'Massive' rich-poor gap in German society

One of the major reasons for the increase in hatred towards refugees & immigrants in the Western world & the populism politics is that these Western countries are not taking care of their own citizens but their politicians are trying to pander to refugees & immigrants for their votes.

Charity begins at home & the rising poverty levels & joblessness is breeding more hatred towards those people who look different from the majority. Be it the Trump-led GOP or Afd in Germany or any number of political parties in Canada, US, or Europe, at the end of the day, those parties are increasing their popularity by going after these homeless, unemployed, poor people.

The social exclusion, economic inequality, unemployment, & poverty are increasing all over the Western world & will keep increasing until people come out on the streets & violently topple their respective sitting governments. Before the situation worsens to that point, governments need to tackle these social issues head on before it's too late (but, believe you me, they won't).

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https://www.dw.com/en/massive-rich-poor-gap-in-german-society/a-19067611

Germany's Paritätische federation, which represents 10,000 social welfare groups, warned ... that nearly one in six of Germany's residents remained at risk of being trapped in relative poverty.

The term used across the EU refers to anyone, child or adult, who lives on less than 60% of the medium income as measured statistically. In Germany, that threshold is 917 euros ($1,015) per month for a single person and 1,192 euros ($1,310) for a single parent with a child under six.

Experts said the results overall continued to point to massive inequality in German society, despite glowing data such as ... that export-driven Germany last year recorded its highest federal budget surplus since reunification, and despite its taking in 1 million refugees.

One in six below poverty line

In its latest summary, based on figures from 2014, the Paritätische said 15.4 of the population nationwide was stuck below the poverty line.

That was down a slight 0.1% on the level measured it 2013, but still up significantly on the 14% measured ten years ago, it said.

Highlighting child poverty, the federation said 19% of Germany's youngsters lived in relative poverty. Half of these were children living in a single-parent household.

And, at 15.6%, poverty among pensioners had for the first time risen above the nationwide average.

One in five Ruhr residents impoverished

Relative poverty had climbed to a record 20% in North Rhine-Westphalia's Ruhr district, once the motor of German heavy industry and now the scene of economic and urban redevelopment efforts.

Among Germany's 16 federal states or "Länder", poverty risk had declined in the city-state of Berlin and Mecklenburg-East Pomerania in northeastern Germany, the Baltic coast region that was once part of communist East Germany.

Despite record employment, poverty had not declined, said Dorothee Spannagel, a social expert who analyzed poverty trends for the trade union-affiliated Hans-Böckler Foundation.

She told the German news agency DPA that the gap in Germany between poor and rich continued to widen.

Spannegel said the so-called low wage sector involving menial jobs had become disconnected from overall economic gains. In addition, there had been a surge in individuals earning from their capital investments.

'Massive break" in equality

She pointed to 2013 data from the federal statistics office, showing that more than half or nearly 52% of net assets in Germany were owned by just 10% of the population.

In a glaring contrast, half of Germany's population of 81 million owns only just over one percent of assets.

"That is a massive break in equal opportunity," said Spannagel, adding that an individual's chance of making it ahead had diminished and the risk of falling into poverty had grown.

In the 1980s, the risk of falling from the middle income milieu into poverty had been around 12%, she said. Since 2005, the risk had risen to 16%.
...

Criminal Minds, S1E20 Quote

 This is quite common in the immigrant community in the West. Regardless of whether the host country think of itself as a melting pot (e.g. USA) or a mosaic (e.g. Canada, Australia, UK etc.), immigrants eventually forget their roots & take on the cultures & traditions of the host countries. First generation of the immigrants are usually far more resistant to this change, but their generations after them start "disguising" them to fit better in the societies of the host countries, & eventually, lose themselves in the process.

One common example is celebrating Christmas & New Year's. Everyone, from a Muslim to a Hindu to a Jew to a Buddhist to a Sikh to even an Atheist celebrate Christmas & New Year's in the West. Heck, they even celebrate or actively take part in Easter & Halloween. Of course, all these holidays do have religious backgrounds in Christianity but people of other religions start taking part in these cultural & religious celebrations because they want to fit better & be seen as a part of their host countries. In the process, they & their subsequent generations forget their own religions, roots, cultures, & traditions.

Living paycheque to paycheque a reality for thousands in Toronto

This is the ugly reality of Canada. 1.5 Million Torontonians earning almost $38,000 a year, which puts the family under the social class of "poor". And that's when several of these people earning this wage are university educated from a Canadian university. People in other countries think that residents of Canada must be rolling in cash.

Since, when I became unemployed, people are constantly telling me that this is the new reality & just take any job which is paying even $30K. What those completely ignoramuses don't realize that once you get in that tier of temporary & contract work force, earning $30K-$40K without any benefits, you are forever stuck in that tier. Life would be a little hard, not to say the least, even for myself; forget saving anything for kids' futures. That's when I have an MBA from a reputable university & 7 years of work experience.

Besides, what readers may not focus on the fact that the guy in this article is a native resident of Canada (read: white guy). The question arises then that what about all those legal immigrants & "people of colour" who may not even have "relevant work experiences" or Canadian education? They are in even worse positions (of course, depending upon which area of work we are talking about, e.g. computer-related work is still good enough).

People from developing countries think that since, Canada is a developed country, there will be lots of money to be made there. Bearing that false misconception, they move their whole family to Canada, & that's when they realize what an ignoramus they have been up until that time.

Now, such economic & financial problems might be considered temporary problems, & usually, the hope is that eventually, the economy will improve, labour market will improve, & everyone will be happy all around. The problem with that thinking is that what it is ignoring the fact that that economic improvement depends a lot on several factors; for instance, size of country's economy, government's tax policies, domestic consumption, foreign trade treaties, domestic industries (types, sizes, diversification) etc.

Canadian economy is very heavily dependent on only one industry; fossil fuels. And even then, that industry is localized in one geographical area of the country. Then what is the rest of the country should do? Wait for a handout from Alberta & Saskatchewan? Everyone relocate their whole families in those provinces (not an easy thing to do for every family)? Go back to university & shell out another $ 50,000 for another degree in oil & gas?

