So-called ‘migrant crisis’

I've just read through all this thread - a good discussion, I can't add any more.
Except that in the past there have been years of drought in Africa and other places, and the population just died. Then the drought ended and the countries re-populated.
We don't know yet whether this climate change is going to be temporary or not.

Jane10
I think I understand what your saying. My daughter had exactly the same situation as Chewbacca's family.
This family lived next door to my daughter and it became known that they were offended by my granddaughter not wearing a top (age 6/7) in the garden.
My daughter has now moved and there are 3 families from the Indian sub continent near her (one next door) these people are all professionals. The relationships are very different to where she moved from.

Chewbacca what a sad story. That poor little girl. Maybe there's something about that particular family. Certainly, when my children were at school we had social comings and goings with children from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. However, typically, the parents were educated professionals. They had gone through all the legal routes into the country. Not sure what I'm saying here though!

I'm not a lefties or a liberal.I have made an effort to mix with people from different cultures. I should not have resorted to insulting a poster on this thread.I don't know how EV knows millions of people hate the UK or how Gabriella knows people from Sudan treat women badly and are a drain on society.

Yes the conditions of agricultural workers in any country should be scrutinised- many of them are awful. As an EU member we should certainly have been campaigning for improvements. No problem with that. But don’t expect that if we are getting cheaper food from further away the workers there will have not been exploited in some way.

petra

but we will give them a better deal than the eu one which protects Spain (mostly) which makes some produce more expensive for us.

33 African countries (out of 54) couldn't possibly get a better deal with the UK than with the EU because they are part of the EU Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative which means that they can export anything, except, arms tariff free to the EU

List can be found here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_Developed_Countries

Some detail of EBA here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_but_Arms

Of course, this applies to all the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) which trade with the EU, of which thee are more than just the African ones (see first link), 47 countries in total.

I have some small experience of a reluctance to integrate socially, but I make no claim that this is anything other than personal experience and is very possibly not idiomatic of a particular culture. My son and his family live on a small housing estate that has many young families; there is a small infants and juniors school nearby, which most of the children on the estate attend. One of my son's neighbours is Asian, Pakistani I think, but I'm not certain. They have a little girl who is in the same class as my GD and they're good friends at school. GD, and her class mates, have had many birthday parties between them that all the class pupils are invited to. But the neighbour's little girl has never attended a single one of them, even though invitations are given to her and her parents. DIL has personally asked the parents if S****a can attend and has promised that she will be well cared for and the parents can stay during the party if they prefer. But the answer is always no. S****a is a lovely little girl and I feel so sorry for her that she can see and hear her class mates having a party in a nearby garden; but she can't join in, not even for half an hour. After school play dates are neither accepted nor offered. School holidays, playing in the garden on the trampoline; S*****a is not allowed to join in.

Slowly, the invitations to parties, play dates, after school tea and trips to the park are beginning to dry up because its becoming accepted that all invitations will be rebuffed. My son and DIL have tried very hard to get to know the family but they feel that a barrier has been put up and there's no crossing it. It seems such a waste of an opportunity for different cultures to get to know one another; to understand each other's ways and to show children that tolerance of all cultures is to be encouraged. And if we're not doing that with children, this cultural divide and lack of tolerance and understanding of each other's ways of life will continue to grow and increase the "us and them" situation that is causing so many problems now.
There has to be some give and take on all sides and a willingness to get to know your neighbour, no matter what their skin colour, where they're from or what God they pray to. Division isn't all one sided.

Possibly you have been treated by a medic of Iranian or Iraqi heritage
I know this wasn't a comment to me oldbatty, but it struck a chord. Yes, I have, but she did not arrive here illegally on a boat.

Jalima that was just an example of why giving aid actually benefits us here in the UK. I could have mentioned the women’s cooperatives in India or the midwife and local teacher training programme, etc.

