Many people are awful. I’d be fine with Afghan refugees moving in. Even if we accept the premise that Afghan culture is “awful,” wouldn’t the fact that they’ve fled the country indicate they’re not exactly in sync with that culture?
I live in an extremely diverse area with many immigrants on my street and it’s fine.
They could have fled for any number of reasons- that doesn't mean that they aren't exactly in sync with the culture they are coming from. And even if they aren't in sync with the culture they are fleeing- they very likely still hold radically different values than you.
I met a man from Afghanistan sometime last year, however, once we got past the introductions and realized we shared things in common- he opened up to me and began trying to make me realize the value of Sharia law in America, and how much better it would be here if it became the cultural norm.
Sharia law is quite big! So big that I'm fairly certain that there is at least one aspect of Sharia law that you would agree with, even if (as it sounds like) you are overall against. If you accept that, you can have a honest discussion of the merits and detriments.
I find it's best to break these things down and discuss them individually (or discuss how multiple rules combine to produce a particular effect, as the case may be): then it's easier to tease out which arguments are honest ("I genuinely think X is better, for Y reasons") and dishonest ("I think X is better for Y reasons, but I believe you'll find Z more persuasive, so I'll say Z"). There's also a phenomenon where people attribute beneficial (or detrimental) properties to one, visible part of a system, when they're really due to another: consider the arguments about capitalism versus communism, which are rarely actually about economic policy, and are more often about other (on the face of it, unrelated) policies of the state: your interlocutor might realise this after detailed discussion, if that is what is going on, when otherwise they might have gone their whole life without noticing the misattribution (as many people do).
Cultural exchange can be mutually-beneficial, even if you both go away thinking "wow, that other guy was an idiot".
I know people who have been victims from these far-right cultures being brought into my community. I have no tolerance for it. If you wish to call that xenophobia then so be it.
I'd highly recommend not visiting places like Afghanistan, not because the weather isn't nice, but because the people are awful. That's not just me saying that either, most Western governments will tell you not to visit either. Perhaps that's xenophobia, but either way I think it's correct.
According to PEW research 99% of Afghan's support Sharia Law. If you wish to present an argument for why this kind of cultural diversity is good for my community, then be my guest.
I too know people who have been victims of the far-right culture that has festered amongst native-born Americans.
This country was founded on the idea that we allow competing opinions and ideologies, even those we find distasteful. If people commit actual crimes, we have processes to deal with that.
If this were the HN of ten years ago, I might have expressed similar sentiments.
Between the comments in this thread though, and the complete lack of moderator attention, I can only come to the conclusion that xenophobia is perfectly fine on HN - provided you couch it in the appropriate rhetoric and don't use any mean words.
i deal with uncomfortable questions regularly so obviously there will be a bias on my part for handling them. it seems to me like a lot of people believe that shutting down questions is the best idea here. can you please explain to me why it is xenophobic to ask questions? i dont really see the link and i dont see why shutting people down for asking questions is a good idea.
They're partially right, some cultures are awful by any common usage of the word. The problem of course is that they're dogwhistle implying that this means all Afghan asylum seekers must be part of such cultures and therefore must be awful, which is of course not true.
> implying that this means all Afghan asylum seekers must be part of such cultures and therefore must be awful
99% of Afghans believe in Sharia law according to Pew research, so you're right it's not quite all.
I understand some people will round up to 100%, but I don't personally. I do appreciate there might be 1% of Afghans out there who deserve compassion, but it's not exactly controversial to suggest that Afghans broadly are not good people by any normal Western standards. And if we didn't know this already, we now have plenty of evidence of this in the form of rapes of women and children in my country and across Europe by Afghan migrants we have shown compassion to.
If we could reliably select the Afghans who are more like us and have less of the cultural diversity, then great, but practically we can't do that and the odds are massively against us ever being able to do that.
The parent commenter seemed to be implying that we should be welcoming of diversity broadly, which is why I raised the question – because you'd have to be a pretty horrible person to want to bring Afghan culture into Switzerland.
I am from an immigrant background myself and my best friend is a Muslim asylum seeker. I am also pro-immigration. People can try to paint my motivates however they like. I know why I say what I say, and it's not out of hate, it's out of compassion.
Not that it should need to be said, but I'd urge people to respond in good faith rather than making assumptions about my character.
Gromer gangs were white just as often, but instead of addressing the problem evaluating it correctly and responding right wing extremists instead focused only the immigrants didnt give a single shit about the actual abuse and made it all about leaving the EU and in general promoting ethnic violence against all braun people. Literal riots.
And of course never talk about immigrant woman that get abused who gives a fuck about them.
> how diverse are we talking?
Switzerland is deceptively effective at assimilation. Migrants tend to learn the local language and customs.
Many people are awful. I’d be fine with Afghan refugees moving in. Even if we accept the premise that Afghan culture is “awful,” wouldn’t the fact that they’ve fled the country indicate they’re not exactly in sync with that culture?