Canadian government, on the other hand, is more focused on spending taxpayer dollars on Kurds & the war against ISIS in Iraq & Syria, while Canadians are making the rounds to their local food banks to satisfy their hunger for basic food. Manufacturing sector is dwindling & moving to Mexico, thanks to Mexico's foreign trade treaties with several countries around the world. Canadian government can't help the country with favourable tax policies since the country doesn't have that much money (as per the government).

But, no worries, for the rich business & political elites. Their billion, million dollar wealth & 6-figure incomes are completely safe. Why do they care for small time citizens who dutifully paid taxes & now get their food from local food banks. Hey, I thought that only happened in corrupt "developing" countries. (sarcasm)

This is the ugly reality of living in a developed country.
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http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05/19/living-paycheque-to-paycheque-a-reality-for-thousands-in-toronto.html

Every time Eric Pinsonneault visits the grocery store, it’s a nail-biter for the single father of 3 kids, all under the age of 10.

He pushes his cart down the aisle, silently hoping to find a sale, or at the very least price tags that haven’t risen too much since his last visit.

Most of the time that doesn’t happen, & so he gets inventive — price matching, only serving the family meat 3 times a week, & cooking dishes that rely on cheaper staples such as rice & pasta.

“My income is so low, it makes everything that much harder,” says Pinsonneault, who lives on $38,000 a year, just above minimum wage.

That places him among the 1.5 million Torontonians making less than $21 an hour & in a smaller group earning under $18.52 — the figure recently reported as the necessary hourly wage to meet the needs of 2 parents working full-time while raising 2 children.

These low earners are part of a growing class plagued by skyrocketing housing prices, astronomical child-care rates & a broadening sense of poverty that puts a strain on shelters, food banks & welfare organizations.

Pinsonneault, a 30-year-old who calls himself “poor,” never expected to join that category when he was fresh out of university, comfortably living in a three-bedroom Chatham house that cost him $700 a month.

That was before he had 3 kids, went through a divorce, lost a job in a brutal downsizing & moved to Toronto.

Now, the administrative co-ordinator for a local start-up finds himself watching bills grow, wondering how he will cobble together enough cash to pay them off. Recently, he had to borrow from family to cover his credit card expenses, & just before that, he accepted his children’s school’s offer to pay their agenda fees.

“There is always something else,” he says. “I just got hit for a field trip for $20.”

Meanwhile, he says, his kids are getting older, needing more food & feeling pressure from peers to wear name-brand clothing & own all the latest Apple gadgets. The family can’t afford a landline or cable TV, so fancy clothing or an iPad are out of the question, says Pinsonneault. The same goes for trips to the movies or nights out.

To make up for it, Pinsonneault treats the family to breakfast at Sunset Grill once a month. Other times, he will shell out $15 on 3 $5 pizzas, giving the family enough food for lunch & two fun dinners.

“(My kids) understand that it’s only my money & that we are poor,” he says. “I try to give them as much as I can, but it’s hard.”

...

After tucking them into bed one evening, he told the Star, “I’m struggling, but emotionally, as a parent, I am bogged down knowing that they don’t get everything. That’s the hardest part.”

One day, he envisions things could be more manageable — he’ll move up in the fast-growing company he works for &, perhaps, the government will listen to collective pleas for lower child care & housing costs & a higher minimum wage.

But even then, he says, “I never put my hopes up high. It’s one day at a time.”

Respect women's right to wear veil in court

A great article & a good piece of advice from a competent person with years of experience in the legal sphere.

However, a majority of people in the West will start saying that how a court can pass a judgement when the witness is hidden behind a piece of cloth. Heck, in Canada, the current government of Mr. Harper & Co. have already brought a piece of legislation in the parliament, to ban veil in citizenship oath ceremonies, just so the judges can see that everyone is actually reading the oath. What's next? Keeping tabs on all immigrants, to see if they do really love their country & are loyal to it (sort of like North Korea).

If loyalty is to be measured by actually reading the oath, then what about all those rich Canadian business elites who stash their billions in offshore havens, & avoid paying taxes like the plague, but still use all the amenities of being a Canadian citizen. Are they loyal Canadians? Anyway, I digress.

So, on one end, public complains that people who have years of relevant experiences (to the given subject) & competencies should make such calls. When one makes such a call, then they decry why he/she is saying such things. So, the public will be happy as long as the person, saying something important in public sphere, merely confirm their biases. Anything other than that is a blight on that person's competencies.

One other common comment, which really rile me up, in such situation is said by the common public, is why don't these immigrants go back to their own countries, if they wanted to keep following their native country's cultures & norms. Good question.

My answer is no immigrant want to leave their beloved country & start a whole new life in another country, especially, since, their adopted country don't even accept them as full citizens. Developed countries stop interfering, politically & militarily, in developing countries' affairs & let them sink or swim. A majority of immigrants will stop migrating themselves.

After all, UN was made to end international wars & bring peace around the world. Well, the world history of the past 60 years has shown something else ... there are now more displaced people than ever & human suffering around the world has only increased in the past 60 years.
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http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/apr/17/respect-womens-right-to-weir-veil-in-court-says-britains-most-senior-judge

Judges must show respect to women who choose to keep their faces covered due to their religious beliefs, the UK’s most senior judge has said.
 
Lord Neuberger said judges must have “an understanding of different cultural & social habits” in their bid to show fairness to those involved in trials.
 
Addressing the Criminal Justice Alliance, the supreme court president said: “It is necessary to have some understanding as to how people from different cultural, social, religious or other backgrounds think & behave & how they expect others to behave.

“Well-known examples include how some religions consider it inappropriate to take the oath, how some people consider it rude to look other people in the eye, how some women find it inappropriate to appear in public with their face uncovered, & how some people deem it inappropriate to confront others or to be confronted - for instance with an outright denial.”

In 2014 Judge Peter Murphy upheld a ruling allowing Muslim woman Rebekah Dawson to stand trial wearing a full-face veil.
 
The 22-year-old waived her right to give evidence in her defence, however, after it was ruled that she would have to remove the niqab, which made only her eyes visible, if she took the stand.
 
She later admitted witness intimidation after denying the charge during a seven-day trial.
 
