limbo immigrants

More than 3,400 war-ravaged Iraqis whose claims for asylum in Britain have been rejected are now in a limbo situation on section 4 support, and Aisha's family is among them, all of whom are suffering from disabling post-traumatic stress.

"I don't understand why our asylum claim failed," cries Aisha. "Our country is finished, most of our relatives have been killed, all that we worked hard to achieve is no more and we came to Britain because it is where we expected to be treated well."

"Yes, we have been treated well -- we have accommodation and food vouchers and some people have been kind to us – but we are in limbo because as failed asylum seekers we cannot stay here yet have no home to go back to."

"We have very little money left and when that goes we will not be able to go anywhere, even catch a bus to go shopping," sighs Aisha. "It is humiliating for us to become beggars. All we want is a chance to start a new life is this country. Is that too much to ask after this country was instrumental in destroying my country?"

"My husband has skills and would like to get a good job and be able to support his family -- as he once did in Iraq," says Aisha, "but he is not allowed to work. What sort of torture is this?"

"Why are we being victimized when so many Eastern Europeans are allowed into this country to work and get rich?"

Read more by Aisha on this issue:

Go back where you came from?

Please help us start a new life!

grubby triangles and immigrants

Paisley once led a successful community war against a foreign land grabbing housing developer who, in cahoots with some greased palmed toadies in government, intended to replace several sprawling old houses with a monstrous walled off apartment complex for wealthy immigrants; and, considering the sensitivity of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, she is incensed that other foreign land grabbing housing developers – and maybe some greased palmed toadies in government – have created a similar situation in East Jerusalem that could very well start WW3.

“We won our case by being able to prove corruption, but it was a long and nasty war of words, standoffs and a few stink bombs,” says Paisley, “and while corruption may be a lot harder to prove in the East Jerusalem developments, the Palestinians do have international law on their side as well as a whole load of ordinary people all around the world who are similarly being railroaded by greedy, grubby land grabbing housing developers, foreign or otherwise (as is the case of China), who are muscling into our beloved communities, displacing established families, building monstrous developments and filling them with a whole load of people who put serious strains on existing infrastructure as well as creating social disharmony.”

“We are told that these monstrous housing developments are necessary in order to house immigrants,” says Paisley, “and when we queried why the government was encouraging immigration and destroying our community we were told that it’s because of our aging population.”

“What a lot of lies,” says Paisley. “There is a very clear relationship between housing developers, government officials and extraordinary amounts of money, if not greasing palms then in Swiss bank accounts – and immigrants, rich and poor, are being blatantly abused as much as we are in this grubby triangle because they suffer the consequences of living where, en masse, they’re not wanted.”

“In our case, the foreign land grabbing housing developer was Asian,” explains Paisley, “and it is no coincidence that wealthy Asian immigrants would have been buying, off the plan, the apartments proposed to be built – the native population, us, either being unable to afford such luxury or not wanting to live in a towering box.”

“In other words, there was a deliberate and conscious effort on behalf of this developer and the government officials to replace the architecture and people of our community with something alien,” says Paisley, “and if this isn’t ethnic cleansing then tell me what it is?”

“Similarly, the situation in East Jerusalem has been precipitated by a foreign developer – a Jewish American and a gambling magnate, Irving Moskowitz, with close ties in the Netanyahu government – who intends to convert an old Palestinian hotel into 20 luxury apartments for wealthy Jewish immigrants; and another much larger development of 1,600 luxury units in the same area is causing even more trouble.”

“Firstly, the East Jerusalem land is in dispute and is deemed to become sovereign Palestinian territory – so any building is prohibited under international law; secondly, the projects are in Palestinian-dominated neighborhoods; and thirdly, the new housing is declared to be for Jews only. Talk about chutzpah!”

“Apparently, Moskowitz’s land grabbing in Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem has aroused controversy for years,” says Paisley, “and since many of these land grabs were approved by Netanyahu when he was previously in power it makes you wonder about their special relationship, doesn’t it?”

“Also, it may be no coincidence that Netanyahu is a qualified architect!”

