Nationalism, immigration and racism in the EU

droid

Well-known member
What was striking about the demo on Tuesday was the youth of the protestors. Id say the average age was early-mid 20's. Extremely peaceful. Little or no radical presence from what I could see, just tons of kids draped in flags, smoking weed & drinking beer.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
Hooray, Austrian voters are to a great extent stupid. They elected a charlatan who out-xenophobe'd the traditional Austrian xenophobes from the Freedom party, despite the fact that this person - Mr. Kurz - was minister for immigration for the last fucking 6 years!!! - and deflected the voting public from his puppet masters, the national chamber of commerce/Austrian industrial association (who, not surprisingly, are already grinding the axe for further social security cuts), the same chamber of commerce which pumped endless money to the tabloids/private TV to beat the propagandadrum for the "new conservative movement" of Mr. Kurz, formerly known as Austrian's people's party (somehwhat comparable with UK's Tories).

The stupidity of voters the last few years throughout the western world is astounding.
 
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sufi

lala
Hooray, Austrian voters are to a great extent stupid. They elected a charlatan who out-xenophobe'd the traditional Austrian xenophobes from the Freedom party, despite the fact that this person - Mr. Kurz - was minister for immigration for the last fucking 6 years!!! - and deflected the voting public from his puppet masters, the national chamber of commerce/Austrian industrial association (who, not surprisingly, are already grinding the axe for further social security cuts), the same chamber of commerce which pumped endless money to the tabloids/private TV to beat the propagandadrum for the "new conservative movement" of Mr. Kurz, formerly known as Austrian's people's party (somehwhat comparable with UK's Tories).

The stupidity of voters the last few years throughout the western world is astounding.
We had the electoral register knocking on the door yesterday.
"Is that democracy knocking?"
"Tell em we got plenty already"
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Not Europe, but it's all kicking off now in Kirkuk after the Kurdish independence vote a few weeks ago.
 

luka

Well-known member
one right wing talking points is that the soros backed forces of the left use immigration to tilt the demographics of countries and make them more left wing (immigrants love hand outs) but the likely consequence of massive immigration from eastern europe to the UK is probably the opposite.
 

droid

Well-known member
So I was on an intensive course in educational practise this week. My fellow students included an Iranian Urban planner, three Chinese electronic engineers, a French linguist, a Finnish Vet, an Italian mathematician, a guy from Kazakhstan, a Gazan professor, an anglo-Japanese philosophy professor, a Spanish lecturer, a Canadian engineer & a Dutch biologist. The curriculum involved a load of radical learning techniques which required tons of teamwork and I got to interact with them all on a personal level. One of the most fascinating experiences of my professional life.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
This is a gripping read on the stirrings of Republika Srpska in the new world of insurgent right populism in Europe (and the world). Dayton could die.

“A multicultural Bosnia was a compromise that Republika Srpska’s leaders had been forced to accept by international pressure, at a time when they had been openly pursuing genocide and ethnic cleansing. In truth, they’ve never really accepted it,” Emir Suljagic, a survivor of the Srebrenica massacre who later served as deputy defense minister of Bosnia, told me recently at a cafe in Sarajevo. “In the Balkans, any call for redrawing borders or declaring statehood is a signal for violence, and everyone knows it. Ordinary people may not be ready for war, but their leaders are banging the drums nonetheless.”

Indeed, the resurgence of right-wing nationalism in Europe has turned Bosnia’s war into an object of lurid nostalgia — a model for the future, even.

“The Serbian nationalist cause in the 1990s was a hobby horse for the far right in Europe. In their view, Bosnia was an avatar for the types of political developments that they wanted to see happening in the continent,” said Jasmin Mujanovic, a political scientist focused on the region who wrote the recent book “Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans.” “After the Cold War, the next great ideological struggle for the far right was going to be about the question of the nation and identity. The idea of having a genocidal ethnic war like that which occurred in Bosnia — to use their own language, a ‘race war’ — was the whole point. As a result, they continue to sympathize with the people who advocated, perpetrated, and continue to defend that genocide.”
 

sufi

lala
This is absolutely bananas: let alone the contradictory messaging,
i did a double take on the poster about "293 soldiers helping refugees ..."

Unbelievably cynical to market joining the military as a way to help refugees ffs,
really feels like babylon has our whole world turned upside down
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
holland's fascist party biggest winner of the provincial elections, they'll be the second biggest party after the right-wing neo-liberal party.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Is this the default Nationalism thread?

@craner, you'll like this. I'm casting around for jobs at the moment and am considering rejoining the civil service. Saw an analyst position come up that looked fairly promising, as it was for the Senedd in Cardiff, but with the option to WFH. Then I get going in the application process and find that it's necessary either to already have "courtesy Welsh language skills", or to promise to acquire such skills while on the job.

It's a maternity cover position, less than a year's work.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Is this the default Nationalism thread?

@craner, you'll like this. I'm casting around for jobs at the moment and am considering rejoining the civil service. Saw an analyst position come up that looked fairly promising, as it was for the Senedd in Cardiff, but with the option to WFH. Then I get going in the application process and find that it's necessary either to already have "courtesy Welsh language skills", or to promise to acquire such skills while on the job.

It's a maternity cover position, less than a year's work.

For all Welsh Gov jobs you either have to speak it, understand it or prove that you are learning it. Every time I have had to go to something for work at the Senedd they conduct everything in Welsh while about 98% of the room put on the headphones to listen to the English translation.

I don't think it's helping to engineer a bilingual nation but it is clearly creating a lot of work for interpreters, so I guess that's a positive.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I could kind of understand if it there were a single adult monoglot Welsh speaker in existence...
 

version

Well-known member
Anyone following the French elections? My gut feeling is Le Pen won't win, but her increasing popularity's concerning.
 

Leo

Well-known member
the other far-right candidate was doing better than her for awhile, to the point that her own daughter quit her campaign and went to work on his. not sure what changed. but she's started to get the tag of a perennial loser, surely this will be the end of her presidential quest if she loses for the third time.

turns out the kingmaker is the far-left candidate who finished a close third. he's told followers they shouldn't give one vote to le pen, but also hasn't endorsed macron, which means many of his followers might just stay home on Election Day. and a certain segment of far right and far left overlap in what they stand for. gonna be interesting, NATO would certainly be screwed if she wins (considering she's friends with Putin and has taken lots of Russian money).
 
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version

Well-known member
the other far-right candidate was doing better than her for awhile, to the point that her own daughter quit her campaign and went to work on his. not sure what changed. but she's started to get the tag of a perennial loser, surely this will be the end of her presidential quest if she loses for the third time.
She's done better than she did last time and she's only 53. I can't see her disappearing any time soon.
 

Leo

Well-known member
but if party puts forth a candidate who gets lots of attention but can never seal the deal and actually win, that party will eventually move on from that candidate. a three-time loser is a hard one to get behind a fourth time.
 

version

Well-known member
My concern is we're seeing a pattern unfold of someone getting in, things getting steadily worse and Le Pen inching closer and closer to the finish line with each election until she finally wins it.
 
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