We Europeans love to look down upon America when it comes to stuff like functional government, bicycle paths and public services, but wrt immigration we’re so far behind the US, it’s not even funny.
> a path toward integration (as in, "to become American"; there is neither an equivalent aspiration nor option "to become French")
We really need to copy this vibe wholesale from the US (and Canada). That people can move here but even their grandchildren won’t feel that they’re properly French (or in my case, Dutch) is obscene.
I like your observation that the root cause is the ethnic character of our states but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a note or two out of the American playbook. Truth is we’re not even trying.
Instead we’re hopelessly split between the left who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that there’s a problem (and calls you a racist when you try), and the right who want to hold onto some ethnic nation state pipedream that we never were and never will be.
One thing nearly every American agrees on is if you’re a citizen, you’re American. It’s actually an extremely welcoming and beautiful thing about this country.
The only reason you're thinking this way it's because you're thinking about problematic migrants, but there are many others you don't see. They don't need to become French, Spanish, Dutch, etc. They're perfectly fine feeling from $country in $eurocountry, going on with their lifes.
Europe is not the US, it can't be, and that doesn't mean we're at fault of everything. Many poor migrants come and do ok and have the same opportunities and challenges that others who fail.
But somehow is always the same subset we think about.
I attack the idea that someone born and raised in, say, NL whose grandparents moved in from, say, Turkey, is considered a Turk, often both by themselves and other people. In my opinion, if someone is born and raised here, they’re Dutch, or something like “Turkish-Dutch” maybe, but instead everybody talks about them like they are an immigrant.
To lock people inside their little immigrant identity groups, even when done out of some loving inclusive anti-racism vibe, has the adverse effect of what’s intended. It’s totally possible to be Dutch and Turkish and we should celebrate that, not fight it.
We Europeans love to look down upon America when it comes to stuff like functional government, bicycle paths and public services, but wrt immigration we’re so far behind the US, it’s not even funny.
> a path toward integration (as in, "to become American"; there is neither an equivalent aspiration nor option "to become French")
We really need to copy this vibe wholesale from the US (and Canada). That people can move here but even their grandchildren won’t feel that they’re properly French (or in my case, Dutch) is obscene.
I like your observation that the root cause is the ethnic character of our states but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a note or two out of the American playbook. Truth is we’re not even trying.
Instead we’re hopelessly split between the left who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that there’s a problem (and calls you a racist when you try), and the right who want to hold onto some ethnic nation state pipedream that we never were and never will be.