“I’d be the first to congratulate Israel on turning a wilderness into an oasis,” says Paisley, “but if the Palestinians had been blessed with the same sort of massive financial aid as the Israelis attract then no doubt they would have done the same.”

“I don’t like seeing Palestinians being portrayed as backward people, poor farmers and stone throwing terrorists,” says Paisley. “That sort of portrayal could very well have been leveled at my community by the land grabbing housing developer who muscled into our territory.”

“We didn’t have to resort to throwing stones because we won our case, but if things had turned out differently we would now be walled off from a lot of new, wealthy Asian immigrants, and feeling as badly as the Palestinians do about their situation,” says Paisley. “Nobody knows until they are in that situation what desperate measures they are likely to contemplate, especially if they don’t have the opportunity or means to move elsewhere (as, I believe, is the case with the Palestinians – nobody wants them).”

“My heart bled when I saw newsreels of Chinese families, especially the elderly, being turfed out of their beautiful traditional old homes in Beijing on the orders of their communist masters so that yet another sterile tower can be built,” says Paisley, “and while the homes of the Palestinians may not have similar architectural merit, it was just as heartbreaking over the years to watch newsreels of them being bulldozed by Israeli tanks.”

“If there’s anything we all share it’s love of our communities and our homes, no matter how humble, and nobody, absolutely nobody has a right to muscle in and interfere with our security base,” says Paisley, “and maybe it’s this fear of ‘muscling in and interfering’ that has caused the international community to sit by, refusing to enforce with sanctions numerous broken agreements and lies, allowing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to fester for over 60 years.”

“If Netanyahu refuses to back down on Jerusalem, then all hell will break loose in the Islamic world,” sighs Paisley. “To avert WW3, I would expect President Obama to leave Israel to its own well deserved fate – but first offering refuge for those who wish to leave.”

“If it’s all about real-estate, which I think it is, then a two-state solution will only be a short-term affair because both communities are breeding like rabbits, there just isn’t enough land to sustain them right now, and long before every square inch of Israel is covered with towering apartment blocks the land grabbers will be eyeing Palestinian territory again.”

“Basically, Israel should never have been created and the poor Palestinians should never have been lumbered with a problem they had not caused,” asserts Paisley. “The dispossessed Jews after WW2 should have been repatriated to their homelands and given enduring protection and support and for those too afraid to return home, priority emigration should have been arranged on the same terms.”

“I believe that the majority of the world’s Jews live very happily outside of Israel, and the majority of Jews living in Israel have dual citizenship,” says Paisley, “so only a very few Israelis have a right of birth to remain in Israel.”

“I don’t believe in god-chosen people or god-given land rights and anyone who migrated to Israel on that basis needs a reality check, and it is very likely on the way,” says Paisley. “Just because we all came out of Africa millions of years ago does not give us the right to return there; and just because the Jews came out of the Middle East thousands of years ago does not give them the right to return there either – if for no other reason than, in the intervening time, our skin color and physiology has changed to suit another climate.”

“Also, communities of any ethnicity or creed that migrate, en masse, to another nation without good reason and hide behind high walls, refusing to integrate, make me think of fifth columnists – sleepers who will take over the nation when their land grabbing housing developers have cornered the market.”

“Look around, is what’s happening in Palestine happening in a neighborhood near you, too?”

immigrants aren’t the enemy

Leona believes that the government and its corporate global mates get away with increasing the number of cheap immigrants by promoting the myth that our working class is lazy, stupid and immoral and deserves to be replaced.

“So, adding to the injury of being priced out if a job and a home by cheap immigrants is the insult of being unfairly victimized by our fellow countrymen and women who are better off than we are,” says Leona. “It’s classic divide and rule. No wonder so many of our working class people are choosing to emigrate or retire early rather than suffer so many indignities.”

“Immigrants and the unemployed welfare class are not responsible for whatever ails us, so we should stop blaming them – and particularly we must stop blaming immigrants because if we do we’ll be called racist.”

