The New Republic

Wow - a Spin post that does not blame Obama for anything. Wow. Wow. Wow.

- icarusr

August 18, 2010 at 2:23pm

Did Icarus' Islamic boy friend give him permission to talk to non Mulsims?

- jdyer

August 18, 2010 at 3:35pm

Blabber mouth Icarus aside, I am not surprised at the maltreatment of the Gypsies in Europe (they not the Muslims are the “new Jews” of Europe, or rather would be if they hadn’t, like the Jewish communities, been the “old Jews” as well. Still, I am surprised at the treatment of Irish illegals in France. When I lived in France the Irish were held in high esteem (Becket and all) and isn’t Ireland part of the European Union? Is this a sign that the Union is covering up a deeper dis-union?

- jdyer

August 18, 2010 at 4:36pm

Jdyer: Peretz refers to "Irish Travelers", a nomadic people of Irish origin. Re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Traveller

- rmakover@swbell.net-OLD

August 18, 2010 at 4:41pm

Lets take three cases in Europe: Britain, Germany, Hungary In Britain immigrant assimilation of Indians/Pakistanis/West Indians was hardly smooth. These cultures added a great deal to Britain with work ethic, entrpreneurship, education etc. but had to endure, until recently, often exclusion, insult and brutality. Germany, as evidenced by its Soccer team, has had success in economically integrating its immigrants apparently and is now prospering. However, the general society is now more liberal than many immigrant groups. Hungary and other East bloc countries could definitely use new blood with its body hollowed out with its loss of Jews. In Magyardom anyone who can learn that language absolutely deserves automatic citizenship. When I was there I saw a community of Vietnamese migrants who have done just that and opened markets and the like. Under Communism there were sincere attempts to house and integrate the Roma but were locally resented by all sides. It is possible that France might have the most setbacks in immigration even as it tried to be inclusive but French. On a political level France might be the toughest nut for outsiders to crack.

- NR027810

August 18, 2010 at 4:50pm

makover "Jdyer: Peretz refers to "Irish Travelers", a nomadic people of Irish origin." Thanks, I hadn't heard of them before. Wonder how many of them there are in the US? Anyone know?

- jdyer

August 18, 2010 at 5:13pm

To the best of my knowledge, they represented a thin slice of Irish and possibly also Scottish immigration to the U.S., especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, in the 19th century, Travelers (otherwise known as Tinkers) would have been pretty indistinguishable in terms of dress, accent, habits and so on from the run of poor immigrants from rural Ireland. In fact, it's the case even these days that Irish Travelers in England are often seen as generically Irish, as the signs that are quickly read by Irish people to identify them are pretty much invisible to the Brits.

- ironyroad

August 18, 2010 at 5:56pm

PEretz seems to imply that the expulsion of Gypsies can be explained. Ann Frank after being sent to Auschwitz was said to be horrified by the sight of truckloads of gypsies as they were annihilated in the same way as Jews. Are we more deserving of our memory of suffering?? THis is the writing of someone senile. I also want to refer to William Dalyrimple op-ed NYTimes regarding Sufi muslims today.

- NR027810

August 18, 2010 at 6:03pm

Credit to Marty for a post that touches on genocide (and hits human rights in general) not being used as a proxy for bashing Israel critics. With respect to the Roma, what kind of due process do they get prior to being shipped out? It says 45 of the 135 people in the camp raid were deported, so there was some sort of evaluation made. If they truly are "criminal" as Marty writes, as in proven illegal by a fair standard of justice (understood that this a big assumption), how exactly do they leave other than "forced transport"?

- Lymon1

August 18, 2010 at 6:53pm

NR027810 "PEretz seems to imply that the expulsion of Gypsies can be explained." Where does he imply that, NR027810? Marty Peretz: "A shudder reawakened my memory of the film when I read in the papers—yes, mostly I still read the papers—of President Sarkozy’s determination to rid France of its criminal gypsies and send them “back” to Romania and Bulgaria. I am stunned that his moves and intentions have met with so little attention. I know, I know that the analogy with the Nazis and Vichy is not exact. It may even be that many, even most of these migrants are illegal in their French presence. I concede that most of them may steal. Still, it is an index of how atrophied our moral nerves have become that this forced transport of people is going on without more than a wan protest from SOS-Racisme, the old watch guard of France." "Ann Frank after being sent to Auschwitz was said to be horrified by the sight of truckloads of gypsies as they were annihilated in the same way as Jews." Where did Ann Frank say that? "Are we more deserving of our memory of suffering??" Where did you get this from NR027810? And who is we?

