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.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't you just hate when that happens? :D

Di Mackey said...

Yes, so very annoying ... humans just like us, very inconvenient in the end.

Anonymous said...

Sounds familiar. That wouldn't have been Germany, would it?

Anonymous said...

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...

Di Mackey said...

Germany, Belgium ... Europe I guess Lisa.

Perfectly said Peter ... 'an inconvenient truth' indeed.