“Immigrants, racial tension and the existence of a growing unemployed welfare class are just symptoms of the same disease – elitism or classism,” explains Leona, “and we have far more in common with these demonized people than we do with the real villains who are ripping us off, lying to us and stirring up trouble in the classes below them in order to deflect attention from themselves and prevent united action against them.”

“Our survival on all levels is dependent upon our cohesion,” says Leona, “so stick together guys and don’t let them divide us.”

Read more by Leona on this issue:

government and its corporate mates

corporations destroying racial harmony

global corporation divide and rule

united action

educating co-workers

immigrants and cash cows

Cheryl believes that the only thing attracting refugees and immigrants to western countries is not jobs – because there just aren't enough jobs for our own people let alone the rest of the world – it’s our cash cow welfare system that gives them public housing, free health benefits, free education, free legal representation, free pensions and a stack of cash to spend as they please – for doing nothing!

"It's an absolute disgrace that refugees and immigrants are allowed into the country and given benefits paid from my tax money, and yours," says Cheryl. “The government should shut the gates immediately.”

"The welfare cash cow is crumbling under the sheer number of people receiving benefits," says Cheryl, "and add the immigrants and refugees to our own needy people – the unemployed, the single parents, the disabled and the elderly - and it's obvious that something has to give."

"The welfare system was never intended to service so many people," says Cheryl, "and be damned if I am going to slave my guts out and pay increasingly more tax in order to help people who should never have been allowed into the country to start off with.”

“Most of all, though, I am terribly worried that when my husband and I – or our children – may need to draw upon the welfare system we’ve been paying into for years, that nothing is left,” explains Cheryl. “Immigrants just don’t understand, or don’t care, that the benefits they are given come from the tax we pay – it’s not ‘free’ money from the government.”

Read more from Cheryl on this subject:

the welfare cash cow

swing to communism to create jobs?

are all immigrants voracious?

Dorcas has yet to meet an immigrant who isn't voracious and maintains that voracity is not necessarily a bad thing if you want to build a new nation -- like America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- but it's deadly for an established nation and led to the downfall of both the Roman and the British empires.

"At first it must have been novel for the indigenous Romans to have strange looking and speaking people making Rome their new home --new cuisine, fashion, ideas and cheap labor must have been a good thing," says Dorcas, “but over time, when more and more immigrants arrived, the indigenous Romans started to feel threatened."

"For starters, jobs for the poorer Romans disappeared -- it's always the working class that suffer first from immigration," sighs Dorcas, "but when native born immigrant children started strutting their stuff, demanding power and glory, the middle and higher classes of Romans started to suffer, too."

"In its imperial endeavors, the USA learned much from the mistakes of Rome and Britain," says Dorcas, "but being a nation built from scratch by voracious immigrants and tortured slaves it has a history to live down rather than live up to."

"Let's face it," says Dorcas, "Rome and Britain gave their empires as much, if not more, than they took -- think of roads and railways as well as citizenship -- and there was glory in what they did, definitely a history for present-day Italians and Brits to take pride in and look up to, even if they must suffer the indignity of being has-beens on the world stage – left with just the ruins of their past glories after voracious immigrants had moved in and taken over."

Read more by Dorcas on this issue:

social cohesion and survival

the empire strikes back

did roman citizenship cost the empire?

Let’s follow Japan on immigration

immigrants and social norms

Noor is an immigrant from a repressive regime and she is confused by her new government's insistence that everyone must now give up existing freedoms in order to fit into a new social norm.

"What I love about this country is its diversity and its freedoms," says Noor. "What are these social norms I keep hearing about and why must we give up our diversity and freedoms in order to fit into them?"

"It seems to me that when 'social norms' are construed they are done so by the government in cahoots with vested interests and the losers in these deals are us, the general public, who have no say in the matter, no seat at the table."

"Oh, yes, of course we have the honor of electing our representatives in government," laughs Noor, "but I quickly learned when I came here that no one person can possibly represent the diverse people in his or her electorate and has no illusion about doing so."