In a lengthy speech entitled “Fairness in the courts: the best we can do”, Neuberger accepted that judges tended to come from privileged backgrounds & warned of the dangers of this. “A white male public school judge presiding in a trial of an unemployed traveller from eastern Europe accused of assaulting or robbing a white female public school woman will, I hope, always be unbiased,” he said.

“However he should always think to himself what his subconscious may be thinking or how it may be causing him to act; & he should always remember how things may look to the defendant, & indeed to the jury & to the public generally.”

Neuberger said judges & lawyers should always keep in mind how “intimidating” the court process could be for those involved in trials, including “the parties, their families, the victims, the witnesses & the jurors”.

Speaking in the context of legal aid cuts, he said ensuring all parties involved in a case understood the goings-on in a court had become more important because “people are having to choose between representing themselves or not getting justice at all”.

Canada sells arms to African countries

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, that how developed countries of the West & especially, the members of the UNSC (UN Security Council) are largest exporters of arms & weapons around the world, I won't say much here about them.

I will pose couple of questions here, though:

1. How & why do we (primarily, Canadians) still think that Canada still flies the banner of peace around the world?

2. When countries like China, Russia, US, Canada, France, Germany etc. actively hawk their military wares to the developing countries around the world, then how can we expect any peace around the world, & how can we expect developing countries to ever get out of poverty cycle?

In light of my second question above, it seems like the strategy of keeping a majority of countries (& hence, their citizenry) underdeveloped around the world, by the developed countries is working perfectly. Developing countries keep fighting, either each other or rebel groups or multinational terror networks, with the multi-million $$$ of weapons bought from the developed countries.

Besides, owing developed countries money for these weapons, developing countries also borrow & owe lots of loans (infrastructure, development etc.). The same loans that developing countries borrow from developed countries are paid back to developed countries in the form of payments for military wares. But that payment doesn't count towards loans repayments & interests. Developing countries still need to pay developed countries' financial institutions (IMF, World Bank etc.) for those loans & interests.

So, developed countries get repaid twice, while developing countries lose their citizens' money twice. So developed countries always get richer at the expense of widespread poverty in developing countries. Those developing countries can never get out of the poverty cycles.

And if we look at the chaos & social upheavel in the developing countries, we see a common pattern among the groups which are causing that chaos. All those groups (Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Indian Maoist rebels, Joseph Kony's LRA etc.) came into being because of citizenry's poverty, e.g. ISIS came out of discrimination against Sunnis in Iraq, in official government & in getting employment; essentially realizing that their voice will never be heard. (I am not defending ISIS here, but just saying how it came into being).

So, the West wants chaos & upheavel in developing countries. Why?

Two Reasons:

1. Money is power. More money you have in this world, more power you have in this world. If developing countries start using those IMF loans to develop their own countries, by investing in education, infrastructure, industries, economy, healthcare etc., they themselves & their combined power will overwhelm the currently developed countries. Those formerly developing countries will easily take the reins of the world from formerly developed countries.

So, the strategy of developed countries: don't let the developing countries use their own citizen's money (taxes) & international loans in investing in their own countries. Keep these countries indebted to us. Debt is slavery.

2. When these countries have chaos & upheavel in their countries, their citizens, especially the ones who are intelligent & smart, will try to emigrate out of their countries, in search of a better future for themselves & their families. They will then settle in one of these developed countries. This way, the developing countries also lose "brains" of their countries (while also losing finances, as explained above).

Those people who immigrate to a developed country are then treated as inferior in those developed countries, & are discriminated against, based on religion, race, ethnicity, education etc. Those immigrants become similar to compliant slaves of the slavery era. They provide the low-wage workforce, which silently toils away at the bottom of the corporate & social hierarchies, while the native residents of the developed countries enjoy the fruits of their labour (i.e. become rich).

So, the developed countries get multiple benefits from selling weapons of mass destruction to the world:
1. get intelligent people out of developing countries (so they can't develop),
2. get a low-wage compliant labour force,
3. increase their country's tax base,
4. a large, intelligent labour force works in factories, making products to sell, worldwide, which helps exports & national GDP,
5. more exports & an increasing GDP helps boost economy,
6. working immigrants also increase the consumer base of the country, &
7. loans to developing countries are also repaid so money also comes in the country through that way (besides, exports)

On the other hand, you can imagine what developing countries lose (pretty much opposite of those 7 points above). So, developing countries get hit with multiple whammies on financial, economic, & human resources level.

So, more people will definitely fight for a decreasing share of resources in those developing countries, to the point that people start killing each other.

Then, we all say, the residents of those developing countries are so "uncivilized" & "barbaric".

By the way, if someone is thinking those developing countries are poor because of government corruption, then, here's my answer:

A corrupt government is indeed one of the factors why developing countries stay in "developing" mode. But we do have to keep in mind that those corrupt government officials are in power, thanks to the blessings (i.e. constant political interference) of the developed countries.

For instance, the developed countries bombed Libya & Iraq. Didn't invest in them to build these countries. Result is both of these countries became a haven of terror networks. Fractured political landscape is in such a shape thanks to the developed countries' interference. Well, as we can see, residents of these countries are all over the world as refugees & immigrants, while those countries & their neighbouring countries are buying weapons from these same developed countries, which created those conditions from their abhorrent actions, in the first place.

My final questions: who are the real barbarians in this world? Who are the real merchants of death in this world?
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canada-selling-arms-to-african-countries-in-boko-haram-fight/article23470116/

With global arms sales surging, Canadian companies have joined the booming business by selling armoured vehicles to Nigeria & Cameroon for their fight against Boko Haram, a new study says.
 
Canada is among a growing group of countries selling arms to the West African nations for the military campaign to recapture territory from the radical Islamist militia, according to the report ... by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
 
Most Western governments have been reluctant to sell weapons to Nigeria because of widespread concerns about well-documented atrocities by the Nigerian military, including the mass murder of civilians & detainees. The US, for example, cancelled the proposed sale of Cobra attack helicopters to Nigeria last year. But those restrictions don’t seem to apply to private companies.
 
Nigeria & Cameroon, seeking weapons to fight Boko Haram, have in the past year purchased helicopters from China & Russia & armoured vehicles from China, South Africa, Ukraine & the Czech Republic, along with armoured vehicles from Canadian-owned production lines in Nigeria & the United Arab Emirates, the report said.
 
