Breaking News - Major Terrorist Attack In Oslo, Norway

[ulmont]

Yet when these immigrants arrived, the US was already overwhelmingly an acculturation machine - because, to this day, the main source of population where the British Isles. Now, the US has to deal with a different situation, not necessarily because of the latinos themselves, but, I would contend, with the existence of mass media, different socio-economic context, etc. Yet, it has the historic resources of the reading of its own past.

Is that accurate?

Not even close.  In fiscal year 2010, there were 1,042,625 people who became Lawful Permanent Residents (green card) in the United States.  Of those, only 88,743 were from Europe generally, and they didn't even bother breaking it out into UK / Ireland immigrants.
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/lpr_fr_2010.pdf

If you just mean "most USians are of British heritage, even now a couple hundred years later," that's wrong too.  From the 2006 data, only 46 of 300 million people listed British or Irish as ancestry.  Even if you throw in everyone who listed "American," "Scotch-Irish," or "Welsh," you're still well less than half.
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_

[Oexmelin]

I did not mean today's main cultural "self-identifyer", which is what those census track. My guess here is people, when ask to identify themselves, especially when it comes to "German", or "Dutch", or "French" take only one saliant part of their own "identity memory", a very limited one in time, and conveniently forget all the other branches of the genealogic tree. Considering the fact that 65% to 70% of people of the US in 1790 were "British" (and that a not insignificant part of the rest were Africans and therefore not expected to mingle or participate to a large extent), the following years of immigration only represented a drop of foreign water in an already very British  - or British-American - sea, which would itself grow mostly by natural growth until the begining of large-scale immigration in the 1840s. But even then, large-scale meant around 5% to 10% of the local population.

[garbon]

I did not mean today's main cultural "self-identifyer", which is what those census track. My guess here is people, when ask to identify themselves, especially when it comes to "German", or "Dutch", or "French" take only one saliant part of their own "identity memory", a very limited one in time, and conveniently forget all the other branches of the genealogic tree. Considering the fact that 65% to 70% of people of the US in 1790 were "British" (and that a not insignificant part of the rest were Africans and therefore not expected to mingle or participate to a large extent), the following years of immigration only represented a drop of foreign water in an already very British  - or British-American - sea, which would itself grow mostly by natural growth until the begining of large-scale immigration in the 1840s. But even then, large-scale meant around 5% to 10% of the local population.

I think that discounts the tendency of non-British immigrants to form their own enclaves upon arrival.  Acculturation machine couldn't have been too quick on working in those immigrant groups who established themselves in the Midwest for example.

Besides on the African front, is isn't that what this whole discussion is about - individuals that haven't mingled or participated but rather stick with/form their own cultural units that are different from the majority?  I do think you can likely discount them though as population did remain relatively static in that group for a while and it is hard to have an effective, separate culture when you are kept as property.

[ulmont]

I did not mean today's main cultural "self-identifyer", which is what those census track. My guess here is people, when ask to identify themselves, especially when it comes to "German", or "Dutch", or "French" take only one saliant part of their own "identity memory", a very limited one in time, and conveniently forget all the other branches of the genealogic tree.

...and yet you want to take a different branch of the genealogical tree and call them all British now?   

[Oexmelin]

I did not mean today's main cultural "self-identifyer", which is what those census track. My guess here is people, when ask to identify themselves, especially when it comes to "German", or "Dutch", or "French" take only one saliant part of their own "identity memory", a very limited one in time, and conveniently forget all the other branches of the genealogic tree.

...and yet you want to take a different branch of the genealogical tree and call them all British now?

No, it is to take look at the majority of the branches of a tree and say, "hmm. This tree looks somewhat British".

