Salvini vs. Rocket

[Absolution9]

If she indeed was about to bring down "our" world of national and ethnic purity and walling itself off in paranoia, then I'm all for this, such abomination should be brought down.

Strawman.

Merely responding in kind to your rather outlandish talk about some great conspiracy to bring down the European civilization.

Anyway, we seem to have a fundamental ideological difference regarding coming of the outside population. Peoples of diffrent (sometimes very diffrent) cultures have coexisted and interacted throughout the history and said interaction played a great role in forming what we now know as the "European civilization". I for one can't imagine the Polish history and culture without contributions of the generations of Jews that came to live here (many fleeing other European countries due to prevailing intolerance and persecution). While I'm not trying to make a direct comparison with what we see now (there are always many factor that makes such direct comparisons sketchy), I'm bringing this up because Jews were long seen by many as fundamentally alien to what people then considered as "European culture", and there still are people in Europe who believes that. So it produced a lot of tensions too. I'd be careful with using that particular argument to limit the access, since it's essentially giving up to the xenophobes.

I don't see a problem with having a African/Middle Eastern population in Europe. It adds a healthy dose of diversity and, as Velasco pointed out, Europe needs the additional workforce for strictly economical reasons. The real problem is with the scale. Though I'm convinced it would take dozens of millions to actually alter the European "civilization", I can contend an uncontrolled influx is a big problem. It should be reasonably controlled.

Unfortunately, the problem can't be solved with simply walling Europe off. I'm reminded of a saying from the 1930s: "a bomber will always get throught", just on a bigger scale here. I think you're seriously underestimating the sheer determination of these people to escape what they're facing. Even with the NGO rescuers, a journey through the sea is extremely risky already and yet they're willing to take said risk nonetheless. I just can't buy your argument it would dissuade most of them. You can limit it to some degree, but border control won't solve the issue, it's just ineffectual dealing with symptoms. We need a consistent international effort to either make their native lands safe from war, illness and poverty, or at the very least to provide them with safe refugee facilities in neighbouring countries. Unfortunately there is no such meaningful effort, even though it's in Europe's interest. Pretending it would go away with half-measures won't do much good.

Demographics matter.  Jews were always a small persecuted minority throughout Europe and in Poland after 400 years their population share peaked at just under 10% on the eve of World War 2.  They are most akin to Christians or Yazidis or Druze within the context of the modern Middle East. 

The source population for the current migration wave on the other hand encompasses the majority population from the areas around and including Pakistan to North Africa to Sub-Sharan Africa.  Well over 1.5 billion people and expanding rapidly.  A continuous large scale flow from that huge catchment area will make Italians, for instance, a small minority in Italy by the end of the century.  Especially given the low fertility of Italians and other Europeans.

If you want a Muslim and African Italy (geographic expression only) that cares nothing for the Italian culture and history as it’s evolved for the past 1000 years than I suppose the pre-Salvini course was optimal for you (of course I’m not saying Salvini will succeed in changing that course long term).

[Absolution9]

If you want a Muslim and African Italy (geographic expression only) that cares nothing for the Italian culture and history as it’s evolved for the past 1000 years than I suppose the pre-Salvini course was optimal for you (of course I’m not saying Salvini will succeed in changing that course long term).

This is a strawman and for two extremely simple reasons:

1) Neither Freedom Fighter Rackete nor anyone in this forum is advocating for a Muslim or an African Italy. We all love the Italian history, culture, monuments and cuisine... but not the politicians. Your claim is a tremendous absurdity,

2) With the current figures, despite all the scaremongering, there is no imminent danger for our beloved Italy.

The subjest of immigration is too serious, especially when we are talking about human beings who die and suffer, to be discussed on these demagogic grounds. Thank you.

How is it a strawman?

Before 2017 Italy was getting 150-200k boat migrant arrivals per year.  That’s set against a back drop of a doubling of the population of the African continent between 2015 and 2050 and a roughly 10% decline in the native Italian population during the same period.  If that had continued, even without additional possible arrivals due to increased demographic pressure in Africa,  it would mean easily 8-10M migrants + descendants by 2050.  

That’s including significant family reunification for which there would be tremendous pressure based on the example set by Britain and other Western European countries.  No doubt you would support significant family reunification for migrant populations in, for instance, Germany and would continue to do so in the future in all of the countries in which migrants settle.

The period between 2050 and 2100 would undoubtedly continue to feature large scale migration.  UN estimates are for another doubling of the African continents population by that end year.  For instance,  Niger and Egypt are forecast to have 200M people each (they better have huge complexes of solar powered greenhouses by then as they are both desert/semi desert countries that will be hit hard by global warming), Nigeria 700-750M, DR Congo 350-400M, etc.

Under a continued  scenario of permissive migration that existed in Europe between 2012 and 2017 it is certain that the continent would be utterly demographically and culturally transformed by the end of the century. In my opinion not for the better, but we probably differ in that assessment.