African migrants - what is to be done?

[LadyinCement]

I see in the news that millions are trying to cross the Med to reach Europe. I visit Italy frequently to visit family and it is no exaggeration - there are huge groups of young men hanging about with no status and no purpose. They are lying about in parks/by the sea all day. At one major station I had to pass armed guards linking arms at the barriers as otherwise the men try to board the trains to ride round. They receive an amount of money every day and accommodation, but there is no hope of work - Italy has very high unemployment. Of course they want to reach Germany/Sweden/Britain and don't want to be in Italy at all.

What is the solution? Europe cannot possibly absorb vast numbers, especially lone young men.

I don't recognise the Sweden being presented by the right wing to justify their anti foreigner, especially brown ones, position.

I found this article A Tale of Two Europes very interesting.

It explores the different approaches to the migrant crisis of the eastern EU states, Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland compared to other EU states and possible historical reasons for these differences. Thought provoking.

quillette.com/2017/07/08/tale-two-europes/

Thank you for an interesting article. Also many of us are pragmatists. Economic migrants need to be those we need and this tends to be the better educated (and most of us could not care what colour they are) who are happy to adapt to our values. The Afghan Swedish ex policeman was interesting on another link above - he said rightly most young male immigrants from his country are not that interested in religion and want to fit in even if it means leaving homophobia behind (but not all of course he said). Most young men (and young women too sometimes) think about sex several times an hour - they are more interested in getting it on with a girl than finding the direction of mecca and to be released from a restrictive religious homelife to a country where they can be much more free in their social life is good news for many of them.

The article is very compelling, and explains the rush to racist and phobia allegations in Western Europe. I believe that freedom is a right but the only way it can be protected is by immigrants adopting the host nation's values, norms and dress. I do not feel this request is oppressive or racist but a way of dealing with the culture conflict that can arise.

That article is awful. It references the Daily Mail as a source, which should tell you all you need to know about it.

"Othering" people and seeing them as less than you by virtue of their birthplace, religion or skin colour is by definition racist.

I believe that freedom is a right but the only way it can be protected is by immigrants adopting the host nation's values, norms and dress.
If you are forcing people to have specific values and norms, and dress in particular ways, then they aren't free are they?

Oh My God, not the Daily Mail. How truly awful. I will say my penance and then read three Guardian articles and a New Statesman from cover to cover in an attempt to absolve my sins.

I thought it was an excellent article and I'm pleased you thought it interesting twelly and Lucy.

Quentin Do you think there should be no expectation that immigrants adopt the prevailing values and norms of the country they move to? If you moved to Saudi Arabia, do you think you would be reasonable to walk around in shorts?

Do you forsee any problems in the future for our liberal, equal society if it is acceptable for immigrants from less liberal and less equal societies to keep their values and norms in the UK? For example, intolerance of gay people, or lack of equality for women. Is it just fine that people will start to loose the rights and freedoms we have fought for because an increasing proportion of the population don't agree with them? Is this a price you are happy to pay? Is it a price gay people and women should be happy to pay?

And do you think that different communities within a country having completely different values and norms is a recipe for peace and civil harmony, in the long term?

"Othering" people and seeing them as less than you by virtue of their birthplace, religion or skin colour is by definition racist

I didn't see any of that in the article. Can you point it out?

Are those Tim Pool Swedish videos the ones he made after receiving a donation from Paul Joseph Watson to go and cover the violence there? (Watson is a an editor of Infowars and a conspiracy theorist that makes Breitbart looked measured and liberal).

Because he may be an independent journalist, but that doesn't mean he is impartial. I am not saying that there aren't problems in Sweden, and Pool seems to be more sane trustworthy than the journalists Infowars normally uses, but I do feel more cautious than usual when reading/watching a report with links to sites like Infowars. And it is always wise to be at least a little cautious about the media we consume, whether it backs up our existing preconceptions or not.