... Nigeria has spent large sums on major weapons purchases in recent months. Its political leaders say the government went to the black market to buy weapons because the US & other countries would not sell to Nigeria. Hundreds of foreign mercenaries have also reportedly been hired to fight Boko Haram for $400 (USD) in cash per day.
 
The Nigerian deals are part of a worldwide boom in weapons sales. Global arms sales have jumped by 16% over the past 5 years, compared with the previous five-year period, the SIPRI report said.
 
The report showed that China is now the world’s third-biggest weapons exporter. China’s arms exports have soared by a stunning 143% over the past 5 years, allowing it to overtake Germany, France & Britain in global sales, although it still remains far behind the two biggest exporters, the US & Russia, which together account for 58% of arms exports. In the past 5 years, US exports have increased by 23%, while Russian exports have risen by 37%, compared with the previous five-year period.
 
Canada was the world’s 13th-biggest arms exporter over the past 5 years, according to the SIPRI report. In the previous five-year period, it was the 14th-biggest weapons exporter.
 
The SIPRI database identifies the sale of 40 armoured vehicles to Nigeria from Canadian companies in 2013 & 2014. Streit Group, founded in Canada in 1992, has publicly confirmed that it has recently sold its Spartan armoured vehicles to Nigeria. The company says it has sold 12,000 armoured vehicles worldwide since its foundation.
 
Peter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm institute, said another Canadian-based company, INKAS, has sold light armoured patrol vehicles to Nigeria from a production plant in Nigeria. Retired Canadian general David Fraser, who commanded Canadian troops in Afghanistan, is a director of INKAS.
 
Mr. Wezeman, in an e-mailed answer to questions from The Globe and Mail ..., said Canada should ensure it “understands the risks involved in arms exports” & should try to help Nigeria to deal with Boko Haram “in a way that involves the minimum amount of violence needed.” He added: “Just allowing the supply of weapons is not enough.” He said he was speaking in his personal capacity, not on behalf of the institute.

The problem with French immersion

Everywhere in the world, everyone is trying to play "one-up"; how do I make my life & my family's life better than other? Even if it means being discriminatory & unfair.

Now, here's an article, in which it is shown, how parents who think their kid is the brightest kid in the world (which parent doesn't think so?), will do everything & anything in their power (the whole family jamming up the French immersion school's phones on an call-in enrolment night is one way or lining up outside your kid's future school, for 3 nights, to get him/her enrolled is another) to get their kid enrolled in a French immersion school ... even if it means, another kid who is equally intelligent gets "bumped down" to an English-only school. Why?

Because, apparently (I didn't know this & never thought of it of myself), French immersion schools are like private education quality at the public education cost. Who wouldn't want that? You need to be missing a piece of your brain if you don't want a better quality product at a lesser cost.

Problem is though, as the article explains, it starts to discriminate & starts to make & perpetuate socio-economic disadvantages. Parents & their kids who are bilingual are of course going to earn more & have better job opportunities than unilingual families.

The most affected (with this discrimination) are immigrants & families from disadvantaged socio-economic classes. For immigrants, as the article suggests, French immersion schools admission authority will point out to factors like "you are having enough problem with English, since English is not even your first language, then forget about French immersion, & stick to English only."

Slowly & surely, kids from advantaged socio-economic classes gets clumped in together in French immersion schools, & eventually study & grow up together to the point that their strong network gets them to some nice places in employment. Those kids from disadvantaged background (immigrants, Natives etc.) gets clumped in together with all other kids from similar backgrounds & their network for life becomes people of similar disadvantaged groups. Boom !! You just got your two social classes ... & it will keep perpetuating for lives on end !!!

Are the kids from those disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds any less intelligent? Don't they have the right to be considered & treated same as those kids who are / will go to French immersion school?

Be it in a developing country or a developed country, like US or Canada, society keeps discriminating & creating social classes based on socio-economic, educational, income, ethnic etc. factors. This is why the world is in such a chaos.

In developing countries, parents have a choice of private or public school. Socio-economic status defines that choice. Obviously, most parents go for private education for their kids, to the point, that if a poor family has 4 kids (2 boys & 2 girls), then both boys may get private education, at the cost of their own sisters not getting any. Then, the uproar in the West becomes that girls are not getting educational opportunities. How can a poor family does that? That poor family is merely trying to increase the chances of breaking out of poverty cycle by getting their boys educated, who will of course, make more money than their girls will ever earn (even if they also get private education).

Similar to that, in US, for instance, many high-profile individuals in the country, have had a privileged background, from early educational opportunities to all the way to very nice employment opportunities. In Canada, we have this French immersion school system is apparently helping in the creation of social classes, & that's on top of the fact that there is a private school system (religious & secular), which of course, has its education quality just on a separate level than the public school system.

Where is that oft-spoken fairness & justice in this world???
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http://www.macleans.ca/education/just-say-non-the-problem-with-french-immersion/

Hannah Spencer isn’t the kind of mom who leaves anything to chance. When she wasn’t keen on her child attending the English-only school in their zone of Salmon Arm, B.C., preferring her daughter study French immersion at Bastion Elementary, she sent out her husband, Cody, one Saturday night in 2012 to wait by the district’s education centre to check if anyone had lined up already. With limited enrolment, registration was first-come, first-served & Cody was early. Sign-up started on Wednesday.

“We heard about other years with the lineup forming & finishing within an hour,” Hannah says. “If you didn’t get there fast enough, you would miss out.”

Cody slept in the family vehicle that night & the police noticed him parked outside the centre. When he told the officer of his wife’s request, the response was apt: The officer called a few RCMP colleagues, who also wanted their kids enrolled in French immersion, & warned them the lineup was imminent. When Cody decided to start the line around 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, right next to him was a local RCMP parent.
 
Pretty soon, the news had spread to Chantelle Prentice, 25 km away in Enderby, B.C. Looking at the Fraser Institute’s elementary school rankings, she figured the two top schools her son could attend were Bastion Elementary or the private school King’s Christian, but the latter wasn’t ideal for the non-religious family. The only way to get her son into her school of choice was to sign him up for French immersion—& quick. “The anxiety level was huge,” Prentice remembers. “When I was driving into Salmon Arm, I should have got a speeding ticket.”

