'Tourists go home, refugees welcome' - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14928783
I have never lived in a tourist heavy city but I can see how it would be annoying. Regarding masses of third world migrants, no place that experienced it seems like like it. those who ask for it are elites, politically motivated or naive.

Normal levels of organic migration is a good thing of course.
#14928792
I've lived in a big ten college football down, you want to talk about tourist swell? The population doubles for home games and they are all stone drunk, and yet because of their revenue any bitching made is passing, not serious. Its not an economically viable position to be seriously opposed to that revenue stream.

With a fight ensuing between Catalonia and Spain over independence, the last thing places like Barcelona should do is scorn what I am willing to bet is some of their biggest money makers.

Here is the thing, lets say they take this "banner-slogan" really seriously and really alienate the tourist market and decide to go hog-wild on immigration (perhaps taking Italy's load now that it has taken a more hard-line stance).

The results would be this: Given potential political turmoil and a mass of immigrants that are often put in temporary camps and are known for being uncouth, sometimes desperate (pick-pocketing, simple assault), and are often folks of concern to potential business investors and tourists, you would see a dramatic drop in not only tourist revenue, but investment.

One of my vendors that produces Quartz has factories in the Catalan region (if I am not mistaken), and I have no doubt this whole issue would be a problem for them.

As a potential-tourist myself, this attitude also concerns me (i'm sure I am not alone).

Its just a piss-poor attitude and not a good one to have for nation that wants to go it alone over-and-against Spain.

As the old saying goes: "don't bite the hand that feeds you."
Last edited by Victoribus Spolia on 29 Jun 2018 14:06, edited 1 time in total.
#14928802
Victoribus Spolia wrote:As a potential-tourist myself, this attitude also concerns me (i'm sure I am not alone).


Yea, I was seriously planning to visit on my next business trip to the UK. Now perhaps I should go somewhere else. Not sure.

I think there might be a distinction these protestors aren't making though. They might be more angry at foreigners living there rather than just tourists that visit for a week or two? Or is their outrage also directed at people that just want to visit for a few days like me?
#14928806
I think the idea is the beach-bum, site-seeing, 'muricans in flip-flops who want to check out old roman architecture and eat "authentic" cuisine....you know, tourists.

You would probably apply at least minimally as such a tourist, but speaking Spanish probably helps a bit with being less annoying (even if the catalan dialect is a bit different).

Like I said, I think they are being rude and I don't want to spend my time and money with rude people (besides it being economically and socially stupid).

Just my two cents. Do what you want, but I was planning a business trip to the Catalan region next October and am now reconsidering.
#14929230
Victoribus Spolia wrote:...I was planning a business trip to the Catalan region next October and am now reconsidering.

So you're going to give your spot to a refugee who hasn't had a home for a few years and struggles with PTSD?
#14929239
QatzelOk wrote:So you're going to give your spot to a refugee who hasn't had a home for a few years and struggles with PTSD?


How does someone visiting for business or a short tourist stay negatively impact the chances of a refugee from being allowed to stay?
#14929260
@Victoribus Spolia

What does it say about a country when they despise people coming to see the beauty of the Catalan lands, culture, history, and people, but then at the same time they welcome in a backwater islamic people who have no connection or respect for their ways of life?


If they really didn't give a shit about Barcelona, they wouldn't have gone there. Spain isn't even considered to be the most richest European country and it's underneath countries which don't have any large scale wars going on (while also being second world countries), why the fuck would someone who has no respect for their way of life even live there if there is no incentive for doing so.

In terms of connection, Al-Andalus says hello.
#14929275
It's funny really, but rent seems to be a driving force for many of the populous's political policies and governments bizarrely never seem to take this in account ever. Perhaps because the public themselves never see it as an issue until it is far too late and rather complain about gas bills instead when money is tight.

Being that rent is by far the biggest expense in a family budget, I am not surprised with this altitude from Catalonia. The same reasoning can be applied to the UK and our desire to halt migration, despite cutting off our noses in the process. After all, when social housing was in plentiful supply, migration was never an issue. Today it is. And it can't be down to jobs, as there are easily a job for anyone who wants one, no matter what the idle work shy might claim. Migrants after all can only take a job that is available and people seem to forget this when complaining. No, the UKs problem is the over inflated rents of the private sector and the high prices of buying a home. And this is down to a lack of building projects since Thatcher stopped building councils houses and sold off the ones we had at the same time. And this has caused a xenophobic attitude here as homes are competed against and the locals are priced out I have no doubt. So the only remedy for both the UK and Barcelona is to either build new homes at a high rate or to have migrants/tourists leave their shores to level out demand in the housing sector. And a deep recession may create the conditions for that to happen actually. So perhaps hard Brexit isn't so bad after all. That is in the long term. Definitely not the short term I might add.
#14929277
Atlantis wrote:The people of Barcelona have a lot of hospitality. I remember perfect stranger taking me around the city to where I wanted to go because they didn't know enough English to explain it in words.