I live in an extremely diverse area with many immigrants on my street and it’s fine.
They could have fled for any number of reasons- that doesn't mean that they aren't exactly in sync with the culture they are coming from. And even if they aren't in sync with the culture they are fleeing- they very likely still hold radically different values than you.
I met a man from Afghanistan sometime last year, however, once we got past the introductions and realized we shared things in common- he opened up to me and began trying to make me realize the value of Sharia law in America, and how much better it would be here if it became the cultural norm.
I’ve had that experience as well, except instead of Afghanistan it was America, and instead of Sharia law it was Biblical law.
I am far more afraid of certain of my native-born countrymen than I am of people who come here.
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Sharia law is quite big! So big that I'm fairly certain that there is at least one aspect of Sharia law that you would agree with, even if (as it sounds like) you are overall against. If you accept that, you can have a honest discussion of the merits and detriments.
I find it's best to break these things down and discuss them individually (or discuss how multiple rules combine to produce a particular effect, as the case may be): then it's easier to tease out which arguments are honest ("I genuinely think X is better, for Y reasons") and dishonest ("I think X is better for Y reasons, but I believe you'll find Z more persuasive, so I'll say Z"). There's also a phenomenon where people attribute beneficial (or detrimental) properties to one, visible part of a system, when they're really due to another: consider the arguments about capitalism versus communism, which are rarely actually about economic policy, and are more often about other (on the face of it, unrelated) policies of the state: your interlocutor might realise this after detailed discussion, if that is what is going on, when otherwise they might have gone their whole life without noticing the misattribution (as many people do).
Cultural exchange can be mutually-beneficial, even if you both go away thinking "wow, that other guy was an idiot".
1 reply →
Yeah I think a culture that turns away asylum seekers is pretty awful tbh
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I know people who have been victims from these far-right cultures being brought into my community. I have no tolerance for it. If you wish to call that xenophobia then so be it.
I'd highly recommend not visiting places like Afghanistan, not because the weather isn't nice, but because the people are awful. That's not just me saying that either, most Western governments will tell you not to visit either. Perhaps that's xenophobia, but either way I think it's correct.
According to PEW research 99% of Afghan's support Sharia Law. If you wish to present an argument for why this kind of cultural diversity is good for my community, then be my guest.
I too know people who have been victims of the far-right culture that has festered amongst native-born Americans.
This country was founded on the idea that we allow competing opinions and ideologies, even those we find distasteful. If people commit actual crimes, we have processes to deal with that.
1 reply →
If this were the HN of ten years ago, I might have expressed similar sentiments.
Between the comments in this thread though, and the complete lack of moderator attention, I can only come to the conclusion that xenophobia is perfectly fine on HN - provided you couch it in the appropriate rhetoric and don't use any mean words.
i deal with uncomfortable questions regularly so obviously there will be a bias on my part for handling them. it seems to me like a lot of people believe that shutting down questions is the best idea here. can you please explain to me why it is xenophobic to ask questions? i dont really see the link and i dont see why shutting people down for asking questions is a good idea.
3 replies →
They're partially right, some cultures are awful by any common usage of the word. The problem of course is that they're dogwhistle implying that this means all Afghan asylum seekers must be part of such cultures and therefore must be awful, which is of course not true.
> implying that this means all Afghan asylum seekers must be part of such cultures and therefore must be awful
99% of Afghans believe in Sharia law according to Pew research, so you're right it's not quite all.
I understand some people will round up to 100%, but I don't personally. I do appreciate there might be 1% of Afghans out there who deserve compassion, but it's not exactly controversial to suggest that Afghans broadly are not good people by any normal Western standards. And if we didn't know this already, we now have plenty of evidence of this in the form of rapes of women and children in my country and across Europe by Afghan migrants we have shown compassion to.
If we could reliably select the Afghans who are more like us and have less of the cultural diversity, then great, but practically we can't do that and the odds are massively against us ever being able to do that.
The parent commenter seemed to be implying that we should be welcoming of diversity broadly, which is why I raised the question – because you'd have to be a pretty horrible person to want to bring Afghan culture into Switzerland.
I am from an immigrant background myself and my best friend is a Muslim asylum seeker. I am also pro-immigration. People can try to paint my motivates however they like. I know why I say what I say, and it's not out of hate, it's out of compassion.
Not that it should need to be said, but I'd urge people to respond in good faith rather than making assumptions about my character.
2 replies →
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Gromer gangs were white just as often, but instead of addressing the problem evaluating it correctly and responding right wing extremists instead focused only the immigrants didnt give a single shit about the actual abuse and made it all about leaving the EU and in general promoting ethnic violence against all braun people. Literal riots.
And of course never talk about immigrant woman that get abused who gives a fuck about them.
1 reply →
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