Also, the journalist who wrote that "tale of two Eurpoes" article also wrote this one:
quillette.com/2017/04/18/laura-kipnis-rape-culture-disappearance-sex/

So in one article he is using a statistical increase in rapes to prove something about immigration, and another article in which he is saying that a statistical increase in rapes is "rape culture hysteria".
The difference being, to my eyes, that he can pin the first on migrants, whilst the other is around rape culture in US universities. So the first must be true, but the second must be false.

I don't know squishy. I didn't know Tim Pool had any links with PJW. He describes himself as left/liberal, but that's not to say he hasn't/wouldn't take funding from JPW. I've watched quite a few of his videos and he comes across to me as a really genuine, open minded young man. I haven't watched all the Sweden videos, only about half, but in some of the earlier ones he seems to be leaning towards a lot of the stories about no go zones being exaggerated. Then in a later one he gets "escorted" out of an area by the police who tell him he needs to leave or will be in danger.

I completely agree with you about being skeptical and not taking everything you read or watch at face value. However, I would say that relying on the mainstream media equally gives a very distorted picture. The Guardian in particular seems to be ignoring more and more fairly major stories if they don't fit its agenda. So it is important to look elsewhere too, but with a healthy skepticism.

PJW being a conspiracy theorist is news to me though. (I mainly watched his "celebrity x is an utter moron" series, quite good). Do tell me more about his theories

squishy I thought the writer was suggesting that the Sweden data may be amiguous but there is other factual information available which supports claims of increased sexual assaults. Do you believe that the reports of disproportionate sexual violence from migrants in Sweden and other European countries are exaggerated or untrue and that, for example, the reports of mass sexual assualts in Cologne last new year are untrue?

I probably phrased that question quite badly. I hope you can understand what I am trying to say.

I'm not saying that Pool should be ignored or anything - I don't want to lump him together with PJW and infowars, because he seems to possess a great deal more critical thinking than them.

PJW is a creepy tinfoil hatter, though.
rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paul_Joseph_Watson
I particularly hate the conspiracy theories around Sandy Hook, etc - they have caused a lot more distress to the already traumatised victim's families and survivors.

The MGTOW stuff is creepy too (but then I also think those guys are doing the human race a favor really!)

ReleaseTheBats:
I don't think they are untrue. Reports of sexual violence should never be ignored. What I find hypocritical, however, is when right-wing mysogenists and rape apologists suddenly care about women when the perpetrator is black/muslim/whatever minority they personally hate. This smacks or possession, not protection. I don't know enough about that author to know if it is true in his case, but a quick scan of his articles make me feel a bit uneasy about him; he is articulate and clever, but very clearly has an agenda, and from what I have (quickly) read of his work he seems perfectly capable of cherry picking the data that suits him - even as he accuses others of doing the same.

To clarify: I hate it when otherwise liberal journalists ignore sexual assaults that don't fit with their politics.
I also hate it when hard/Alt-right wing types ONLY pay attention to sexual assaults that can be used to bash a minority they don't like.

All fair enough squishy. Off to read PJWs rationalwiki page. Never heard of MGTOW before.

Btw, release, when I read that Pool was associated with infowars I did instantly leap to a (wrong) conclusion about him. So I am well aware that I have my own biases. I know too that rationalwiki itself will be seen by some as a terrible, left wing, fake news site but at least it is possible to search its claims on PJW elsewhere to see if they stack up. I am a bit wary of detailing actual conspiracy theories here, because then I'd feel like I was helping to spread them myself, iyswim. Some conspiracy theories can be rather fun, in a batshit kinda way, but some can be really nasty and damaging.

Squishy I felt bitterly let down by men I thought were feminist allies after the NYE attacks in Cologne and elsewhere. I mean really, irretrievably scales falling from my eyes let down. Denying it happened at first, even when I reported eyewitness accounts from friends in Germany, minimising it then deflecting and crying racist. Their right on credentials mattered more than women being sexually assaulted. If liberal men are happy to sacrifice women's rights on the altar of multiculturalism they shouldn't be surprised if those same women vote elsewhere.

