European Union Destroys Culture?

This thread is to all the people in the European Union, I would love an educational lesson from you all and some input into your feelings on the European Union.

I have been studying the EU for a little while now, I had to do several reports on it in some of my European history classes and I can't help but notice European countries are in a way destroying their own cultures... Not really but racial mixing or ethnic mixing but more so by mass imigrations that literally flood countries, that in turn does not give enough time for a imigrant to simulate into the culture they moved to.

The way I see the EU is what America was like in the mid to late 1700's up to the civil war. A confederation of states that will eventually over years become just like the US in that you will have a centeral government and minimal state rights.

I tried researching the immigration policies for member EU countries but they all seemed to differ, my understanding is any citizen can move around EU member states rather easily.

The problem I see is the mass exodus of people from poor member countries like Poland to other member states like the UK, France, Ireland. Ireland has had about 150,000 Polish imigrants since Poland became a member while they only have a native population of 4 million.

The UK is also having an influx of Polish imigrants.

Thousands of eastern Europeans headed to the UK last year by plane and coach, seeking a better future since their countries joined the European Union on 1 May. A year on, the BBC takes a look at whether their hopes have been fulfilled.

They have come from the eight former communist states of Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

www.workpermit.com...

www.workpermit.com... grants_change_london.htm

news.bbc.co.uk...

My question to you folks in the EU is how do you feel about the EU, how do you feel about the eastern European states joining and immigrating to other member states? With Romania and Bulgaria joining now, a new round of mass imigrations very well be in the near future. Is this mass imigration having adverse effects on your culture or can you not even tell that they are there to begin with, do they blend in or form "Polish communities?"

Yeah your kind of right, but you have to consider the individual countries statistics and such. Your right when you mentioned Poland, and it is true. But okay, first thing Poland is not fully integrated into the union, meaning Poland does'nt operate with Euros. Never the less its relatively easy to leave the country. Most native Polish people leave the country for work, after sometime they come back. Those who moved out have reasons like the polictics in Poland to blame. The whole system is curropted, I know because my family is Polish. It's just people trying to survive, not some mass exodus. Its the individual countries fault that its citizens leave. Your theory might be somewhat correct that the Union will eventually become like the United States, but it will take a LONG time. Now I don't know too much about the Union, expect what you know. It unites the countries making travel between them easy. Also some countries use that money, meaning Euros, which further more makes moving easier. If you look at it, the European Union is meant to untie europe, and open country borders for their neighbors.

Thanks for the reply. I have no problem with Polish people. if it comes off like that. I use them as an example that poorer countries are joining richer countries, an it is survival. TIME had a great article on Ireland and th Polish imigration, one case was a graduate student from Poland who could not get a job, moved to Ireland and founded a Polish newspaper.

The only problem I see with the system is 1. It will be like the United States
2. Cultural identity is something I think European states should some what protect. The UK is over 2,000 years old, amazing rich history and loosing that Identity, you become like America, 200 years of history and we have no "This is America" image. Besides crap like McDonalds and American Idol.

As far as imigration, it is great people can excape former opressive states to free lands, I to one day hope to move to the EU, but having population groups within populations that don't speak the same language nor care to decalre them selves by the new society they moved to and clingingly only to old customs instead of embracing the new customs.. that can sometimes be hazardous for countries, much like here in America the Mexican issue. Go to a hardware store everything is in Spanish..

As a British European (with English, Irish and Scottish roots as well as someone with continental European familial links) I think the basic premise here is utterly erroneous.

It is possibly derived from the current 'tabloid version' of our history which fundamentally lacks any serious understanding about genuine 'European culture' and how each nation, long before we invented the EU, already had a long long history of inter-relation with each other, going back for many centuries if not millennia.

Whilst we all retain distinctive 'cultural identities' it is wholly false to imagine these 'cultures' developed 'in a bubble' until the European Union was devised (by us all).

(and in fact that does apply outside of the EU area too, for instance Britain has a history going back centuries of world travel and trade and population flow - each way)

Every time a new possibility of immigration opens up 'we' are told to be afraid by 'our' tabloid press.
It is always presented as something negative and almost never a word is spent on either the positive aspects of the potential immigration or the fact that we have already gotten along very happily with a community of *whoever* already lving in this country.
It's about a crass and deliberate exploitation of fear and ignorance IMO.

Invariably this nonsense is presented as if the new immigrants are somehow entirely alien to us and a little threatening and this too is usually a travesty of the truth.
They are almost always here to work and contribute to our society as tax-payers just like anybody else
(because under our rules you cannot just turn up here and claim social security benefits).

