Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I want to know why white Americans are so concerned about Europe's demographic future when so many, if not most, of these posters' families are all in the US and have been here for at least 3 generations? I'm 2nd generation American on my mother's side, know the majority of my German relatives, yet I don't really concern myself with how Germany is handling its Muslim demographic seems like that's mostly the concern of some Europeans themselves, and Americans of European ancestry (whose ancestors came in the 1800s)
Europe is a buffer and shield used to block the russians and the jihadists. THey are also extra troops for expeditionary missions like afghanistan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by seixal
The US has also Muslim communities and they do not cause the mayhem you are referring to. Many are successful and and peaceful. Maybe the problem lies somewhere else than in just being Muslim.
The Muslim population isn't has big in the US as it is in the EU. Also, the feds will come down hard on religious groups. Remember waco? They burned them down.
I want to know why white Americans are so concerned about Europe's demographic future when so many, if not most, of these posters' families are all in the US and have been here for at least 3 generations? I'm 2nd generation American on my mother's side, know the majority of my German relatives, yet I don't really concern myself with how Germany is handling its Muslim demographic seems like that's mostly the concern of some Europeans themselves, and Americans of European ancestry (whose ancestors came in the 1800s)
Um i'm not, i am aware of it because its a hot topic on the news and i'm sure that is why many other people are aware of it. my relatives came mostly from Finland and Germany but Russia and England are the two European countries i am most interested in.
White Americans care about Europe the same way that Arab-Americans care about the middle east.
Why do we not have the same right to be concerned?
I travel Europe extensively, and I don't care to watch Munich burn. I want to bring my children here to experience the culture before it's too late - what will they think if I come during Christmas, and they see burkhas???. I don't care for the hypocrisy either. If 800,000 Europeans Christians flooded the middle east, their heads would be on sticks for the world to see.
I don't think that the few American/Canadian posters interested in such a subject are representative of the entire US sample. I think that most Americans don't care.
Many posters that express concern from the European side are obviously Americans, quite baffling as they talk about the continent as some sci-fi scenario. Hard to tell if they are talking about the continent or describing some Star Trek episode.
America has been a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities for over a century now. Europe is only beginning to experience what America has already done.
Quite frankly, America is a newbie when it comes to being a "melting pot," which phrase in itself seems to have led some Americans down a blind alley when looking at the history of other parts of the world (when and if they do.) And a century is the old "drop in the bucket" as regards history, a mere blip on its screen. The U.S. loathed chewing up and swallowing the many thousands of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Italy and Poland; now it is gagging and puking on immigrants from Latin America. The implications of the phrase, "...experience what America has already done" is ridiculous. America is locked in the fiction of "already done," when in fact it is having a huge menu of new flavors being rammed down its throat, like it or not...and a would-be presidential candidate whose primary appeal is the claim that he can make the U.S. regurgitate the latest wave back to where it came from. The U.S. is resisting with all its might the flavor of red hot chili peppers being introduced into its melting pot. "Already done" is a delusion regarding the "Melting Pot" sacred cow, but that fact is repugnant to many Americans and infuriates and frightens them; nevertheless, it is a process that will go on in its own way and may well never finish as a static ideal.
Europe as a whole, and many - if not most - of its present-day nations have been the recipients of invasions, migrations, and immigrants for centuries. Far, far, far longer than the U.S. has even existed. Look at Ireland, England, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Balkans, etc. and you do not find the lunatic American idea of a "pure" homogenized ethnicity or culture. Look at the histories of these individual countries - they have struggled over and over again to establish and re-establish an identity in the face of conflicting ethnicities and their cultures. The 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe are marked with desperate struggles to establish "We Are X."
To be English today, or Irish, or French or Greek is in large measure to create and emphasize an aggressive central national culture that ignores actual differences in the population (and its cultural history/histories.) These difference are anathamatized and eradicated to create the fiction that a particular modern nation has a unity and a single tap root that plunges back into history, willfully and purposely ignoring the fact that the particular modern nation and culture may have existed in its present form only a few hundred years, or even less. France has worked at this project very aggressively, as has Greece...though they are only two among many.
Europe has had to try to deal with Islamic invaders and settlers before, more than a thousand years ago; and again for centuries in eastern Europe after the fall of Constantinople and the establishment of a powerful Ottoman empire. All of the Balkan nations have a fairly recent history of Islamic dominance of their present territories.
I think Europeans saw WWI as the end of this era, and thought of the resulting treaties and new nations as something cast in concrete. When in fact it only provided a small hiatus, which (unfortunately probably) allowed them to carve up the Middle East and mess around arrogantly and sloppily as overlords of a multitude of ethnicities, cultures and religions in that area.
At the present point it would be more correct to say that America is only beginning to experience what Europe has long experienced, while simultaneously the national and (newly) collective myths of European nations are about to be shaken once again by another group of outsiders whom they will try to swallow and make a part of their current national fictions.
