I upvoted you. I live in Sweden and used to live in Denmark. In both places the rise of right wing parties (Danske Folkeparti and Sverige Demokraterna) is precisely due to the conflicts between these two groups. It isn't Islam that is the problem though. There are several Muslims, especially in Sweden that have integrated quite well. I can't put my finger on what it is that is a problem though. Indians by all means(I am one) don't integrate that well either (in clothes or social and religious habits) but they don't seem to receive that much vitriol. I feel the inequality of women is one reason for the negative reputation of Muslim residents(I can't find precise stats online right now but the percentage of non-working Muslim women is much higher than in other religious groups) and the amount of children they have per family is more leading to more welfare[0].

[0] I don't have stats right now so I can't prove this but I can anecdotally prove it based on conversations with many Swedes and Danes.

As an Indian living in Europe, I disagree with you about Indians not being integrated. Well, depends on which part TBH as Europe is so different depending on the direction. But I have no issues whatsoever in Ireland. and have friends from all over.

>I can't put my finger on what it is that is a problem though.

IMHO, the problem is language - i.e. immigrants speak theirs, and natives 'speak theirs'. Natives are unwilling to allow another language into their lives, whereas immigrants are forced to learn another language in order to survive - in both cases, it is a lot of work to learn a new language.

I wish it were compulsory to learn at least 2 foreign languages in European countries - sure, there is the defacto 'English as a second language' standard, which has produced a lot of tolerance in previously warring societies, it has to be admitted - but wouldn't it be great if we all were encouraged, somehow, to .. say .. learn Farsi .. as a means of solving the big European problem of integration, immigration, and internationalization? I mean, it really only makes sense for the Western European powers to promote polyglotism given our current circumstances. I think I'd be happier about immigration if my kids grew up learning the language of the immigrants in our land, alongside their native tongue, anyway .. I'll be doing my best to encourage my kids to learn languages of the immigrants during the course of their lives.

If you're moving to live in a new country, it seems pretty sensible that you should have to learn the language of your new home.

Sure, you should 'have to' .. anything less would be tantamount to accepting a major cultural shift akin to warfare.

But then again, I think there is a lot of room for people to accept social responsibility for the human issue of immigration, and I think any social system which encourages people to learn languages outside their own is bound to produce a more tolerant, resilient society. Right now, so much hate and prejudice is predicated on the assumption that "they don't speak our language" .. if, for example, it were considered highly illegal to ever go to war against someone whose language you cannot speak, this would be a better state of affairs. "Kill no man whose language you have not learned" might be the mantra I'm going for here ..

> if you get raped by a stranger it is also most likely a muslim

WTF? This, along with the parent comment about 'muslims have more children, so they get more welfare' are both hideously racist. If there were any statistics available to back these statements up, don't you think the far right would be trumpeting them for all they're worth? Instead, we get anecdata, and these shoddily cherry-picked anecotes are rarely verifiable. I would like to downvote both comments, but instead I am going to content myself replying like this...

Absolutely, and the tougher on crime motif is one of the things that makes DF very popular. In Gothenburg, Sweden for instance the Roma are everywhere, outside most large stores and have a bustling begging operation and there is plenty of theft which make them highly unpopular. You're right that crime (especially in Scandinavia which is highly peaceable) is one reason why certain communities are despised. But I feel that refugees also have certain other problems - they've never been to school in many cases and therefore their children have disadvantages in such high tech nations, which causes inequality to rise and so on and so forth. This topic is going to lead to many PhDs in the future, but in the mean time lets see what happens...

People don't tend to have visceral reactions to socioeconomic trends, so I doubt that would be the cause of hatred against muslims but I know they do get that visceral reaction to fear. Inequality may be a problem in the future, but that is a solvable problem so long as they are willing to work hard.

> On the other hand if you get raped by a stranger it is also most likely a muslim

Whoa. That sounds like a nasty slur. You can't do that here.

This completely captures the crux of the problems. Also, Europe is extremely safe and liberal as compared to US and even a small crime goes a long way in making people take note.

As a Brit and someone who leans to the left, I've no issue with us as a society taking people in who require aid but that has to come with conditions attached primarily that they respect the culture they want to settle in.

That said I've also no interest in taking more people in who think that intolerance of their intolerance is wrong, enough of this already, the liberals (at least that part of it I don't consider myself a part of) have been grappling with this issue for a while "How do you respect the beliefs of people who don't respect your beliefs" and they still don't have a clear answer.

Here in the UK we've had numerous cases of child sexual abuse (rape, sexual slavery, passing girls around up to 60 men and some shit I don't ever want to read again) against vulnerable (overwhelmingly white) girls perpetrated by what the media euphemistically calls "asian" men (but in reality have been way over 90% Muslim's of Pakistani descent), the councils, authorities and the police knew this was happening but where so worried about the political fallout of been seen to target (even though they where committing the crime) members of the Muslim Pakistani community they backed off and basically looked the other way (even when members of that community where publicly speaking out about the problem!).

1400 vulnerable often in care white girls in Rotherham alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby_sex_gang

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_sex_gang

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_sex_gang

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telford_sex_gang

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough_sex_abuse_case

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banbury_sex_gang

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aylesbury_sex_gang

Estimates of the numbers abused runs into the thousands if not tens of thousands.

