Immigration in South Korea

[Mugwump]

[Mugwump]

And how many muslim refugees did India and the others take in?

There is nothing so obvious that it cannot be misinterpreted when inconvenient.

[David]

[Mugwump]

[Wokko]

No terrorism issue in Poland, why is that?

[Pies4shaw]

Ummmm - because Poland is in South Korea?

[David]

[Mugwump]

[stui magpie]

[HAL]

I could but let's get back to that later.

[David]

[pietillidie]

As someone who knows South Korea and Korean culture, society and politics at depth, has lived in culturally-contrasting countries as an adult, has travelled Asia extensively, lives in a multicultural working class suburb side-by-side with Muslims, and lives in close proximity to troubled neighbours, many of whom are white, I...don't have enough the time or even motivation to comment in depth.

I would just say one's imagination of how things are elsewhere, including in sub-communities just down the street, can be extremely deceiving. It takes a concerted effort to go beyond the silly metaphors we store in our brains about ourselves, let alone the ones we store about distant others. As we saw with Iraq, it's very easy to get sucked into a whole world of fancies that don't accord with reality.

Recently, I've started to get a better sense of Muslim, Hindu, and West Indian families in my neighbourhood, among other groups. I find these folks to be warm and reassuring, reminisce of the Italian and Greek families I grew up with. I also encounter these folks in my work on a daily basis, and don't see anything unusual about them through these interactions. There's very little to see except the same old challenges of settlement, generational change and financial pressure I saw in immigrant communities as a kid, and which seem to have to turned out fine.

Last week, China was being unloaded upon in one thread. One thing I'm certain about is that everyday reality in China is nothing like the wild extrapolations we make from a few lines in the media. We don't judge Brits by Blair's invasion of Iraq, or the US by Trump's tweets, so why would we wave away the complexity of the lives of 1.4B Chinese folks on the basis of a report about Chinese government actions somewhere?

It seems to be understood that in our personal psychology we need to think optimistically and positively about things lest we fall into a destructive pit of despair. What seems less understood is that the same applies to the way we view the wider world around us. It is far too easy to whip ourselves into a paranoid frenzy by filtering in the negative about everything and everyone.

I speak with some experience on the latter. Yesterday, I lost it at the pub over the debacle which is Brexit. But the minute I bought into bitter conclusions about people who voted for Brexit, the minute I got sucked into unnecessary dark thoughts about others. That was a mistake on my part, and a waste of emotional energy best spent on something else.

[pietillidie]

I was referring to muslim refugees, not the native population that India has, and the reason for mentioning it was that it seems it's the west that has the pressure imposed to take in refugees with a culture incompatible with their own, yet the most populated countries on earth who have the capacity to absorb 100,000 refugees without a blink, take none.

Do you really think it's easier for the poorer and overcrowded to take on more refugees?

Also, you greatly underestimate the contribution of both Muslim and lower-income countries on this matter, if memory serves me correct.

Bad global contributors such as Japan don't lessen our responsibility; there is plenty of condemnation to go around, particularly after the mess of Afghanistan and Iraq.

[Mugwump]

[pietillidie]

^What do you mean when you use the term "mass immigration", Mugwump? You use it quite a lot.