Prentice arrived at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, 3 days before registration opened, & was the seventh parent in line for the 17 kindergarten openings. By 5:50 the following morning, all the spots were spoken for. That’s if everyone stuck around. Only a family member was allowed to relieve someone from waiting.
This was especially stressful for Hannah Spencer, who covered 13 hours of waiting during the day while her husband was at work. She was 9 months pregnant with their third child & hoping the baby could wait until at least Thursday. After all, if she got her first daughter, Alyvia, into the French immersion program, her younger son Pierce & the then-unborn baby could later enroll automatically without the wait. “We camped out for 3 days,” she says. “That’s only a day per kid.”

French-English bilingualism rates may be on the decline in Canada, but when it comes to getting kids into French immersion programs—which have come to be seen by many as a free private school within the public school system—there is nothing, it seems, that a Canadian parent won’t do.
 
Alyvia is now in Grade 2 & loving French classes. But for every student who graduates from French immersion, there’s at least one other who has been bumped out of the program & put into an English-only stream that many deem inferior. Well-meaning parents may feel that French immersion is the answer for every child. In reality, it has become an elitist, overly restrictive system, geared to benefit a certain type of student.
 
Decades worth of French immersion studies can testify to its benefits. Children learn another language without any detrimental effect to their English skills. Working memory, used in activities like math, is improved, especially among those aged 5 to 7. Even reading scores in English are significantly higher for French immersion students than non-immersion students, according to a 2004 study, which noted the higher socio-economic background of French immersion students alone could not account for the stark difference.
 
Plus, there are the added work opportunities later in life, not to mention better pay. Outside Quebec, bilingual men earn on average 3.8% more than their unilingual counterparts, according to a 2010 study out of the University of Guelph. Bilingual women, meanwhile, earn 6.6% more on average. Within Quebec, those numbers are even more pronounced.
 
In 1977, more than a decade after French immersion’s introduction, the program enrolled 45,000 students across the country. That number steadily increased to more than 342,000 students by 2011. “I’m not even sure that number even accurately reflects what the real demand is, because the constraint on availability is classroom spaces, teachers & resources,” says Lisa Marie Perkins, former national executive director of Canadian Parents for French, a non-profit volunteer advocacy group. “If there weren’t things like lotteries & caps, I think you’d actually see the numbers being greater.”

Pierre Trudeau had a vision of a unified, bilingual country when he pushed for the first Official Languages Act, which passed in 1969, but the school system has not kept up with the challenge. A dearth of French teachers causes school divisions to spend extra resources on the hunt for those who are qualified; community schools get uprooted if they push out the English program to make it French immersion-only; & the program loses a staggering number of students.

“What a program like French immersion does is it siphons off those kids who have engaged families who make sure the kids do all their homework,” says Andrew Campbell, a Grade 5 teacher in Brantford, Ont. “Because of that, the opportunities in the rest of the system are affected because the modelling & interaction those kids would provide for the other kids in the system aren’t there anymore.”

The immersion program creates division along lines of gender, social class & special needs students, wrote a 2008 study from the Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy looking at French immersion in New Brunswick. Girls are more likely to be enrolled than boys & the French stream has fewer kids in need of extra help. All things being equal in New Brunswick, every class—French or English—should have 3.4 students with special needs. But when a school offered French immersion, the average number of special needs students ending up in the English stream was 5.7. This kind of segregation is not unique to that province.
 
The richer the family, the more likely their kids will be immersed in French, according to figures from a Toronto District School Board study. In 2009-10, 23% of all French immersion students came from families in the top 10% of income. Meanwhile, only 4% of French immersion students came from the bottom 10% of family income.

“The program is open to lots of people, but it gets whittled down,” says Nancy Wise, a French immersion educational consultant & former special education teacher in the York region, just outside Toronto. “If you can’t cut it, you probably fall into one of these categories: [you’re a] new Canadian, this is your third language, you’ve got some learning challenges, or there’s a socio-economic factor. They jump on it in the schools & show them the door—& it’s just not right.”

Over the past 20 years, on average approximately 235,000 immigrants have come to Canada each year, & more than 80% of them speak neither French nor English as a native tongue, according to Statistics Canada. One-third of allophone students—those whose mother tongue is neither French nor English—reported their school discouraging their enrolment in a French second-language education, according to a 2008 study commissioned by Canadian Parents for French.

“New Canadians, or those who speak languages other than English at home, are told something along the lines of: ‘English is enough of a challenge for you & your family. Why don’t you stick to the English language program?’ ” Wise says. “There’s no research evidence to support that kind of discouragement.” But it happens.
 
In Vancouver last year, more than 34% of kindergarten to Grade 7 students in the English core program were ESL students, according to data obtained by the Vancouver Sun. For French immersion, ESL students accounted for 2% of the classes. Vancouver students with special needs, meanwhile, accounted for 8% of enrolment in the English-only stream last year; French immersion had lower than half that percentage.
“The special ed people who can handle those with learning challenges are far fewer in French immersion schools—& that’s because of the disproportionate number of children with those needs in English,” Wise says. “It all goes round & round & we keep perpetuating this elitist characterization of French immersion.

“If we’re going to offer this program,” she adds, “how can we justify it if we don’t give kids—from whatever background—the tools they need to succeed?” For all of French immersion’s successes among its pupils, when it comes to embracing all Canadians, the system is far from incroyable.
 
If registration into French immersion is limited, who gets in? “I do think it’s unfair—& I also think it’s not unfair—to do this lineup thing [in Salmon Arm],” Chantelle Prentice admits. “Who can take 3 days off work? What are you going to do with your children?”

Other school divisions register over the phone to avoid the annual sit-and-wait, though parents inevitably find ways to better their odds with tactics like “calling parties,” which involves multiple family members flooding the enrolment centre’s phone lines at the same time once registration opens. A lottery system, while evening the odds, boils down a child’s opportunity at French immersion to the luck of the draw. And it’s not always an unlucky 2 or 3 left out. At École Whitehorse Elementary, in the Yukon this year, there were enough kindergarten students on the wait list for French immersion to fill up an entire classroom. The territory’s education minister has promised to find them all room.
 