Take it another way, if you do not like the genealogical approach, or if you want to quibble with my wording: at no time when immigrants came, except perhaps in the early 17th c., was there a "cultural threat" to British customs, English language, Common Law and the like. There always were high pressures -whether social or economical- for newcomers to fit in, and such pressures were borne out of the overwhelmingly British character of the initial colonies. The amount of people who assimilated into the French Huguenots of South Carolina, the Moravians of Pennsylvania or the Dutch of New York is close to irrelevance. The places where such integrations could have happened - mainly Louisiana or the Southwest borderlands - were quickly pressured into adopting what were then seen as the "national / rational / advanced" ways, which coincided with whatever the US was doing at the time. By the time the ideas of "melting pot", and later "multiculturalism" were coined, or invented, or gained popularity, the US could without any problem do away with any idea of genealogy, so entrenched, and thereby, so acculturating, were its own national characteristics. The difficulties of making the slaves "fit" (are they immigrants? are they "native-born"? are they "Americans"?) - and the schemes to "send them back to Africa" - show that this process did not go smoothly.

I am not saying it is a good or a bad thing, or a morally superior one, mind you.

[Viking]

That might be a reason why MC is so popular in europe. In one stroke you can happily ignore the immigrants and pretend they don't exist because they never get out of their ghettos because they don't assimilate and on the other hand you can be tolerant and multicultural when you bother to think about them while you get outraged at the racist patriachal hierachical society which discriminates these poor people forcing them into these ghettos where their criminal, violent and mysogynistic behavoir can only be explain as a reaction to racism and hegemonic oppression.

If that is what happens and that is how it's explained, that is pretty fucked.

That said, I haven't come across any Europeans who were, you know, actually in favour of multiculturalism the way you're describing it... but I could easily have missed them, being in Canada and all. Still, none of the European media I watch and read defend multiculturalism. The only time I'm come across it in European media it's inevitably when people say things like "multiculturalism is a failure".

Who are the staunch defenders of multiculturalism in Norway and Sweden? And what are their main platforms for propagating their views?

Nobody is arguing for a system that works the way the system works today. Each side has it's own idealized solution that hasn't been tried properly. What matters is the actual effect of the policies of not only the government but of media and ngos as well. But, if I have to appeal to authority on this issue I appeal to Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy. This is not an attitude found in the socialist and social democratic echo chambers (there are liberal and conservative echo chambers as well).

The issues related to immigration and assimilation do not get discussed because the left calls the right racist in any such discussion. This is what norgy identified as the problem of exclusion. You can't have a discussion with someone who calls you a racist and you are excluded from society if everybody else is either calls you a racist or stands by in silence.

[Viking]

BTW Norwegians, local paper had a pic of Prince Harkonen coming out of the memorial service, and his wife looked pretty reasonable.  Not up to Princess Tanning Bed standards, but pretty reasonable.

Princess Party's step-brother was one of the dead security guards, so she gets to deal with it badly.

[jimmy olsen]

Interview with the dude's father. Sounds crushed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct7TKf58sN0

[jimmy olsen]

Well, I think it is helpful to view modern cultural conflicts in terms of a class warfare. The sophisticated well-off "upper class" vs. the barbaric savage uncouth "lower class". The global City vs. the global Slum. You can keep the lower class down only for so long - you need force or you need to open the society otherwise. Seems like Europe is not willing to do either.

The American green card lottery doesn't really fit your narrative Marty.

Well, I think you are doing both. Actually, historically, you have been quite open - it's only recently that you are moving into positions of more forceful "besieged fortress", as anti-immigrant sentiments demonstrate.

We had anti-German, anti-Irish, anti-Asian, anti-Italian, anti-Slav immigration movements before, the current anti-Hispanic movement is just one in a long line and one be the last. 30-40 years from now Hispanics will be protesting the latest wave of immigrants from wherever.

[MadImmortalMan]

Interview with the dude's father. Sounds crushed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct7TKf58sN0

Damn. Leave the poor guy alone. In some cases, you can't blame the parents.

[Tonitrus]

Well, I think it is helpful to view modern cultural conflicts in terms of a class warfare. The sophisticated well-off "upper class" vs. the barbaric savage uncouth "lower class". The global City vs. the global Slum. You can keep the lower class down only for so long - you need force or you need to open the society otherwise. Seems like Europe is not willing to do either.

The American green card lottery doesn't really fit your narrative Marty.

Well, I think you are doing both. Actually, historically, you have been quite open - it's only recently that you are moving into positions of more forceful "besieged fortress", as anti-immigrant sentiments demonstrate.