- jdyer

August 18, 2010 at 6:59pm

Not sure about that Irony. I can understand how an American might not notice the difference between say someone from West Cork and an itinerant but the English know them well. There's huge efforts made to submerge them into an Irish identity, not without some sucees (we'll gladly take the olympic boxing medals) and they suffer horribly discrimination (they can't book a hotel for a wedding for example) but unfortunately some of the prejudice is based on visceral experience. Itinerant families have a habit of beating the shit out of each other in small towns around the country; generally destroying the environment and involving themselves in not so petty crime. Of course that's not all of them but when you have such a high rate of illiteracy and domestic abuse in a community then these problems become inevitable. Respect works both ways.

- IggyPop

August 18, 2010 at 7:01pm

ironyroad "In fact, it's the case even these days that Irish Travelers in England are often seen as generically Irish, as the signs that are quickly read by Irish people to identify them are pretty much invisible to the Brits." This being the case, how can the French distinguish between the "Tinkers" and the "generic Irish?"

- jdyer

August 18, 2010 at 7:04pm

Iggy, ok, a reasonable point and I wasn't pleading a case (although I believe "itinerant" is seen as a demeaning term). Ireland in its pre-industrial and pre-urban era, up to 1950 or so (?), may have presented an easier context for tinkers to find a niche in. But now the encampment on the edge of Dublin or wherever looks more like a third-world shanty town than a just another slice of rural life. The quote about it being easier to get by in England came from a Traveler in a book I read a few years ago. JD -- very good question. I honestly don't know. Maybe the French registration system (which they don't have in the UK, of course) makes it easier to identify certain people. In contrast to England, also, the regular Irish in France are middle-class and eduated, mostly. In fact, it's a curious news item, because under EU regulations it is difficult to be "illegal" in another EU country unless you've broken the law in some way. So maybe there are vagrancy laws being applied here.

- ironyroad

August 18, 2010 at 8:14pm

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSRTR2HD2D "A Roma man holds his child as he walks near makeshift shelters built after police seized their caravan two weeks ago in an illegal camp in Roubaix, near Lille, northern France, August 17, 2010. Since France's President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered the dismantling of 300 illegal camps of travelling people and Roma across France three weeks ago, 51 of the camps have been dismantled as part of a ''war'' on crime and urban violence which has alarmed some rights groups. " Credit: Reuters/Pascal Rossignol Captioned slideshow story (useful concept to have images explainging a complex story) "Plight of the Roma" Tue Aug 17, 2010 7:10pm EDT by Reuters which is seventeen hours BEFORE Peretz posted above. It is possible that France is being tough on EU migrants who are not living at a fixed address who happen to be Roma and/or the Irish Travelers who live out of their 'caravans' in groups. Try doing that most places in the United States, even if you are a born inthe U.S.A. citizen, except at Wal-Marts who used to allow people stay overnight in the Wal-Mart parking lot in their RVs (recreational Vehicles that would be called 'caravans' in Europe (and yes I know US RVs are mostly big-as-busses, but not all ot them. I thought of living in a small one, but gave up because of the absence of both RV parks and the absence of Wal-Marts in the New York metro area. I am not condoning what Sarkozy is doing, but hardly think being put on an airplane to Bucharest or Sofia is the same as being packed into a boxcar that leads to the gas chamber of Auschwitz. Confiscation of the Roma caravans is state theft of property. The U.S. does worse to illegal immigrants who have legitimitate jobs, live in legal homes, and pay Federal taxes. But they still get put on a plane, not sent to their death. Peretz really needs to get a grip on reality. Too much Rioja in the Spanish sun...