"In the end, a democratically elected representative is no better or worse than one placed in power by a dictator," says Noor, "and the only reason they seek such positions is to exercise power over mere mortals like us."

"If anything they do actually benefits us, it is merely coincidental," laughs Noor, "and when two lobby groups are pushing their agendas there is rarely a rational conclusion -- a compromise -- which satisfies both. The government goes with whichever lobby group pays more. It's as simple as that,"

"The only real difference between a democracy and a dictatorship -- apart from the illusion of elections -- is that a dictator makes no bones about what he wants," says Noor. "He makes all decisions, up front, and is not unduly influenced by lobby groups. His appearance, manners and thoughts constitute the 'social norm' that all follow slavishly."

"So, in relation to social norms," explains Noor, "there is no doubt about what is expected of you in a dictatorship. In a democracy, however, what is socially acceptable one day can be socially unacceptable the next -- according to which lobby group pays more -- and you don't know where you stand from one day to the next."

"Okay," laughs Noor. "Maybe I exaggerate about social norms changing from day to day, but you get my drift, right?"

"Your country -- my new country -- has a history of this sort of change and cannot understand, perhaps, how difficult it is for immigrants from repressive regimes to adapt to a culture of constant change."

"When my family first came here we saw diversity and freedoms we never before imagined," explains Noor. "It took us a long time to understand that this diversity and freedom was the 'social norm' of the time, and that things were constantly changing."

"A freedom today can be taken away tomorrow, and what was restricted yesterday can be a freedom today."

"This is all very well, but it worries me that more and more of the freedoms my family enjoy are being taken away and life here, in those respects, is becoming more repressive than the life we once had elsewhere."

"Take the freedom to smoke, for instance," says Noor. "In our old country it is something we have done for centuries -- long before your country was discovered. Smoking, to us -- especially our menfolk -- is like eating. It is so normal for us that it would be abnormal to come across a man who did not smoke. "

"We don't drink alcohol, it is against our religion, but we are happy that everyone else has the freedom to do so," says Noor. "Similarly, we are more restrictive with our women in respect to clothing, marriage and behavior, but we are happy that other women have the freedom to do as they please."

"We have assimilated very well into our new country and have not met with any discrimination whatsoever -- until the smoking bans came into force."

"This does not affect me directly because I don't smoke," says Noor, "but it distresses my father and my brothers because they are heavy smokers and are having tremendous difficulty fitting in with the new non-smoking 'social norm'."

"There was no discussion of the matter and no compromise either," sighs Noor. "The anti-smoking lobby gained precedence over the tobacco lobby and suddenly workplaces, public spaces, airlines, public transport and restaurants became non-smoking."

"Had a compromise been achieved with separate smoking rooms or areas, nobody would have been inconvenienced," says Noor, "but a total ban turned my father and brothers into pariahs and criminals, just like that!"

"Where is the democracy in this new 'social norm'? Where is the respect for the civil rights of smokers?"

"All of a sudden, decent people who loved my father and brothers turned against them, accusing them of being poisoners," sighs Noor. "They were told that non-smokers had a right to clean air, everywhere, and smoking was no longer acceptable."

"The air now belongs to non-smokers, it has their ownership tag on it," sighs Noor, "and pretty soon they will start smelling vehicle exhaust fumes and factory chimneys and perfumes and want to ban them, too."

"I believe that every job and every environment comes with its pollutants," says Noor, "and it's illogical to ban one pollutant or one hazard without banning the others."

"What would happen to the economy if everyone refused to work in places with potentially damaging pollutants or hazards? asks Noor. "What job doesn't come with health risks? I am a hairdresser and I work with a lot of dangerous chemicals -- I take reasonable precautions but accidents happen."

"My sister is allergic to vehicle fumes and cannot travel without suffering extreme discomfort," says Noor, "yet she accepts that other people have a right to pollute the air she breathes with their vehicle fumes. She, and others like her, could possibly form a lobby group and gain enough financial support to sway the government into banning vehicles from densely populated areas."

"It sounds crazy, I know, but this is exactly what the anti-smoking lobby has done."

