Populist Bilge

Denerick

All across the western world the economic crash has brought with it an unprecedented wave of populist bilge, as joe public loses the rag altogether along with his job and other economic worries. The far right is on the rise and the tea party rabble in America have managed to solidify stupidity as an essential political virtue should you wish to achieve political office. In Ireland we manage to allow the opposition parties get away with every kind of platitude (Labour agree that public spending should be brought down to -3% of GDP, yet insist on exploiting political capital from citizens who really should be able to see through the bull****)

Politics was always a dirty game, politicians routinely manoeuvre the rough seas of popular prejudice along with what would hopefully be economic and social progress. Widespread immigration has been good for an ageing European population, and has revitalised a decaying and sterile labour market. With the economic crash came unemployment, something most people in Europe were unused to. And so the ugly undercurrent of the west has risen to the top of glass, much like that subterranean scum we all wish wasn't there. But it is there.

So what do you think? Are we seeing the beginnings of a fundamental change in the political order? Or is it just a passing blip? Personally I think foul utterances from leaders like Angela Merkal there the other day are simple political strategies, a crude attempt to deflate the far right. Time will tell whether it succeeds in kicking the wind out of populist sails. Either way, the next five years will be a dangerous time in a dangerous chapter of European history.

Lenny Lovett

I think Merkel's diatribe was without forethought.

We (Irish) should be a lot more tolerant understanding and welcoming to immigrants. We were welcomed all over the world for decades or even centuries and worked hard and prospered. In my experience in Ireland the vast majority of immigrants are very hard working and want to to work. They happily toiled in the service industry here when we were too good for such menial work and now we want to boot them out? Ridiculous. We should embrace them for their part in diversifying Ireland over the past twenty years, for enduring much unnecessary abuse and for enriching our culture an, importantly, adding to our economic prosperity. Our current difficulties have nothing to do with their presence here.

Rabble Rabble

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

I think Merkel's diatribe was without forethought.

We (Irish) should be a lot more tolerant understanding and welcoming to immigrants. We were welcomed all over the world for decades or even centuries and worked hard and prospered. In my experience in Ireland the vast majority of immigrants are very hard working and want to to work. They happily toiled in the service industry here when we were too good for such menial work and now we want to boot them out? Ridiculous. We should embrace them for their part in diversifying Ireland over the past twenty years, for enduring much unnecessary abuse and for enriching our culture an, importantly, adding to our economic prosperity. Our current difficulties have nothing to do with their presence here.

We weren't welcomed anywhere, actually.

These kind of debates go nowhere. It consists of name calling on both sides. Racists! PC-Do-Gooders.

Personally I think immigration is good in booms - if limited - and bad in recessions.

It would be understandable that there would be a shift to the right if employers came out of this recession only employing immigrants..

As for the German;s - they have a fear of a shift to the right by their blue collar workers, for historical reasons, which is why they have restricted eastern european immigration until next year. We'll see what happens then.

Lenny Lovett

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

We weren't welcomed anywhere, actually.

I beg to differ. I worked in the UK, Europe, The Middle East and Australia for much of the past twenty five years and was welcomed in every one. And I know many many more who had similar experience.

Rabble Rabble

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

I beg to differ. I worked in the UK, Europe, The Middle East and Australia for much of the past twenty five years and was welcomed in every one. And I know many many more who had similar experience.

Thats anecdotal. Historically, and you did say " for decades or even centuries " the rise of Irish immigration saw far right wing groups emerge in places where Irish people emigrated to. Far more so than the reaction in Ireland, to what was a historically significant level of immigration, possibly the fastest change in demographics in the West.

Rabble Rabble

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

Our current difficulties have nothing to do with their presence here.

Thats not entirely true either. But it is a good example of how these debates become polarised. Although I support targeted immigration in booms, there is a case that the immigration of people to build houses for immigrants who were coming in to build houses for immigrants who were... was unsustainable.

During the boom the housing apologists pointed to the demographics as a reason for the continuation of the boom. But Ireland's birth rate is historically rather low. So they meant immigration.

PeterIanStaker

Got a link to what Merkel said? Sorry.

Sand

German multiculturalism has absolutely failed - Merkel

Germany’s attempts to form a multicultural society have “absolutely failed”, Angela Merkel, chancellor, has said in a stark intervention in the country’s increasingly strident arguments about immigration.

Speaking to young members of her Christian Democratic Union party at the weekend, Ms Merkel said Muslim immigrants and indigenous Germans must do more to encourage integration.

Her comments are made amid intensifying debate about how Germany should try to integrate foreigners, particularly Muslims.

Ms Merkel said integration was now a “central issue”. Germany had “kidded itself” migrant workers invited to the country from the 1960s would not stay: “That is not the reality. The ‘multi-culti’ approach that we can live alongside each other ... has failed, absolutely failed.”

But the chancellor said Islam was now “part of Germany” – an echo of comments by Christian Wulff, Germany’s president – and said numbers of young people with immigrant backgrounds would increase. “We should not be a country that gives the impression ... that those who don’t speak German immediately or who were not raised speaking German are not welcome here,” she said.

Ms Merkel is trying to reconcile public irritation at perceived lack of integration with a desire to keep Germany open for immigration. The issue has taken on an extra political dimension after a popular, polarising book by Thilo Sarrazin, a Bundesbank board member.

He said the country was threatened by high birth rates of Muslim immigrants who refused to adapt to German society. Mr Sarrazin, a member of the centre-left Social Democratic party, later resigned from the central bank.

Horst Seehofer, head of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, went on to speak out against further immigration from what he referred to as “alien cultures”.

But two of Ms Merkel’s cabinet allies – almost certainly speaking with her backing – said at the weekend they favoured encouraging migrants to Germany to bolster the country’s ageing workforce.

