Germans forced out of homes to make room for immigrants

[Bengalzona]

(10-22-2015, 10:53 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: Nice article.   And I agree German people are compassionate.   There is plenty of room for compassion these days .  However this refugee situation, people losing their homes, being forced to take in refugees as borders....  This will do nothing but stoke the anti immigrant/pro German fires.    This is the first step to electing gov officials who will protect the German people.  

France is almost there, their elections next year will be interesting.

I just came back from spending a weekend in Brussels, Belgium. The atmosphere there is not very good. There is a great deal of anger towards Muslims. But their sentiments are complex and their criticisms of Islam do not conform to our feelings about Muslims (note: there are also a lot of anti-U.S. and anti-Semitic sentiments there as well).

Brussels is the capital of the EU. Approximately 25% of the people in the city are Muslims. The Muslims moved there in the 1950's and 60's, when jobs were more plentiful. They were made full citizens. The initial immigrants settled in some of the poorer areas of the city and insulated themselves from the rest of the population. While they didn't fully integrate into society, they were not trouble makers and the society was peaceful. When the second generation of Muslims (the sons and daughters of the first generation) came of age in the 70's and 80's, jobs were drying up and harder to come by. Now, the third generation is of age and there is widespread unemployment among the Muslim youth there. Their families still live in the same tenement buildings and areas they inhabited when they first came to Europe. So the young people, especially the young men have no jobs and nothing to do all day. Many have tuned into Islamic radicals through the internet and have come to blame Western Society for their problems. Hundreds have gone off to Syria to join ISIS. The ones who have stayed lash out against society with vandalism and violence. In some areas of Brussels, you don't see just one or two police officers walking the beat. You see groups of five or six, often with one or two more groups very close by for support.

I would describe the Muslim situation in Brussels as more akin to how many white Americans felt about blacks in the U.S. back in the sixties. Probably more similar to the situation in Los Angeles or other major cities around the time rioting broke out. But a major difference was that white people back in the sixties had some idea why blacks might be resentful and angry. The people in Belgium don't feel they should have similar regret and shame about how they have treated Muslims in the past. When the Muslims wanted to come, they allowed them and even made them citizens. When there were jobs, they welcomed them into the workplace. They never forced the Muslims to live in poorer areas and when individual Muslims wanted to leave their insular communities, they were welcomed into society. The people in Belgium generally feel that the young Muslims in their country are being riled up by outside agitators (which they are). And they generally resent Americans because they feel our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have exacerbated the situation. They have a similar sentiment about Jewish people because they feel the Israeli-Palestinian problems have also made the situation worse.

The refugee situation has not helped the situation there. Like most other Europeans, the people in Belgium do not want the refugees to come there. They feel the refugees will rile up the Muslim youth in Belgium even more.