people that comes from metropolitan France get discriminated against by black people living in Martinique, La Réunion, etc, because white people are the minority here. It is human to think that our in group is superior.

> That is true of every culture (...) It is human to think that our in group is superior

I don't think this is true. There's nothing inherently natural about this. One could even argue that cooperation, not competition, is what brought us this far. Of course i'm all ears for counter-arguments but usually this stance is just misinformed "common knowledge" among people coming from imperialist cultures who tend to see the rest of the world in the same way.

> white people (...) get discriminated against by black people living in Martinique, La Réunion

That's not exactly comparable. There's a deep history of colonization, massacres and exploitation which leads to resentment (which is not the same as racism in my view, and is definitely not the same as a superiority complex). If you think that's over, just look at who owns land and industry on those islands you'll see it's all white people most of whom inherited their wealth from pillaging the local population.

> I don't think this is true. There's nothing inherently natural about this. One could even argue that cooperation, not competition, is what brought us this far.

Cooperation with the in-group, sure. Outside of that, most humans will at some point compete with the out-group for resources. That's thus far the history of humanity, for the vast majority of people that lived.

> That's not exactly comparable. There's a deep history of colonization, massacres and exploitation which leads to resentment (which is not the same as racism in my view, and is definitely not the same as a superiority complex).

Most of the people currently here have nothing to do with that history though.

> If you think that's over, just look at who owns land and industry on those islands you'll see it's all white people most of whom inherited their wealth from pillaging the local population.

Sure, they may be white but they're mostly filthy rich. Changing a class struggle in a race struggle is divide to reign 101, and it seems to be working.

> Outside of that, most humans will at some point compete with the out-group for resources.

Source?

> for the vast majority of people that lived

That's the history of civilizations maybe, but not every group/culture turns into an imperialist civilization. See also anticiv critiques.

> Most of the people currently here have nothing to do with that history though.

I would argue otherwise. They are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors, but everyone has a possibility and responsibility to correct unfair situations.

> Sure, they may be white but they're mostly filthy rich. Changing a class struggle in a race struggle is divide to reign 101

These are two different aspects of the same situation. How some nations and people became filthy rich is historically tied to a history of hierarchy of races and cultures, and this cannot be ignored. Studying class/race without the other is doomed to failure.

Race reductionism is just as dangerous as class reductionism. It's often brought up in leftist circles that bringing up racism in political analysis is "dividing left-unity". However, historically (at least here in France), immigrants had to form their own unions (Main d'Oeuvre Immigrée, Mouvement des Travailleurs Arabes) because they were discriminated in the mainstream anticapitalist movement. Now we're facing a second trend of economically-privileged liberals over-emphasizing racial issues while downplaying class struggles, and that's equally misjudging.

See also intersectionality as a field of study in social sciences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality

I mean "attitude to Difference in German Society" in contrast to other European countries. It really stands out in the south of Germany.

> Usually it's that they're refused the opportunity by being recognisably other and easy to discriminate against in various more or less overt ways.

As someone who works as a volunteer at a refugee center and supports a syrian family i can tell you thats not the case. We have two kinds of "refugees" in germany.

1) Real Refugees, that fear for their life 2) Migrants, that use the opportunity and the political climate to come to germany.

The second ones are the ones causing problems. A lot of them are aggressive, dealing drugs, using multiple identities to get more money. They miss their (provided) german classes and in one center they ripped out all ceramic toilets and sinks MULTIPLE TIMES. The amount of times i had to call the cops because one of them was drunk and drew a knife is just crazy.

So maybe they are refused integration because they are "recognisably other and easy to discriminate against" ... maybe its just because they behave like assholes.

Well, they are not allowed to work, which pushes them into "jobs" like drug-dealing.

Those migrants typically don't qualify for asylum and are basically not allowed in the first place. They are just navigating the system for as long as they do not get expelled, which is impossible in some cases.

It is beyond me why you would give these people the right to work.

Them being allowed to stay is not my point. My point is that IF they are in the country they will do something. If you do not allow them to work, they will do other things.

Either have proper borders around Europe, push them out instantly etc. or allow them to work. But don't complain about them dealing drugs. It is not the underlying problem here, just a logical consequence.

Side note: Just legalizing marihuana would also work.

> Just legalizing marihuana would also work.

No it doesn't. I am from NL, we have legalized the (selling to) consumer part for decades, so they'll do other stuff.

I agree it is a difficult political problem ( which we created ourselves ), but just as other 'simple' solutions are not feasible, simply allowing them to work is equally infeasible.

Unfortunately, once they are here, we will have a very hard time to push them out again. They will destroy their passports, lie about there identy, their countries of origin won't take them back etc.

If we do not want them, closed Southern and Eastern EU borders or rather closed North African borders are our only courses of action. We can try to work with North Africa and Turkey to handle asylum processes over there. Of course this does brings some moral problems with it and will be opposed by the left. Children drowning is the ultimate bad publicity for your political stance. It comes down to what we are willing or feel obliqued to take responsibility for.

People, who are already here will stay anyway. That ship has sailed, we should start integrating asap.

