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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Lacelle who wrote (15896)	2/2/2000 5:01:00 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

I see you're a Gaia freak, aren't you? Excerpt from the aforementioned paper: One danger inherent in such Gaian sociobiology is that human rights can all too easily be rendered secondary to considerations of "social" stability, as defined by Gaians. Commenting in an earlier work on the civil strife that has historically racked Northern Ireland, for example, Goldsmith has insisted that Catholics and Protestants constitute separate and implacably opposed "tribal groups", whose differences are now culturally insurmountable; the only lasting solution therefore lies in splitting the two communities apart, forcibly if necessary. Writing three years after the most recent era of "Troubles" flared in 1968, Goldsmith argued: "The Catholics and the Protestants in Northern Ireland . . . constitute two distinct ethnic groups, of different origin, with different manners and traditions and different motivations and capacities. They could occupy the same geographic area and form a single society if they were capable of living in cultural symbiosis with each other, which they have done up to now. The Catholics, however, are no longer willing to fill the lower echelons of the economic hierarchy, as the cultural pattern which previously enabled them to do so has largely broken down. The only remaining solution is to separate them territorially. Ataturk separated Greeks and Turks very successfully, although there was a terrible outcry at the time and it undoubtedly caused considerable inconvenience to the people who were forced to migrate. But should we not be willing to accept measures of inconvenience in order to establish a stable society?" Entirely missing from such an account is any sense that the "differences" in Northern Ireland are not reducible to those between "Catholics" and "Protestants". Moreover, it is not possible to categorise the peoples of Northern Ireland into such broad, homogenised camps. Not all Catholics are "Nationalists" (supporters of a united Ireland), nor are all Protestants "Unionists" (supporters of continued membership of the United Kingdom). The experience of Unionist and Republican politics also differs radically for men and women, whilst class differences may mean that middle-class Catholics have more in common with middle-class Protestants than with their working class co-religionists - and vice versa. Even those class differences obscure wide divergences between and amongst individuals as to how they approach the conflict - and their willingness, or unwillingness, to renegotiate existing political structures. [snip] Now, John, how can you tell chimps from baboons in this Irish snafu??!? Oh, and if you really can, why not give Senator George Mitchell a buzz? --sure he'll appreciate your Gaian theory in troubleshooting the US-sponsored peace process in Northern Ireland....

To: John Lacelle who wrote (15896)	2/2/2000 6:50:00 AM
From: MNI	Respond to of 17770

Humbug! they deny German Citizenship to anyone not of the racial group Race is not a matter in German citizenship, or in the process of becoming a citizen, when you aren't. It is true that people who claim German (that is cultural, at most ethnic, but not racial) ancestry and drop in from, say Eastern Europe or Central Asia, don't need to become German citizens: they already are. In some cases it may take some time to make sure their claims are appropriate, otherwise it is just a matter of being registered and having the passport printed. This fast track to full citizen rights is often seen as unjust compared to people who cannot or do not claim German ancestry. While I partly agree, it is also true that among those recently arrived under the above-mentioned terms, there is paramount fear and resentment against ethnically non-German German citizens and ethnically non-German applicants for German citizenship. I think it is a function of feeling a need to assert their rights while scrambling for a secure existence, it may be psychologically understandable, while not being a problem of legislation in the first place. Whatever that may mean it is clear that in almost every case those resentments will at least not be displayed anymore after only short time, namely when it has become clear that the native German population will take those, say, anti-Turkish, or anti-Yugoslavian, or anti-... resentments as a brandmark for Eastern, assertedly German, immigrants ... for correctness of understanding: As far as I know, a German passport ALWAYS includes full citizenship, but there may be a few who have been granted papers for their convenience while not (yet?) being eligible to citizenship... Apart from that there are two forms of legal residency in Germany. One is the so-called Aufenthaltsgenehmigung ('permit of stay') that is granted temporarilly to people who either don't wish to stay forever or are for the time being not eligible to the regular acquisition of the citizenship or political asylum. It is, in most cases, extensible ad ultimum. It is true that most reported conflicts come from decisions to not extend the Aufenthaltsgenehmigung any further, whatever the reasons may be. There is also a special form of Aufenthaltsgenehmigung that can usually be acquired only after several years of stay on temporary terms, and constitutes an unterminated and inalienable permit of stay. The second judicial term is the privilege to take a job (which requires a permit of stay, if you are not from the EU ). Once you have had that permit for eight years you can enter the regular acquisition of citizenship. Once that has been done, and if you haven't got a criminal record, the barriers for becoming a German citizen usually are higher in your former home country than in Germany. ESPECIALLY, and that is the point, there is no way to exclude anybody from German citizenship based on their race or ethnicity. Your input was wrong in the first place. It is, to the contrary, true, that Germany is progressively becoming a more colourful and more multicultural society, and that in most places this development is greeted with joy. Although it would be very wrong to state that there are no ethnic or racial tensions in Germany, or that recent politics did not take action to reduce the number of immigrants, I think we can state that tensions as well as anti-immigration measures are at least not more prominent than in the neighbouring states; rather less. MNI.