"Okay, the 'social norm' is now a non-smoking one, and in time the smokers who stay here will be forced to adapt," says Noor, ''but my father and brothers do not believe that such a decision should have been made without the input of smokers and feel they are living in a dictatorship worse than the one they left. They are even considering moving the family back to the old country, and this distresses me terribly."

"They want to know why they should be forced to adapt to someone else's new-fangled social norm," sighs Noor, "and I can see their point of view. Non-smoking wasn't the social norm when they made the decision to make this country their new home, and they are rightfully angry."

"They are prepared to compromise on the issue to make the non-smokers happy -- to smoke in designated areas," says Noor, "but even that civil right has been taken away from them. Soon, they say, there will be no smoking in private vehicles and premises."

"Coming from a regime that repressed freedom of speech, this sort of dictatorial 'social norm' is abhorrent to my father and brothers," says Noor. "It is dictatorial to force a group of people to fit in with another group's ideas about what is normal and what isn't, and it is hateful to vilify and criminalize people for something they've always done and is part of an ancient culture."

"I can appreciate that social norms can and do change in a democratic society," says Noor, "but changing them by force with false, frightening and hate-mongering propaganda is something I didn't expect to happen here."

"It's usually a sort of fashion-statement thing led by trendsetters -- you know, a movie star shaves his head and hey presto! everyone is doing it and being bald is the new, trendy social norm for men."

"This non-smoking thing hasn't come from the people, it has been imposed from above in a dictatorial manner," says Noor, "and it has been accepted by the people based on the sort of fear and lies that evil applied psychologists use."

"This is what my father and brothers object to most," says Noor. "Had the non-smoking movement been started and led by the trendies it would have caught on naturally."

"The only 'face' of the non-smoking lobby we see is an ugly one -- full of hate, lies and a dictatorial manner," says Noor. "No wonder only the very weak smokers have quit. They cannot handle being 'de-normalized'. It is a cruel and unusual way to get someone to change their ways."

"The real cowards, however, are not the weak smokers but the anti-smoking lobby for not having the guts to show their faces, tell us their names and what their real agenda is," says Noor. "I don't mean the many people who've jumped on the bandwagon after the bans. I mean the small band of people who formed the initial lobby group. Does anyone know who these people are? They would have to be very rich, wouldn't they, to buy off the government?"

"Dictators in a repressive regime hold power not only by brutality," explains Noor. "They also need to have an incredible physical presence, beauty or charisma, otherwise people would take no notice of them."

"If these people, the initiators of the smoking bans, were required to face the public," says Noor, "I doubt very much that they would be the sort of people anybody in their right mind would want to follow. Ugly is as ugly does, right?"

Noor's story first appeared as ugly faces behind social norms and is reprinted with permission.

foreign doctors and female patients

Arleen believes that increased immigration levels are responsible for increased interracial tensions, and it is on the personal level – in her dealings with medical professionals – that racial tension has become a matter of life and death fears.

"Undoubtedly, the majority of immigrant doctors are good people and good physicians," says Arlene, "and yet we have been shocked by the actions of the doctors involved in the London and Glasgow terrorist events and women, particularly, have good grounds for feeling uncomfortable being treated by a man whose culture forbids such intimacy."

"Why would an immigrant doctor want to save your life when your country is responsible for killing so many of his people or when his holy book orders the killing of infidels?" asks Arlene. "Oh sure, all doctors are supposed to subscribe to the Hippocratic Oath but first and foremost they are human beings and whatever their culture or religion you never know what's going on in their heads and what diabolical agenda they may have."

"Thousands of hapless patients die or are maimed each week by the negligent or murderous actions of ordinary home-grown doctors," says Arlene. "Has everyone forgotten Dr Harold Shipman, the granny murderer, and Dr Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death at Auschwitz, and the 15 German physicians and scientists who were convicted at the Nuremberg Medical Trial?"

"When it comes to your life, you cannot be as cavalier about it as you are about your plumbing pipes," says Arleen, “and I really do fear for my life being treated by foreign doctors.”

