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jbbar
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5800 days ago
192 posts - 210 votes 
Speaks: English
| Message 33 of 60 02 May 2009 at 8:34pm | IP Logged |
Recht wrote:
| Those are some very unpopular views that you hold, I'm guessing. Correct? |
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Oh, depends on who you're talking to. I would say that such views and opinions are repressed, rather.
jbbar
Edited by jbbar on 02 May 2009 at 8:41pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Recht
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5801 days ago
241 posts - 270 votes
Speaks: English*, GermanB1
| Message 34 of 60 02 May 2009 at 8:39pm | IP Logged |
jbbar wrote:
Recht wrote:
[QUOTE=jbbar]Those are some very unpopular views that you
hold, I'm guessing. Correct? |
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Oh, depends on who you're talking to. I would say that such views and opinions are
repressed, rather.
jbbar |
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good enough. Greetings from an American of partial Flemish descent :)
1 person has voted this message useful
| jbbar
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5800 days ago
192 posts - 210 votes
Speaks: English
| Message 35 of 60 02 May 2009 at 8:41pm | IP Logged |
Chung wrote:
| When you live in a country or region whose current population comprises a lot of recent immigrants, it's foolish/impractical to think that these recent immigrants will automatically feel at home with the history or culture of the new nation. In the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, it's common for people who have been in these lands for up to 2 or 3 generations to say that their national identity is still that of the ancestral homeland rather than "American", "Canadian", "Australian" or "New Zealander". It's not wrong and it only shows that they're conscious about their past and not quite able to drop all of the old affiliations regardless of whether they can speak the ancestors' language or not. |
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The New World would not exist if it weren't for the people who were fed up with the Old World and wanted to move. In the case of such countries, I can understand that it's not problematic to hold to your ancestral identity. However, it can become quite problematic in smaller nations that were not formed by immigration, such as the nations of Europe, especially when people disregard the laws of our country and retain a double nationality (hence, to what nation is their allegiance?). In America, a person of foreign origin will also be proud to actually be American and call himself this-or-that American. This is very often not at all the case with many immigrants to European countries, where people feel quite indifferent to their new 'homeland'.
jbbar
1 person has voted this message useful
| jbbar
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5800 days ago
192 posts - 210 votes
Speaks: English
| Message 36 of 60 02 May 2009 at 8:50pm | IP Logged |
Recht wrote:
jbbar wrote:
Recht wrote:
[QUOTE=jbbar]Those are some very unpopular views that you
hold, I'm guessing. Correct? |
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Oh, depends on who you're talking to. I would say that such views and opinions are
repressed, rather.
jbbar |
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good enough. Greetings from an American of partial Flemish descent :) |
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So I take it you must be Recht Flanders? ;-)
Nice to meet you.
jbbar
1 person has voted this message useful
| Jar-ptitsa
Triglot
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5898 days ago
980 posts - 1006 votes
Speaks: French*, Dutch, German
| Message 37 of 60 02 May 2009 at 8:55pm | IP Logged |
Chung wrote:
| Why in the hell is this thread degenerating into a session for bashing America? |
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Who's bashing America? I don't bash it at all, or have I to write that the US is perfect?
Quote:
Pauline / Jar-ptitsa, live outside Europe for a bit or at least open your eyes. The mechanistic approach of
assigning nationality based on birthplace or competency in the "national language" does not hold up very well.
For example, Franz von Suppe was a composer who was born and grew up in Dalmatia (what is now Croatia) to a
family of what is considered to be Belgian extraction, and spent most of his adult life in Vienna composing and
interacting only in German. What do you consider him to be? Belgian? Croatian? Dalmatian? Austrian? It doesn't
admit a cut-and-dried answer as your approach dictates. |
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My eyes are open. Open *your* eyes, not just dictate we must all agree with the amercians and that they've all
guns and shoot everyone. Look to the statistic of gun deaths.
Franz von Suppé was European. What he fell I don't know, proabbly Dalmatian and Belgian.
I do NOT propose cut-and-dried answers, but it's ridiculous when a monolingual anglophone amercian whose
great-great-onemillion of time ---great-great-grandfather immigrated from Italy, say that "I'm Italian". Thsi is
my opinion and it's allowed to have my opinion.
Quote:
When you live in a country or region whose current population comprises a lot of recent immigrants, it's
foolish/impractical to think that these recent immigrants will automatically feel at home with the history or
culture of the new nation. In the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, it's common for people who have
been in these lands for up to 2 or 3 generations to say that their national identity is still that of the ancestral
homeland rather than "American", "Canadian", "Australian" or "New Zealander". It's not wrong and it only shows
that they're conscious about their past and not quite able to drop all of the old affiliations regardless of whether
they can speak the ancestors' language or not. |
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*RECENT* immigrnats is another thing, for example your parents (or grand-parenst, if all four) but 200 years
ago it's RIDICULOUS. The recent immigrants, yes, it's natural because their parents had this language and
culture, then the person can say "I am born in the US and my parents are Italians".
