I left New Zealand mid-2003, bound for Istanbul and a new lif. After two years, a Belgian guy lured me into his world, deep in the heart of Europe. For a long time I was an in-process immigrant. One day we married. These days it's about photography, a little red wine and wandering ... and so the journey goes.
Monday, June 25, 2007
“We asked for workers, but we got people.” A famous European lament about those people they brought in as guest workers generations ago.
It's a unfortunate fact of life: way back in the times of the Belgian coal mines, poor Italians migrated to Belgium.
Belgium couldn't care less if they "integrated" (they did) or not, they were basically 'convenient labour' in the coal mines, a job no Belgian would touch anymore. Their descendants integrated perfectly.
Globalization changed the picture completely, but “We asked for workers, but we got people” is still an inconvenient truth...
5 comments:
Don't you just hate when that happens? :D
Yes, so very annoying ... humans just like us, very inconvenient in the end.
Sounds familiar. That wouldn't have been Germany, would it?
It's a unfortunate fact of life: way back in the times of the Belgian coal mines, poor Italians migrated to Belgium.
Belgium couldn't care less if they "integrated" (they did) or not, they were basically 'convenient labour' in the coal mines, a job no Belgian would touch anymore. Their descendants integrated perfectly.
Globalization changed the picture completely, but “We asked for workers, but we got people” is still an inconvenient truth...
Germany, Belgium ... Europe I guess Lisa.
Perfectly said Peter ... 'an inconvenient truth' indeed.
Post a Comment