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Will there be any Germans, French, Dutch, English, Irish, Italians etc in 100 years? Or will they all be assimilated into a pan-European pluralistic culture? The average age in some of those countries is over 40, and the birth rates are incredibly low, do these ethnic groups have a future?
When I clicked on this I thought you were asking about indigenous people like the Sami of Lapland.
But as far as your question goes... yes fertility rates have been declining and governments have been trying to battle it (by offering monetary incentives for every new child born.) While I feel that they do have a future, even if they don't it won't be any time soon.
Nope. The contrary. I fear that the EU is a train of nationalistic violence speeding downhill with no brakes.
For an illustration, look at Tito's Yugoslavia, which was a EU iin a microcosm. Tito blended all those ethnicities together for 40 years or so, and look what happened when his iron fist was no longer there to hold them together. They didn't all really like each other as much as had been hoped.
The Germans (as an example) do not have a good track record of admiration for people who are not German. And persuading the French to stop speaking French is not something that can take place in a mere 100 years.
There is no such thing as European culture. There are many people across Europe in countries such as Italy that may support the idea of a European union, but I highly doubt they would easily or happily sacrifice their strong identity and culture (one of the world's most renowned) in favour for a generic European one which means nothing to most people. You then get countries like Britain which are certainly against such a thing and have publicly said so many times and would leave asap if such a thing were ever proposed. Also, birth rates in France and Britain remain (relatively) high, especially since they receive a lot of immigrants from countries that value larger families, similar to the US actually.
Using historical references is also relatively pointless. We've come a long way from the days of battling with countries just because they are not 'us'. Germany is probably getting fed up with a large chunk of Europe relying on it for financial aid.
Last edited by dunno what to put here; 09-10-2012 at 07:28 PM..
Yes and no. I think that there will be a new and old Europe. The uk and Ireland along with Iceland and a few other countries will form this and the rest of Europe will be old. I say this simply because those countries are the countries that are predicted to have population growth out side migration in the next 50 years, we also have a more modern culture and are new countries in a Europe sense.
Taking into account that the current European ethnic groups are the result of the mixture of different cultures throughout history, I guess that they will cease to exist as we know them, creating new European ethnics.
Will there be any Germans, French, Dutch, English, Irish, Italians etc in 100 years? Or will they all be assimilated into a pan-European pluralistic culture? The average age in some of those countries is over 40, and the birth rates are incredibly low, do these ethnic groups have a future?
They won't die out in the foreseeable future. Even in a country like Germany with a very low birth rate there are still 700,000 children born per year. Also, who can realistically predict what the birth rate is going to be like over the next centuries? Right. No one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
The Germans (as an example) do not have a good track record of admiration for people who are not German.
Yeah right. And Americans do not have a good track record of admiration for people who are not white.
Quote:
Originally Posted by owenc
Yes and no. I think that there will be a new and old Europe. The uk and Ireland along with Iceland and a few other countries will form this and the rest of Europe will be old.
I'm not so sure. Migration patterns might change if the economic situation in Ireland and the UK stays the status quo compared to central and northern Europe. But time will tell. The average age in both countries will increase drastically, too, even if maybe not as much as in other European countries. They are going to have to face many of the same problems as many other first world nations.
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