"So, by all means bring in more immigrant plumbers and tradesmen," says Arlene, "but please limit the number of foreign students in our medical schools and tell foreign doctors wanting to work here that they should stay and look after their own people who, I believe, are still dying from diseases the West wiped out decades ago."

Read more by Arleen on this issue:

immigrant plumbers and doctors

Polish plumbers make great neighbours!

fear of foreign doctors

immigrant plumbers and doctors

Like many of us, Arleen has noticed that two professions – plumbing and doctoring – have become almost monopolized by immigrants these days, and while she is happy to have her pipes fixed by an immigrant plumber she is not too happy about having her body examined by an immigrant doctor, especially after terrorist immigrant doctors went on a rampage in London and Glasgow.

"Because we've all come from somewhere else -- if not in this generation then generations ago -- I am certainly not opposed to immigration," says Arleen, "but I do become concerned when certain nationalities monopolize professions, making it impossible for home grown kids to get a look in."

"In the case of plumbing, I think the Eastern European immigrants filled a void in the market because our kids didn't want to become plumbers," says Arleen. "They've all got much higher aspirations these days, and don't want to get their hands dirty, right?"

"In the case of medicine, if there is a void it is because our immigration levels have increased to extraordinary levels,” says Arleen. “Also, when you see a home-grown doctor you don't know if he is going to be another Harold Shipman or Josef Mengele, but chances are pretty good that he won't be.”

"Can you say the same about an immigrant doctor?"

Read more by Arleen on this issue:

Polish plumbers make great neighbours!

foreign doctors and female patients

fear of foreign doctors

culture proud, not racist

Yolanda married well and enjoys being a stay at home mom. With plenty of time on her hands during the day when her kids are at school, she does community work helping refugees.

"I wasn't born to lead a 9 to 5 life in an office," laughs Yolanda, "but I certainly don't waste my time on soaps or gossip. I fill my time with plenty of activities, one of which is helping refugees settle into the community."

"Ever since the 9/11 tragedy the world has been obsessed with Moslems and terrorism," says Yolanda, "but the cultural differences between radical Moslems and everyone else has been a problem in my community for as long as I can remember."

"Frankly I'm fed up with people calling me a racist when I am simply proud of my country, its culture and values," says Yolanda. "I am so proud to be an American and I am so grateful that this wonderful country gave refuge to my Italian grandparents."

"I live in a multi-racial community and people from every race and culture have settled down fine and assimilated well," says Yolanda, "all except for those following the radical Moslem faith who, mostly, do not want to be part of our community."

"Not only are most of these people separatist - wanting to benefit from our freedoms and wealth without embracing the culture that made such freedoms and wealth possible," says Yolanda, "but they are also openly disdainful of us and everything we believe in."

"I cannot understand why they would want to settle here when they hate us so much," sighs Yolanda. "And I cannot understand why our government permits them to settle here when they have no intention whatsoever of embracing our culture and values and becoming one of us."

"How can I be racist when I embrace people from all over the world?" asks Yolanda. "If anyone is racist it is those radical Moslems who feel that they are better than we are because of their religious beliefs."

"As far as I am concerned people can believe in whatever they want to believe in just as long as they don't try shoving it in my face or belittling me or my children or the community I live in," says Yolanda.

"Building mosques and sending their children to Moslem schools is not a problem," says Yolanda. "It becomes a problem when those mosques and schools are teaching their children to vilify non-Moslem people and cultures."

"My little girl has been called a 'whore' for wearing clothes that expose her midriff," says Yolanda. "And it angers me immensely when Moslem children actually born in our community are behaving like medieval aliens rather than regular kids."

"My heritage is Italian and I admit that my grandmother still wears a headscarf, black garb and follows her quaint old customs," confesses Yolanda, "but she was quite happy to allow my mother to adopt the customs and culture of the country that gave the family sanctuary after the 1939-45 war."

"That has been the case with every other immigrant nation except those from Moslem nations," says Yolanda. "You don't see Chinese girls in Mao suits or Indian girls in saris so why are Moslem girls born here forced by their parents to wear clothes that cover every part of their bodies bar their eyes?"

