Sunday 10 June 2007

Europe's Invisible Illegals "What's unquestionably real are the numbers: Pakistanis and other South Asian Muslims are entering Europe at record levels. The reasons are many, and cumulative. Driven by poverty at home and sometimes by political oppression, they are drawn to the Continent by the prospect of jobs and freedom and the safe harbor offered by established Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities." "Barbarian" invasion Irrespective of the profound differences between the Roman Empire and the Europe of today, there are structural similarities between the mass migration then and now. While levels of cohesion at the communal level may be higher amongst immigrants, this should not distract us from the fact that their home countries are generally - and perhaps not unlike the Germanic tribes in Roman times - facing much more serious problems having to do with state break-up, economic hardship and crime than the West itself. The bottom line: The adjective "barbarian" is used by us in quotation marks to denote this said differential and not intended as a dismissive remark against non-western civilisations.