The shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines an immigrant as ‘a person who migrates to another country, usually for permanent residence.’
That, people, makes us here at Bucharest Life and – though many would be the last to admit it – almost anyone who has decamped from far shores to Romania immigrants. Even Little Englanders resident in these parts – who feel that immigration has blighted their native land so much that it needs to be brought to an abrupt halt – are themselves immigrants.
Oh yes, these people exist: A day or two ago we spotted an Englishman – an immigrant to Romania himself – ranting on about how disappointed he was that none of the major political parties in the UK were taking a firm enough view on immigration…
It reminded us of an English woman, resident in Portugal, who was interviewed by the BBC in the first few days after Madeline McCann had disappeared from a Portuguese holiday resort. Asked what the area she lived in was like, she replied (with tongue nowhere near her cheek) that ‘it used to be nice around here, but now there are too many foreigners.’
In case you hadn’t noticed, an election is imminent in the UK, and immigration is a key issue. The two main parties – Labour and Conservative – are pretty much agreed on the fact that Britain is ‘full up’ and that immigration has to be more tightly controlled (which is bad news for any Romanians hoping to go and speculatively look for work in the UK before 2012). Only the Liberal Democrats – who, despite a sudden rise in opinion polls will not be forming a government come May 7th – see the real value of immigrants, but even they favour a quota, albeit a higher one than the Tories or Labour. The Liberal Democrats also favour an amnesty for many illegal immigrants currently in the UK.
Of the UK Independence Party – which proposes immediate withdrawal from the European Union else even more nasty Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians and the like darken Albion’s doorstep – and the British National Party – which wants to stick anyone whose name isn’t Windsor on a boat to the West Indies, the less said the better.
Which is strange. Because aside from all the rhetoric, all except the bigoted tend to agree that immigration has been good for Britain. Very good.
Imagine modern Britain without immigrants. It’s impossible. No Irish, no Indians, no West Indians, no Pakistanis, no Poles. Britain wouldn’t be half the country it is today without immigrants. It would be poorer, in every sense of the word.
As for the idea that Britain has indeed done well out of immigration but, now, as the country is ‘full up’, the waves of migrants should come to and end, we say hogwash.
Just 12.5 per cent of Britain is covered by urban sprawl. You could double the amount of houses, roads, factories, shops etc. and still 75 per cent of Britain would be a green and pleasant land. (More on this subject here).
Romania has never had a real problem with immigration. It is migration, and the loss of its brightest and best (as well as a few of its less impressive citizens) that have in recent times been far bigger problems. Recent elections have not featured immigration as an issue: instead Romania’s political parties have sought to attract the diaspora home. (And do not forget, it was the diaspora vote that tilted the last presidential vote in Traian Basescu’s favour).
As immigrants in Romania, we sincerely hope that the country at large never becomes as bigoted (it’s the word of the day…) as some of the Britons who live here.
Open the borders. Freedom of movement for all!
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I wish people wouldn’t travel abroad even on holiday but a hopeless wish. Ignorance is a delicate bloom. One touch and it is gone. Foreign travel broadens the mind, gives people ideas. Not even new ideas which might not be so bad but the same dreary plastic ideas, music, films, celebrities, as milliions of other people who are also milling around. The world is becoming deracinated. Much energy is spent talking about endangered species of wild animals but no-one discusses the endangered cultures of the world. I am absolutely not advocating traditionalism which is a dead thing but living traditions. The worst culprits are British: all those second homes.
I keep looking over hi5 to find a nice native Swiss girl but all I seem to find is Brazilian girls, Arab girls, African girls, Eastern European girls etc etc etc…
No Swiss girl!
Immigration should be put at a halt and not only that, immigrants that are already in the UK (or other countries) and don’t contribute with anything positive to the society should be sent home immediately!
Borders need to be closed and peoples’ circulation must be conditioned by a visa. This way the terrorist threat could also be better prevented.
However, I do encourage a more facile system of obtaining a travellers visa, maybe directly on the internet or so.
Also, people from countries considered to be a threat to the security of the Western world (mostly Islamic countries) should only be allowed to enter the West with a biometric passport + a visa issued by the embassy of the country that he needs to visit.
We’re getting nowhere unless immigration is more thoroughly controlled. There needs to be some control over immigration, we can’t just let everyone fool around and go wherever they want.
As for the gypsies, they should only be allowed to circulate withing the borders of a cage.
I want to add that I do understand where the backlash against immigration comes from. Every culture has as goals its perpetuation, and everything that might interfere with that goal is seen as bad, unnatural, a deviation that has to be fought.
And indeed, while walking on the streets of Amsterdam I did see more females with their heads covered by burqas than when strolling in Istanbul. Hence the bans on burqas in Belgium and France.
But a culture is not saved through legislative action. If other cultures display more vitality and attract more people, they will eventually become dominant.
Still, the myth of Eurabia is just a myth. 2nd generation immigrants always have lower birthrates once they settle in and become middle-class. (a good piece on this can be found on newsweek here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/206230 )
Some countries fear immigrants, others compete with other countries in order to attract them. Here is an interesting (and secret) document from 1960: http://www.international.gc.ca/department/history-histoire/dcer/details-fr.asp?intRefid=13152
That’s the smart way to think about immigration. And countries will continue to vie smart immigrants, especially if the US will make it harder for smart, antreprenorial people to go there.
