Nativism vs. "your ancestors weren't from here either"

[Ifreann]

Who?

People who invoke the talking point referenced in the subjectline, instead of just focusing on more stories involving people crossing national boundaries.

And who are they? Do they have names? Is there somewhere we can read the things they believe and see the reasoning they employ?

[Ifreann]

Inventing someone who makes an argument I think is bad and convincing myself that there's something very suspicious about them for making that argument.

[Major-Tom]

Immigration and forceful assimilation are two very different things, OP.

[Ayytaly]

There are people who try to justify colonialism as an "inherent reflection of human nature", yet go ballistic if you jokingly mention 'Eurabia'.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

There are people who try to justify colonialism as an "inherent reflection of human nature", yet go ballistic if you jokingly mention 'Eurabia'.

White nationalists: the strong survive, the weak die. That's just human evolution and the native Americans just lost to the superior Europeans.

Me: oh so then the "Great replacement" is just the strong surviving and the weak dying then?

White nationalists:

White nationalists:

[Ayytaly]

There are people who try to justify colonialism as an "inherent reflection of human nature", yet go ballistic if you jokingly mention 'Eurabia'.

White nationalists: the strong survive, the weak die. That's just human evolution and the native Americans just lost to the superior Europeans.

Me: oh so then the "Great replacement" is just the strong surviving and the weak dying then?

White nationalists:

White nationalists:

Keep in mind that these are the same idiots who claim the Roman Empire, yet label Italians as "lovechildren of Arabs and Moors". They unironically use Dennis Hopper's quote from "True Romance" as absolute fact, a trait shared with Afrocentrics.

[Forsher]

It's a coherent claim in NZ.

There's an immigration problem!
Send down some law.
There's still an immigration problem.
Create a legal regime.
The legal regime has a finance problem!
Steal land from the natives and sell it to the immigrants.

Literally nowhere else was colonised like this, though.

So your specific example has nothing to do with my comment about a general conclusion. Cool.

Not sure how you came to the conclusion that a post agreeing with your conclusion has nothing to do with your conclusion, but you do you.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

White nationalists: the strong survive, the weak die. That's just human evolution and the native Americans just lost to the superior Europeans.

Me: oh so then the "Great replacement" is just the strong surviving and the weak dying then?

White nationalists:

White nationalists:

Keep in mind that these are the same idiots who claim the Roman Empire, yet label Italians as "lovechildren of Arabs and Moors". They unironically use Dennis Hopper's quote from "True Romance" as absolute fact, a trait shared with Afrocentrics.

These guys really believe the ancient Romans were blonde nordics when their own paintings show brown skin and dark hair.

[Dakini]

I've never really been sure what to make of immigration.

As an immigrant, I'm not sure what to make your statement.

On the one hand, it sounds pretty mutual, in and of itself, for young immigrants to come to the first world, and make more money than they're used to by working to support the older retirees instead of counting on having kids who'd cost $250000 each to raise.

Immigrants tent to be net contributors to countries. We didn't cost the country a damn thing to educate or bring to adulthood, we just turn up ready to work and pay taxes.

On the other hand, reasoning like that mentioned in the webcomic has often struck me as flawed, and in turn, as reflecting badly on pro-immigration people as a whole.

I'm an immigrant who doesn't speak the language of the country I immigrated to (this is the second time I've done this, I didn't speak Japanese before arriving in Japan either). I don't think that people should have to be fluent in the local language to immigrate to a place because usually immigrants have a lot of other skills and we can pick up the language as we go.

Also, the USA (which the comic is about) doesn't actually legally have an official language, so it really doesn't have any legs to stand on when it wants to tell immigrants they should be required to speak a particular language.

A: Doesn't this actually make immigration look like a bad thing? It cites a historical example of the migrants destroying the pre-existing cultures of the places to which they immigrated, bringing new diseases with them when they did. Perhaps the idea is that we as their descendants have no right to whine about the same thing happening to us (though quite frankly we didn't choose to be born as the descendants of imperialists) but why would people who supposedly like immigration emphasize its ill effects?

You are mistaking colonization and imperialism for immigration. They are not the same thing, as much as xenophobes like to pretend they are.

B: If white people all up and left Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, etc... en masse, would there really be any going back to the way things used to be, or have the changes made been too irreversible anyway?