Annette Schavan, education minister, said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper that Germany should be more concerned by high emigration than by immigration. Ms Schavan is to present proposals for legislation to ease recognition in Germany for foreign qualifications or professional training.

Ms Schavan last week announced plans to fund training for imams at three universities.

Debate is spilling over into discussion of whether Germany should encourage immigration to help overcome an expected long-term population decline.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

Essentially she has said that immigrants must integrate - attempts to have a multi-cultural society where some people follow German cultural norms and others follow Turkish cultural norms are a failure. I wouldnt consider that a tirade, more a recognition of reality. A functioning state - especially a socialist welfare state - requires that the people it serves can unite around some sort of common identity, that there is an "us" at some level. A country like the US generates it by loyalty to concepts like the constitution/flag/principles as being central to American identity. However, in Europe, they are actual nation-states, states based around a national identity, in this case German. If people arent integrating into that German identity, repackaging their own cultural norms as part of it, then there simply wont be that "us", with resulting tentions.

@OP

I think the increasing democratisation of society has meant people are more and more concerned with what the majority of people think, and trying to appear responsive to what they think. Theres a resulting dismissal of qualifications, expertise, intelligence or accountability as being elitist, or anti-democratic.

Those anti-democratic checks were put into place for a reason - the people were ultimately the base of legitimate government, but wild mobs driven from frenzy to frenzy by the latest Sky News 24 news story simply dont have the attention span to run a country coherently. Unfortunately, theres the assumption out there that if you get 1,000 random people together, theyll always without fail reach a better decision than a small group of experts.

If thats true, then were on the right track. If its not...

PanchoVilla

Lenny Lovett wrote: »

I think Merkel's diatribe was without forethought.

We (Irish) should be a lot more tolerant understanding and welcoming to immigrants. We were welcomed all over the world for decades or even centuries and worked hard and prospered. In my experience in Ireland the vast majority of immigrants are very hard working and want to to work. They happily toiled in the service industry here when we were too good for such menial work and now we want to boot them out? Ridiculous. We should embrace them for their part in diversifying Ireland over the past twenty years, for enduring much unnecessary abuse and for enriching our culture an, importantly, adding to our economic prosperity. Our current difficulties have nothing to do with their presence here.

Actually, the Irish were treated like scum wherever we went. "No blacks, no dogs, no Irish". That's all the more reason for Irish people to show empathy for immigrants in this country. We don't want to end up like the Israelis who cry about ghettos and ethnic cleansing while doing the exact same thing to Palestinians.

Jeboa Safari

PanchoVilla wrote: »

Actually, the Irish were treated like scum wherever we went. "No blacks, no dogs, no Irish". That's all the more reason for Irish people to show empathy for immigrants in this country. We don't want to end up like the Israelis who cry about ghettos and ethnic cleansing while doing the exact same thing to Palestinians.

These would be the same Palestinians who frequently attack Israel and whose leaders don't recognize Israels right to exist.

You can't just put Merkels speech down as a populist stunt, immigrants do have some onus to make an effort to integrate.

Fo Real

PanchoVilla wrote: »

We don't want to end up like the Israelis who cry about ghettos and ethnic cleansing while doing the exact same thing to Palestinians.

Not only do eirigí hi-jack every protest in the country to whinge aboout the Palestinians, they hi-jack our threads too.

By the way, you can't compare Irish emigration to Islamic emigration. The Irish emigrated to places which were relatively culturally similar to Ireland aka white, English speaking, Christian. If they emigrated to Saudi Arabia, I would listen to your argument. Otherwise take your Israeli bashing to any of the other countless threads on the topic.

PanchoVilla

Jeboa Safari wrote: »

These would be the same Palestinians who frequently attack Israel and whose leaders don't recognize Israels right to exist.

You mean like Mahmoud Abbas? The guy who's been involved in peace talks with Israel for quite some time now? Israelis don't want peace. If they didn't have someone attacking them all the time they'd lose their national identity. That's why they continue putting up illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories and treating Palestinians like animals.

Here's an interesting video of some Israeli commanders and their views on the occupation. There's a particularly good story at 7:15, just in case you don't want to watch the whole 10 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ga0s936ldU

Anyway, I won't derail the thread any further.

PanchoVilla

Fo Real wrote: »

Not only do eirigí hi-jack every protest in the country to whinge aboout the Palestinians, the hi-jack our threads too.

By the way, you can't compare Irish emigration to Islamic emigration. The Irish emigrated to places which were relatively culturally similar to Ireland aka white, English speaking, Christian. If they emigrated to Saudi Arabia, I would listen to your argument. Otherwise, take your Israeli bashing to any of the other countless threads on the topic.

Nigerians are English speaking Christians for the most part. Oh wait, they're black. Back to Africa with you then.

Edit: And what the hell is "Islamic emigration"? As far as I knew, Islam was not a country.

Denerick

Yeah, bringing the Israel V Palestine war of the internetz to this thread may have derailed it somewhat.

Memnoch

Fo Real wrote: »

By the way, you can't compare Irish emigration to Islamic emigration. The Irish emigrated to places which were relatively culturally similar to Ireland aka white, English speaking, Christian. If they emigrated to Saudi Arabia, I would listen to your argument. Otherwise take your Israeli bashing to any of the other countless threads on the topic.

The points made in this post have already been quite thoroughly debunked in another thread in this forum, it's surprising then how you simply repeat the same unfounded tripe without batting an eye-lid. Or perhaps, it's not surprising.

Denerick

Memnoch wrote: »

The points made in this post have already been quite thoroughly been debunked in another thread already in this forum, it's surprising then how you simply repeat the same unfounded tripe without batting an eye-lid. Or perhaps, it's not surprising.

Unfortunately, on the internet, someone is always WRONG