- K2K

August 18, 2010 at 9:43pm

I don't know k2k; to gypsies whose grandparents were deported to death camps being forcibly deported to Rumania can bring back familiar and ethnic memories. Also, gypsies have it very rough in places like Rumania, Hungary (which has a large Fascist following) and Slovakia. They leave in ghetto like conditions (real ghettoes not the American type ghetto) and are regularly beaten up by the locals.

- jdyer

August 18, 2010 at 11:17pm

jackson, I agree with you, and the full Reuters 23-slides travel through Serbia, Hungary, and Romania to show the abysmal living conditions of the Roma. Peretz still over-dramatizes the alleged lack of news coverage, and ignores the problem of any group living in caravans in locations where that is illegal, whether the people are Roma or not. Why should France shoulder the responsibility of trying to assimilate Roma if their home countries will not? Of course there is an element of racism. If the Roma were renowned travelling chefs, perhaps there would be no story here :) The Roma do present a very different issue than the more general problems EU countries face in absorbing immigrants and their children from former colonies, which is not always about Muslim immigrants. Peretz makes an awkward conflation here.

- K2K

August 19, 2010 at 1:23pm

Well I think the whole thing is sad and awful. It's even worse when I read/hear comments from within the US about Mexicans. A close and dear relative is deeply prejudiced against Mexicans which she didn't get from our family. Her husband's maybe? His dad was a bigot and despised him for having married a Jewish woman. Regardless, she now speaks in terms of the "Mexicanization of Denver" which is kind of absurd actually if you think about it. Regardless she claims that if she'd raised her daughters in town instead of out in the boons they'd be crack hos by now. No credit to her own parenting skills or the essential common sense of her daughters:( She believes that simply living in proximity to "them" would have destroyed her children. Yikes.

- Sophia

August 19, 2010 at 1:39pm

Sophia, Somewhere between the deep prejudice of your near and dear relative, and the misty eyed "we're all immigrants here, and these folks are just the latest whom we should embrace as fellows" lies a hard set of truths that we ought, as a nation, be facing up to. I've seen towns utterly ruined by the toxic combination of immigrants in this country against the law, whose primary interest is living cheap and sending money back home, and businesses more than happy to exploit these folks in every way possible. It is neither irrational, nor necessarily racist, to deplore waves of immigrants with no interest in assimilation, and lacking either a route or interest (or both) togenuine economic integration. But neither is it an acceptable solution to label all Hispanics (or Bosnians or Somalians) "those people", lay the blame entirely at their feet, and shun them. They're here through the operation of our policies, de facto or otherwise, which makes them Americans in some important sense, and we need to figure out a way to integrate them - to by and large unhyphenate the deeply hyphanated Americans. We need policy changes, open-minded and open-handed efforts on the part of native Americans, and a real effort from the immigrants. Unfortunately, I don't see an of these three things happening.

- IowaBeauty

August 19, 2010 at 3:03pm

Sophia “It's even worse when I read/hear comments from within the US about Mexicans.” It’s difficult to generalize about problems with residents residing illegally in a country. The Gypsy issue is particularly troubling because of their recent history and because they are a minority without a country of their own and seem to be ill treated in most of Europe.

- jdyer

August 19, 2010 at 11:12pm

With respect, what you, jdyer and Iowa Beauty are both sort of missing about the Southwest is its Mexican ie combination Spanish/Native American heritage. That's one of the most interesting and beautiful things about the Southwest and it's hardly alien to the land or the people. In fact it's a vital part of the culture in Colorado and the rest of the Southwest and it's also historically what - who - the region was long before the anglos moved in. Of course the Spanish were also colonizers but they were there long before the English cattle barons. Naturally nobody respects the Native Americans and they didn't come sneaking across the Rio Grande now did they. As a nation we really need to see that this nation had First Nations and also that we're part of a pair of continents - North and South America. And just because we have this line in the sand or rather this skinny little creek arbitrarily called the Rio Grande it doesn't mean that we're somehow completely disconnected from (or superior to) our neighbors to the south. There's another sad fact of life and that is this: much of the misery to our south was caused by us. I think we need to realign our interests with regard to our own hemisphere and also take a good look at past North American mishandling of South and Central American resources and people. When you study us from the point of view of a Frida Kahlo for example, we stand out in a certain sharp relief and it isn't all that pretty.