In some districts, however, there is no cap on enrolment, but that’s causing other headaches. In the Halton school district in Burlington, Ont., Margo Shuttleworth’s two boys are very happy studying French at Pineland Public School, but she’s not so thrilled with the school’s recent conversion to a single-track French immersion program to keep up with demand. Neighbours who wanted to see their toddlers one day study in the English-only stream no longer have Pineland as an option. “They’re taking a walk to school away from the communities who live here & busing them to another school, so they can bus other children into school for French immersion,” she says. “I don’t think French immersion should take precedence over a community school.”

Meanwhile, in Winnipeg’s south district, enrolment at the French immersion-only École LaVérendrye is “bursting at the seams,” says Winnipeg School Division board chairman Mark Wasyliw. The school was built for 300 students, but is projected to have more than 360 students come September. “Music rooms, art rooms, all those things you take for granted in a modern school system, they’ve all been converted into classrooms,” Wasyliw adds. “It’s affecting programming. These kids aren’t getting the quality & level of education they need.”

One solution can be found a few blocks away at the century-old Earl Grey School, which has fewer than 250 students enrolled but can accommodate a few hundred more. Some parents at LaVérendrye are lobbying for a school swap. Students at Earl Grey could easily fit within LaVérendrye’s walls, while LaVérendrye’s student population could continue to grow in Earl Grey’s building. Simple switch, right? It’s not.

“Earl Grey, demographically, is poor,” Wasyliw says, adding it has a lot of students from single-parent families & a high Aboriginal population. It houses a nursery, & there is a community centre next door for at-risk youth. “We move, we lose that proximity to the [community] centre,” says Darryl Balasko, the parent advisory council chair at Earl Grey.
 
Some Earl Grey parents, meanwhile, have suggested it become a dual-track French immersion school—hosting both French immersion & English-core students—to take some pressure off LaVérendrye’s capacity, but therein lies another problem. “You don’t want the English kids mixing with the French kids because that dilutes the whole purpose of being in an immersion setting,” Wasyliw says.
 
Yet the dogma of speaking French exclusively in the classroom may hinder some learning opportunites, says Jim Cummins, a University of Toronto professor & expert in second-language acquisition. For example, if a word like accélération comes up in French class, teachers could highlight its similarities to the English word, such as the “-tion” suffix. “It’s not a mortal sin to say: ‘Does this word remind you of anything in English?’ ” Cummins says. “Pointing those things out to students increases their sensitivity to language & increases their competence in both languages.”

In Oakville, Ont., Amanda Lee’s son, Conan, was struggling in early French immersion. The school had little support for him in French, she says, & paying for a tutor at home didn’t help him keep up. By Grade 2, “one of his teachers recommended we pull him out,” Lee says. A year later, they did. “It got to the point where we thought that we were burdening him too much,” she adds. “If he was struggling in two languages then we felt we need to take some of that load off him.”

While Conan’s story may resonate with many parents, research suggests pulling a child from French immersion is not always the solution. “These kids who struggle in school, they do just as well in an immersion program as similar children in a non-immersion program,” says Fred Genesee, a leading researcher on dual-language education at McGill University. “The additional challenge of doing all this in a second language doesn’t seem to be harder for them than doing it in a first language. At the same time, they become bilingual.” In effect, if a child is struggling with math in French, the problem might simply be with math, regardless of the language.

“If French immersion is really that good, let’s offer it to everyone. Let’s put it in every school,” says Campbell, the teacher. “The fact that we don’t do that says something about what the cachet of the program really is.”

The perception of weaker students being filtered into the English-only program then becomes more of an incentive for parents who consider their children among the best & brightest to enroll in French immersion. But at what cost to the English-track schools?

“Kids that are in low-income areas use French immersion as a way to get out of those schools,” Campbell says. “When I taught in Toronto, there were kids who lived in Lawrence Heights who would take a 35-minute [transit] ride to a French immersion school because the parents didn’t want their kids going to a school in that neighbourhood.”

Denise Davy, a mother from Burlington, says she pulled her daughter out of Pineland, where French immersion was prioritized, because the English program was so bad. “There were no supports, nothing available for my daughter who was struggling,” she says. “I’m not against bilingualism,” but she does take issue with “the ripple effect the [French immersion] demand is having on other programs.”

Parents who first enroll their kids in French immersion are quick to boast about their little ones speaking both of Canada’s official languages one day, but odds are they don’t think about their child being one of the many that drop out. “You start out with a school that has five classes in Grade 1, & by the time you hit Grade 8 there are two classes,” says Nancy Wise, the French immersion educational consultant.
 
For the 2007-08 school year in B.C. public schools, 4,281 Grade 6 students were part of the French immersion program, thanks to an influx of late immersion students. By the time that age group reached Grade 12 last year, approximately 2,230 remained. Meanwhile in New Brunswick, Canada’s only officially bilingual province, of the 1,469 anglophone students that entered early French immersion back in 1995, less than half (only 612) stayed with the program into Grade 12, according to a 2008 report.
 
From those Grade 12 students who then took an oral proficiency test, 99% achieved at least an “intermediate” score, but only 42% reached the mark of “advanced or higher.” So, what about dreams of fluently bilingual kids with the perfect accents? “I think we were naive,” says Genesee. “It can’t happen if you’re only using a language five hours a day, five days a week for 10 months of the year.”

What happens after high school graduation? Turns out native English speakers living outside Canada’s sole francophone province are rather poor at keeping up their French skills as they get older. In 1996, 15% of 15- to 19-year-old anglophones outside Quebec could conduct a conversation in both of Canada’s official languages. Fast forward 15 years & the bilingualism rate for 30- to 35-year-olds in 2011 was 8%.
 
Many of today’s youngsters are part of Canada’s second generation of French immersion students, the children of those who themselves took French immersion. The first wave, however, didn’t produce a giant pool of French teachers. In Winnipeg, Wasyliw says his division is running out of qualified teachers to keep up with demand. “We’re in the middle of budget discussions now & we’re going to spend money on recruitment teams that will be going to Quebec & eastern Ontario to basically start convincing native francophone teachers to immigrate to Manitoba.”