We had anti-German, anti-Irish, anti-Asian, anti-Italian, anti-Slav immigration movements before, the current anti-Hispanic movement is just one in a long line and one be the last. 30-40 years from now Hispanics will be protesting the latest wave of immigrants from wherever.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Tell that to Sarkozy.

In Sarkozy's case each immigrant generation married a frenchman/frenchwoman and assymilating. Anecdotes do not trends make. But, not all immigrants are equal. A Hungarian or a Greek (in Sarkozy's case) are much much easier to assymilate than a turk or a berber. In my case as and Icelander I'm pre-assymilated in Scandinavia as I'm considered one of "us". Europe has through history had a constant flow of people and refugees for centuries, usually moving to a polity more tolerant of their religion/politics. The Mayflower is just a continuation of an old tradition. This tradition is, however, a tradition of moving towards similarity rather than towards difference. Hugenot Protestants would move to Protestant England, English Catholics would move to France.

The concept of multi culturalism was invented in the 1960's in concert with post-modernism and cultural relativism and has a common set of assumptions (yes I know, post-modernism using meta-narratives, how droll). This happened at the same time as a new form of immigrant arrived in western europe, the guest worker. Never intended to be assimilated he was not and still has not.

I'd say the large numbers of Africans and West Indians who came to the UK in the 60s have done quite well, to the point that now, large portions of the white urban working class youth in London have adopted an accent closer to Jamaican than cockney, and listen to music with definite Afro-Carribean origin.

Most immigrant communities from the Indian subcontinent are well integrated too, yet remain distinct.

I don't think most people would complain about Chinatown either, even though the signs are in *gasp* Chinese and you can't find a steak and chips anywhere.

I'm not sure we are being counted as typical Europeans in this discussion, which is probably correct.

Another group I could mention are the Poles. After WW2 there were 250,000 of them in the UK who did not return to Poland because of the communism. In my childhood there were Poles who were "Poles", but their children who went to school with me were already British............one only really became aware when you had to spell their surname. When I first came to Preston there was a Polish deli here; there was a little old lady who was Polish, her son was aware of his Polish heritage, his children were just English. When we returned to Preston in 2004 the Polish deli was gone and the WW2 Poles completely absorbed, but by then a fresh wave of Poles were coming in. By 2005 a number of Polish delis had sprung up and any corner shop with nous sold Polish beer.

Amazingly enough the tabloid press kicked up a fuss about these essentially trouble-free immigrants 

[Martinus]

Yet when these immigrants arrived, the US was already overwhelmingly an acculturation machine - because, to this day, the main source of population where the British Isles. Now, the US has to deal with a different situation, not necessarily because of the latinos themselves, but, I would contend, with the existence of mass media, different socio-economic context, etc. Yet, it has the historic resources of the reading of its own past.

Is that accurate?

Not even close.  In fiscal year 2010, there were 1,042,625 people who became Lawful Permanent Residents (green card) in the United States.  Of those, only 88,743 were from Europe generally, and they didn't even bother breaking it out into UK / Ireland immigrants.
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/lpr_fr_2010.pdf

If you just mean "most USians are of British heritage, even now a couple hundred years later," that's wrong too.  From the 2006 data, only 46 of 300 million people listed British or Irish as ancestry.  Even if you throw in everyone who listed "American," "Scotch-Irish," or "Welsh," you're still well less than half.
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_

Ok, but now what is it? I'd wager Latin America, right? And it seems like it is causing you guys a major headache.

I guess what Oex is saying is that Europe is getting entirely different type of immigrants - we mostly get Africans and Middle Easterners.

[Tamas]

Valmy's earlier point/question about European nation states and their reason to exist if they just let anybody in is a very valid one I think.

That is one of the reasons I want the EU to be more like a United States of Europe. Unless we develop a European identity which worth more to us than our national one, Europe's decline will continue.

[Norgy]

The mass murderer's behaviour, manifesto and demand for being in uniform when he appeared before the judge yesterday leads me to lean more and more towards ideology being secondary to a massive narcissistic personality disorder and Messiah complex.

Yesterday, most of Norway protested against the violence by coming together at six pm. I think it's fair to say that the terrorist lost.