Bulgarians Coming Here?

[Georgiesmum]

The headlines in the Daily Express today say four million Bulgarians want to move to Britain when migration rules are relaxed next year. They want to come to escape poverty in their own country. What are your thoughts on this?

[ichkeria]

I think the objectionable thing about the comments from our Bulgarian correspondent - whose basic points I fully understand and appreciate - are the comments about the gypsies in her own country. I find very unsatisfactory the whole implication that the UK is somehow better than Bulgaria because we perceive that we are richer - as expressed by Farage so glibly - and that naturally at the first chance everyone will want to decamp here.
On the other hand everyone has there own idea of their national "pecking order" and so Bulgarians, Romanians etc oftern look down their noses at their own perceived "sub-species". Rather spoiling the effect. The dismissive comments about multiculturalism don't help.
I wonder where Valeria is speaking from also. Sofia? I doubt it :-)

[NOX]

Valeria posted 'I also saw the heart-wrenching pictures in the Express - these are Gypsies (and no, not all Gypsies in BG live in penury, either)'.
I don';t find that comment objecitonable or offensive she was merely stating a point that gyppsies are an altogether different ethnic group top other bulgarians- she actually descriebd the pictures as 'heart- wrenching'. It's 100% true that the Roma and Sinti are incredibly baqdly treated throughout the whole of Europe ( including Romania and Bulgaria as a race) but I certainly didn't detect any out right prejeudice in her post, almopst the opposite actually, she was just keen to explain that the pictures you have seen are not representative of the majority of Bulgarians. I spend quite a bit of time in Eastern Europe and can absolutely vouch for the fact that most people are not the way the Daily Mail and Daily Express would have you believe.

[emmie]

if valeria is a woman i would be surprised, i would also be surprised if she/he is in Bulgaria as we speak, no one i know uses the term chav, let alone someone not from this country.
see Naomi's reply.
She/he hasn't come back with anything else in response, and if Bulgaria is so wonderful why come here at all?

[ichkeria]

Well she says she's a woman and she has a woman's name so going by that ... :-)
And why shouldn't she come here even if Bulgaria is the greatest country on earth? She was suggesting however that there was no reason for coming to the UK, which is perhaps slightly hypocritical at the same time.
I also detected a fair amount of irony in the stuff about the gypsies but maybe I've heard too many similar views from similar people. It all sounds very familiar.
But basically the point about the good things in Bulgaria is sound. The same applies to other countries of the Balkans e.g. Croatia, where the weather is a lot better and people are a lot better off than you think. No need for her to overegg the pudding quite so much to make the point though ...

(I know lots of people who use the word chav actually. Maybe it's just the circles I move in. It's a term of gypsy origin of course)

[Bbbananas]

I live in the town of Boston, Lincolnshire. You may have heard it mentioned / debated recently on Newsnight, or read about it in the papers. Enough said....

[emmie]

seems to have fallen out of it's original meaning then. She hasn't come back, made any further comments, don't you think that is odd, considering the rather strong views put forward.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav

[emmie]

salla, can you elaborate..

[ichkeria]

Yes it's a pity she's not come back. We could do with more people with a different perspective. Maybe I scared her off tho she doesn't sound easily scared :-)

[emmie]

i think she was a trojan horse, if you set up an account, not post more than once, something ain't right. Would have expected her to make further comments but nothing.

[ichkeria]

Maybe a Balkan Horse anyway :-)

[argorstran]

While searching on the internet Valeria has probably come across this question about her homeland in which derogatory remarks about her homeland and its people are being made . In response to this she has signed up and posted an answer , a good answer at that .
Having posted a good answer she then finds remarks along the lines of :
"..she's not a woman..."
"..she's not Valeria..."
"...she's not Bulgarian..."
"...she speaks perfect English (...couldn't possibly be Bulgarian...)...
"...she hasn't come back..."
"...she's a trojan horse..."

She has said all she needs to say in her first answer and she is not obliged to come back and get embroiled in a debate with people hell-bent on running her country down .
As for some alleged xenophobia in her answer - miniscule compared to the rest of the thread .
And finally , you can probably guess where this link goes , for news about Bulgaria , go here :
http://www.bta.bg/en
(...note the perfect English translation...)

( if other ABers wonder why I always seem to take this line it's because I don't like seeing individuals or entire nations unfairly attacked )

[emmie]

she obviously doesn't think much of us either,

[ichkeria]

You are reading far more into this than you should Argorstran. I think I was the only person to criticise anything this lady said. And that was only one aspect of it. She sounds well capable of looking after herself.
No one is all good nor all bad

[naomi24]

argorstran, you missed the bit where I said //I see nothing racist in voicing concern that your country cannot support ever-increasing numbers of immigrants – nor in taking pride in your country, as Valeria appears to.//

Funny that.