If only things were perfect in La Belle Province. Last November, when the alternative French class of an English-language high school in Châteauguay, Que., saw three teachers go on parental leaves & a fourth teacher didn’t work out, students were left with the computer program Rosetta Stone as the substitute teacher, with a non-French teacher supervising.
 
Canada’s French immersion system was once a model for the world, but it now lags behind countries in Europe where the European Union’s “mother tongue plus two” benchmark—hatched during a 2002 summit—set an ambitious goal for students to learn their native tongue plus two foreign languages. In a 2012 survey of 14 European countries, 42% of 15-year-olds could keep up a conversation in at least one foreign language. The European Commission’s goal is to boost that to at least 50% by 2020. The commission also set out to have at least 75% of students in lower secondary education studying at least two foreign tongues by 2020, compared to the 61% at the time of the report.
 
Credit Europe’s geography, which offers a multitude of cultures & languages in close proximity. Or the Internet & Hollywood for pushing English to the forefront globally. Regardless, Europeans will have plenty more than just one language on their CV in a global economy. According to EU data, more than half of all Europeans are already able to hold a conversation in a second language, while a quarter are able to do so in a third language. Even 10% can keep up a conversation in a fourth language.

“The world is going global & wanting to learn other languages,” says Genesee. “In Canada, we’ve been doing this for 50 years, but rather than expanding these programs, we’re putting a lid on them.”

As migrants we leave home in search of a future, but we lose the past

A powerful piece ... only those will understand it who have left their homeland, voluntarily or involuntarily, for whatever that reason might be.
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/24/migrants-leave-home-future-past-borders

This is not a sob story. But the tears came anyhow. They crept up on me at the 70th birthday party of a friend a few years back. We were celebrating in a hotel ballroom in Letchworth in Hertfordshire & I had struck up a conversation with distant acquaintance .... We talked about the primary school she worked at & the secondary school I went to, which were just 5 minutes’ walk apart in nearby Stevenage ... & about the local council & football team. She asked me when I was going back to New York, where I’d been living for 7 years at that point, & I told her, the next afternoon.

“You’re so lucky,” she said. “You’ve done so well for yourself. Your mum would be so proud.”

And that was when my eyes started welling up. Now it could have been any number of triggers – alcohol, jet lag or the mention of my mother, who died decades ago. But what really upset me was realising that in this town, people I wasn’t even particularly close to knew me in a way that nobody else would. They knew place names that no one else in my regular life (apart from my brothers) knew. And yes, they not only knew my mother but they knew me when I had a mother.
 
The following day I would fly to a place where people knew a version of me where very little of any of this applied. My friends in New York knew I had brothers & had lost my mother. They knew I grew up working class in a town near London. The rest was footnotes – too much information for transient people, including myself who would soon move to Chicago, who were travelling light.
 
In short, I cried for bits of my life that had been lost. Not discarded; but atrophied. Huge, formative parts of my childhood & youth that I could no longer explain because you would really have had to have been there but without which I didn’t make much sense.
 
Migration involves loss. Even when you’re privileged, as I am, & move of your own free will, as I did, you feel it. Migrants, almost by definition, move with the future in mind. But their journeys inevitably involve excising part of their past. It’s not workers who emigrate but people. And whenever they move they leave part of themselves behind. Efforts to reclaim that which has been lost result in something more than nostalgia but, if you’re lucky, less than exile. And the losses keep coming. Funerals, christenings, graduations & weddings missed – milestones you couldn’t make because your life is elsewhere.
 
If you’re not lucky then your departure was forced by poverty, war or environmental disaster – or all 3 – & your destination is not of your choosing but merely where you could get to or where you were put. In that case the loss is bound to be all the more keen & painful.
 
In Gender & Nation, Nira Yuval-Davis describes how Palestinian children in Lebanese refugee camps would call “home” a village which may not have even existed for several decades but from which their parents were exiled.
 
You may have to leave behind your partner, your kids & your home. In time, in order to survive, you may have to let go of your language, your religion & your sense of self.

“You can have a lot of love for your children, but it cannot fill their stomachs,” Mercedes Sanchez told me as she stood outside her tarpaulin home in the New Orleans tent city where she was helping rebuild the city after Hurricane Katrina. She paid coyote people smugglers $3,000 to bring her across the desert from Mexico. Along the way she was stripped naked by bandits & robbed at gunpoint. “In Mexico I made 200 pesos a week. I can make that in 2 hours here,” she said. “When you walk through the desert, you think you’re never going to arrive. It costs a lot of money & a lot of tears.”

I was lucky. I come from a travelling people. Those from an island as small as Barbados, buffeted by the winds of global economics & politics, tend to go where the work is. My great- grandfather helped build the Panama canal. My parents came to England from Barbados in the early sixties. Of my 14 aunts & uncles, 9 left the island for significant periods of time. I have cousins in Canada, Britain, the US & the Caribbean, some of whom I’ve never met.
 
Like many black Britons of my generation, I was raised in the 70s ambivalent to my immediate surroundings. The soil I stood on & was born on to was less where I was from than where I happened to be. For several years neither me nor my brothers lived in England. My mother hung a map of Barbados on the wall & stuck a Bajan flag on the door. She kept her accent, lost her passport & told us if we weren’t good enough for the West Indian cricket team, we could always play for England. On the dinner table stood a bottle of Windmill hot pepper sauce that only she used – a taste of a home to which we were welcome but never took to. When she died suddenly, we honoured her wish to be shipped “home” where she now lays buried within earshot of the Caribbean sea.
 
I fell in love with an American & here we are. My sense of loss is primarily cultural. Tapping a football to my son in the park & watching him pick it up ... ; asking why there’s an armed policeman in his elementary school (“It’s a good question,” said my wife. “But that’s not particularly remarkable here”); seeing nieces & nephews grow up on Facebook; returning for a holiday to find all the teenagers you know wearing onesies & using catchphrases from shows you’ve never heard of; seeing or hearing something that reminds you of home, your first home, & realising you lack too many common reference points to share it with those with whom you share your life now.
 
Migration is a good thing, so long as it is voluntary. I believe in the free movement of people. But that’s not to say it doesn’t have a price. I have choices that most of the world’s migrants don’t have. I can go back. And I’m happy where I am.
 
This is not a sob story. But every now & then, when I least expect them, the tears come anyhow.