Edited by Jar-ptitsa on 02 May 2009 at 8:55pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7156 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 38 of 60 02 May 2009 at 9:03pm | IP Logged |
jbbar wrote:
Chung wrote:
| When you live in a country or region whose current population comprises a lot of recent immigrants, it's foolish/impractical to think that these recent immigrants will automatically feel at home with the history or culture of the new nation. In the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, it's common for people who have been in these lands for up to 2 or 3 generations to say that their national identity is still that of the ancestral homeland rather than "American", "Canadian", "Australian" or "New Zealander". It's not wrong and it only shows that they're conscious about their past and not quite able to drop all of the old affiliations regardless of whether they can speak the ancestors' language or not. |
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The New World would not exist if it weren't for the people who were fed up with the Old World and wanted to move. In the case of such countries, I can understand that it's not problematic to hold to your ancestral identity. However, it can become quite problematic in smaller nations that were not formed by immigration, such as the nations of Europe, especially when people disregard the laws of our country and retain a double nationality (hence, to what nation is their allegiance?). In America, a person of foreign origin will also be proud to actually be American and call himself [I]this-or-that[/I] [B]American[/B]. This is very often not at all the case with many immigrants to European countries, where people feel quite indifferent to their new 'homeland'.
jbbar |
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That's the subtlety that Pauline has been overlooking. What you describe in Europe is true when it comes to hyphenated nationalities unless a person's parents come from different ethnic backgrounds (even then cases like Chopin's or Copernicus show that it doesn't always apply. The former is considered even by the French to be a Polish composer, while the latter tends to be considered as a Polish astronomer even though his mother would probably be considered in modern terms to be German. There's usually disputing of his ethnicity among Polish and German nationalists).
The trend towards hyphenated identity in those English-speaking countries (e.g. x-American, y-Canadian etc.) has been growing but it's propagated by the federal government (which is not surprisingly, since these governments have a certain interest to insinuate some kind allegiance in these newcomers and the obvious tag is to stick "-American"/"-Canadian" etc.). However to decry the practice of Italian-Americans calling themselves simply "Italian" has little meaning since it's not a question of being "right" or "wrong" about declaring some kind of allegiance. I read somewhere that nationality or ethnicity can be part of the idea of imagined communities and classifications on these lines cannot be always judged as being something rigidly binary.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Jar-ptitsa
Triglot
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5898 days ago
980 posts - 1006 votes
Speaks: French*, Dutch, German
| Message 39 of 60 02 May 2009 at 9:04pm | IP Logged |
jbbar wrote:
Why is it necessary to bring in politics in this topic? I am an "European" citizen and I disagree with your pro-gun
control views. I also don't find the USA backward just because it has the death penalty. I find it quite ridiculous
that law-abiding citizens in a free country should be banned or controlled if they possess a firearm, but top
criminals get the best lawyers to defend them. In good old Europe it's [de facto] a crime to defend your family
and property and child molesters don't have to fear execution, they can even access child porn from jail these
days if they want. Prison guards can't use force to make the vilest gangsters comply but top criminals of which
half could have been sent back to their country of origin, or would be on death row if they were in America, can
freely beat the crap out of the guards. The government is supposed to be in the business of safe-guarding the
rights and liberties of its citizens. When the government chooses to disregard the right of law-abiding people
and forsakes justice, then the people have the right to defend themselves. You can't realistically rely on
government to keep you safe anyway, unless you want to live in an Orwellian world. Mercy for the guilty is
cruelty to the innocent, as Adam Smith said.
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I agree that the punishment in Europe is not always sufficient punishment, for example Fritsl. I have never said
that in Europe the things are perfect!!!!! WHY the people think that if you can see the faults in the US for
example guns, death penalty, that you consider it in Europe faultless? I don't rely on the government to keep me
safe, of course not. You say that it's ridiculous that in Euroep the top criminals get the best lawyers, in the US
also, but then the jury are manipulated for example Simpson.
Quote:
Returning to the original topic, I consider myself Flemish and a Westerner. I don't believe there is such a
thing as "the" European - I feel just as close to Australians as to Lithuanians (just by way of example). I don't
think continentally but more in terms of similar ethnicity or shared background. To be more precise, I don't feel
a bond with Europe but I do feel a bond with Western civilization, which is European in origin but goes beyond
Europe. So to me, an Australian or an American can basically be just as close as a person from Portugal or
Belarus.
jbbar |
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I agree completely: I feel more close to the Australians that the Russians or romanians. BUT the amercian
culture's different.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Jar-ptitsa
Triglot
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5898 days ago
980 posts - 1006 votes
Speaks: French*, Dutch, German
| Message 40 of 60 02 May 2009 at 9:06pm | IP Logged |
jbbar wrote:
Recht wrote:
Those are some very unpopular views that you hold, I'm guessing. Correct?
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Oh, depends on who you're talking to. I would say that such views and opinions are repressed, rather.
jbbar |
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VLAAMS BLOK I suppose.
1 person has voted this message useful
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