Nobody is advocating this. Certainly not Europe (where many people would have to return, I don't see the UK suddenly accepting all the people it tossed out of its country back into it) and you'd have the problem where a lot of people in North America don't have a single ancestral country (would I have to do a time share between Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Germany, France, Finland, Czechia, Hungary... though technically my ancestors from the last two left when they were called Bohemia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire so where would I return when the country of origin no longer exists?). You also seem to expect that non-white, non-Indigenous people would get to stay for some reason.

Again, nobody has ever suggested that white people should be forced to go back to Europe as part of decolonization.

C: What about places to which white people actually are native, like Europe? Is nativism okay there? If so, why is it condemned there as well, and if not, why does anyone feel the need to invoke "white people aren't native to the countries they colonized" reasoning if that isn't really what they have a problem with in the first place?

In Europe it varies. You have some xenophobia (see claims of the country being full (it's not) and Brexit in parts of the UK), but you also have a lot of open acceptance and even encouragement of immigration (e.g. Scotland) and everything in between (Romania seems to have a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork for immigration, but they seem to have a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork for everything so it might just be how it is for everything and immigration is no exception).

Also, white people aren't a monolith so you end up with shit like people in the UK being prejudiced against Romanians and Polish people or even English people being prejudiced against Scottish or Irish people or people in Romania not liking Russian people. All prejudice is fucked up and awful.

[Dakini]

I'm an immigrant and I'm okay
I sleep all night and I work all day.

I cut down trees, I eat my lunch
I go to the lavatory
On Wednesdays I go shopping
And have buttered scones for tea

I cut down trees, I skip and jump
I like to press wild flowers
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars

To be fair, I immigrated to Berlin.

Immigration is never the issue. It's "mass" immigration that is a political issue.
It shouldn't be though. People have moved to other place since forever.

For real. I'm an immigrant, my parents are immigrants, my ancestors are immigrants. It's been going on for ages. People should be able to live where they want to live with minimal barriers, basically.

[Dakini]

The us is pretty weird, an h1b visa is not really a path to citizenship, but it could be, ( I have 2 friends who went through that). To become a citizen Its either hit the lottery (literally), or marry an American.

It use to be if you had a promised job, they wouldn’t let you in because you were taking a job from an American; but if you didn't have one you could come in and get one immediately

Well, citizenship or merely a visa to live and work are two different things.

Over here, to become German,
I need sufficient language skills, be self sufficient (I think?)and be here for 8 years or more (7 if I married a German)

Of course, the dutch will revoke my citizenship if I do that,uunless I am married to a German.

I think here I've got to wait four years to apply for permanent residency and eight for citizenship.

In the UK, it was five years for indefinite leave to remain (which is why they wouldn't allow my partner's employer to extend his contract beyond 4 years, 10 months) and ten years for citizenship.

I've heard that France would let me bypass its five year residency requirement for citizenship if I ever moved there (I'm from a country where French is an official language and spent a sufficient amount of time in French language education to meet their standards for bypassing the residency requirement), but I'd need to immigrate there in the first place and probably brush up on my French and pass a test and all that. I also have a friend who has been living in France for a while who would meet the requirements, but hasn't done this and I don't know why so I assume there's also some catch I'm not aware of.

Canada is very happy to let me collect as many citizenships as I feel like obtaining (I already have two!).

[Sao Nova Europa]

Those immigration debates are almost always focused on Anglosphere or Western Europe, so rarely do they concern themselves with countries that never colonized (or were event under foreign imperial domination: see Greece and Ottomans). In the second case, the whole "your ancestors too were colonizers" shtick just does not work. Those debates also conflate multicultural societies (see Canada or US) with ethnic states (Greece, Poland, Slovenia, etch). The first states were created either on the basis of geography (Australia) or a political ideal (US Constitution, as Biden said in a recent speech). The second states were created as a home to a certain ethnic group. It makes sense considering how many of those ethnic groups suffered at the hands of Imperial states. (Asia Minor) Greeks and Jews suffered genocide because they were minorities and did not have an ethnic state as "safe house". Those ethnic states thus exist for a reason.

Does this mean that there should be no immigration to those ethnic states? Of course not. That would be absurd. But immigration to those ethnic states should be proportionate. To use an analogy, salt makes food tasty and without it the food is bland. But too much salt makes the food impossible to eat. Think of immigration as salt. Some immigration makes the country better; new talent, new ideas and new workers/businessmen. But too much immigration alters the ethnic character of those ethnic states and destroys their very character. So yes, immigration is good and positive, but it should also be controlled and proportionate.