"You expect to see women and girls dressed like this in the country of their origin," says Yolanda, "but you don't expect to see them dressed like this at the local supermarket - or the beach - especially on a stinking hot day - and especially when their men are dressed normally."

"All last century, western women fought for equality in voting, pay, family planning and social acceptance," explains Yolanda, "and it breaks my heart to see these Moslem women clinging to a medieval male-dominated culture and wearing themselves out having anything up to twenty kids."

"Frankly, our toleration of their backward culture is damaging our community values, especially in relation to women."

"My husband urges me to get involved with something else - mainly because it's not a good topic for dinner parties - but I am determined to assert my beliefs against radical Moslems in my community," says Yolanda.

"The young Moslem boys actually think bin Laden is a hero," sighs Yolanda. "My husband says they are just kids and mouthing off and should be laughed at, but I think differently. I think it's abominable that we should tolerate such talk."

"At some primeval level I think a lot of western men admire bin Laden," says Yolanda. "Not because of his terrorist activities, but because of his seeming 'manliness' and oppression of women."

"The beard, for instance, is a symbol of manliness," says Yolanda, "and although nobody can see much of his face because of it he does seem to have the piercing eyes of Valentino, the old silent movie matinee idol, doesn't he?"

"I can understand his appeal to both men and women," says Yolanda, "but as far as I know there is nothing in the Koran that says women must be oppressed and wear head to toe garments."

"Look at how young boys are indoctrinated by radical religion in the Moslem culture," says Yolanda. "Don't tell me that that sort of indoctrination doesn't have devastating effects on their physical, mental and spiritual development."

"I don't believe any sane Moslem male lives in expectation of being given virgin girls and boys for his sexual pleasure upon death any more than any sane Christian believes in paradise," sighs Yolanda, "but when you are indoctrinated with such beliefs when you're young, who is to tell how your psyche is affected?"

"The radical Islam as preached by bin Laden and others like him is based upon male domination over women," explains Yolanda, "and it's also perverse, unnatural and so far out of touch with the 21st century that it's amazing that they can cling to such beliefs while driving fast cars and using modern technology. It's hypocritical!"

"Let's face it," says Yolanda, "if someone as rich as bin Laden and the other Moslem leaders truly wanted to alleviate suffering and misery in the Moslem nations then they would share their vast riches - but they don't. These guy aren't humanitarians in any shape or form and they are bad role models."

"I'm not saying that our leaders are better role models," adds Yolanda, "but at least they don't take all, give nothing and force us to seek refuge in other lands. Allah be praised for that! But if I were forced to seek refuge in Yemen, do you think they'd tolerate my western ways?"

"Of course they wouldn't, and neither would I be so arrogant that I'd expect them to," explains Yolanda, "and this is why I am so incensed by the behavior of the radical Moslems in my community. It has nothing to do with racism and when they point that racist finger at me I point it right back at them."

immigrants or colonists?

Modern history starts in the late 15th century, around the time that Columbus discovered America in 1492, and from then until today the world has seen a massive shift of populations that completely overshadows the Greek colonial expansion of c. 3,000 years ago -- by which the Greeks populated the entire Mediterranean coastline from North Africa to Europe -- as well as the original movement out of Africa of our ancestors millions of years ago.

Like the Greek migrants, the modern migrants were not only assisted in their migration by their homeland but were also closely tied to it and dependant upon it.

Technically, migrants, or emigrants, are people who leave their country of birth to live elsewhere; and immigrants are migrants who come to live in another country with a population different from theirs.

It is impossible to be an emigrant without being an immigrant, and yet even though the lands these people were colonizing had indigenous populations and, in most cases, great civilizations, none of them thought of themselves as anything other than Spanish, Dutch, French or English or whatever.

In effect, like the Greeks before them, these people were colonists -- they had no intention of integrating with the indigenous populations -- and they saw the new lands as extensions of their homelands.