I number amongst my friends many people of indian and pakistani descent and they are just the same as anyone else in that they are appalled about this stuff - to the extent they are angry that the authorities didn't crack down on it, they know they get tarred with the same brush and that is tragic.

I lean as left as there is to go, but reality hits you at some point: There are neighborhoods in Athens where you can't walk at night because of Pakistani gangs. These neighborhoods voted for Golden Dawn because they supported them (by violently removing the Paki-gangs). Of course GD didn't stop at the gangs, they removed everyone who wasn't looking Greek enough.

You can't solve this problem by hosting people. You solve this problem by actively supporting anti-WAR campaings and removing from power parties who made/support wars.

All these Syrian refugees (God help them) who pass through Greece wanna go in central Europe and the UK. They do not intend to stay here (Greece). Some will stuck here, some will pass the borders... These were create by the NATO (Greece is part of the NATO and the UK is a strong member of the NATO).

That's why every time you hear someone talking about "attacking" a country in middle east, you should really think about where all these people will go...

And you are confident that these crimes are not just being reported but are in fact happening at a higher rate among brown people?

In the Rotherdam case police ignored reports of fear to be labeled racists ...

Not just the police, in one of the cases a council worker spoke out clearly on what was happening was sent to "sensitivity" training.

Unless you combat this stuff openly with the full power of the law you create a breeding ground for the far-right.

No idea, the figures are murky however I'm confident that if several hundred (or more - they where 'selling' them to a far wider group) white Christian men had raped and via organised trafficking abused several thousand Muslim girls it wouldn't have been left by the authorities for over a decade to fester.

In our efforts to appear tolerant we tolerate the intolerable, multiculturalism has failed, I saw a news report the other day that said more British born Muslims (out of 2.5 million) had gone to join Isis than had gone from Indonesia (205 million Muslims) - something is obviously very very wrong here.

> if several hundred white Christian men had raped and via organised trafficking abused several thousand Muslim girls it wouldn't have been left by the authorities to fester

Isn't that exactly what just happened? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_explo...

> In our efforts to appear tolerant we tolerate the intolerable, multiculturalism has failed.

I wouldn't ask you to tolerate it, but I might suggest you ignore it if there are similar things happening closer to home in your life, and put your focus on those things. It's not racist to fight against a brown rapist but it is racist to fight against brown rapists while ignoring white rapists in your community.

Did you even read the link you just posted?

> A few weeks ago I was driving through Calais, and there were so many migrants on the road they spilled onto the opposite lane.

> Did you stop to help any of them? If the answer is no - that answers all of your question.

Help them how exactly? They were going the opposite way to me. You do know that they armed with knives as well, right? I'm sure you'd stop too with your wife, baby, and personal belongings. Tut-tut.

Sorry but you are one of the first who have moral duty to help them. If you are one of those immigrants (or second generation) that do nothing but shame your hosts to help more immigrants to come in, then YOU are one of the reasons why immigrants are not welcome anymore.

Oh right. I'll go in my corner of shame now. You know, the one where I'm somehow responsible for all the world's evils and you aren't, because finger pointers are of course exempted. Mainly because the other shameful life-livers would get tired of them.

Like I said, where you are born is an accident of birth. You want to make me responsible not only for where I was born, but where my parents were born. You of course, being of noble birth, have nothing to be thankful for and nothing to contribute.

You should be ashamed. Accident of birth is a crazy idea. Everyone born in Africa is just an accident? Should they all be transplanted to the EU or USA? EU is already getting close to collapse with USA not far behind. Maybe as the last lights of the west blink out forever, you will understand your ignorance.

Please read HN's guidelines on comments' quality.

You started the shaming and the finger pointing. It's easy to rhetorically ask "why don't WE do this and that" when you actually mean "why don't YOU do this and that". Don't sell me cheap philosophies with accidents of birth and twisted arguments but show me how many immigrants you are going to house this year. Charity and shaming is not only for the white skinned locals.

My family have adopted a refugee girl. We volunteer to translate for people arriving from our country. We hire immigrants to work in our business, we teach them the language, and we let their kids stay at our house when they need it. All of these things are documented, apart from the free childcare.

Your turn.

> Your turn.

Please stop racheting up the nastiness in this thread.

All: HN is not for taking shots at others. If you can't comment civilly and substantively, please don't comment.

Great. I'm an immigrant currently living in France but looking for a job in UK. How can I contact you for more details ?

I would not stop. But I also don't pretend to care if they live or die. For me national borders are sacrosanct, so you have no good reason to break one.

But you gave the answer - a few generations ago people were not afraid. Now even people like you are afraid of them.

But if they carry knives and their first instinct is to stab any stranger that offers them help - why do we want them in Europe then :P

> For me national borders are sacrosanct, so you have no good reason to break one

National borders are fairly arbitrary and are being fought over all the time. Nations with more military power can obviously get away with occupation of land that is not 'theirs' (as if it is anyone's, but for arguments sake, let's talk about who was previously settled there).

I think the person who is trying to save his family from plight has more 'good reason' to break one than crusading governments.

What you're saying is you don't care if they live or die. Really? Your fellow human beings? You're happy for your elected officials to just leave things more or less in the current state?

No. I want my elected officials to create effective system that prevents them on landing on the shores in the first place.

And well ... they are not my fellow human beings. I long ago shed my humanitarian beliefs.