This is not new, the Irish struggled for centuries against the influx of English and later Scotch settlers, the present nation of Greece (and other parts of the east Mediterranean with Greek-speaking populations) struggled against being absorbed into the Turkish Islamic culture (with only the Greek peninsula surviving that struggle), the Armenians of Anatolia struggled right up to the early Twenties in the same manner - but were absorbed, the three Baltic nations were virtually smothered by German invasion followed by Russian invasion each with their attempts to remold these nations in their own image. The Catholic Croats have been struggling against the encroachment of the Orthodox Serbs and the cultural sphere of Orthodoxy almost to this very day. And other areas of Europe have repeatedly been overwhelmed by an influx of outsiders with non-Christian, or unacceptable kinds of Christian belief - see the Catholic Ukraine and Orthodox Russia, and Catholic Poland and Orthodox Russia. And on and on it went and continues to go.
The U.S. has lived in a bubble of delusion for more than a century, believing that its borders were a Fortress America, even as it meddled politically and economically in the affairs of Caribbean and Central and South American nations. Part of the result of this has been to stir up waves of immigrants from these areas who, not at all unsurprisingly, have been impressed enough that they want to jump right into the lap of the Big Daddy El Norte, aka Uncle Sam. European nations have stomped around the Middle East and North Africa for centuries, and if their ridiculous carving up of these areas caused enormous reaction, it also at the same time held up a mirror that reflected the colonial rulers' view of the superior shining cities and culture of European nations. Today Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey are swamped with Syrians...and the ultra-ultra orthodox and very rich and thriving Muslim nations further to the east reject the displaced Syrians, so why would they not flee to the glories and prosperity of Europe, which years of French hegemony displayed to them?
This phenomenon is not new. The Roman Empire used the Goths as was convenient, and the Goths reciprocated eventually, impressed by the superiority and richness of their masters and patrons, the Romans. And without the Goths present-day Spain and Italy (if they even existed) would have considerably different histories and cultures...as would other parts of Europe. So, the East is coming to the West again, and the South is coming to the North. And neither the West nor the North will be the same again, but they have never really been what they now believe themselves to be - their nationalities and "melting pot" have ever been ongoing processes, their Christianity forcibly replaced other religions, and it was tamed and replaced hundreds of years later by secular forces, and the famous "Melting Pot" was initially heated by the death fires of aboriginal peoples and their cultures. Somewhat similar to the deluded Emperor parading about in his imaginary set of new clothes, we believe that our various present-day national glad rags are a forever fashion, when in fact the costumes of nationhood and culture are ever re-modeled whether we like the idea or not.
Right.... after all Muslims arrived to Poiters.... and Turks to Vienna....and our second Rome is now Muslim...and muslims saved all the classical culture that was transcribed from Arab texts to Latin.
Just as Romans used Goths as federates.....Syrians, Greek-Syrians were the people that manned the Roman Empire. As such, many people in very romanized areas of the former Roman Europe are partly Syrian.
I would go beyond and assert that Syrians are as western as anyone, they have been part of western civilization since Alexander. Most of their traits, that common people consider Islamic, existed during antiquity and were called "oriental" by Greek and Romans.
But I believe that the people that really control the US are far ahead in thinking that European leaders. I'm not talking about Trumps or marginal rednecks or "deep America". They already envisage a mixed and multicultural US in less than a century, the capital of the world.
The US has also Muslim communities and they do not cause the mayhem you are referring to. Many are successful and and peaceful. Maybe the problem lies somewhere else than in just being Muslim.
I've spent many years working and living in Muslim countries and no what their book of superstition requires of them. As long as they are a small % of the population, they will lie patiently in waiting but as they grow in % of the population, they will cause more and more problems. By the time Europe reacts, it will likely be too late but I unoptimistically hope they do wake up in time.
Probably because the demographic changes happening in Europe mirrors the one occurring in the US, so by extension some feel concerned.
Not really. The U.S. and Europe don't have similar demographics, and the relative trends over time aren't similar.
As to the thread question, it makes no sense. Where is the evidence that "white Americans care so much about Europe's demographics"?
I can guess why people in general would be concerned, though. Europe has some of the lowest birth rates on earth, and their immigrants don't integrate as well as others. So you have the double-challenge of abnormally low domestic growth prospects and abnormally difficult integration issues.
The US has also Muslim communities and they do not cause the mayhem you are referring to. Many are successful and and peaceful. Maybe the problem lies somewhere else than in just being Muslim.
Not true. The U.S. doesn't have comparable Muslim immigrant numbers as Europe. The U.S. gets far less Middle Eastern migration than Europe, and unlike Europe, most Middle Eastern migrants to the U.S. are Christian.
The U.S. (and Canada, Australia, and others) also frankly do a better job at integrating immigrants (which should be expected, as the U.S. isn't nation-state like most European states, and doesn't have a shared ethnic heritage and culture like most European states).
