Political Interest wrote:
I cannot provide any evidence. But this is not a science and we do not need evidence to reach conclusions that are essentially true.
I'm asking because you make this sweeping statement about Germanic/Northwest European cultures but declare that a similarly sweeping statement about Muslims can only be made by a very ignorant person. I'm not sure if you are aware of your double standard here. I take it that you base your assessment of the former on experience and/or reading about the topic but you don't acknowledge that the same may be true for those who have formed a view on Islam/Muslims.
Personally, while I don't think it's valid to declare that Islam cannot be reformed and that it is inherently incompatible with Western values, I can make an assessment of the trajectory of Islam in recent times. And what I'm seeing is a backward/reactionary trend across the world, even in countries that have been held up as examples of moderate Islam, such as Indonesia. Add to this that in Europe Muslims have a tendency to segregate, under-perform economically and, taking into account their share of the population, have a disproportionately high rate of radicalisation, I come to the conclusion that for the time being Muslim immigration ought to be drastically reduced in order to enable us to get a handle on these problems. Further, it makes no sense to treat, say, Poles the same, as they don't have these characteristics.
That said, it's also clear that Islam is not the only factor in this, and I would be perfectly happy to moderate the restrictions based on additional information and data. The problem is that good data is often hard to come by and that public debate is dominated by the same or similar double standards you are demonstrating. No offence to you, but people like you are part of the problem because you only allow yourselves to criticise and be candid about western cultures and declare everybody else off-limits and similar statements about non-westerners ignorant and possibly racist. This just confirms to me that we need de-sensitisation on the subject which is one of the areas where the far right has a role to play.
Political Interest wrote:
It's also extremely dishonourable to insult another person's religion. One does not have to believe in Islam or Buddhism but we can respect these religions. And for the sake of stabilty and peace in Eurasia we need to do so.
Being able to mock and disrespect religion is part of Western culture though and as far as Christianity is concerned it hasn't led to instability or threatened peace. In fact, the only religion in the west today that threatens violence or is violent in response to this is Islam. Why are we supposed to think this is irrelevant and/or ignore it? After all, it is one of the characteristics that makes Islam in the west different today and that we can observe.
Political Interest wrote:
Therefore while integrating migrants from a more similar ethnic and religious background poses fewer challenges, it does not remove them. And to think that it does fundmamentally ignores the reality that multiculturalism, rather than incompatible migration is to blame. Look at how Poles faced racism at the time the UK chose to leave the European Union. There can be clashes in any situation given the right conditions. Therefore the religious affiliation of the migrants is not very important at all.
If integration and assimilation of some groups poses fewer challenges, then I think it stands to reason that we are correct in stating preferences when it comes to immigration. As you say, this doesn't mean that there is no potential for tensions, but it's hard to ignore, for instance, that second generation British immigrants are pretty much indistinguishable from Kiwis in NZ and that the first generation is already quite similar in their attitudes, values and economic performance. The same is true for Germans or Swiss in Austria and vice versa.
As for racism against Poles after the referendum, I've yet to see good evidence for this. Specifically, the "racist murder" of a Pole was apparently man slaughter that had nothing to do with the victim's ethnicity/nationality - it was a physical altercation that tragically led to the man's death - and the increase in reported hate crimes against Poles needs verification. Reporting is sensitive to appeals to report and awareness among the public and the way hate crime is defined - i.e. solely based on the perception of the victim or a third party - adds to the problems with reliability, so that a heightened sense among the public that Brexit-Britain is racist probably leads to increased reporting by itself even if there is no real rise in hate crimes.