IMMIGRATION

Immigration

Immigration

Historically Europe has been a net exporter of people since the middle ages as the Great Powers expanded into Africa, The Indian subcontinent, and other parts of the world. People moved out in search of wealth and land. The Age of Empires drew to a close and now it is mostly the highly skilled that leave Europe to other developed nations. People all over the world look at the developed nations as either a land of opportunity or safety from persecution & oppression.

In the last fifty years the pattern of migration has been inwards towards Europe and increasingly over the two decades the changing demographics have become a major political issue. Each country in Europe has its own views on the issue of immigration. The further east one goes the more relaxed they are as they know that Western Europe is the desired destination of most immigrants. Turkey and Greece are not popular countries for immigration so they serve as rather open gateways into Europe.

The first wave of modern immigration into Europe came as former colonials wanted to move to the mother country and various other countries taking in foreign workers in an effort to boost the national economy with what should have been. This essay will draw mostly upon German and British experience with immigration.

Each country in Europe has its own culture that has pretty much been in place since the Treaty of Westphalia with a few changes due to peace treaty conditions after major wars.

The current sistuation in the Unified Germany is that East Germans and immigrants are competing with unemployed West Germans for a declining number of jobs in a now capitilaistic country. The comunist system of the GDR had employment for all and for life. The compnay was the centre of peoples lives providing work and social facilites. With the loss of the communist system East Germans were suddenly resposible for their own lives bringing on a culture shock. In 1991 this cumulated in widesperad voilent acts against these forgien workers. The Khol government made no comdenation of these actions which many germans say as unoffical approval. Germany has a higher proportion of forgiers than the supposidly open USA.

Moving on to France, a country where they have laws to preserve their language and culture we find a country where one third of the population have at least one forgien parent. France makes a great deal of the efforts it goes to in immersing immigrants into the superiour french culture and language. This policy appears to have produced a country at ease with its immigrant population. However this looks to be upset by a rise in muslims wanting to maintain their own culture starting off small with things such as school girls wanting to wear veils to school. Much of Frances immigrant population comes from its former African and North African colonies. Dispite UN pressure France still actively maintains its colonies and the populus there are reguared as French citizens and the country as a department of France ...