Originally written by Jacek K. on June 18, 2009 10:54 AM the UK has refugees that account for 0.50% of its population.

The following piece is about immigrants in general, not refugees:

Town halls and Whitehall spend £50 million a year on translation and interpretation for the benefit of people who cannot speak English.

It is a well-intended initiative which is meant to offer immigrants a helping hand.

Yet now an investigation has found that many of the expensively-produced foreign-language leaflets have never been read.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5523716/Councils-spend-50m-a-year-translating-documents-no-one-reads.html

Originally written by Liliana Boladz-Nekipelov on June 17, 2009 11:14 AM Sometimes the legislature regarding hate crimes, and especially hate speech, is not as important as the general consciousness of a particular society regardinng those things. There are maybe some hate crimes in America, but you cannot really feel that much hate here.

I think that legislation stems from facts of life. On the situation in the US:

http://www.progressive.org/mpgilmore061709.html

In 2007, there were more than 7,000 hate crime incidents, as reported by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Southern Poverty Law Center. In 2006, and 2005, there were also more than 7,000 incidents of hate crimes reported.

And the number of new hate groups formed is going up. Since 2000, the number of hate groups has increased by 54 percent, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The federal government must address hate crimes in a meaningful way. A major hate crimes bill, The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes/ Matthew Shephard Act, quietly vetoed in 2007 during Christmas break by President Bush, has passed the House of Representatives, and is up for a vote by the Senate. The bill strengthens the nation's hate crime laws. President Obama has expressed support for the bill.

Originally written by Derek Thornton on June 11, 2009 7:48 PM Originally written by David Kallans on June 11, 2009 1:09 PM They lack the "otherness" that is associated with Arabic-speaking Muslims, with their mosques and prayers towards Mecca and their women in veils. That is what I meant by the criterion: "Do they look like us?". Once they do look like us (and the majority of urban Turkish men and women do look like us), then the factor Christian or Moslem has no relevance in modern Europe.

"The Sun features an interview with psychologist Barbara Fredrickson (article not available online), a pioneer in the field of positive psychology, director of the University of North Carolina’s Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab and author of the upcoming book Positivity.

While humans pay more attention to negative experiences—an evolutionary result of having to constantly scan for threats—positive moments are far more abundant.

Positive emotions can also affect how we perceive people of other races. Scientists had found that when looking at people of a different race, we often look at individual facial features. People “use the same process they use to recognize objects, which suggests there’s some dehumanization going on,” Fredrickson says. “But what we’re finding is that, under the influence of positive emotions, people use the same holistic process for cross-race faces that they use for faces of their own race. It’s as if people, when they’re feeling good, are better able to see the full humanity of people of a different race.” "

Originally written by Derek Thornton on June 17, 2009 8:02 PM Keep the individual member states strong and stress their distinguishing cultures and stop trying to homogenize the whole shoot. Do not ratify the Treaty of Lisbon which would give more power to the EU Parliament - given half a chance, the MEPs are sure to abuse their "federal" power just as they currently abuse their allowances.

Not only that. The Lisbon Treaty is a no-no also for other reasons. A glimpse: http://wyborcza.pl/1,86871,6735193,Why_KUL_Won_t_Award_an_Honorary_Degree_to_Mr_Barroso.html

On the 440th anniversary of the Union of Lublin, the KUL was to honour Mr Barroso as well as leaders of the countries that once made part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - the presidents of Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and an ex-chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Belarus. 

Gazeta was the first to report about the plans back in March. KUL spokesperson Barbara Górka confirmed them for Gazeta: 'The award for Mr Barroso is related to the official slogan of the celebrations, "From the [1569] Union of Lublin to the European Union."' ...

A special Senate meeting during which the decisions were made took place on 4 June. The guests are to receive their honorary degrees on 1 July. But not Mr Barroso. Why? ...

A KUL professor said, 'I think it was behind-the-scenes discussions among the academy's top brass. It was probably about the Lisbon Treaty and certain issues related thereto.'

What issues? Political scientist Prof Marek Pietraś notes that the Polish Episcopate has criticised certain provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, an integral part of the Lisbon Treaty, which Mr Barroso deems his personal success.

'The Church, just like President Lech Kaczyński, criticised the fact that the Charter, a collection of man's fundamental rights, lacks a reference to God,' says Mr Pietraś. 'Other controversial issues included the lack of a clear-cut ban on human cloning and of a precise provision that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. This could have opened the way to same-sex marriages.'

