Each phase of European Union enlargement has raised the spectre of mass migrations from poverty to prosperity. The prospect of new influxes has lately prompted concerns that western Europe will be unable to absorb such movements.
But Western Europe actually has a history of assimilating millions of immigrants, albeit with difficulty. That is why, following five centuries of intra-European migration, Europeans are a rather mixed people: one-quarter of French people, for instance, have a foreign-born parent or grandparent; in Vienna, the figure is 40 per cent. How did Europe achieve this integration?
Immigration hovers[20] in the penumbra[21] of official European history. If anything, Europe has traditionally thought of itself as a continent of emigration, not of immigration. Yet immigration is part of the landscape. In the 18th century, when Amsterdam built its polders and cleared its bogs, it brought in northern German workers. When the French built their vineyards, they employed Spaniards. When London built its water and sewerage infrastructure, the Irish provided the labour. In the 19th century, when Baron Haussmann rebuilt Paris, he brought in Germans and Belgians. When Germany built its railways and steel mills it used Italians and Poles.
This was not immigration on a small scale. Europe - not the Americas, as is usually thought - was the main destination for Italians in their century of emigration from 1876 to 1976. About 12.6m Italians went to other European countries, lm more than emigrated to non-European countries. And while the US was the country that received the largest number of Italians - with 5.7m - France was not that far behind, with 4.1m. Switzerland, smaller still, received 4m, Germany 2.4m and Austria 1.2m.
Three features of these migrations of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries are relevant today. One is the intensity and short duration - often about 15 years - of periods of high demand for immigrants. There is a strong possibility that Europe will need more immigrants - and sooner than Europeans think - given the continued demand for low-wage workers and the forecast that the population of the EU's 15 pre-enlargement members will have dropped by 88m by the end of this century. A second feature is the astounding capacity of European countries to absorb immigrants - more than 20m since the Second World War. The final feature is the extent to which big immigration flows - such as Turks and Moroccans - consisted disproportionately of groups - such as Kurds or Berbers - with strong reasons for leaving their home country.
What is clear from history is that most Europeans do not want to emigrate. The same trends can be expected when it comes to the EU's new members. Most emigrants are likely to be from very specific groups, such as the Roma, or, in a novel development, from among the middle-class young, who increasingly think of themselves as "Europeans". The Roma will come to stay, the young mostly to play for a while before returning home.
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From a modern perspective, these historic flows of immigrants look comparatively easy to handle. Most were moving from countries that are now long-term members of the EU. Today, migration between those countries is uncontroversial. But in their time, such movements were a much more sensitive issue. These migrants were the outsiders - they looked different and they had different cultures. Although, over the centuries, many of today's EU citizens can trace themselves back to these migrations, when they arrived in their new countries, they seemed overwhelmingly alien to the inhabitants. Anti-immigrant sentiment was common.
Today, these same religious, racial and cultural differences are invoked[22] by those who believe assimilation of immigrants is impossible. The historical record suggests Europeans were equally negative about those who today are considered insiders: German and Belgian workers in France, Italians in Germany, and so on.
Europe's highly developed sense of civic and political community meant that the division between insiders and outsiders was clear. To incorporate newcomers required work and it took generations to achieve; to contemporaries, it often seemed an impossible task. The key to this struggle was political innovation. Indeed, this is the enduring legacy of assimilation of outsiders: it forced nationals of European countries to develop and strengthen their civic and political institutions. Europe's highly regarded burghers started out as outsiders, fighting for rights against the nobility. Every big immigration phase pushed Europeans to invent legal instruments to handle the matter. Immigrants today are part of the complex, highly heterogeneous "We" of any developed society. Racism is still alive and well, but so are membership rights.
Europeans' highly developed sense of political membership made it hard to absorb new immigrants, but it also forced them to come up with formal rules for including outsiders. Such innovation was part of the fight against the many natives who used existing institutions to argue against inclusion. In many ways, the history of the EU's development is the ultimate example of this effort.
Public debate today neglects this history of hard civic, political and legal work. In the past, we crafted incorporation over decades. But these days - when products and services are readily available to tackle just about any problem - the expectation seems to be that, if there is not an instant solution, there is no solution at all.
The writer, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, is author of Guests and Aliens (The New Press)
Culture
bog an area of ground that is always wet and soft.
mill a factory where a product such as cotton, wool, or steel is made.
the nobility people in the highest social class who usually have titles, for example dukes, earls: of noble birth.
heterogeneous consisting of many different types of people or things; ant. homogeneous.
contemporary someone alive at the same time as a particular event or person.
astound to surprise or shock someone very much.
novel (adj) new or unusual (a novel solution to the problem.
Vocabulary
relevant (+to) important and connected directly to what is being discussed or considered; relevance (relevancy) (+of) (n): of relevance to sth.
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absorb to make a small group, organization etc become part of a larger one: absorb sth into sth to allow ideas, methods etc to become part of your own way of thinking or culture; absorbed (adj) (+in) interested or involved in sth; absorbing (adj) very entertaining; absorption (n) (+of, into).
sensitive reacting strongly or emotionally; needing to be dealt with carefully; needing to be protected, or kept secret; showing that you care about someone or something (+to); sensitively (adv); sensitivity (n).
trace to find sth or sb that you are looking for by asking questions and getting information: trace sb to sth, to trace sth back to sth to discover the origin of something or how it developed; trace (n): disappear/vanish without trace; a trace of.
overwhelming much larger, stronger etc than anything else in a situation: overwhelming majority; overwhelming odds; overwhelming desire, emotion, feeling, need, sense; overwhelmingly (adj); overwhelm (v) - to affect someones emotions in a very powerful way, to surprise someone very much; to defeat an opponent especially by a lot of points, goals.
enduring lasting for a long time; endure (v) to suffer sth unpleasant or difficult in a patient way over a long period; endurable (adj); endurance (n) the ability to continue doing sth physically difficult or unpleasant for a long period: beyond endurance.
legacy money or property that you arrange for someone to have after you die; sth such as tradition or problem that exists as a result of sth that happened in the past (+of); sth that someone has achieved that continues to exist after they stop working or die, ex. A legacy of out imperial past: legacy system a computer system that is still used although it is no longer the most modern or advanced, because it would be very expensive or difficult to replace it.
instant (adj) immediate, ex. instant solutions; prepared in a very short time (about food or drink), usually by adding some hot water, ex. instant coffee/soup; instant messaging the activity of communicating with sb directly over the Internet and replying to their messages as soon as they arrive; (n) an extremely short period of time, that ends almost immediately, moment: in an instant, at the particular instant; instantly (adj) - immediately.
1. Do you think the writer would agree with the following statements?
- Mass immigration is always intrinsically connected with political oppression.
- Though Europe has always been considered the continent of emigration, it has a long history of large scale immigration.
- The process of assimilation was simpler in the past.
- Thanks to highly developed sense of civic and political rights the division between the insiders and outsiders was clear.
- Modern European society is homogeneous.
- There is a host of quick and simple solutions to the problem of immigration.
