Comments on: Voting for the PP “por lo de la inmigracion”

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:47:56 +0000

Hola Mariana,

It is a crazy situation, I’m not really sure what is going on. I hope it all sorts itself out soon.

By: Mariana

Mariana — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:07:59 +0000

hi, Ben.
I don’t know if you’re hearing about the problems with Brazilians there… here (in Brazil), the press has highlighted what was happened with some brazilians in madrid airport (some of them neither were going to spain, but to portugal). now brazilian police are stopping spanish at our airports too (and they say the reasons are the same that made brazilians didn’t get into spain). i listen to “notes in spanish” and think of you when i read a note from a brazilian girl that lives there, she says the spanish press are speaking like brazil was the “villain”. i wish soh much to travel abroad, but, if i was afraid i couldn’t get into USA, now i’m afraid i couldn’t get even into countries that don’t ask visa to us.

By: Olentxero

Olentxero — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 06:42:05 +0000

But I think that there are also deeper societal issues. The family (in whatever form it takes) is destroyed by ensuring that parents must work longer hours and often take their work home with them. Adolescents are turned into adults by the pressure of marketing designed to sexualise them and turn them into fully competent consumers (although I admit that children can remain childlike for longer in Spain than in England). A general acceptance of violence, whether it be in the shape of war, state-approved torture, cinema, brutalising sections of population etc) is also a key factor. It may be as well that as we move deeper and deeper into liberal ethics, where blame is only ever applied reluctantly and reasons are sought for everything, people have no idea about when to criticise and sanction bad behaviour. Schools suffer when teachers are told what to teach rather than left to their own. Children become alienated from the community in which they find themselves and violence fills the gap – inevitable when they are forced into long periods of boredom, frustration and tension.

In short, there may be some truth in the claim that children react differently today than they did in the past (although we have to accept that it is a cliche for adults to complain about the moral values of the youth of today). However, there may also be some truth in the assertion that the adults of today are to blame for these changes.

By: Edith

Edith — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:43:11 +0000

No, of course they are not all bad. Many youths engage in more beneficial activities, like practicing sports or volunteering for NGOs.

I forgot to mention the promotion of violence in the popular media as an additional factor. Video games are becoming increasingly more violent.

Some young people just seem to go berserk by being exposed to all these visual cues – what else could explain ‘pastimes’ like happy slapping etc? And I’m not talking about ADHD!

Bullying in school has also become a huge problem in many countries, including Spain. And it doesn’t only affect immigrant youths.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:37:10 +0000

I’ll add that unlike you, I still don’t have the right to choose that government. Maybe next time.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:34:50 +0000

I’m never quite sure what people mean when they say they’re worried about immigration. I believe that there are around 4 million immigrants here. Apparently, at least 800,000 of those are British citizens, including myself. I understand that there are also a lot of Germans, Dutch, Italians, French, Americans, Swedes etc etc. And yet I get a distinct impression that when Rajoy uses the word ‘immigration’, he’s not talking about me.

When politicians talk about immigration, they’re often trying to conjure up fear of the other. They also cloud the meaning of the word and confuse people with it.

As I may have mentioned on Notes From Spain previously, I had a conversation with my wife’s grandmother (from La Mancha) a couple of years back which really shone light on how people think about immigration. She’d seen something on the news about those poor people trying to jump the fence at Ceuta (or maybe Melilla) and went on to bemoan ‘the immigrants’ and what they were doing to Spain. When I pointed out that I too am an immigrant, she quickly replied “No, you’ve got a job”.

Now, it may well be that her confusion of the concepts of immigration, delinquency and unemployment are limited to her alone, but I seriously doubt it.

And none of this is to say that Spain doesn’t need to have a fairly strong policy on immigration: a dry land can’t keep taking people in indefinitely. I’m just worried that a hell of a lot of people are getting fired up by certain politicians’ use of the term ‘immigration’ when I suspect that what they’re really talking about is one kind of immigration (I’ll give you a clue: they’re not talking about the 800,000 Brits).

As an immigrant, I’d like to point out that while, yes, we do sometimes come in, steal your jobs and your women, on the whole, we’re all pretty much the same as you. And like you, I’m hoping that Spain wakes up tomorrow to the best government it can get.

By: Olentxero

Olentxero — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:20:03 +0000

…Mrs Rajoy’s correspondent seems oblivious of the situation in Spain before immigration made such a leap: violence against women seems to be a particularly common trait in Spain.

As for adolescents, I don’t think they’re all that bad. And as for what makes some of them so bad, I wonder if the causes might not be deeper than just boredome, alcohol and lack of parental discipline?

By: Edith

Edith — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:05:54 +0000

@ MrsRajoy

RE: ‘de adolescentes haciendo lo que les da la gana, etcâ€¦’

Isn’t this a universal problem among adolescents, regardless of their ethnic roots? How about vandalism, drunken disorderly conduct, ‘happy slapping’, substance abuse, pub brawls, etc.? It’s all due to a combination of boredom, alcohol and lack of parental discipline.

By: Che

Che — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:21:57 +0000

MrsRajoy

White Americans are the ones who distort history. They believe they’re liberating all countries they attack and all their expansions are legitimate.

Here is more of real USA and the history they don’t teach in schools

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_H._Smith

By: Olentxero

Olentxero — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 09:11:53 +0000

Immigration is a fact of life in a world where one polar extreme gets rich off the suffering and instability in the other.

Whilst Europe continues to make huge amounts of money from selling weapons to poor countries, or condemning them to a life of debt, or exploiting the harsh working conditions to be found there, I guess that people are going to want to move to a better life.

The whole immigration debate consists largely of saying, “I don’t want to share the good life with people who are not as deserving (ie white/Christian/”normal”) as me. I am not willing to share my excesses with those who have almost nothing. I am most definitely not interested in doing anything that might genuinely contribute to a lasting solution.”

For the time being, the best solution to immigration is to pay immigrants a wage that is equal to the wages paid by home citizens and ensure that they have full access to the same labour laws as the Spanish. Once the incentive of exploitation is removed from Spanish businesspeople, I am sure that they will be happy to switch back to exploiting the home grown poor. Alternatively, they may well jet off to the sweatshops of Asia, leaving behind a community with nothing. That said, if there are no jobs, there are no customers…