Like most people know (or I'd like to think they do) World War II ended with the Yalta agreement where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin decided it's time to set differences aside and start a brave new world. And for millions behind the Iron Curtain, 1984 began in earnest. Then in 1989, communism collapsed and everybody was happy again. Or were they?
Well, this blog isn't about that. Not necessarily. It's about one European's uncertainty on what Europe really means.
A story going around on forums for existing and would-be migrants to the UK has a headline that makes you really want to click on it, even if you have no interest in the subject.
I humbly submit an alternative headline: "British Jobs for British Boners." Not as suggestive, I agree, but at least the image it puts into your mind is not that painful – unless you're thinking of Lorena Bobbitt.
One newspaper - yes, the Guardian - goes against the overwhelming public opinion in Britain and publishes a blog about the whole Duffy-the-Eastern-European you-know-what affair.
It's written by a Polish woman living in Britain and shows the other side of the coin - how an Eastern European feels about Duffy's remarks.
Most Eastern Europeans here work and pay taxes, without having the right to vote. Nationals from the 8 countries that joined the EU in 2004 do indeed have the right to work without work permits but they have to register, so there are exact figures at the Home Office available to anyone who wants to see how many of them there are.
The latest entrants, Bulgaria and Romania, are still under a restricted regime. Nationals from these countries must either be self-employed - and obtain a yellow card certifying that status - get a work permit for a specific job, or be highly-skilled, to fill Britain's needs in areas such as technology, engineering, IT, medicine.
Figures about how many Bulgarians and Romanians are working in the UK can be easily obtained from the Home Office as well.
I am sure it would be possible to obtain figures on how many Eastern Europeans are on benefits - although they do not qualify for a lot of them, such as housing benefit, for example. So it would be easy for any journalist to get these figures and write an article about how Eastern European migration really affects this country.
They don't do it and I think that this is because it's easier to stick to alarmist headlines that grab British readers attention - even though they aren't accurate - then present them with the truth: it's not immigration that is causing Britain's problems.
But that would open a can of worms both for politicians and for the media, because in the absence of the immigrant enemy they will have to take a look in the mirror. And they may not like what they see there.
For instance, none of the candidates honestly told the British people what spending cuts will be made to reduce the UK budget deficit. I think the British people should worry more about that than about the handful of Eastern Europeans paying taxes here.
The Romanians who had the honour of having their windows smashed and were threatened with death by thugs in Northern Ireland are finally leaving, the BBC reports.
Not to the south of France, like Sir Fred Goodwin, but back to Romania – not a bad country to be in, during the summer. One resident in the Belfast area where these people were living told the BBC the Romanians brought the attacks on themselves. Asked how, he said "they shouldn't be here." Well, now they won't be.
Hopefully their departure will give a massive boost to employment in the region. For the moment I'd advise all Romanian passport holders (or indeed any other people from anywhere in the world) to refrain from visiting Belfast. One never knows.
Of course, the nice priest who offered overnight dwelling to the Romanians in the City Church, as well as the neighbours who organised anti-racism rallies, have remained in Belfast. But I'm sure they would be welcome in Romania, if the thugs haven't run out of bricks.
On a more serious – sombre, even – note, this is bad. It shows that thugs with bricks and death threats can drive people away. I hope other racist groups won't be inspired by this. Or that authorities will find the will and the guts to stop this kind of acts before it's too late.
Ok, so finally the feared numbers are here, in the open, for everybody to see and be scared by. How many desperate Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians etc snatched British jobs in the first quarter?
Enough to make one go to the pub and down a quick pint, wondering what all the fuss is about.
The latest statistics on immigration from Eastern Europe have been published by the Home Office on May 20 but went largely unreported by the media. How can this be, when these people with their strange accents are, after all, to blame for the sorry state of the British job market?
Well, I am sure the fair, balanced and open-minded media kept silent on these numbers so as not to spark unnecessary panic in the country.
But I will reveal them here, without fear, since very few people are likely to stumble upon this blog anyway.
Applications from workers in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia and the CzechRepublic dropped to 23,000 in the first three months of 2009, compared to 48,755 during the same period in 2008, the Home Office says on its website.
In what regards Bulgarians and Romanians, 4,615 applications for registration certificates have been decided from January to March 2009, of which 3,055 have been submitted by Romanian nationals, according to the Home Office.
At last a balanced article about foreign workers. The Financial Times writes that overseas workers are more likely to keep their jobs during the recession than the UK-born ones, partly due to the foreigners' willingness to work harder.
"Roughly the same proportion of British nationals and foreigners are unemployed - one in 12 - but joblessness among Britons rose by 600,000, or 43 per cent, in the past year compared with a rise of 16,000, or 15 per cent, among foreign workers," research done by the FT shows.
One of the reasons, according to the article, may be that the non-British workers who couldn't find work anymore just upped and left.
Yet another may be that different categories of people – such as contractors or the self-employed – from Eastern Europe are not entitled to unemployment, thus being left out of statistics altogether.
And last but not least, it may be that Eastern Europeans in particular are famous for their total disregard for lunch and tea breaks and their modest claims in what concerns working conditions and shifts.
