We’re far too polite in this country. We talk of immigrants having a duty to integrate into society, for instance, but are too embarrassed to insist that they actually learn English, the essential prerequisite of integration. Instead, our public bodies go out of their way to provide expensive translation services. Last year, Crawley Borough Council spent £1,000 translating a single tenancy agreement into Urdu. Tameside Council’s website boasts of having access to a bank of interpreters covering more than 140 different languages, who can be on call for individuals “within 90 seconds”. These services are said to be required by equality and human rights laws, but this is “a myth. There is no legal duty for councils to translate.” If there were, the (Labour) Mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales, “would have been in gaol long ago”. A crusader for integration, he has cut translation by 72% and got rid of foreign-language newspapers from libraries. We should make other councils follow his example. Funding these services, while making major cuts to free English language lessons, makes no sense at all. (Clare Foges, The Daily Telegraph).
This comes from the right-wing Daily Telegraph, which is full of such stuff. But I have a feeling that, were Epicurus alive today, he would agree with the general sentiment. You cannot have a cohesive society if people can’t understand one another. Nor does ataraxia come easily or naturally when everyone is constantly misunderstanding one another. There are some natural building blocks of a culture, and speaking the native language is one of them.
There are some nasty neo-nazi rumblings in Germany, but Mrs. Merkel, accepting refugees, has it right – welcome them, take them in, but insist on spreading them round in small numbers throughout the country. Without big concentrations of foreign nationals people have to learn the language and integrate.
As someone from Crawley, this doesn’t surprise me at all. It was always a city very keen on promoting multiculturalism, when in reality (apart from a few select neighbourhoods), it wasn’t very multicultural at all. I suspect the reason why the Conservatives and UKIP did so well there this year, is because people were sick of the Labour council promoting diversity, when most people consider Britishness or Englishness to be more important.
Having said that, it’s important to make immigrants feel welcome. Of course they should be expected to learn English, but we need to place expectations on indigenous British people as well. Too often, we are taught to ‘tolerate’ immigrants, but that is a far cry from being accepted as equals. Many of them choose to live in immigrant neighbourhoods in the big cities, rather than make an effort to be British themselves, because they (quite rightly) believe that they will be unwelcome.
As for Mrs. Merkel’s response to the crisis, I don’t believe that she has done the right thing. Germany has hardly transported any refugees into the country, preferring to allow them to make the (extremely dangerous) journey themselves. But they (along with Sweden), have said that virtually anyone who reaches Germany can stay. This has turned Europe into a social-Darwinist dystopia, where the strongest and fittest- those who are able to make the journey- get the rewards. As for those too weak to make the journey, they get left behind. I prefer the approach of the British government: taking the refugees directly from Syria. I just think we haven’t taken in enough, preferring to allow in hundreds of thousands of economic migrants we don’t need.
One more thing: we should have free English lessons for immigrants for the first three years of their arrival. They do it in Denmark, it works a treat. Immigrants who can speak English well are more productive than those who don’t, so it wouldn’t be as expensive as you may think.