> That ship has sailed, we should start integrating asap.

Not before the gap has been closed, otherwise you will only attract more.

This is basically the same in NL.

> The second ones are the ones causing problems.

That can be expected from people who went through various forms of traumas and insecurities. The same is usually said of people from poor neighborhoods, with the same kind of disdain.

Social problems are not solved by repression. 60 years ago, there were just as many racist comments pointing out how polish/spanish/italian immigrants were dangerous and not integrating in society. But 60 years ago, the economy was booming and the industry couldn't afford to discard workers; as a consequence, noone was forced a life of insecurity and most people had general faith in the system that if they worked hard enough they could enjoy their life.

Today it's much harder to find a job, especially without a recognized diploma (even janitors and cashiers are expected to have diplomas nowadays) and working very hard every day is not guaranteed to get you out of misery. "Migrants" as you call them, or most of them any way, are very much looking for a job and denied the opportunity. I know quite a lot of illegal immigrants here in france (sans-papiers) and they're always looking for an opportunity to work (they don't have the same social benefits french people and asylum seekers do) and it's very often, either they work very hard for little pay on construction sites or in kitchens (think 10h works 60€ pay) or the boss won't even pay them after weeks of work (that is VERY common in the restauration industry).

This is a hard reality we can't ignore if we try to understand the situation. Give people decent situation and opportunities, and you'll see they'll integrate just fine. Only people who've been denied justice turn to antisocial behavior... that's a very well studied problem in social sciences since way before this latest immigration wave started. Remember that for a very long time, the nobles of Europe claimed to be of a different species (the blue blood) and that workers were genetically programmed to be aggressive, stupid and hard-working.

> maybe its just because they behave like assholes

Take anyone and treat them bad, they'll either become ultra servile, or start behaving like assholes. The same is true with immigrants, which fall into both categories.

> I've (read) a bunch of french journal clippings about first diaspora italians

Correct. And yet, they integrated.

Also see: Asians in the US. Especially those that migrated before WWII. (Or Italians or Irish, of course)

> Correct. And yet, they integrated.

Because within a generation they were impossible to tell apart.

> Also see: Asians in the US. Especially those that migrated before WWII.

Tell me you have no idea about asian american integration without telling me you have no idea about asian american integration.

My comment about Asians are that they integrated in spite of what happened during WWII

You don't need to confirm what we already understood.

> Because within a generation they were impossible to tell apart.

I don't think that's a correct interpretation. I would rather say the conservative blamers found other scapegoats to blame, for example with other immigration waves

And yet, at some point in history all those groups you cited were "stealing our jobs" and "dangerous individuals" whose culture is incompatible with "ours". See also, the myth of the model minority: https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/what-is-the-mode...

Speaking about France specifically, that's not true. People 50 years mostly knew how to recognize French from Italians. Not with 100% certainty of course, but what you say about " once they speak french it’s pretty hard to differentiate an italian from a southern french or corsican" is a bit like when people say asian people look all the same. Also, immigrants in France 50 years ago made more sacrifices to intergrate themselves (be it Italians, North Africans or Asians). They took French names, spoke French at home, things like that. I've seen a few documentaries about this. It was frequent from Asian to suddenly be told "now your name is <French name> and not <Asian name>", and be told to not speak anything else than French outside of home. Same for Italians, same for North Africans. The immigration was also more limited at the time, which allowed some people from North Africa, especially young women, to get away from their traditions and have a better place in society.

That is not what is happening right now. I'm not sure of the causes, but things have changed.

Edit: as some other people mentionned, work might make a big difference. The grandfather of a friend was a bus driver all his life, and that friend and his father are well integrated. If you can't access a job like that it's going to be hard to fit into society.

> Speaking about France specifically, that's not true. People 50 years mostly knew how to recognize French from Italians.

No, a second or third-generation french of italian origins is not recognisably non-french at a glance. At best they can be recognised as "not from the area" (which in some places is still a concern, but nowhere near the same).

> is a bit like when people say asian people look all the same.

It really is not.

A second or third-generation french of african or middle-eastern or asian origin can generally be recognised at a glance.

> Also, immigrants in France 50 years ago made more sacrifices to intergrate themselves (be it Italians, North Africans or Asians). […] That is not what is happening right now. I'm not sure of the causes, but things have changed.

https://i.redd.it/7easdur0x7i51.jpg

That's from 140 years ago. It might as well be from yesterday, with the nations of origin changed.

And it's hilarious that you're now using north african immigrants as a model minority alongside asians as a cudgel to hit others.

> The immigration was also more limited at the time, which allowed some people from North Africa, especially young women, to get away from their traditions and have a better place in society.

Hundreds of thousands of italians moved to france during the first diaspora: the italian population in france went from 63000 in 1850 to 330000 in 1901 (this does not include seasonal worker). The country was barely 40 million people. And over a million non-pieds-noirs immigrated from northern africa between the 50s and 70s.

> No, a second or third-generation french of italian origins is not recognisably non-french at a glance.

I thought we were talking about first generation immigrants. I agree with you that second or third generation immigrants from Italy are hard/impossible to recognize, but that's not the case for others.