On the subject of assimilation, immigrants should learn the language of the state they want to live in. For practical reasons above all else, for how would they communicate if they do not speak the national language? Adopting the language and traditions of your home ensures that you are properly integrated and are treated as part of the national body instead of a foreigner.

[Dakini]

Those immigration debates are almost always focused on Anglosphere or Western Europe, so rarely do they concern themselves with countries that never colonized (or were event under foreign imperial domination: see Greece and Ottomans). In the second case, the whole "your ancestors too were colonizers" shtick just does not work. Those debates also conflate multicultural societies (see Canada or US) with ethnic states (Greece, Poland, Slovenia, etch). The first states were created either on the basis of geography (Australia) or a political ideal (US Constitution, as Biden said in a recent speech). The second states were created as a home to a certain ethnic group. It makes sense considering how many of those ethnic groups suffered at the hands of Imperial states. (Asia Minor) Greeks and Jews suffered genocide because they were minorities and did not have an ethnic state as "safe house". Those ethnic states thus exist for a reason.

Where's the Roma ethnic state then?

Or do the Roma just not matter?

Also, it's a bit weird to call Greece an ethnic state when it contains a few different ethnicities and cultures that are all native to what is now Greece.

[Sao Nova Europa]

Those immigration debates are almost always focused on Anglosphere or Western Europe, so rarely do they concern themselves with countries that never colonized (or were event under foreign imperial domination: see Greece and Ottomans). In the second case, the whole "your ancestors too were colonizers" shtick just does not work. Those debates also conflate multicultural societies (see Canada or US) with ethnic states (Greece, Poland, Slovenia, etch). The first states were created either on the basis of geography (Australia) or a political ideal (US Constitution, as Biden said in a recent speech). The second states were created as a home to a certain ethnic group. It makes sense considering how many of those ethnic groups suffered at the hands of Imperial states. (Asia Minor) Greeks and Jews suffered genocide because they were minorities and did not have an ethnic state as "safe house". Those ethnic states thus exist for a reason.

Where's the Roma ethnostate then?

Or do the Roma just not matter?

They should create one. If they had, they would be better off and have a 'safe haven'.

Also, I know that stating that ethnic states exist and should exist is 'triggering' and considered extremist among Anglos, but in much of Eastern Europe (including my native Greece) and large parts of Africa and Asia it is considered natural and mainstream position. We are happy to have a state to act as a 'safe haven' and to house our culture and group. That does not mean that foreigners cannot join our national body. See Giannis Antetokounmpo who is proudly considered Greek and widely loved in Greece. But there is a difference between regular immigration and completely unrestricted mass immigration.

[Sao Nova Europa]

Also, it's a bit weird to call Greece an ethnic state when it contains a few different ethnicities and cultures that are all native to what is now Greece.

Not really. Aside from a Muslim minority in Thrace (that is considered ethnically Greek) and recent Albanian and Middle-Eastern immigrants (who make up less than 10% of the population), Greece is pretty homogenous and is considered the national home of the ethnic Greek people.

[Latvijas Otra Republika]

Those immigration debates are almost always focused on Anglosphere or Western Europe, so rarely do they concern themselves with countries that never colonized (or were event under foreign imperial domination: see Greece and Ottomans). In the second case, the whole "your ancestors too were colonizers" shtick just does not work. Those debates also conflate multicultural societies (see Canada or US) with ethnic states (Greece, Poland, Slovenia, etch). The first states were created either on the basis of geography (Australia) or a political ideal (US Constitution, as Biden said in a recent speech). The second states were created as a home to a certain ethnic group. It makes sense considering how many of those ethnic groups suffered at the hands of Imperial states. (Asia Minor) Greeks and Jews suffered genocide because they were minorities and did not have an ethnic state as "safe house". Those ethnic states thus exist for a reason.

Does this mean that there should be no immigration to those ethnic states? Of course not. That would be absurd. But immigration to those ethnic states should be proportionate. To use an analogy, salt makes food tasty and without it the food is bland. But too much salt makes the food impossible to eat. Think of immigration as salt. Some immigration makes the country better; new talent, new ideas and new workers/businessmen. But too much immigration alters the ethnic character of those ethnic states and destroys their very character. So yes, immigration is good and positive, but it should also be controlled and proportionate.

