The anti-immigrant ranters [Socialist humor from Britain)]

[pampango]

"The panic about immigration is reaching an almost artistic level of irrationality."

http://socialistworker.org/2009/09/11/anti-immigrant-ranters

"These newspapers would compete with each other until they seemed to insist the number of Poles coming was more than the number of Poles in the world--but even then, they'd have replied, "Yes, well, that's because they're planning to bring 10 million of their dead to make use of our soft-touch spirit welfare scheme.""

"A landlord of a pub in Lincolnshire, who seemed otherwise charming and eloquent, told me, "The trouble with Poles is they walk in groups of four on the pavement, so you fall in the road trying to get round them." I said, "I'm sure just as many English people walk in groups of four on the pavement." He said, "Yes, but at least they do it in a language I can understand."

Which at least is an original way to be annoyed--to snarl: "I don't mind falling in a puddle, as long as it's with the right mix of vowels and consonants, but when it's with three or even FOUR Zs, it's time we took a stand.""

"For example, one paper told us that, "One immigrant is arrested every four minutes." But they must have been short of space, because they left out how the average for the whole population is one arrest every three minutes. Now they'll print a story saying, "Immigrants are refusing to adapt to our way of life by only being arrested once every four minutes. If they don't want to follow our customs, they should go back to where they came from.""

(Mark Steel is a comedian, a columnist for the Independent newspaper, and a socialist and activist in Britain.)

[KharmaTrain]

1. Immigrants Are Always The Whipping Boys/Girls Of Nationalists...

Be it Hindus in Britain or Moslems in France or Chinese in Indonesia and so on..."feriners" are always a good target to whip up a political shitstorm in hopes of a nationalist party or politician benefitting from it.

We're definitely seeing that in this country as Hispanics (specifically Mexicans) were singled out for discrimination and hate more for who they are than what they are. You never hear these "nationalists" talk about the gringos and Anglos who benefit from their labor. They're easy to pick on cause they "look and sound funny"...creates some form of "superiority" when you can knock someone else.

[whathehell]

2. Thanks for giving us a glimpse of some of the "social problems" in Europe. n/t

..It's nice to know we're not alone!

[pampango]

3. Indeed, problems seem to be universal, even when the solutions differ from one country

to another.

[Odin2005]

4. Racism and xenophobia in Europe is as bad, if not worse, than racism here.

It's just been more well-hidden and conveniently ignored until recently, helped by the fact that in many European countries public displays of fascist and Neo-Nazi images are banned. Now that the memories of the 30s and 40s are being forgotten it's coming back out into the open again. Even Anti-Semitism is on the increase.