Cologne was horrible and it was terrorism imo. I don't think targeting immigrants will stop attacks like that, any more than they will stop suicide bombers.
release "If you moved to Saudi Arabia, do you think you would be reasonable to walk around in shorts?" This isn't the equivalent of what was said about values and clothes. I think the Saudi government would be exceptionally unreasonable to stop me wearing shorts should I want to. In the same way I think our government shouldn't dictate what visitors here can and can't wear.

Well Quentin if you allow in more and more men from misogynist cultures, you will get more attacks like that and women will be less safe. In fact the second and third generation are often just as bad given my own experiences as a young woman travelling, living and working in European cities so I'm not particularly optimistic.

Hmmm. I know I'm in a minority position in thinking the issue is men rather than immigrants. Women get sexually assaulted all the time. Women and children die at the hands of men every day. Sadly most of it is barely newsworthy, when it's linked to immigration there is uproar.
I don't think letting/not letting immigrants into the UK will have an appreciable impact on misogynist attacks. Drop in the ocean. Rather than focus on immigrants we should be focusing on making violence against women unacceptable full stop.

The increase in rape crimes in Sweden and why it has once of the highest rates is due to a change in the law. In Sweden assaults which would be recorded as 'sexual assault' in the past and still are in other countries such as the UK are now recorded as 'rape'. The definition of rape is now much broader than most other countries. Secondly, each individual act which constitutes rape within the same assault is recorded separately. So one horrific event can be recorded as, for example, 3 instances rather than just 1 as other countries do.

The reason why some people were reluctant to pay enough attention to the Cologne attacks was because they feared that the attacks would be seized upon by the far right as justification for hate speech and violent reprisals against immigrants and muslims. This was inexcusable, and amounted to throwing women under the bus for another cause but, tbf, the far right (who never give a shiny shit about women normally) did use it as expected. Problems like this should never be covered up, however and like I said both examples of hypocrisy make me angry.

I still think we should take in refugees, and other migrants too. That is not the same as calling for unlimited migration. I also think that we should look at ALL the lessons of events like Cologne - and they are not just about immigration. They also highlighted that the German laws on rape and what constitutes sexual assault were pretty shit. It shouldn't matter if it is a white European or a Muslim immigrant, we need laws in place to protect women, we need to enforce those laws properly, and they need to apply to, and protect, everyone equally. We also need to protect the trafficked, illegal immigrant sex slave who is too scared to report herself to the authorities in case she is treated as the criminal. White men rape immigrants too, and in many cases it is very, very difficult for those women to get help.

I agree with Quentin when she says that "if you are forcing people to have specific values and norms, and dress in particular ways, then they aren't free are they?"
I am sure we all agree that everyone should follow the host country's laws - but that is not the same as forcing people to dress a certain way. If those laws are inadequate, then they need changing FOR EVERYONE.

Values are a funny one too, because they are not nearly so homogenous in this country (even among the British born) as some would like to think. While we are addressing the mysogenistic attitudes that some immigrants may have, we also need to address the mysogenistic attitudes within our own culture. Because they do exist! I know that "we're not as bad as x place etc", and I don't want to get into UK vs Saudi mysogeny top-trumps or anything, because it is pointless.
But there is no point in teaching immigrants that "in the UK men who feel up women without their consent will be punished" if its not true, is there?

^Sorry just read back above and it is very garbled, but I hope its still sort of clear what I mean. I need to go to bed, I think.

Squishy, feminists were also very very angry, not just the "far right" and they were silenced and ignored. Personally I think cultures which swathe women in restrictive clothing, limit their freedom and treat them as breeders and drudges while punishing those who step out of line are pretty "far right" too and I don't want to see them gain traction in Europe.