Switzerland today became the first country in Europe to vote to curb the religious practices of Muslims when a referendum banning the construction of minarets on mosques was backed by a solid majority.So, what is next for Switzerland? ID cards that identify the holder as Muslim, perhaps? Maybe making them wear identifying symbols on their clothing?
The surprise result, banning minarets in a country that has only four mosques with minarets and no major problems with Islamist militancy, stunned the Swiss establishment, which was bracing itself for a backlash in the Middle East.
Care to bet that there will be no shortage of Wingnuts in this country who will applaud the Swiss for their religious intolerance?
People say Europe faces a demographic crisis because their population is crashing due to a low birthrate. Bullshit. Europe's population is crashing due to their bigotry. If you don't have that all-important "French blood", for example, you are *not* getting French citizenry even if you and your ancestors have lived in France for the past fifty years.
ReplyDeleteThere is no shortage of human bodies on this planet, and any nation whose culture is strong and vigorous can easily take in millions of those bodies to fill any needs and assimilate those people into the dominant culture. The fact that the Europeans refuse to do this is what is going to doom them to irrelevance in the future as demographic collapse renders them unable to maintain their economies. They're shooting themselves in the feet with their own bigotries. But that's hardly new news, the Romans did the same damned thing during the final days of their empire too, their best generals were foreign born as were their best soldiers and merchants and when the first reverses came in from the frontier, they blamed the immigrants too. Yeah, that worked out really well for them, didn't it? (Sarcasm intended).
- Badtux the Demographic Penguin
Russia is going down the same road, as is Japan. Immigrants invigorate our country and, despite the knee-jerk racism of the know-nothings, they always have.
ReplyDeleteThe only country I know of that seems to "get that" right now is Canada, which put out a wide net in the early part of the decade to suck in millions of the best and brightest from around the world. And even they have slammed the doors a bit these past couple of years. Everybody else seems to think that the solution to their demographic issues is to hunker down and breed more little (fill in the nationality), which isn't going to work because you're going to spend the next 20 years educating the little sh*ts before they can contribute to your economy and it'll take another 20 years past that before they are really proficient at contributing to your economy. 40 years from now is going to be too late for most of these nations, but they can't add, apparently...
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Numbers Penguin
-Badtux the Demographics Penguin
Tux, there actually is one way to get French citizenship in five years.
ReplyDeleteWell Deadstick, just checked it out and you're right. You *can* get French citizenship after five years, *if* you work those five years on a valid employment visa. Which is harder to get than hen's teeth. Reality is that most of the lower-class immigrants could no more aspire to a valid employment visa than I could aspire to a trip to Mars. Simply being in France without a valid visa is reason enough to deny you a valid employment visa, even if you were born in France and your father was born in France.
ReplyDeleteOne reason why immigrants here in the USA have not rioted like those in France is that even though the same applies here to *them*, it doesn't apply to their *children*, who will be full U.S. citizens by birth. In France, you could have been born in France, your father could have been born in France, and you can still no more aspire to French citizenship than you could aspire to be Bill Gates's sex slave.
- Badtux the Migratory Penguin
BadTux, I betcha that Deadstick is referring to serving in the French Foreigh Legion.
ReplyDeleteThat's three years, EBM. Five years is if you're on a valid work visa. Four years if you marry someone who is already a French citizenship. So if you want to have French citizenship, you have these choices:
ReplyDelete1. Marry someone who is a French citizen, and live in France for four years with him/her
2. Foreign Legion (very hard to get into nowdays) and get citizenship after three years
3. Get a job in France with a valid French employment visa and stay there for five years.
Of the three, the get-a-valid-employment-visa one is the hardest. Those things are basically given out only to Nobel Prize winners or upon the recommendation of Nobel Prize winners. A friend of mine from Francophone Canada was hired by a French company and it took *TWO YEARS* for his employment visa to come through -- and he had a master's degree in Computer Science and was going to work for a French government research institute with recommendations from some top French researchers! Luckily he had a fallback during that time (teaching at the local community college). But that's just how hard it is to become "legal" in France. Just forget it, really.
- Badtux the Migratory Penguin
OK, Tux is right, it's 3 years for the Legion...thought it was 5.
ReplyDeletedeadstick, I thought so, as well.
ReplyDeleteThe only good thing about the demographic collapse in Europe is that the Germans would be hard-pressed to fill up an expanded Wehrmacht.
My wife, her brother, and her sisters are French citizens of African origin. It's not that hard. If you're under 18 when you immigrated, all you have to do is turn 18 and pass a test.
ReplyDeleteFrance isn't facing a demographic crisis. Their birthrate is just a hair under two children per woman, and immigration picks up the rest. Italy and Germany are where you ought to direct your comments.