A year ago, the alleged prospect of Poland being potentially forced to accept same-sex marriages was mentioned by President Kaczyński in his famous address on the Treaty of Lisbon. 

translated by Marcin Wawrzyńczak

That seems to be to be rather a broad generalisation based on the, rather extreme, case of Germany. There are many places in Europe where flags do not have negative associations. Just north of the German border, in Denmark, we use our flag for all kinds of things (though not generally, I’d say, for sticking on our cars), and most of them aren’t even particularly patriotic: we wave flags at kids’ birthdays and use Dannebrog (the Danish flag) as a symbol for birthdays in general; football (=soccer) fans wave both club flags and Dannebrogs at matches; people have flagpoles for purely decorative purposes in their gardens; etc.

The flag is used for more ‘proper’ purposes (monarchal/political events or for use on boats and cars, for example), but there are very, very few negative associations to the flag, unlike in Germany.

Originally written by Janus Jacquet on June 19, 2009 11:56 AM in Denmark, we use our flag for all kinds of things (though not generally, I’d say, for sticking on our cars), and most of them aren’t even particularly patriotic: we wave flags at kids’ birthdays and use Dannebrog (the Danish flag) as a symbol for birthdays in general; football (=soccer) fans wave both club flags and Dannebrogs at matches; people have flagpoles for purely decorative purposes in their gardens; etc.

Interesting how relaxed other nations can be. Polish national flag is reserved for patriotic occasions. Polish law says that treating the national symbols, including the flag, "with reverence and respect" is the "right and obligation" of every Polish citizen. I would be careful with birthdays in public places because public disrespect, destruction or intentional removal of the flag is considered a crime punishable by a fine, penal servitude or up to one year of imprisonment... (Wikipedia)

This has all historical reasons, of course. Poles have their Flag Day which was first observed on the accession to the EU 5 years ago. "It was established in order to educate the Polish people about the history and significance of national symbols. The date was chosen to coincide with the Polonia Day traditionally observed by Polish diaspora outside Poland and the Polish Senate on May 2. There was also a historical reason: under the Communist regime, May 2 was a day when national flags, hoisted for Labor Day on May 1 were being quickly removed before Polish Constitution Day (May 3), which was banned by the authorities.Since the re-introduction of the Constitution Day in 1990 and establishment of the Polish Flag Day, the flag is flown continuously during the first three days of May." (Ibid.) 

They put the flag on the top of Chistmas tree in Sweden, I am not sure if they do the same in Denmark?

Originally written by John Bunch There is a difference between nationalism and patriotism.

Perhaps, perhaps not.  Both terms have rather elastic meanings and encompass a variety of sentiments, which are not consistent within a culture, let alone across cultures.  Linguistically both refer to love that arises by virtue of one's birth ("nation" is from Latin and refers to one's birth group, "patriotism" is the love of one's father (from both Greek and Latin) who made birth possible).  The US is an unusal state in that it is not a nation-state, i.e. it is not, like most countries, based on a common national (i.e. ethnic/linguistic/cultural) identity.  Most European states are nation states, even though there is seldom a complete one-to-one matchup between populations and states (not all French people live in France, for example, but they also live in Belgium and Switzerland, which, not coincidentally, are not nation-states and are characterized by relatively weak central governments and strong local governments).

The main confusion for Americans is that people confuse both patriotism and nationalism (whatever that term might mean in the context of the US) with support for the government, either in general or in its current form.  A true patriot, it has been said, must always be ready to protect his country from its government.  Robert E. Lee was a patriot in this sense - his father (pater) was Virginia, not the US, and he stood ready to defend Virginia from the US.  This is also the same thinking that radial separtists like Timothy McVeigh used to justify their attacks against the US government.  As abhorent as their actions may be, they are based in a long tradition of anti-governmentalism in America.

The American flag is a rich symbol with many meanings to many different people.  It may represent the US and its ideals such as freedom, justice, equality and democracy.  It may also represent - and many people do think of it this way - intolerance, right-wing positions, and the US's unjustified meddling in the affairs of other countries as well as the private lives of its own citizens.  The Confederate "stars and bars" flag also has a multi-layered meaning, which is evident in the recurring debate over its appropriateness in contemporary society.  It represents both the courage and nobility of men who fought and died for everything that was good in the South, as well as a system of slavery and racial hatred.  It represents both things, although usually not to the same person.