- Sophia

August 20, 2010 at 2:51am

Sophia “With respect, what you, jdyer and Iowa Beauty are both sort of missing about the Southwest is its Mexican ie combination Spanish/Native American heritage. That's one of the most interesting and beautiful things about the Southwest and it's hardly alien to the land or the people.” Sophia, I didn’t refer specifically to Mexican culture in my comment above. All I said is that each case of minority civil rights is different and that it diminished and falsifies the issue by applying some faux universal standard when thinking about it. As far as Mexican culture is concerned, I know the complexities of that culture. I have read some Mexican literature in Spanish. One of my favorite poets is Octavio Paz who had been exiled to the US. He would have been the last thinker to simplify complex realties.

- jdyer

August 20, 2010 at 11:37am

jdyer, sorry if I misinterpreted your comments. The fact is though when I mentioned Mexicans people immediately jumped to conclusions about illegal immigrants. The bigotry against Mexicans and Native Americans long predates the recent angst about illegal immigrants - yet people immediately assumed the Mexican issue has to do with illegal immigration. It doesn't. It's an old and shameful part of the West, ditto the treatment of Native Americans and the way the anglo community thinks of our own First Nations. Unfortunately, these two separate issues - bigotry and illegal immigration - are now overlapping. The problem is I don't think the argument against illegal immigration in the US is entirely distinct from bigotry. This is the issue in Arizona isn't it and it's why Obama spoke out against their new law. He's right too.

- Sophia

August 20, 2010 at 5:53pm

Sophia “jdyer, sorry if I misinterpreted your comments. The fact is though when I mentioned Mexicans people immediately jumped to conclusions about illegal immigrants. The bigotry against Mexicans and Native Americans long predates the recent angst about illegal immigrants - yet people immediately assumed the Mexican issue has to do with illegal immigration.” Sophie, I think people here are familiar with these histories, plural. You can’t conflate these histories. I don’t know how many people of Mexican origin you have known or how many American Indians. Had you known any you wouldn’t assume that their treatment was the same. Nor was it the same as the treatment of Gypsies in Europe (the subject of this thread) who were and are a pacific people without an army and who never made war on any nation. Let’s keep things in perspective.

- jdyer

August 20, 2010 at 6:39pm

one perspective on the Roma that may be part of a broader concern is the difficulties of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who may not "see" let alone "recognize" the borders of the modern nation-state. as to Mexico? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo Whatever would today's Minutemen do if President Polk had annexed 100% of Mexico instead of 55% in 1847? "...With American successes on the battlefield, by the summer of 1847 there were calls for the annexation of "All Mexico," particularly among Eastern Democrats, who argued that bringing Mexico into the Union was the best way to ensure future peace in the region..." [the curses of history are relentless]

- K2K

August 20, 2010 at 10:32pm

Sophia, In all fairness, you referred to "Mexicans" not to Americans of Mexican heritage, and, the article and conversation were about immigrants in Europe who where being deported as "illegals." I don't think it was an unfair leap on my part to suppose you were talking about our own Mexican immigrants, both illegal and legal. The folks of Hispanic culture in the Southwest to whom you refer, are not Mexicans any more than I am a German or my neighbor a Norwegian. They are Americans with a Mexican Heritage. Anyone showing prejudice against them solely for their heritage is, I would agree, a bigot in need of correction. On the other hand, any "Mexican" you meet in the Iowa towns to which I referred is almost certainly an immigrant, and more likely undocumented than legal. I have no issue with those who are legal. But as I say, those who are here against the law form a toxic combination with their employers, and I really don't blame people for being put off, angry, and scared by the result.

- IowaBeauty

August 21, 2010 at 8:41pm

Here is a good read from Pascal Bruckner about Europe's malaise which he attributes to guilt: http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_3_european-conscience.html

- noga1

August 21, 2010 at 9:01pm