Immigrants causing panic: we've been here before

By Charlemagne

A POSTSCRIPT to this week's print column about a crisis of multiculturalism in Antwerp.

There can never be full integration of the migrants “swarming” into Brussels, according to a report by the Royal Belgian Geographical Society—at least among the current generation of adults. The immigrants are too different in their religious beliefs and customs, and their impact is too overwhelming. “When they are sufficiently numerous in a neighbourhood” they open their own hairdressing salons, grocery shops and bakeries, the report notes, not to mention “butcher's shops where they sell meat from ritually slaughtered animals”. They have large families and cram twice the agreed number of tenants into flats, creating “deplorable” living conditions, annoying landlords and disturbing their neighbours. Perhaps “partial assimilation” may one day be achieved, it concludes, but it will be hard: the newcomers' religion and language “do not ease any attempts at contact.”

The report in question? It dates from 1933 and describes the panic caused by Jewish immigrants from Poland, when they moved into Brussels neighbourhoods like Schaerbeek. It was recently unearthed by Anne Morelli, a professor of history of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Prof Morelli reproduces a long extract from the report in this thoughtful essay for KVS Express, an excellent trilingual journal published by the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels. The report is in English on page 18 of this pdf file.

Schaerbeek is now heavily Moroccan, and the same complaints about ritual killing of animals, foreign customs and overcrowded housing can be heard today. So we have, at least, been here before. And those Jews of 1933: at least those who survived the Holocaust? At a guess they are living in suburban comfort, along with the successive waves of Italian, Spanish, Greek or Portuguese migrants who filled central Brussels after the war, and who have now integrated and moved to greener districts. Does that mean the task of integration is simple? No. But we should not panic, either. The presence of foreigners in our midst, and the tensions caused by the arrival of “alien” faiths is something intrinsic to the European experience. Europe is not perfect, but it is more robust than some outsiders think.

A POSTSCRIPT to this week's print column about a crisis of multiculturalism in Antwerp.

There can never be full integration of the migrants “swarming” into Brussels, according to a report by the Royal Belgian Geographical Society—at least among the current generation of adults. The immigrants are too different in their religious beliefs and customs, and their impact is too overwhelming. “When they are sufficiently numerous in a neighbourhood” they open their own hairdressing salons, grocery shops and bakeries, the report notes, not to mention “butcher's shops where they sell meat from ritually slaughtered animals”. They have large families and cram twice the agreed number of tenants into flats, creating “deplorable” living conditions, annoying landlords and disturbing their neighbours. Perhaps “partial assimilation” may one day be achieved, it concludes, but it will be hard: the newcomers' religion and language “do not ease any attempts at contact.”

The report in question? It dates from 1933 and describes the panic caused by Jewish immigrants from Poland, when they moved into Brussels neighbourhoods like Schaerbeek. It was recently unearthed by Anne Morelli, a professor of history of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Prof Morelli reproduces a long extract from the report in this thoughtful essay for KVS Express, an excellent trilingual journal published by the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels. The report is in English on page 18 of this pdf file.

Schaerbeek is now heavily Moroccan, and the same complaints about ritual killing of animals, foreign customs and overcrowded housing can be heard today. So we have, at least, been here before. And those Jews of 1933: at least those who survived the Holocaust? At a guess they are living in suburban comfort, along with the successive waves of Italian, Spanish, Greek or Portuguese migrants who filled central Brussels after the war, and who have now integrated and moved to greener districts. Does that mean the task of integration is simple? No. But we should not panic, either. The presence of foreigners in our midst, and the tensions caused by the arrival of “alien” faiths is something intrinsic to the European experience. Europe is not perfect, but it is more robust than some outsiders think.