Subject: More mesmerism, smuggling, assimilation and revenge
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 12:40:50 +0200


23rd July 2000

Dear Pocos,

MONTY PYTHON AND CANUTE
Piers M. Smith's little Pythonisation of me as immigration officer is
charming (though geographically, remember, I would be stopping them leaving
the Netherlands where I live, rather than holding back the lemmings), but it
doesn't really address the question. Canute tried that trick a good while
ago, and found he could not stop the sea. Countries such as Kuwait have a
much more selective immigration policy than Britain, only taking on board
those select professionals from the West, or quasi-slaves from the Indian
subcontinent or Palestine, who are likely to increase the wealth of the
Kuwaiti economy and who can be kicked out at a moment's notice when the not
particularly democratic government sees fit.

ORGANISED GANGS OF SMUGGLERS
But to get down to the brass tacks, Marlene's answer is more interesting. I
realise that the whole business is being organised by some kind of mafia,
and that the West is only just waking up to the fact, and I realise that
there are pleasanter parts of the Belgian coast to have a picnic. But the
mafia, or triads, or whatever, still have to sell their idea to would-be
immigrants, before they take their money off them. What I'm asking is: why
Britain, when they could get into continental Europe so much more easily?
Less work for the smugglers' gangs too, for that matter. As I said, that
last stretch of water is perhaps the riskiest, since the rest can be done
overland. Surely Amsterdam is the "sex capital of Europe" (ever been in the
Red Light District there?), but maybe we Brits are more sex-starved and
hypocritical when it comes to importing "home-helps", "maids", "au pairs"
and the like.

EASTERN EUROPE
Marlene is right about East European refugees/immigrants. These are more
likely to stay in Germany or elsewhere. The Poles, for instance, have had a
love-hate relationship with Germany for a few centuries. During the Second
World War, German Nazis blew up the Polish capital, Warsaw, street by street

during the Uprising in World War Two (while the good old Russian Communists
watched and did nothing on the other side of the River Vistula). And yet
during Communism (roughly 1945-1990), Poles were still extremely pleased to
get relatively well-paid temporary jobs in Germany, legally or illegally, so
that they could bring money and anything they could carry back to shortage
Poland. Even the German Democratic Republic (GDR, i.e. Communist Germany)
was OK, for that matter. Necessity breeds a blurring of principles. The GDR
had a much more repressive regime than Poland, but the Poles wanted to
increase their standard of living, so a temporary sacrifice of freedom was
worth it.

ASSIMILATION, RUSSIA'S GERMANS AND A COMMON BACKGROUND
As for Zacharias P. Thundy's "legacy of imperialism" argument, I realise
that the Celtic Fringe is but a fringe because Germanic peoples almost
pushed the Gaels into the Atlantic, but by now these Angles, Saxons, Jutes,
drunken& berserk Vikings, etc., have mixed with the Gaelic-speaking peoples
for at least a thousand years and have become, to all intents and purposes,
accepted. What the white man did to the indigenous peoples throughout the
Americas is of a much later vintage.

Permanent emigration is of course a sensible option materially - giving your
kids a good life - but what does it do to you
culturally/emotionally/socially, if you realise you may never be able to
again live in the land you grew up in? Your kids' generation will fit into
the new society, if allowed to, but the first generation of immigrants
sometimes have a tough time accepting and assimilating. I remember stories
about some German-speaking Russians (from the Volga valley, I believe) who
dreamt for years of emigrating to "the Fatherland", Germany, but didn't
stick it for more than a year, owing to the totally different lifestyle, and
actually migrated back to the Soviet Union, something almost impossible for
Westerners to imagine at the time.

I buy Zacharias' argument about "hiding among your compatriots". But anyone
who has ever been to the large cities in the western Netherlands will
realise that a good many people from outside of Europe have made the
Netherlands their permanent home. Ditto parts of Brussels and large cities
in Germany. So that doesn't quite go to the root of the question, but I
think it may be part of the answer. Amsterdam has, next to the Red Light
District I mentioned above, several streets which are, to all intents and
purposes, Chinese, with a Chinese supermarket which is fascinating to enter
since non-Chinese can't even hope to guess what's in the tins and packets,
unless there's a picture on the wrapping.

I think it's in the nature of the human being to use his/her compatriots as
a prop when finding one's feet in a foreign country. I've lived in several
(Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Poland and, now, the Netherlands). Although I
don't necessarily want to mix with the community of British expats in my
country of residence - since often, all you have in common is your
passport - there is nonetheless that sense of shared background and language
when I occasionally meet other Britons. So obviously, birds of a feather
flock together. And if you're desperate, all the more so.

THE REVENGE SCENARIO
Shyamal Gupta's subconscious revenge scenario is plausible to an extent, but
if you come to a country and hate nearly everybody you meet on the street
every day because they're the sons and daughters of people who "raped your
country", life would become strangely schizophrenic. The Adorno study may
indeed explain, to an extent, the "need" for Poles to work in Germany of all
countries. But equally plausible is the fact that Germany is right next
door.

One of the ironies of British imperialism in India, is that Indians and
Pakistanis coming to Britain are sometimes better clued up as to British
customs (i.e. "coutumes" not "douane") and institutions than people from
Eastern Europe. That British school system forced onto the Empire does have
some, if rather back-handed, benefits. The strange thing is that most
illegal immigrants to Britain appear not to come from the Indian
subcontinent, though often, admittedly, from where British imperialism has
held sway.

Best wishes,

Eric Dickens




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