I’d be very very happy to have all the very skilled immigrants come to Romania. History has shown that when immigrants came, they brought precious skills (see the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain, or the Jewish diamond cutters that fled Antwerp for Amsterdam, thus making the Dutch city also an important selling point for the precious stone).
And we’ll need low-skilled immigrants also, probably from Moldova. Who will work the fields and other low-skilled jobs, if most of those willing to do such jobs are in the West, working those jobs for thrice the salaries?
But this requires planning, incentives, and I don’t see any such a thing in Romanian politicians.
Were I to have the power, I would certainly put in place some incentives to bring smart people to Bucharest. Lower taxes for those residing here for more than 5 years, and make their investments non-taxable at first, or something similar, then advertise it.
Of course, to attract skilled immigrants you also need a predictable legislation, a functioning system of justice, infrastructure. But that’s harder to achieve, given the incompetence of the Romanian political system.
It is now far more difficult to emigrate to the US than ever. (For Romanians, even getting a tourist visa is far more difficult now than it was under the so-called nasty Mr. Bush). People who thought the Obama regime would be more cuddly and friendly towards foreigners forget he is at heart a protectionist who detests the idea of open borders and an influx of people looking to better themselves.
And open borders are, after all, what we should have on a global scale: anyone should be able to go anywhere he or she likes to look for work, skilled or unskilled.
Romanians have their own share of bigotry regarding racist attitudes and other kinds of intolerance. Just look as how the Gypsy and Jews fared and still fare in the Romanian society. Also the Hungarians are seen as disloyal to the state and because of their Central Asian ancestry regarded as racially inferior to the Europeans to whom supposedly the Romanian ‘race’ belongs. Moreover, the black people are commonly called “crows” on Romanian street and such examples can continue…
In Britain is a similar situation but at a much larger scale because the country is more populous and immensely more connected than backwater Romania to the outside world through a rich history, commerce and movement of people.
The amusing thing is that both Romanians and English are some of the most mongrel European nations; the result of blending and interbreeding of many ethnicities and races since the fall of the Roman Empire. That fact just puts into perspective the opportunist nature of that bigotry- it is about access to jobs, privileges, inferiority/ superiority complexes etc.
By the way, I recall that the surname of that woman in the news is Duffy, which is quite Irish- perhaps she’s married with someone with Irish ancestry, etc. That’s quite a ‘shame’ if we think of ‘foreigners’ flocking over England over the last century… She would be quite shocked to learn about the way how the Victorian era Englishmen routinely considered her Irish folk: as the missing link between the Neanderthals and the humans.
Gypsies deserve everything they get, and it really can’t be said that Jews suffer so much in Romania anymore — there aren’t that many left either to band together or pose a problem. They posed a societal problem during the interbellic era when they controlled a huge chunk of Romanian economy, but Antonescu took care of that conundrum.
Also, it’s nothing short of sad how Britain is getting more and more mongrelized due to destructively permissive immigration policies. The common Brit is just too vacuous and absent-minded to be concerned by it, as the insidious liberal establishment is force-feeding them the multiculturalism propaganda until their eyes roll back in their heads. Thus, Britain is becoming New Pakistan and a fertile breeding ground for the most virulent Islamism. so to escape from that hell, Englishmen flee their homeland, and establish themselves in Eastern Europe so they can bitch about it. :]
Romania to the Romanians, Britain to the Britons, Africa to the Blacks, Europe to the Whites!
@Vallachorum Tyranorum: you are just a contemptible cheap racist! In a more normal country you and your statements would feel the full blow of the law!
But they should all be open for tourists …
Actually it is quite untrue that England has always been a melting pot. And telling that this untruth gets repeated all the time by intelligent people. All countries were founded by immigrants. People did not spring out of the ground but the English did not had sizeable waves of foreign immigrants from 1000 to 1950. The Huguenots in Great Britain and Ireland put together probably numbered 50,000 (the number of immigrants admitted in any single year in the 1980s, a fraction of the present annual figure). The Irish in the 19th century were not of course foreigners either de jure or de facto and have integrated seamlessly (like my forbears). The Jews even now do not number more than 300,000. Jewish immigration was halted by the Aliens Act 1902 a piece of legislation which no-one has sought to repeal.
Had a similar experience in Spain once, sitting in a bar on one of the Costas. “We had to move to Spain,” said one family, speaking English while watching BBC and scoffing egg and chips. “England’s gone to the dogs with all these foreigners living in their own little ghettoes. They don’t even try to integrate.”
“Do you speak any Spanish?” I asked. “Nah, everyone round here’s English.”
I’m with Sato. Brown’s only mistake was not calling her a bigot to her face.
Agreed. It was tragic to watch the last debate and see them line up to embrace ‘faith’ and bash immigration. (Full disclosure: French-Romanian in UK here.) Totally fucked-up value system. Yesterday’s Votergate actually endeared Brown to me — until he went back and grovelled abjectly. BTW, you may like this:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/tories-will-scrap-free-tv-licence-for-bigoted-old-hags%2c-says-brown-201004282688
author’s name: Sato
“French-Romanian in UK here”
YOU’RE NOT JAPANESE, STOP FOOLING YOURSELF LOL