As far as you are concerned EV I really CBA’d to reply to such a silly post. Sorry,

I'll try another way petra:
www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/travel-diary-almeria/

I don't think the link has worked, sorry petra

I had tried copying and pasting, then putting [[ ]] around.

I want to make people understand that boxing ourselves into tiny cubbies based on class, race, ethnicity, religion—anything, really—comes from a poverty of mind, a poverty of imagination. The world is dull and cruel when we isolate ourselves.

It's a very noble theory but that is all it is.

Look at every big city in the UK. There are Asian enclaves in all of them, where people who share culture, religion, traditions, history, ethnicity, etc, congregate and live. In every single city, minorities find each other - and that is perfectly understandable.

There is integration of a sorts, at work and in day to day dealings in the workplace but when people go home they like to be surrounded by people who understand them.

Multiculturalism is a fine ideal, but social engineering is sinister. I have no worries living in a multicultural society but the barriers and boundaries exist, and liberals pretend they don't. That tends to be how people of all races and culture like it.

There is no open animosity - for most people that doesn't exist - but we all get on with our lives in ways that are traditional and familiar.

And I will also add, thank goodness, the majority of posters did not hurl insults, for that I’m relieved.

I’m saddened to read this thread. If Gransnetters can’t discuss without insults, I’m not sure how the wider situation of migrants re European populations can get along. Some of the comments on this thread have made me ashamed of my age group. And no, don’t ask me to repeat them because I won’t. And I might add, the comments came from supporters of both sides of the argument.

Thank you, Jalima

timeshttps://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/travel-diary-almeria/

Another link that didn't work

Here here Jalima.
Not much point in pointing out the horrors of the poly tunnel workers. Out of sight, out of mind
These pics don't show the worst, which I've witnessed many many timeshttps://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/travel-diary-almeria/

Does it not make you angry, MaizieD, to see the plight of many Africans in various countries on that continent, when they have the resources to end their misery?

I think you're playing Devil's Advocate.

I take it, then, Maizie, that you are not keen on African countries becoming less corrupt, growing food and helping each other.
They may be different countries on that continent (we didn't need that pointing out btw) but so are the disparate countries of Europe yet we did manage to join together and help each other and try to bring the poorer ones up to a higher standard.

Would it be better for 153 million potentially starving people from African countries to come to Europe or would it be better for that continent to pull together and start to co-operate to use their vast resources and potential to help each other?

Well I for one would rather get food from Holland or Spain and pay their farmers a decent whack than from somewhere in Africa where you’d have to pay them a lot less to make it worth the increased cost of transportation, and what about the impact on the environment. It’s just crazy.
crystaltipps did you see the programme about the huge areas of polytunnels in Spain from where we get our fruit, our tomatoes - and the plight of the migrant workers from Africa who are exploited there?
It was absolutely appalling and heartbreaking.
The other face of the EU.

Africa's biggest exports are palm-oil, diamonds, oil and timber and Spain has fallen to second place for our orange imports.
I doubt we'd want to import more palm-oil, given the recent thread on the subject. Diamonds are purportedly a girl's best friend but not purse friendly. Oil? We'll always need oil but most of ours is from the Middle East and Russia (correct me if I'm wrong)
Africa's timber trade is mostly with China but I think that Africa's government doesn't share the spoils of trade equally over all areas, neither do we.

Found it.

I was looking online to see from which countries we import most of our food.
I wondered how much we imported from African nations. Apparently they export 90% of their wood to China and some of the food WE import is distributed to countries nearer to us (Holland etc) than the country we imported it from.
Some results are quite surprising.
I can't put a link from my phone but here are a couple of pie charts. Nope...they're pdf files so I'll post them after sending this

The truth is we are all humans , the truth is there are too many of us
The truth is that there is STILL total inequality throughout the World
The truth is that there is No Worldwide Consensus to implement basic equalities of food & shelter
The truth is words are meaningless if we can’t ensure that all humans are given the same chance to survive. Sadly I don’t see any determined effort throughout the world to accomplish this . In fact it is probably more unlikely now than it ever was.