Diversity and cohesion: new challenges for the integration of immigrants and minorities [antikvár]

Preface Dear Europeans, If ever Europe had been united and divided at the same time, it is precisely now. Because Europe is a Continent full of mature and maturing Nations and States, it is also a Continent open to welcome all people seeking a new place to live. Europe knows, and has always known, how to open herself to newcomers. In the past, it was her gift, as well as her destiny that she carried within herself much of what others desired or searched for. Europe was receptive to many who turned towards her with hope, from the depths of the near or distant Continents of the world, and she found, and continues to find, a place for them to live amongst those she bore herself. During the last half century, Europe, at least in one of its corners, has been able to accommodate those who differed because their homeland was of another Continent. Europe was and should always remain an open Continent. The second and the third generation - of those who found the strength or the responsibility to separate themselves from their own homes or those who escaped, and saved at least a residue of dignity or their own lives, - dwell here now - a complement to the original inhabitants of many European countries. The legacy from other parts of the world, anchored in the differences of cultures and their values, now enrich many European towns and environments. Contemporary as well as deeply rooted European traditions are yet again, in different places, being trampled upon with a great deal of nationalistic arrogance. Some people try to return to that which is impossible to mourn for in leaning back on the still smoking gas chambers. A ferocious fight of principles - evident in those parts of Europe where the demons of the past, not having learned anything, still claw in the ruins of nationalism - is in progress in all those places where a new order has begun. The confrontation between equality, freedom and the high cost of human individuality against a bloody thirst for power, superiority and elitism, however, must give us a clear answer about the meaning of the future, and what the moral dimension of what this Continent's future will be. This confrontation takes place in each of us, to the extent of our own resignation of the dark past, and in the active resistance to the inequality of people. Past debts, or the lack of responsibility and generosity to the present, stir up the maladies of racism and xenophobia to the fore.