ok...fine, I almost used another term than Caucasian, anyway...I just assumed it made the point internally in the paragraph. I certainly don't suggest it is the best way to define "whitish" groups any longer.

So...as to the point....you tell ME whether there are any language problems in France, Germany, Italy, England...etc... Would it be a problem in England if pressure were building to have TV channels in, say, Chinese and the school system was having to spend many extra £s to have parallel classes in Chinese?

I know that the French, especially, are pretty defensive about their language, and that there is a strong movement to promote Welsh as a viable, vibrant language, which MUST have some effect on the social norms of the UK. How are these things playing out? How does London deal with large Pakistani populations? Is it smooth, or are there conflicts?

Sure, in Europe, there are all these " different people insisting on speaking their own different languages,", but it was my understanding that they did it mostly in their own countries....am I wrong?

I am reading in the Washington Post just this morning this sort of item:

"From the shores of North Africa, Western European affluence is only a short boat trip away, and each year thousands of illegal immigrants attempt the trip. Often the result is tragedy, as overloaded vessels overturn in high seas."

"The wave of travelers approaching Libya includes refugees fleeing civil war in Sudan, war in Iraq, conflict in the Palestinian territories, anarchy in Somalia and poverty in places as far away as Chad and Nigeria. Libya is a magnet for the migrants partly because of its proximity to Italy but also because, for many years, the government of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi permitted Africans and Arabs to enter his country without visas, in the name of pan-continental solidarity.

Libyan officials estimate that more than a million migrants live within the country's borders. Italy's interior minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, has put the number at 1.5 million.

"Some neighborhoods in Tripoli are entirely under the control of immigrants," Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam told reporters in Tripoli recently. In remarks to the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Shalqam indicated that the long barren frontier made it virtually impossible to stem the tide. "If for you Italians illegal immigration is a problem, for us it's much more. It's an invasion," he said.

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This world, with much of the 3rd world painfully aware of the advantages to be had by escaping to Europe or America (including Canada), seems to have problems deciding how...and IF...to regulate immigration, legal AND illegal. Add in the current religious element in terrorism, and you can't have an issue with clear-cut, easy answers anymore. Everyone in the world can't move to those parts of the world deemed safer and 'better'...so where is the line to be drawn, and by whom?

I am fascinated and intrigued by diversity in art, language, culture, etc...but I'd like to do it without the angst that pervades the situation currently. I, too, have a culture, language and social system that I'd like to practice comfortably, and gradually incorporate bits of other cultures and languages, much as was done when the process was slowed by sailing ships. (Even then we had conflicts when the Irish arrived in New York and slavery brought many thousands of Africans to an Anglo world!)

......I don't HAVE a simple solution, but I refuse to ignore the problem just because any stated solution is disagreeable to someone.

The one thing which could gradually ease the situation IF other things were also worked on is population control...but that is another can of worms, hmmm?