Allow me to now debunk the most common complaints I field about potential immigrants to the Czech Republic. Each claim will be followed by a counterclaim, which should make this slightly easier to follow:


Claim: The Czech Republic cannot afford to absorb new immigrants from all over the world! It doesn't possess the deep social safety nets other large European states have accumulated over the years. Immigrant absorption will massively strain the Czech economy which its present budget cannot possibly accommodate.

Counterclaim: Not true! Money excuses are ciphers for latent Czech isolationism coming to the fore. If the findings of Czech demographers are to be in any way believed, a massive drop in the Czech population will occur sometime around 2050. If the projected slump isn't counteracted by a steady influx of immigrant newcomers to the Czech lands, this nation will suffer from population decline. Full stop.

The Czech national birthrate -- presently less than two children per couple -- will hardly compensate for this dramatic drop; that is, unless something dramatic happens in the interim, such as the government suddenly deciding to make child-rearing lucrative again through child subsidies, though even this isn't very likely, given how this smacks of Communist-era practice.

Discussions about money and finances, or what the Czech authorities can and cannot afford, covers up the more pernicious traditional Czech fear of the other, which all societies are victims of. Some societies have chosen to face it and contend with this fear, while others have retreated into ivory towers of their own making, fearful of what tomorrow may bring. The Czech people are one of those nations.

Czech immigration fears are now combined with a kind of pseudo-scholarship Czech academicians now use to highlight the negative immigration track records of the Czech Republic's European neighbors. These are intended to remind the Czech electorate of the impending calls for a clawing back of these nations erstwhile liberal immigration policies, citing major backlashes in countries like France, The Netherlands, Italy, and Denmark. States that have been burned by immigration are representative examples for the Czech isolationists who choose to use it like ammunition in their crusades to prove that immigration is a bad thing for the Czech Republic.

There are calls for Czech lawmakers to craft a national migration policy that shares little in common with the Western European states.


Claim: Only immigrants from Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Slavic nations should be invited to settle here by the Czech Republic.

Counterclaim: Yet another of the deceptive weapons employed by domestic anti-immigration agitators to ensure the Czech Republic remains a white, Slavic, and culturally monolithic nation for the foreseeable future. The above claim is augmented by a thicket of crafty corollaries: how it will be easier for other Slavs to blend in with the Czech Slavic mainstream. How all Slavic tongues are essentially similar how much simpler it will be for newcomers from the above restricted pool of nations to master Czech. How the locals will accept them more readily because they are not visible minorities and vary little in attitude and temperament from the Czech majority.

What is clear is that a 21st-century mindset will not permeate thoughts of most Czechs over the span of just two post-Revolutionary decades, a definite hopeful signal. But at some point a comprehensive multicultural policy must be imposed upon the Czech nation if it is not to cause undue damage to itself and impair its future competitiveness globally. Locals cannot continue dwelling in a bubble of their own making. How often must it be reinforced that the world is no longer about nations, as much as it is about interwoven global economies? Joining the 21st-century world for Czechs also includes welcoming all sorts of newcomers with varying economic backgrounds and cultural approaches than just the low-hanging Slavic fruit from the region.

Claim: The Czech Republic only seeks low-cost labor migration to supplement the temporary shortfalls in its native pool.

Counterclaim: The Czech Republic has lost its advantage as a low-cost manufacturing and construction hub forever. When these sectors' present fortunes dry up -- it hardly matters when, the point is that they eventually shall -- this nation must orient its economy around something else.

When the Czech state will require those new minds to power the new knowledge-based sectors which will become the revised focus of its national economy, from where will these newcomers be sourced? White, Slavic, eastern neighbors, who have typically been employed in low-skilled plumbing, cleaning, or carpentry/construction jobs across the Continent? Or from other regions of the globe who have made high-technology and science the focus of their national curricula, now currently blessed with a surplus of brainpower?

Moreover, will the Chinese tolerate shoddy output from their Central and Eastern European hi-tech subsidiaries (we should expect these, too, because they're in the pipeline) all because of a dearth of qualified brainpower in the region? Clearly they will not. Clearly, as well, that the qualified employment shortfalls cannot be compensated by the present pool of Slovak immigrant farmers and similar Ukrainian or Polish low-cost imports, with primarily experiences in the agricultural sectors in their home countries. Since there aren't enough technical people in all of Slovakia and Ukraine combined to fill the the empty technical spaces, given that most Slovaks and Ukrainians are still learning etiquette and how to read, the Czech Republic will be compelled to seek candidates further afield.


Claim: Non-white immigrants invite incurable strains of disease and potential genetic mutation into the Czech national gene pool.