Quite frankly, America is a newbie when it comes to being a "melting pot," which phrase in itself seems to have led some Americans down a blind alley when looking at the history of other parts of the world (when and if they do.) And a century is the old "drop in the bucket" as regards history, a mere blip on its screen. The U.S. loathed chewing up and swallowing the many thousands of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Italy and Poland; now it is gagging and puking on immigrants from Latin America. The implications of the phrase, "...experience what America has already done" is ridiculous. America is locked in the fiction of "already done," when in fact it is having a huge menu of new flavors being rammed down its throat, like it or not...and a would-be presidential candidate whose primary appeal is the claim that he can make the U.S. regurgitate the latest wave back to where it came from. The U.S. is resisting with all its might the flavor of red hot chili peppers being introduced into its melting pot. "Already done" is a delusion regarding the "Melting Pot" sacred cow, but that fact is repugnant to many Americans and infuriates and frightens them; nevertheless, it is a process that will go on in its own way and may well never finish as a static ideal.
Europe as a whole, and many - if not most - of its present-day nations have been the recipients of invasions, migrations, and immigrants for centuries. Far, far, far longer than the U.S. has even existed. Look at Ireland, England, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Balkans, etc. and you do not find the lunatic American idea of a "pure" homogenized ethnicity or culture. Look at the histories of these individual countries - they have struggled over and over again to establish and re-establish an identity in the face of conflicting ethnicities and their cultures. The 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe are marked with desperate struggles to establish "We Are X."
To be English today, or Irish, or French or Greek is in large measure to create and emphasize an aggressive central national culture that ignores actual differences in the population (and its cultural history/histories.) These difference are anathamatized and eradicated to create the fiction that a particular modern nation has a unity and a single tap root that plunges back into history, willfully and purposely ignoring the fact that the particular modern nation and culture may have existed in its present form only a few hundred years, or even less. France has worked at this project very aggressively, as has Greece...though they are only two among many.
Europe has had to try to deal with Islamic invaders and settlers before, more than a thousand years ago; and again for centuries in eastern Europe after the fall of Constantinople and the establishment of a powerful Ottoman empire. All of the Balkan nations have a fairly recent history of Islamic dominance of their present territories.
I think Europeans saw WWI as the end of this era, and thought of the resulting treaties and new nations as something cast in concrete. When in fact it only provided a small hiatus, which (unfortunately probably) allowed them to carve up the Middle East and mess around arrogantly and sloppily as overlords of a multitude of ethnicities, cultures and religions in that area.
At the present point it would be more correct to say that America is only beginning to experience what Europe has long experienced, while simultaneously the national and (newly) collective myths of European nations are about to be shaken once again by another group of outsiders whom they will try to swallow and make a part of their current national fictions.
This is not new, the Irish struggled for centuries against the influx of English and later Scotch settlers, the present nation of Greece (and other parts of the east Mediterranean with Greek-speaking populations) struggled against being absorbed into the Turkish Islamic culture (with only the Greek peninsula surviving that struggle), the Armenians of Anatolia struggled right up to the early Twenties in the same manner - but were absorbed, the three Baltic nations were virtually smothered by German invasion followed by Russian invasion each with their attempts to remold these nations in their own image. The Catholic Croats have been struggling against the encroachment of the Orthodox Serbs and the cultural sphere of Orthodoxy almost to this very day. And other areas of Europe have repeatedly been overwhelmed by an influx of outsiders with non-Christian, or unacceptable kinds of Christian belief - see the Catholic Ukraine and Orthodox Russia, and Catholic Poland and Orthodox Russia. And on and on it went and continues to go.
The U.S. has lived in a bubble of delusion for more than a century, believing that its borders were a Fortress America, even as it meddled politically and economically in the affairs of Caribbean and Central and South American nations. Part of the result of this has been to stir up waves of immigrants from these areas who, not at all unsurprisingly, have been impressed enough that they want to jump right into the lap of the Big Daddy El Norte, aka Uncle Sam. European nations have stomped around the Middle East and North Africa for centuries, and if their ridiculous carving up of these areas caused enormous reaction, it also at the same time held up a mirror that reflected the colonial rulers' view of the superior shining cities and culture of European nations. Today Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey are swamped with Syrians...and the ultra-ultra orthodox and very rich and thriving Muslim nations further to the east reject the displaced Syrians, so why would they not flee to the glories and prosperity of Europe, which years of French hegemony displayed to them?
This phenomenon is not new. The Roman Empire used the Goths as was convenient, and the Goths reciprocated eventually, impressed by the superiority and richness of their masters and patrons, the Romans. And without the Goths present-day Spain and Italy (if they even existed) would have considerably different histories and cultures...as would other parts of Europe. So, the East is coming to the West again, and the South is coming to the North. And neither the West nor the North will be the same again, but they have never really been what they now believe themselves to be - their nationalities and "melting pot" have ever been ongoing processes, their Christianity forcibly replaced other religions, and it was tamed and replaced hundreds of years later by secular forces, and the famous "Melting Pot" was initially heated by the death fires of aboriginal peoples and their cultures. Somewhat similar to the deluded Emperor parading about in his imaginary set of new clothes, we believe that our various present-day national glad rags are a forever fashion, when in fact the costumes of nationhood and culture are ever re-modeled whether we like the idea or not.
And this was a complete waste of everyone's time. Besides being half wrong, has zero to do with the conversation.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
seems like that's mostly the concern of some Europeans themselves, and Americans of European ancestry (whose ancestors came in the 1800s)