> That's from 140 years ago. It might as well be from yesterday, with the nations of origin changed.

There's rarely mentions of nations of origins in the news these days, journalists mostly talk about "young people", probably because pointing out the countries of origin would be racist, and also because sometimes the people mentionned have been in the country for a few generations.

> And it's hilarious that you're now using north african immigrants as a model minority alongside asians as a cudgel to hit others.

I wasn't hitting other minorities, I mentionned how some acted differently before. These days having to sacrifice your culture to integrate yourself in a country is seen as a bad thing. Before it was the obvious thing to do. I'm not passing judgment on any of those views, but highlighting that the mentalities have changed.

> Hundreds of thousands of italians moved to france during the first diaspora: the italian population in france went from 63000 in 1850 to 330000 in 1901 (this does not include seasonal worker). The country was barely 40 million people. And over a million non-pieds-noirs immigrated from northern africa between the 50s and 70s.

We have around ~150k people going in the country every year (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_en_France#Solde_mi...), with ~100k people becoming French each year. Considering the population didn't double since 1850, we now have more immigration in terms of percentage of the population compared to the two events you mentionned.

Again, I'm not passing judgment on anyone. I'm trying to understand why people felt that there was way more cohension in the 70s-90s (when my parents grew), and if their sentiment is true.

Here in NL a beer went from 5-15 cent to 3-4 euro. Tea, coffee and water use to be free. Hell, you would get a free cookie with the coffee.

300 years ago we had no job agencies, there was no need for them. You just went to the local bar and asked the bartender. They would be quick to point out the unemployed guy with the biggest tab and his friends would push him forwards.

Learning a language in school just doesn't work. You have to go to the pub and talk with the [drunk] strangers. Its the only way to learn (and preserve) the local dialect.

Migrants come here and wonder where the f the public places are? Some are quick to build a Mosk. Learning dutch there is somewhat of a challenge to put it mildly.

So the problem [in my view] is that to much effort was put in shutting down public gatherings. We use to have Neighborhood Associations all over. People went there to chat with their neighbors/organize things. It was all shut down from the top down to boost exploitation and dictate the narrative.

>It's not and never been that people were incapable of integrating. Usually it's that they're refused the opportunity by being recognisably other and easy to discriminate against in various more or less overt ways.

Why is it that the people themselves never have any responsibility for integrating themselves?

Britain has three groups from the Indian subcontinent:

* Indian Hindus

* Indian Sikhs

* Indian and Pakistani Muslims

Sikhs and Hindus have been very successful; they are more likely than the average to be part of the British middle class (<http://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/dec/14/middle-britain-...>). Muslims are, by contrast, worse than average in every single social measure despite being, racially speaking, indistinguishable from the other two groups to any outsider (since none knows, or cares, about the myriad of caste differences); they are all "Asians" in Britain.

> generous capacity of the host population is extinguished

I don't doubt there is a lot of individual generosity in people. However, the assumption that social benefits are profitable and very open to immigrants to people is very wrong. Life on social benefits is hard, and immigrants don't live in luxury. Hell, a lot of immigrants have to live illegally due to racist "asylum" policies (you cannot apply for asylum as citizen of a country which is not recognized to be unsafe by your host country, or rather you can but you can be almost certain it will be refused).

I don't disagree that helping remote communities overcome their problems in an autonomous manner would help, in place of the current neocolonial theft and NGO industrial complex which creates dependency schemes instead of developing local autonomy.

But in the end, who are you to judge where someone should be allowed to live? Was someone in charge of judging whether you are allowed to reside where you live currently? Do you think it's a fair mechanism? If so, why is it only applied to people from the global south moving to the global north, and never the other way around?

So if people are so poor that they cannot feed their family, it's - at least generally - their own fault? Specially in a notoriously wealthy place like Munich? And you, Watrami, volunteer for a food bank there to help people that hurt themselves through their own misguidedness - is that it?

You thought social services didn't have it's share of racists ? They see never ending misery (because if the misery stops they stop seeing the people), and they must have an explanation.

Obviously they have the same demands for an explanation as society at large: they themselves are perfect (for example, these kids go to school, so they can be taught German, it just doesn't happen), so the explanation must be something else. It can't be them, themselves. It can't be the support structure. It can't be society around them (even though one just exposed himself as somewhat of a racist). So who is left? Homeowners, banks, that sort of thing if they're generous. The immigrants and their backwards ways must just cause it themselves! (and I might agree: in some cases that's true. Generally it's not)

It's like youth services. They generally blame what happens to kids ... on the kids. And if not on the kids, then on the parents. The most generous will blame the most useless blame of all "society". Never themselves. Despite research pointing out that the many "missed" kids (who stay with abusive parents) have a far better life than foster kids. In other words: even when you can prove that it is the social workers themselves CAUSING misery, they will still blame anyone else.

And in Germany, like in many other places, give a try to finding an Arabic-language German course book for cheap, through social services. Go ahead, give that a try. That doing so is so very hard, of course, has nothing to do with immigrants failing to learn.

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