It's just when tens of millions of tourists descend on your city like a swarm of locusts driving out the locals that even that hospitality knows its limits.


Now imagine if those tourists intended to make their vacations permanent, and I think you'll understand why some of us aren't happy about the refugee crisis.
#14929278
@Saeko

To be frank, there is a large difference in mentality between tourists and people who want to live in the country. Tourists often don't really have any desire to integrate since they're not staying there permanently and are merely visiting. There is this sense of dismissiveness when it comes to laws, customs, and people of the country they're visiting. If you want to know how the stereotypical bad tourist thinks, imagine yourself as a kid in an amusement park with no adult supervision, that is exactly how the stereotypical bad tourist thinks. Refugees have a completely different mentality given that they are living in that country. Refugees don't have the safety net of their home country to fall back on, this country is their only opportunity and so they'll be extra respectful to the laws, customs, and people of the country because stepping over those boundaries results in the destruction of their livelihoods.

In this sense, it makes sense why Barcelona likes refugees more than tourists. Tourists have no reason to give a shit about the country they're touring, their time there is only temporary and their lives aren't dependent on the country they're visiting. Refugees put extra effort into integration and remaining hidden even to regular citizens because this is their last chance.
#14929279
I think there is a major underlining issue if an economy rejects tourism @Oxymandias. This is the first time I have heard of such a thing and you will find most economies invest heavily in promoting tourism to their economy as it is a great and easy way to bring in investment and wealth from outside your borders to your borders. If Barcelona had no tourists tomorrow (so went home) they would be begging their return tomorrow rest assured. This attitude is down to rents, not hatred. And the solution is to build more property or prevent companies/tourists from buying up the housing stock for non-residential use. Such a policy was adopted by St Ives in Cornwall (the UK) as it was a popular holiday destination where the locals were being priced out just like Barcelona. But they weren't stupid enough to ask their tourists to return home. They knew their economy relied on them. They just stopped them buying up vacant homes instead.
Last edited by B0ycey on 01 Jul 2018 19:57, edited 1 time in total.
#14929280
It can also be viewed as tourists are victims of your citizens and your citizens are victims of immigrants. You can come up with all kinds of rationalizations when you start subscribing morality to a group. Tourists and immigrants are individuals. Their morality can only be determined on an individual basis.
I find nothing surprising about a community denied autonomy reacting with hostility to all outsiders. I doubt there is any rational basis for their behavior. More likely transference.
#14929284
Oxymandias wrote:@Saeko

To be frank, there is a large difference in mentality between tourists and people who want to live in the country. Tourists often don't really have any desire to integrate since they're not staying there permanently and are merely visiting. There is this sense of dismissiveness when it comes to laws, customs, and people of the country they're visiting. If you want to know how the stereotypical bad tourist thinks, imagine yourself as a kid in an amusement park with no adult supervision, that is exactly how the stereotypical bad tourist thinks. Refugees have a completely different mentality given that they are living in that country. Refugees don't have the safety net of their home country to fall back on, this country is their only opportunity and so they'll be extra respectful to the laws, customs, and people of the country because stepping over those boundaries results in the destruction of their livelihoods.

In this sense, it makes sense why Barcelona likes refugees more than tourists. Tourists have no reason to give a shit about the country they're touring, their time there is only temporary and their lives aren't dependent on the country they're visiting. Refugees put extra effort into integration and remaining hidden even to regular citizens because this is their last chance.


Wow you seriously believe immigrants should respect the laws and customs of their host country? What are you some kind of white supremacist? :eh:
#14929307
@Saeko

Whenever I travel, I always make sure to read up on the customs and culture of the place I'm visiting. If I have the time, I'll try to learn the language as well. Conforming to the culture and engaging in meaningful interactions with the local population (outside of simply asking for directions or the cost of something) of the countries I vacation in is a large part of both the appeal and experience of travelling to a different place. If I was going to live in a different country, I would put even more effort into assimilation. Refugees already assimilate and that was my point. Most of the articles you read regarding the terrorism committed by "immigrants" are actually second or third-generation children of immigrants. The acts of terrorism committed by the second/third-generation is due to how alienated many of them are from the culture of their home country, particularly in Europe because European culture has a bad tendency to be exclusionary. Many of these second/third-generation immigrant children aren't considered to be French or British or German despite growing up with and being assimilated into that culture. For Europe, being culturally European isn't enough and that is when the conflict arises.
#14929323
Saeko wrote:Now imagine if those tourists intended to make their vacations permanent, and I think you'll understand why some of us aren't happy about the refugee crisis.