Pledging allegiance to Islamophobia in US classrooms

As I have blogged several times in the past (in regards to Charlie Hebdo incident or the gang-style shooting in Sweden highlighting immigrants' situations in Europe), this op-ed piece talks about how Arabic language is associated with terrorism & Islamophobia.

Immigrants to US & Canada are constantly asked (in some cases, told) to assimilate & integrate with the culture of their new homelands. Assimilation & integration is a two-way street. Immigrants will happily assimilate & integrate with the culture of new homelands, as long as their native counterparts are also absorbing what immigrants are bringing to the nation.

But, that does not how it happens. Native residents (Anglo-Saxon Caucasians) of North America want immigrants to forget all about their pasts (culture, language, social norms etc.) & do as they are told to do by the native population.

Native residents have in their mind that beggars can't be choosers, so immigrants should change their ways, but native residents won't change their ways a bit ... to make their guests feel welcome.

Ironically, when these native residents of North America move to any other country in the world, which has a different culture than theirs, they try to change that country's culture or boldly defy it. For instance, Dubai authorities have politely asked their expat populations several times to cover up in public places but Europeans & North Americans stroll around in public places (malls etc.) in bikinis. Now, that may be acceptable in Miami or Rio or Bangkok, but it's not in Dubai.

Problem is that the native populations of North America & even Europe have a superiority complex. Lack of knowledge is hysterical (how is Arabic & Afghanistan are related is beyond me). Most of the population is closed-minded, & don't have any desire in learning something other than their own culture. This may not be as much visible or extreme in bigger cities, like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia etc. (where both kinds of populations, native & immigrant, come across each other quite often), but a big chunk of population also lives in much smaller cities, e.g. Thunder Bay, Brandon, Kamloops, or, as in this op-ed, Pine Bush. Immigrant population is usually relatively much smaller or even non-existent in these smaller cities, compared to large metro areas.

Remember, you need both hands to clap. Assimilation & integration requires both sides, native & immigrant populations, to reach out towards each other & understand each other; be they be living in a large metro area or a small town. Until that happens, both sides will keep blaming each other for not extending the hand of friendship & trying to understand each other's cultures.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/03/pledging-allegiance-islamophobia-classrooms-150322050951640.html

2 weeks after New York City announced that its schools would observe the principal Muslim holidays, another school district in the State of New York signaled that Islamophobia in the US, & its classrooms, was hardly on the decline.
 
On March 18, a student at Pine Bush High School recited the American Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic. The exercise was part of the School's "National Foreign Language Week", an event held to celebrate the "many races, cultures & religions that make up [the US & the Pine Bush] School District".
 
However, an event celebrating American multiculturalism & pledging patriotism was immediately met with anger & offense - driven by the conflation of the Arabic language with Islam, & in turn, inassimilability, violence & terrorism.
 
The controversy sparked by the "Arabic pledge" highlights, very vividly, how different dimensions of Arab or Muslim identity - even language - are conflated with threat. And more audibly, how even reverent attempts to reconcile Arab or Muslim culture with American identity incites zeal & scorn.
 
Pine Bush is roughly 85 miles away from New York City. Although within a 2-mile drive of the Big Apple, the School District is culturally & demographically worlds away. At 95%, the small town is overwhelmingly white. The Arab & Muslim-American populations are negligible, as is the presence of other minority communities.
 
National Foreign Language Week was an institutional attempt to culturally integrate (racially & religiously) minority students. Providing a platform, within the walls of the classroom, for these students to celebrate their native tongues, customs, & identities.
 
This invaluable teaching moment, as soon as the pledge was recited in Arabic, mutated into mis-education & malice.
 
"The pledge should always be said in English," one student stated. Several parents were offended, "because they had family members killed in Afghanistan," associating the language with war, & a nation where Arabic is not even spoken.
 
The chorus of opposition was united by a common baseline. Namely, that Arabic was anything but a standalone language. But rather, the linguistic tentacle of perverted representations of Islam, ISIL & al-Qaeda, & terrorism.
 
The very utterance of the language instantly evoked this imagery, & the translation of the pledge of allegiance from English to Arabic signaled hostility, imminent takeover, & the "clashing civilizations" discourse permeating through every pore of American society.
 
Instead of standing firm with the spirit of National Foreign Language Week, the Pine Bush High School principal apologised for the recital. Consequently, endorsing the idea that reciting the American pledge of allegiance in Arabic was an inherently unethical or unpatriotic act. A decision from the school's principal administrator & educator, no less, delivering a lesson (in Islamophobia) that won't be soon forgotten by the School's more than 1,000 students.
 
The Pine Bush pledge of allegiance controversy has also revitalised discussion of the tolerable scope of multiculturalism within American schools. Namely, which languages or cultures are deemed acceptable for students to celebrate at school - & which ones are considered pariahs?
 
This controversy, juxtaposed with NYC's plans to observe the Muslim holidays, illustrates that the answers to this question are more complex than clear. Indeed, languages - like Arabic & English - are more than merely systems of communication. They are symbols, expressions of membership, & perhaps most saliently, religious & racial proxies.
 
Arabic, in past & present in the US, does not only signal foreignness, but also an inextricable nexus to Islam, the Middle East, & the Orient. Spheres positioned as America's geopolitical & normative rival.
 
Several languages - primarily European ones such as French or Italian, for instance - are deemed assimilable with English. And therefore, American culture & its classrooms. However, other languages such as Chinese or Spanish are frequently branded as alien, inferior, & menacing. The former associated with long-embedded tropes of Asian hostility & subversion, & the latter linked to intense xenophobia & nativism.
 
However, Arabic - & the maligned entities & ideas it is associated with - stands head & shoulders above (other foreign languages) as linguistic pariah. While the pledge recited in Chinese or Spanish may have caused a minor stir, its reading in Arabic - as illustrated this past week at Pine Bush High School - rose to the level of national alarm & outrage.
 
A degree of zeal that matches the still climbing heights of Islamophobia on US streets. Which, unfortunately, is still being taught within the vast majority of its schools. While NYC's decision to observe the Muslim holidays offers a much heartening exception, Pine Bush - exactly 2 weeks after that unprecedented step forward - still stands as the unequivocal rule.