Unwanted Immigration To The Island By Non British?

[silky]

Discuss....

[Amadeus]

your poll appears to be fücked...

[ans]

Fixed.

[silky]

Cheers

[Amadeus]

No - answer to the question, that is....

[Albert Tatlock]

I assume you must be British then. In the UK this would be similar to asking, 'except for the Commonwealth countries is their a problem with immigration to Britain'.

 

IMHO, and avoiding the use of stronger language, - an immigrant is an immigrant and you are discriminating in the wording of your question.

[nipper]

Question number 2 in House of Keys this morning might, but probably won't shed some light on how our Government look at this matter:

 

The Hon Member for Douglas North (Mr Henderson) to ask the

Chief Minister –

 

Given the shambles of the United Kingdom Government’s

immigration policy, what statement can you make to the people of

the Isle of Man to reassure them that your Government is doing

everything in its power to ensure we are not left in a similar

situation, and as a matter of urgency will you agree to review our

immigration policies for new entrants to the island, and what

administrative processes there are in place and their effectiveness in

detecting new entrants?

 

Given that it is not a simple straightforward subject don't expect an intelligent meaningful answer.

 

I can almost hear our Chief Minister answering this question now, on the lines of':

 

"we are doing everything reasonably possible . . . . this government does not consider the existing policies need substantial review . . . . current processes are indeed effective . . . "

[Amadeus]

I assume you must be British then.

Unable to reply to that - I need some water vodka - now!

[Nitro]

I assume you must be British then.

Unable to reply to that - I need some water vodka - now!

 

Albert Tatlock, Just below Amadeus's avatar it used to say "resident German", a bit of a clue!

[Albert Tatlock]

I assume you must be British then.

Unable to reply to that - I need some water vodka - now!

 

Albert Tatlock, Just below Amadeus's avatar it used to say "resident German", a bit of a clue!

You are missing the point.

 

Having spoken with Amadeus, I am well aware that he is German.

 

Personally, I find Silkys poll question thoughtless and offensive. IMHO Silky is being selective in what he classes as 'unwanted immigration'. My point is that, IF Silky is British (and I suspect so) and lives on the island, a Brit on this island is just as much an immigrant as any Somalian, Pole, Belgian or German living here.

 

The immigration debate on the island is not about blanket bans on countries, peoples, creeds or colours. If there is room on the island (and that is the real question) we have to decide who comes here to live and understand the effect on our culture this will have - give me a hard working and culture adopting German anyday - e.g. long before any unwanted arrogant racist Brits. Many immigrants add to the economy and support the culture of the island, and I would certainly class Amadeus as one of those people who is busily doing here what 'most of us Romans are already doing' and has demonstrably adopted and supported the island - and IMHO ranks extremely highly on the 'welcome to the Isle of Man' scale.

[Nitro]

You are missing the point.

 

Having spoken with Amadeus, I am well aware that he is German.

 

Personally, I find Silkys poll question thoughtless and offensive. IMHO Silky is being selective in what he classes as 'unwanted immigration'. My point is that, IF Silky is British (and I suspect so) and lives on the island, a Brit on this island is just as much an immigrant as any Somalian, Pole, Belgian or German living here.

 

The immigration debate on the island is not about blanket bans on countries, peoples, creeds or colours. If there is room on the island (and that is the real question) we have to decide who comes here to live and understand the effect on our culture this will have - give me a hard working and culture adopting German anyday - e.g. long before any unwanted arrogant racist Brits. Many immigrants add to the economy and support the culture of the island, and I would certainly class Amadeus as one of those people who is busily doing here what 'most of us Romans are already doing' and has demonstrably adopted and supported the island - and IMHO ranks extremely highly on the 'welcome to the Isle of Man' scale.

 

Yep i totally missed the point i thought you said Amadeus was brittish!

 

The poll is unfair anyway, I wouldn't say the island is currently over populated but soon the way things are going the island is just going to get busier. The main reason IMHO is because the UK has a totally crap government and people are getting fed up and want to move somewhere else, The island also to a degree is unspoilt, In the UK there are just flats and houses being built anywhere theres a space, Lets hope the island doesn't follow!

[Mission]

Albert, Silky is a she, not a he.

[Lonan3]

An extremely confusing (or confused?) question as the heading of the thread. As most Manx people would rather die than be called 'British,' why should 'British' and 'Non-British' immigrants be perceived as different to each other?

Whether immigrants should be accepted or rejected is surely far more dependent on their attitudes, on their ability to intergrate into the local culture and to contribute to the local economy than on any questions of origins, race, colour etc.

