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There's a question arising here: what do people consider as "integration" these days? Getting a job and learning the langauge of a host country? Or complete cultural embrace of new surroundins and gradual decay of original heritage? I'm sad to see that this is exactly what many Euro nations would like when it comes to the question of immigrants. They want Europe to become a melting pot of nations where immigrants (or at least their children) would eventually ceased to embrace their original culture, becoming completely assimilated into the new one. Imo, Europe as a continent should be all about celebrating diversity.
I agree with Ppgrrl about the social side of the immigrant issue. I think being unemployed, especially in a foreign environment is bound to make a person estranged from it's surroundings, up to that extent when you start considering the state, goverment and people around you as your enemies.
Regarding gypsies - same problem is Slovenia. I'm split in my opinions as far as it comes to them. On one side, yes, every person deserves basic privileges, guaranteed by the UN charter on human rights, yet on the other these gypsies are trying their hardest to EXACTLY match every bad stereotype people have about them. As in: they're given an opportunity to have jobs, yet they don't want them, since they live well of wellfare (especially since they almost as a rule have more than 4 children per family - which automatically grants them max goverment aid), they steal, cause riots, threaten locals with knives, their children evolve sooner than average western white children do (this is scientifically proven), which means girls get married at 12-14 - a 15 year of gypsy girl usually has her first child already - yet this brings another inconvenience: 12-15 year old gypsy boys who think white girls they go to school with develop just as quickly as tehir gypsy counterparts, so they start badgering them sexually... it came up to a point where Slovene parents in a school near the Hungarian border (that's where most of the gypsies are concentrated), demanded gypsies to have a separated classes from their white mates. This issue even came up to the European Commission as a breach of human rights. I do admit that seperate schools idea is taking it a bit far. It has a kind of a nazi-flavour to it.
I'd say that as human beings they still deserve to be respected and treated with dignity, yet Euro goverments (especially in Eastern Europe where this problem is most serious) should start indirectly forcing them to gradually adapt to the surroundings they're living in (getting a job, sending their children to school - many gypsy kids are never sent to primary school, or they drop out before finishing. If they can't assimilate or even adapt then they should at least RESPECT habits and traditions of a host nations, if they want to live with them in harmony. Where do they come from Killa asked... well scientists have not figured their historical migration routes precisely, yet by now it's almost proven that their original homeland was infact - India. They share a common genotype structure to some castes of Indians and their langauge Romany is lingusitically tied to some languages of India - namely Punjabi. They became nomadic around 9th century, when they left their ancient motherland India and headed towards Europe through territories of today's Iran and Pakistan. Why they became nomadic in the first place is still a puzzling issue.
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