Poles are a fine example of this cynical exploitation of ignorance.
This country owes so much to Poles (in fact without the work of Poles and later the French 'we' might have lost WW2 as these 2 nations did all the ground-work for the breaking of Enigma......which they freely gave to the UK as their won countries became lost).
Many Poles settled in the UK after WW2.
Poles are not actually that 'alien' to the British.


[edit on 1-10-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

do you think it would be half as bad if the Soviet Union never got control of Eastern Europe?

they would have had time to rebuild like western europe and their unemployment rates would be much lower, especially in Poland and Lithuania.

Good point.. I do think that the Soviet Union held back the development of ever state within the Iron Curtain. Infact, once lifted and the states became "free" so to speak, our economist went on into countries like Lituania and found that their economic development had not changed almost any since the day it became part of the Soviet Bloc. The infestructure was pathetic, the medical care almost non existant and poverty wide spread except for the few Elite that existed.- mostly through corruption -

I think the Union will greatly aid the development of these countries.. for their people any ways.. there is little evidence showing that the actual countries like Poland are getting any benifits economicly from being in the Union. While unemployment drops, it is because people fled to the UK, France, Ireland and such.

actually Poland got huge help from the EU after it joined, the churches were refurbished, road systems and trains were modernized, this is a huge help. And most of all the Polish education system has been renewed to Polish standards, and it is one of the best in Europe now. because of this the future looks a lot brighter for countries like Poland because those students will go on to become scientists and engineers. Who knows maybe the next Copernicus will reveal himself soon.


there was one actual good thing that happened due to the Soviet Union. Pope John Paul II, which we can all agree was probably the greatest Pope the Roman Catholic Church had, only became Pope because he preached against fighting the soviets, but showing them love and fighting them peacefully. the cardinals voted on him because of his undaunting faith.

so i guess we can thank them for that.

While I think John Paul is over rated (he didnt get this amount of respect while alive) Religion is actually a problem in Poland, being to active in the government in my opinion. But I certainly hope countries like Poland can pull them selves together, along with Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia (they joined right?) Lithuania, but as of now there has not been any drastic effects.. economically.. on their own building industries. Though they have the capabilities to explode.. cheap taxes, cheap property, cheaper work forces, new territory, tourism, housing market.. these are just beginning to be explored.

I feel that certain immigrants such as the Islamics are indeed eroding European culture, I don't think that mixtures between other Europeans are erosional however, due to their old interconnected histories and similarities. Islam however is a real problem and definately starting to detract Europe from her own interests.

I agree with FreiMaurer, I don't mind other European cultures spreading across Europe into each others countries. But I don't really like the idea of Islamic cultures taking the place of European ones.

There are a lot of Polish people in Britain but you may have noticed that none of us are really against them as people. They bring their culture in the way of food, goods, etc and they offer them to us, kind of like a sign of goodwill.

But a lot of Brits are against Muslims immigrating here and bringing their cultures with them, because they are too open about making their cultures prominent in this country. This bush has been beaten around a lot on ATS, but the fact is (even though most are scared to say it for fear of being branded racist) that a lot of British people think that Muslims are trying to force their cultures into our society.

I think it's a good thing that countries like Poland and their people are being helped out by the rest of Europe (though we could probably do with reviewing the immigration policies so that there are actually some Brits left in Britain). But other countries e.g. Pakistan don't need our help, but it seems like they are just coming here and helping themselves to our prosperous country.

I don't know, I guess my ideal would be to let Europeans cross European borders, as they are part of our union (though obviously restrict numbers, don't just let their whole country in at once), and severely restrict immigration from outside countries.

Hi Rock the EU I love it, as Sminky said our relative cultures go back milenia especially here in the Uk, so embrcaing new people or cultures is what we have been doing for a long time.

And people who do come here come to work yes there are always the few bad apples but on the whole people want to see it as an oportunity to improve ones situation, just like me and wifey like it here we still want to retire to France because we love the place and its people. Every time we travel our main priority is to mix with the locals and get into their culture.

Again agreeing with Smink is all the lies that are spread in the press about imigrants, Muslims etc. its all crap. The only people who come knocking on our door to spread their influence is young American Jehova's, we have never had any Muslim clerics banging on the door and all the Muslims I have met in my job over the last 27 years none of them have tried to change my religion etc. and are never racist in their views unlike white people.

Its really one great big melting pot that makes for facinating history and culture only ignorance and bigotry stands in the way of it getting even better.

More to the point there is a real chance that the influence the EU has will change America and its people into a similar entity. The joining of Canada the US and Mexico will be good for all 3 countries and their peoples. Rather than seeing this as negative one should look to the real positives that each country and its culture can offer.

Mushroom and Smink, I agree very much with what you are saying.