[VinnieK]

Whether immigrants should be accepted or rejected is surely far more dependent on their attitudes, on their ability to intergrate into the local culture and to contribute to the local economy than on any questions of origins, race, colour etc.

 

I agree that the poll has little merit to it in focusing on 'non-British' immigrants, but it's interesting that some of the comments that have followed have in some way endorsed the notion that immigrants should be assessed on the basis of their ability to integrate. This (entirely worthy) notion is so persistent and prominant in contemporary debates on immigration all accross the world that it has almost become a truism, but how useful is it? That is to say, to what degree is it possible (if at all) to evaluate a person's ability to integrate into the local culture and the likelyhood that they will do so? From this perspective, Slinky's stipulation, although no doubt disagreeable to many, is actually more sympathetic to the spirit of the comments that have followed than may be recognised. After all, the Isle of Man exists in close proximity to the British Isles, sharing language, religion, history, as well as having very similar legal and educational systems and political institutions. This seems as good a 'working' criteria for integration and potential assimilation as any (indeed, Albert Tatlock's comparison with UK/Commonwealth immigration is shortsighted in view of its intention: In the UK such questions and preferable treatment did occur prior to the growing movement for integration with Europe, precisely because the shared institutions and political structures that existed across the Commonwealth were deemed a useful measure of the potential of immigrants from those countries to integrate).

 

I'm certainly not arguing for a variety of immigration policies for each country or cultural grouping, in fact I believe the idea of evaluating a candidate's ability to integrate with the host nation's culture is largely an unworkable fantasy. Slinky's question can actually be seen to make perfect sense from the perspective of some of the arguments that have been used to criticise it, and indeed as a consequence of the same ideas behind those criticisms! Not only this, but it is also not an entirely desirable fantasy at that. Immigration policies based on cultural integration have the potential to offer legitimacy to arguments against certain groups of people being allowed into the Island that, whilst using the terminology of cultural compatibility and assimilation, are actually founded in prejudice. To see that this is the case, one need only look to the current, and occassionally disturbing, debate surrounding the question of whether followers of Islam can ever truly be assimilated by Western Nations (This is particularly in the Netherlands and France, far more so than the UK in fact). Indeed, even though officially Turkey is a secular country, the EU is currently arguing over whether or not its populace can ever be integrated and become a 'European' nation.

 

In my view, immigration policies should be based upon the ability to economically contribute and little else, simply because this is one of the few variables in the issue that can actually be measured with any degree of reliability, and which cannot be perverted or which relies on the entirely subjective notions of culture. Apart from everything else, cultural assimilation simply doesn't happen over one generation and never has. It takes numerous generations of exposure to local culture as transmitted through primary agencies such as education and employment to affect cultural change within a sub-community (which is why relatively recent immigrant communities in Europe still retain much of their original identity compared with the immigrant communities of the U.S. that settled in the 19th century from places such as Ireland, Sweden, and Germany). In fact, there is the argument that those who can make a decent economic contribution have the most to gain from cultural integration, their participation in the local economy acting as a catalyst to long term assimilation, and the most to lose by alienating those around them. As the success of the US in assimilating its immigrants has demonstrated (a success shared by the UK in the 18th and 19th centuries), only a very weak culture has anything to fear from such 'culturally blind' immigration policies.

[Lonan3]

I appreciate, and generally agree with, the points made. It is, however, entirely my fault for not making my interpretation of 'integration' as clear as I should have done.

 

integration n.

 

The act or process of integrating.

The state of becoming integrated.

The bringing of people of different racial or ethnic groups into unrestricted and equal association, as in society or an organization; desegregation.

 

In simple terms, I didn't mean to suggest that integration of newcomers necessitated their complete absorption into local culture, nor that their own culture should be swept away by that of their new home.

If that was to be the case then countries/states - and their cultures - would remain static, progress would probably be stultified, and countries/states that were willing to greet the novelty of new ideas and perceptions would, by comparison, make enormous strides.

Part of the problem that the Isle of Man has is a willingness to welcome 'visitors' with open arms, but a tendency to treat new immigrants with suspicion. It's a tendency that has gradually been eroded with the emergence of the finance sector as an essential element of the local economy - but most of those new arrivals have, so far, not been of markedly different racial or ethnic groups.

As the finance sector brings an ever greater awareness of our island to various parts of the world, the test of our ability to welcome newcomers, regardless of their backgrounds, may only just be beginning.