On the subject of assimilation, immigrants should learn the language of the state they want to live in. For practical reasons above all else, for how would they communicate if they do not speak the national language? Adopting the language and traditions of your home ensures that you are properly integrated and are treated as part of the national body instead of a foreigner.

Very nicely written

[Dakini]

Where's the Roma ethnostate then?

Or do the Roma just not matter?

They should create one. If they had, they would be better off and have a 'safe haven'.

Cool, who's going to pony up the land? What about the Roma who don't want to move there?

Also, I know that stating that ethnic states exist and should exist is 'triggering' and considered extremist among Anglos, but in much of Eastern Europe (including my native Greece) and large parts of Africa and Asia it is considered natural and mainstream position.

90% that's because people don't generally want to move to developing countries.

I don't have a problem with it since I just moved to one (Romania) and it's nice to live in a place that feels like it's trying to improve instead of stagnating actually, but there's a reason some countries have more people leaving to make more money elsewhere than they have people coming in to make new lives there.

We are happy to have a state to act as a 'safe haven' and to house our culture and group. That does not mean that foreigners cannot join our national body. See Giannis Antetokounmpo who is proudly considered Greek and widely loved in Greece. But there is a difference between regular immigration and completely unrestricted mass immigration.

The idea of "completely unrestricted mass immigration" is just xenophobic bullshit.

Also, it's a bit weird to call Greece an ethnic state when it contains a few different ethnicities and cultures that are all native to what is now Greece.

Not really. Aside from a Muslim minority in Thrace (that is considered ethnically Greek) and recent Albanian and Middle-Eastern immigrants (who make up less than 10% of the population), Greece is pretty homogenous and is considered the national home of the ethnic Greek people.

It is fairly homogeneous, but there are significant minority ethnic groups such as the Roma, the Vlachs, the Slavs, the Arvanites, some Turks, some Pomaks. The Balkans as a whole are a crossroads between Europe and Asia and are quite ethnically and linguistically diverse in general. While there's not a lot of net immigration, there are groups of ethnic minorities everywhere you look.

[Sao Nova Europa]

There is no serious Slavic minority, Vlachs and Arvanites are considered Greek (if you call an Arvanite non-Greek, he/she will call you racist and take it as insult) and so is the Pomak community (in fact they recently protested the visit of the Foreign Minister of Turkey in Thrace and stated they are Greek patriots). As you yourself said, Greece is fairly homogeneous. I just do not see why you believe your should enforce your Anglosphere/Western vision of how we should organize our society on us. We want to keep Greece an ethnic state. You should respect that.

[Dakini]

There is no serious Slavic minority, Vlachs and Arvanites are considered Greek (if you call an Arvanite non-Greek, he/she will call you racist and take it as insult) and so is the Pomak community (in fact they recently protested the visit of the Foreign Minister of Turkey in Thrace and stated they are Greek patriots). As you yourself said, Greece is fairly homogeneous. I just do not see why you believe your should enforce your Anglosphere/Western vision of how we should organize our society on us. We want to keep Greece an ethnic state. You should respect that.

Dude, I'm just going off census data, so apparently some of these people aren't calling themselves Greek, they're calling themselves other things.

Also, you're in the EU, which means that EU citizens who want to move to your country kinda can...? Insisting that you need an ethnic state is also generally pretty racist.

[Ifreann]

Keep in mind that these are the same idiots who claim the Roman Empire, yet label Italians as "lovechildren of Arabs and Moors". They unironically use Dennis Hopper's quote from "True Romance" as absolute fact, a trait shared with Afrocentrics.

These guys really believe the ancient Romans were blonde nordics when their own paintings show brown skin and dark hair.

Lot of Romans were from Africa. Because Rome conquered a lot of northern Africa, and that's where the Africans live.

---

Also, it's a bit weird to call Greece an ethnic state when it contains a few different ethnicities and cultures that are all native to what is now Greece.

Not really. Aside from a Muslim minority in Thrace (that is considered ethnically Greek) and recent Albanian and Middle-Eastern immigrants (who make up less than 10% of the population), Greece is pretty homogenous and is considered the national home of the ethnic Greek people.

That's obviously arbitrary, though. Greece, like anywhere, had a long history before the modern era. There was a lot of migration over those millennia. Like, do you think that no Turkish people lived in Greece when it was part of the Ottoman Empire?