Personally, I am a proud Brit, but unlike some Brits, I am also a proud European, and I for one love the free exchange of culture and ideas we have in Europe right now. In particular, I have great respects for the Germans (except for when there's an England vs Germany match on, cos then its WAR), and the Dutch. Regarding the Poles and their intergration into the UK, I would also like to add that I am 90% certain that Michael Howard, former Tory leader, has Polish roots.. In Britain in particular though, I feel we have some very right-wing elements who are scared to death of Europe. I of course refer to institutes of bigotry and fearmongering like the Murdoch press, and UKIP, and the BNP.

Incidently, this is the same press/political engine that loves to bang on about the evils of Islam. Which brings me to my next issue, the fear of Islam. Islam is not to be feared in Europe, and contrary to what I have seen some idiot Americans proclaim, we are not about to become 'Eurabia'. Yes, we need to find Wahhabists and kick them out, but I will say this: I have been better treated by Muslims in general than I have Christians in the past. And I am a white atheist lol! Islam is not the issue. Extreme interpretations of Islam and its crazed followers are.

OK Magicmushroom, I see exactly what you mean and I ALMOST agree with you!

It coulda been the first except I disagree on one little bit of it..

I believe that cultural mixing of reletively same cultures is a wonderful thing to do. Such as the Polish migrating to Britain or Ireland, they bring all kinds of good to the countries.

However, I think there is a line that has been crossed.. two points here.

1. Mass migration is not good for ANYBODY regardless of your cultural background. Thats the problem we have in the US. If Mexicans came over 100k's at a time, we would not care, but 3 million a year is not immigrating its saturating. The end result is, like the Poles in some places of Europe, especially Ireland and the Mexicans in the US, is that so many native nationals migrate to the new host country, but because there are so many they do not need to blend into the host countries culture, they can form communities and seclude them selves.

2. Coming off of point one, is that cultures that are so different from one another, such as Muslims in Britain, they don't want to blend in. Muslims who migrate from Saudi Arabia or somewhere like it bring their customs and don't change, and they continue to see those around them as infidels of sorts. Hence Britain having the highest threat of home grown terrorist. Some people don't want to become British, some people just want your services and your health care and education, but want to stay Saudi or Iraqi or where ever they come from.

Of course, if they came in small numbers and GRADUALLY where absorbed into the culture this most likely wouldn't even be a problem, but because European immigration laws make it so easy to immigrate there they come in large numbers. France is feeling the squeeze of this the most it seems, their large Muslim population which never did get absorbed into French culture has been causing major head aches there.

In America it is easier for the large groups to form little communities and live as they would, never learning English or anything because we are simply a massive country by size with over 300,000,000 people! For a small country, like France or Britain it is far more noticeable.

Hi Rock I understand what you mean and I may add to my previous points that Great Britain is a relatively small Island with a large population and we do have finite resources so imigration does have to be controlled to an extent.

With regard to integration of ethnic groups it all depends what you mean by that word, yes some groups keep to themselves in some ways but all groups do that anywhere. The way I look at it is this, people who come to this country work, they pay their taxes, they buy our goods, they eat our food, they wear our clothes, they learn our language, they go to our schools and the majority obey our laws.

On top of that they are our doctors, surgeons, nurses, dentist's, teachers, solicitors, etc. the list is endless so from all that I would say that people do integrate with the indeginous population. Yes there are a minority who do not learn the langauge or want to wear their ethnic dress but all that adds to the colour of society at the end of the day, and if you could go back in time you would see that it has always been that way.

With regard to a massive influx of Mexicans north of the border the best way to put it that yes it can seem like a tidel wave but eventually that settles down.

Understandable Magic.

The way I see it is while the parents may hold tight to their roots for life, their children more often then not tend to convert 90% to the native culture.

Mexicans who live here their whole life illegally have children with out accents, and act like typical American kids. Esentially eventually after generations they assimulate.

Unless they are kept in poverty, join gangs that identify by nationality or communities where the vast majotity is mexican or what ever other nationality. Then it becomes a social clash, we see that in LA and other "high immigrant" cities. In New York and Boston in the early 1900's the same problem happend with the Irish, and before that it was out west with the Chinese.

England (UK) has been much better at assimulating immigrants, France however, imo, has done the absolute worse.. even though they need the EU more then any other state for economic reasons, suffered the brunt of the immigration because of various social laws and the natural French attitude that France is first.. leading to racism and segregation because to man came to fast.. I would hate to see Europe fall victim to their own generosity .. and it seems like European immigration has tougher laws for Americans to move then many other nationalities

Text "England (UK) has been much better at assimulating immigrants,than France

I disagree

Immigrants in france identify themselves as 100% French

The same cannot be said in Britain where communities are (relativly)isolationist

What you are confusing is the amount of institutional racism in each country. (France higher therefore more issues)