While colonization or expansionism was a marked feature of the Hellenic civilization (1300 BC - 558 BC), the Polynesian civilization (500BC - 1775AD), the early Islamic civilization and the Ottoman civilization (1310 - 1919), none can compare with the voracious greed for more land, more subject populations and more wealth than the Western civilization during the period 1600 - 1900.

For 300 years from 1600 to 1900 the European nations, particularly England and Spain, dispatched hundreds of thousands of migrants to the new colonies.

The period from 1492 to 1918 represented the so-called golden era of Western civilization. It was marked by incredible advances in science and technology that fuelled the expansionist zeal of all of the European nations that, in turn, resulted in hundreds of thousands of mediocre 'civilized' Europeans becoming incredibly wealthy and powerful through the exploitation and enslavement of other nations considered by them to be 'uncivilized'.

From 1492 onwards, then, western civilization evolved into an aggressive super-civilization, characterized by an emphasis on:

colonization - the need for more land to house and feed excess populations, usually obtained by forceful occupation and subjugation of indigenous populations;

trade - the need to expand import and export markets;

resources - the need to find new animal, vegetable and mineral resources to fuel the old economy;

power and greed - the desire for wealth and cheap labor; and

racial superiority (a concept that marks all civilizations, not just the western civilization).

Although some very early colonists migrated in order to enjoy religious freedom, the overriding purpose of migrants from Europe was to make a fortune in the colonies in order to establish themselves back home.

A lot of migrants did achieve their purpose, returning in later life to their homelands to enjoy a luxurious retirement, but the majority of migrants either did not get rich or loved their new land so much that they did not wish to return home.

It was at this point, when the former colonists became settled, that new settlers became 'immigrants' and were expected to integrate.

Immigrants who refuse to integrate and arrive in large numbers from a particular nation are, in effect, assuming the guise of 'colonists' intending to take over control of the land and its peoples.

we are all migrants!

Anyone reading the current tirades about hordes of people on the move -- heading for a place near them -- might gain the impression that migration is something new, bad or 'foreign'. Far from it. We are all migrants!

Human beings, like all living creatures - animal or vegetable - are migratory. Either blown by the wind or migrating seasonally, like wildlife, there is an innate migratory feature in the human makeup, too.

And it should never be forgotten that we are animals. As David Suzuki reminds us, our taxonomic classification is: "Kingdom: Animalia; Phylum: Chordata; Class: Mammalia; Order: Primates; Family: Hominidae; Genus: Homo; Species: sapiens."

Recent DNA evidence supports the fossil and other evidence that modern humans - Homo sapiens - evolved from a common African ancestor who, because of the amazing fecundity of the Congo River system rainforest, was more likely to have originated in Equatorial Africa than in any other region.

Starting with the Family Hominidae, the first migrants were the descendants of the Pleistocene 'Adam and Eve' from whom we are all related. These were our Equatorial African ancestors who lived along the Congo River system between the Highlands of Cameroon and the East African mountain ranges in a land mass called Pangaea where all continents were joined - allowing easy migration to all corners of the present world.

Unlike the hairless, white-skinned, tall and perfectly formed Adam and Eve of Eden depicted in Judaic-Christian literature -- or the Enki and Ninhursag of Dimun depicted in the Sumeric literature
from which it derived -- our actual ancestors are likely to have been a lot hairier, blacker and less erect than the pygmies who still inhabit the Equatorial African region.

Our earliest ancestors, over millions of years, evolved into different species such as Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis and, possibly, Homo floresiensis - all of which co-existed at some point in history - but only Homo sapiens succeeded in surviving the cataclysmic geological and climatic events that may or may not have wiped out the others.

It's possible, of course, that Homo sapiens simply committed genocide and wiped out the other species in the same way that we now commit 'ethnic cleansing' on people we call 'immigrants' -- no matter how many centuries they've lived with us, or we with them -- because their appearance, culture or religion is different to ours.

If we all accepted the evidence of history that every one of us came from somewhere else originally, we may be better disposed to treat immigrants as one of us rather than as aliens.