[Sao Nova Europa]

There is no serious Slavic minority, Vlachs and Arvanites are considered Greek (if you call an Arvanite non-Greek, he/she will call you racist and take it as insult) and so is the Pomak community (in fact they recently protested the visit of the Foreign Minister of Turkey in Thrace and stated they are Greek patriots). As you yourself said, Greece is fairly homogeneous. I just do not see why you believe your should enforce your Anglosphere/Western vision of how we should organize our society on us. We want to keep Greece an ethnic state. You should respect that.

Dude, I'm just going off census data, so apparently some of these people aren't calling themselves Greek, they're calling themselves other things.

Also, you're in the EU, which means that EU citizens who want to move to your country kinda can...? Insisting that you need an ethnic state is also generally pretty racist.

Well, acting as a professor and lecturing others about a country you know absolutely nothing about except searching on the net for a few minutes is bound to lead to embarrassment.

EU citizens can indeed move to Greece (though not that many do). And so can non-EU citizens. I never claimed that we should not accept immigrants. We should. I only stated that immigration should have a cap proportional to our population, and that immigrants who want to stay permanently should be encouraged (not forced) to assimilate.

About the ethnic state, it is considered xenophobic in America (where you also consider socialist universal healthcare and gun right as natural). Different cultures have different definitions. We do not have the same political compass. Wanting to maintain an ethnic state is considered a mainstream position in Greece, and at most you will be considered center-right if your espouse it.

If you do not like it, do not come to Greece.

[Sao Nova Europa]

That's obviously arbitrary, though. Greece, like anywhere, had a long history before the modern era. There was a lot of migration over those millennia. Like, do you think that no Turkish people lived in Greece when it was part of the Ottoman Empire?

There were people who moved, but they have been assimilated and Hellenized. There is only a Muslim minority in Thrace, and a large part of them consider themselves ethnically Greek (only a minority identifies as ethnically Turkish).

[Dakini]

About the ethnic state, it is considered xenophobic in America (where you also consider socialist universal healthcare and gun right as natural).

I'm from Canada and I currently live in Romania. Why you think it's reasonable to talk about me like I live in America is fucking beyond me.

An ethnic state is fucking racist as it suggests that no other ethnicities can live there. Maybe you're just not using the term the way it is typically understood in English (since e.g. you are fine with non-Greek people moving to Greece, which suggests that you aren't actually supporting an ethnic state), but generally one thinks of a place where only one ethnic group is allowed or accepted and other ethnic groups are subjugated or oppressed.

[Sao Nova Europa]

About the ethnic state, it is considered xenophobic in America (where you also consider socialist universal healthcare and gun right as natural).

I'm from Canada and I currently live in Romania. Why you think it's reasonable to talk about me like I live in America is fucking beyond me.

An ethnic state is fucking racist as it suggests that no other ethnicities can live there. Maybe you're just not using the term the way it is typically understood in English (since e.g. you are fine with non-Greek people moving to Greece, which suggests that you aren't actually supporting an ethnic state), but generally one thinks of a place where only one ethnic group is allowed or accepted and other ethnic groups are subjugated or oppressed.

My bad then. My definition of an ethnic state is a state that serves as home to a certain ethnic group and that ethnic group should remain the majority (but not the only) population. That does not mean that foreigners should not come and live to Greece or that they should be forced by the state to assimilate (though assimilation should be encouraged: Greeks always feel a sense of pride when they see migrant schoolchildren holding national flag in national parades since it shows they've become part of the national body). It only means that immigration should be capped at a proportionate level to the population to ensure that the national ethnic group retains its majority.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Dude, I'm just going off census data, so apparently some of these people aren't calling themselves Greek, they're calling themselves other things.

Also, you're in the EU, which means that EU citizens who want to move to your country kinda can...? Insisting that you need an ethnic state is also generally pretty racist.

Well, acting as a professor and lecturing others about a country you know absolutely nothing about except searching on the net for a few minutes is bound to lead to embarrassment.

EU citizens can indeed move to Greece (though not that many do). And so can non-EU citizens. I never claimed that we should not accept immigrants. We should. I only stated that immigration should have a cap proportional to our population, and that immigrants who want to stay permanently should be encouraged (not forced) to assimilate.

About the ethnic state, it is considered xenophobic in America (where you also consider socialist universal healthcare and gun right as natural). Different cultures have different definitions. We do not have the same political compass. Wanting to maintain an ethnic state is considered a mainstream position in Greece, and at most you will be considered center-right if your espouse it.

If you do not like it, do not come to Greece.

You understand people who aren't Greek can become Greek, right? Your ancestors knew this.