I'm fairly certain refugees are kinda unhappy that your country is the main one ruining with bombs or otherwise, their countries, all over the world, forcing them to flee. The refugee crises from Europe to Latin America are the fault of your country and mine, so perhaps you should direct your anger at the correct place, rather than people with no power, like a useful-for-your-state eejit. :D
#14929376
Sounds like they have a love-hate relationship with us. Instead of moving to one of the 200 countries that didn't bomb them they go to great trouble and expense to reach the UK or USA.

A very interesting dynamic.
#14929460
Oxymandias wrote:If they really didn't give a shit about Barcelona, they wouldn't have gone there.


I think you are making a false dichotomy there. I didn't say they didn't want to go there, I argued that they have no interest or respect for the culture, you are equating the two, but they are actually different. Locusts quite enjoy the lands they go to, but there relationship to that environment can hardly be called "a respect for it."

Tourists go to Barcelona to appreciate it for being Barcelona, its a show of respect and appreciation. Migrants go to Barcelona to get out of it what could benefit themselves (welfare, a safer neighborhood, a job, et al.). The relationship is fundamentally different, Tourists come to appreciate what is there and inject the economy directly with revenue, migrants come to benefit themselves and tend to drain the economy with whatever "net-benefit" they may offer via cheap labor existing in potential not as an immediate injection via spending (hence, the exact opposite of tourists).

Oxymandias wrote:Al-Andalus says hello.


Well played; though, as far as whether the connection still exists? Let me just say that the Reconquista was complete. 8)
#14929502
@Victoribus Spolia

I addressed this earlier abit simplistic. Spain does not have the same level of popularity, welfare, and opportunities countries like Switzerland or the Nordic countries do. If they go for the opportunities, why should they settle for some water-down version of Germany when they can get the real thing? Migrants don't just go anywhere in Europe because everywhere in Europe doesn't have opportunities. They go to places like Germany or Britain or Sweden because they are the most famous for their quality of life, that's why they go there but Spain doesn't have as much as pull as these countries and in a migrant's head, the only defining trait it has is "was once an Islamic territory" that's it. Migrants rarely travel to Spain and sources both pro- and anti-migration affirm this.

The only way migrants would do that is if they didn't spend any money on goods or services in the country their in, which is false. Everyone wants to benefit themselves regardless of the country, there is no reason to believe that money held by migrants won't be circulated in the economy since migrants come to live here and not take money and go back home. There is no home for them to go back to. Tourists, while they do essentially fund Barcelona, cause social issues. Tourists may misuse the property in Barcelona or cause unnecessary overcrowding in places that locals need to use such as churches or infrastructure. Migrants don't do this because they both have better things to do and because they have vested interest in keeping their heads down.

Oh no it still exists. The Reconquista was just about driving Muslims out of Spain (And Jews... and Christians... Alright the Rexonquista was about driving everyone out of Spain). However, the cultural influence of Al-Andalus stayed. It's inventions, architecture, cultural values, language, and preferences for recreation remain in Spain to this day. What we consider Spanish architecture today for example, took wholesale from Andalusian architecture to such an extent that, if I showed a picture of a standard Spanish city with no discernible landmarks or indicators that a building may be a church and put it side by side with a Moroccan city, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Spanish language is more influenced by Arabic than anything French or even Latin. So many words in Spanish derive from Arabic such as:

Aceite or oil
Adobe or abode (no difference in English)
Ajedrez or chess
Alá or Allah(God)
Guitar or guitar (The guitar was also made in Al-Andalus as well)
Aduana or customs
Almohada or pillow
Alfombra or carpet
Tarifa or tariff (fun fact, the word tariff is actually derived from this Spanish word which itself is derived from the Arabic word ta'rif)

I think you get the idea. In terms of culture, flamenco and the guitar were created by Muslims and Spanish liberalism, clothing, and art were all heavily influenced by Andalusian rule. Heck, the entire reason why migrants go to Spain in the first place is because it was a European country under Muslim rule.
#14929718
AFAIK wrote:Instead of moving to one of the 200 countries that didn't bomb them they go to great trouble and expense to reach the UK or USA.

The countries that bomb everyone currently have most of the money.

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