h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There is an instinct in all of us to be wary of other groupings. (groupings being the operative word, because it does not apply to individuals). This wariness, if allowed to run wild, becomes hate. It takes awareness and a certain maturity to realise that there is no need to harbour any hatred for the Scots/Asians/Catholics etc etc as a group. After all, a group is made up of individuals, and as Northern Ireland or Yugoslavia or Israel have shown us, individual people get on fine until someone turns them against each other as a group.

Having said that - it can possibly be disputed that Asians were given council housing more readily in Oldham, but here in Germany the Eastern Europeans (Mainly from Russian Republics, especially Kasachstan) were given 10,000 DM a head to come into the country. People were practically digging up their grandparents and bringing huge families into Germany. With the generous gifts they received they were mostly able to build houses within months and, of course, started claiming all benefits they were entitled to. These "Russians" actually have German passports, but have spent the last three generations in exile. You can only recognise them as Russians on closer examination, or by their accents.

We have a large Russian community right near us, and since they have settled, the police have been called out most nights. (Taxpayers money again). I have no grudge against these people, and the ones I know are nice, quiet, hard-working people. But multiply what is happening in our 2000-bod village with whatever factor you require to relate it to somewhere the size of Berlin, then I can understand people getting cross about it.

The thing is, the people who are cross about it are (one imagines, correct me if I'm wrong) not great taxpayers themselves - so what's their problem? Probably back to square one: Their attitude to other races is: they're different -> they unsettle us -> we hate them.

PS. I've just remembered where I went into this subject before. Believe it or not it was in the New Smileys discussion. Caused some raised eyebrows there.

this is becoming a great little read.