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I'm not expert on this, Harry, but I think people still
behave the same way as they did when you lived here. There are still areas
in large cities in which ethnic groups concentrate because they are more
comfortable among their own. However, their children will not necessarily
stay in those areas.
It's very difficult to generalize because various ethnic
groups behave differently. There are still parts of Ottawa that are
considered Italian or Lebanese or Chinese, and have been identified with those
ethnicities for three generations or so. However, with each generation
younger people from those areas have moved out and other people have moved in,
leading to a much more mixed population.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 1:16
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] 128.
Anti-immigration feeling grows in Europe
Ed,
When I
lived in Ontario, it was noticeable that new immigrants tended to move into
their own "ghettos". Particularly so in the case of the Italians, who gathered
together in Toronto.
There is
nothing wrong with this, for it is natural for people in new and strange
circumstances to cleave to their own, but I wonder what the situation is
now?
Are the
sons and daughters of the immigrants moving out into the broader reaches of
Canada? We have a problem here with new immigrants (legal and illegal) from
Mexico. I should say that they have a problem. The only way they have of
getting out of the barrios is by learning English. The schools are letting
them down.
Teachers
who teach the ESL. classes (English
as a Second Language) earn an extra $5,000 a year for doing so. Yet, the
program appears to have been a complete failure.
I want
the sons and daughters to get out of the barrios and become CEOs, perhaps of
Enron and similar companies, but in any event, good English is the passport to
success.
Fortunately, the kids learn English themselves. Unfortunately, not the kind of English that
would become a passport.
Harry
******************************************
Henry George
School of Social Science of Los Angeles
Box 655 CA 91042
USA
Tel: 818 352-4141 : Fax: 818
353-2242
******************************************
A couple of points, Keith. One
is that the Swiss have never been noted for their treatment of
foreigners. I spent about ten days in Geneva some thirty years
ago. The people who were making the beds and cleaning the toilets in
the hotel I was staying in were Italians. I seem to recall that
they had no rights of citizenship and no hope of getting
them.
The other is that, as you know, Canada
is rapidly becoming a multi-ethnic, multi-racial society. Where its
emerging character may be most visible is at local schools. Our local
high school, noted for its good academic performance, has just about every
kind of kid imaginable in it. While kids from Jewish families perform
well, they do not necessarily perform better than other kids, including the
kids of Somalian refugees, one of whom was President of the Students'
Council a couple of years ago. One of the brightest kids in school, of
Anglo-Canadian parentage, was going around with one of the other brightest
kids in school, whose parents came from somewhere in Africa. They've
gone off to university together.
I'd suggest that, by now, whatever
theory of human evolution one adheres to, we've mixed and remixed in so many
different ways that it would be difficult to argue that one group is
intellectually or physically superior to another. There may be special
adaptations. An anthropologist once told me that Australian
Aborigine kids have an easier time finding their way around the outback
than White kids, but these probably go with the territory. Change the
territory, and special adaptations would probably also change. And we
really don't know how much of this kind of thing is cultural
versus innate.
Ed Weick
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 3:45
AM
Subject: [Futurework] 128.
Anti-immigration feeling grows in Europe
Yesterday's parliamentary election results in Switzerland will send a
shock wave through left-wing and liberal politicians and the
intelligentsia generally throughout Europe. The anti-immigration campaign
of the Swiss People's Party (SVP) looks as though it's the first
successful forerunner of what will repeatedly occur throughout Europe as
its economy declines in the coming years. There have been strong
intimations of this already in France (which almost succeeded in producing
an anti-immigration president) and also in England (where the British
National Party is beginning to get local government seats in the north of
England), Belgium, Germany and other countries.
I think we had
better get used to this phenomenon because anti-immigration feelings are
pretty fundamental and are expressed by any and every group of people
throughout the world and throughout history whenever their way of earning
a living is likely to be affected. Groups, tribes and races will always
welcome foreign traders and tourists and will even be liberal in the
matter of allowing inter-marriage (originally necessary for genetic
reasons), but the fairly large-scale immigration of foreignors who are
likely to be competitors for their jobs is quite another matter. Those who
are active in promoting immigration (at least in England) are typically
middle-class people whose livings are most unlikely to be affected, even
by large-scale immigration of (usually) lower-skilled people from abroad.
The people who suffer are the lower-class, less-educated section of the
population -- usually those who live in the north in the case of
England.
For myself, I am neither in favour of, nor against,
large-scale immigration. In principle, I am in favour of the free movement
of labour, just as I am in the case of the free movment of goods and
capital, but this is only practicable in a peaceful way when immigrants
are bringing brand new skills into a country and are not going to be
competitive with existing ones. Large-scale immigration into America a
century ago, particularly of large numbers of gifted Ashkenazi Jews from
central Europe, has been the making of modern America. I simply note that
the whole of human evolution in small social groups has predisposed the
species genetically to being very wary of immigration into their own
territories. To be in favour of large-scale immigration is not necessarily
to be a liberal member of the intelligentsia; it is to be someone who is
uneducated in the anthropological past of the human species and who is
often insufferably patronising about the fears of the less fortunate among
their own indigenous population. This is a matter on which the
evolutionary economist can make more relevant comments than orthodox
economists.
Keith Hudson
<<<<
POLL
TRIUMPH FOR SWISS RIGHT WING
Early results from Switzerland's
parliamentary elections show that the right-wing Swiss People's Party
(SVP) has the biggest share of the vote.
Final exit polls from
Swiss television indicate the party won more than 27% - even more than had
been predicted. The party, once the smallest of the four governing parties
in the coalition, is now the largest. Exit polls also indicated an
unexpected decline in support for centre-right parties.
The SVP,
which opposes Swiss membership of the European Union, is likely to win an
extra 11 seats in the 200-seat House of Representatives. The fact that the
Swiss have expressed such trust in the SVP means they want a change in
policy. The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Bern says the party's
anti-foreigner campaign, in which asylum seekers were portrayed as
criminals and drug dealers, seems to have found favour with more voters
than it offended.
Now the party will put forward Christoph
Blocher, its most controversial and outspoken figure, for a second seat in
the seven-member cabinet. That would disrupt the coalition which has
governed Switzerland for almost 50 years. The official results due on
Monday are also expected to show strong levels of support for the Social
Democrats (SDP) on the left.
Anti-foreign propaganda
"The
SVP is winning voters in all cantons, about 1-8% more," election analyst
Claude Longchamp told Swiss TV. Mr Blocher, a billionaire industrialist,
said the result "looks superb for Switzerland. The fact that the Swiss
have expressed such trust in the SVP means they want a change in policy."
Switzerland's once strong economy is heading for a slump,
unemployment is rising, and social benefits are being cut back. The
election campaign was dominated by the SVP's anti-foreigner propaganda,
overshadowing concerns about the economy. The party has doubled its share
of the popular vote in the last 10 years.
Its campaign, including
posters portraying asylum seekers as criminals, was sharply criticised by
anti-racism groups. Centre-right Liberal Party parliamentarian Barbara
Polla said she had sensed that many elderly people felt more was being
done to help immigrants than pensioners. "I think there is a very large
amount of work that needs to be done to reassure people, and to show that
the presence of foreigners... is a positive factor, especially for the
economy," she said.
The United Nations refugee agency also said
the party's propaganda contained some of the most anti-asylum
advertisements ever seen in Europe.
Financial Times --18/19
October 2003
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