Counterclaim: Utter nonsense! The truth is rather that it is the ethnic Czechs who are often most frequently ill and whose DNA would be saved by the rapid injection of new chromosomal strains to their existing national pool. The incessant sniffling, mucous snorting, or gagging hacking coughs which assault my eardrums when I do my shopping or mill about in public is proof positive that the Czech genetic evolution has reached its apogee. Even with winters as cold as they can sometimes be in the Czech Republic, there is little reason for Czechs to become as ill as they do provided they properly bundle up. Consider as well, the premature balding heads -- both male and female -- and witness the deformed septums and deep-set beady green eyes -- again both on men and women -- which makes some Czechs appear reptilian. The poor oral and physical hygiene doesn't help matters any.

And something else about females as well. You have surely seen the emaciated females out on the street going about their daily chores? While some who might consider this to be the object of perfect statuesque beauty or the so-called "model's figure," all this proves is a case of burgeoning domestic malnutrition. As the Czech female body shape comes mostly in "all chest, no rear end" sizes, some more meat on the bones might be urgently called for. Also, men often possess dramatically poor muscle tone and come in varying heights, yet another unreliably random phenomenon for a nation safely nestled in a geographic crater, as the Czech Republic is. There should be more uniformity in excellence, not uniformity of weak genetic organisms.

An apt suggestion would be to properly synchronize these national disparities and chronic genetic imbalances through the prompt addition of new strains to the gene pool. A national campaign -- complete with television commercials, magazine ads, an online campaign, and perhaps a few books -- must show the merits of interbreeding of young Czech males and females with "studs" from far beyond Czech Republic's borders.

I fear for how Czech children may eventually appear by mid-century if the national overconsumption of pork and starch does not cease soon.

Limiting this must become the government's first priority before any policies about bringing in immigrant outsiders can be considered.


Claim: Amongst new immigrants, it is the Africans who are responsible for the bulk of criminal activity, moral laxity, and the primary contributors to the creation of an overall climate of fear and loathing regarding new migrants in the capital.

Counterclaim: Again, there are few proven statistics that show this to definitely be the case. Arguments against bringing Africans here in greater numbers must of course be balanced by relevant scholarship. What my discussions with Douh, Mahmoud, and some of the others have mainly revealed is that they are happy to be here and would gladly contribute to the strengthening of the Czech nation if given a platform to do so, in the form of equitable workplace opportunities or through a clear track to Czech citizenship.

Czechs extrapolate the high proportion of Africans working in so-called "sin" industries as indicative of a universal strain of African criminality. The unfair perception is that Prague's Africans are attempting to hoodwink the entire nation in the same way they tend to deceive Prague's tourists into spending their money at the city's sex clubs. This is the primary excuse cited by the Czech Republic's immigration opponents.

To suggest that all Africans are involved in criminal activity is absurd. While I do concur that earning undeclared income through artifice -- income which goes untaxed -- is unacceptable behavior, I won't go as far as to equate all undeclared income on a par with rape, assault, or murder. Undeclared cash income is in the "mild" category of crimes, and if Czechs are singling out Africans as being particular offenders in this category, then we might as well indict an entire nation of Czech offenders. Clearly this cannot be used as a excuse to bar more Africans from coming to this country.

As for moral laxity? There are no better practitioners of this than the Czechs themselves. Shall I enumerate the countless examples? Let us begin with the rampant sexual promiscuity, in a ways seldom seen anywhere outside of more Mediterranean cultures. Or how about having intercourse with a willing female partner before she even learns your name? Unreal, you say? Well it's right here in Prague and it's been done before. Marital affairs are strikingly common in the Czech Republic, and Czechs engaged in philandering have no qualms about introducing their lovers to their circle of peers, often with the direct knowledge of their present spouses. I have pity for Czech children, as should you.

Petty thefts are quite common amongst Czechs. Feigning ignorance of problems with a simple shrug of the shoulders, is also common. You want more examples of moral laxity? How about the lack of a desire to take responsibility for problems, fobbing off culpability onto others? It's all here already, without the addition of external "corrupting" influences. So what can Czechs say now in their defense?

Africans contributing to the overall climate of fear? I've already explained how this is mostly media-spun scaremongering. A smoke and mirrors sleight of hand to account for their own citizenry's shortcomings.

Africans do no more nor less than any native Praguer does to contribute to the overall climate of fearing and loathing in their city.

Native Czechs' questionable actions and habits are no less responsible for the impression Prague maintains in the minds of rural Czechs as a dangerous place to let your children roam free after midnight. This incidence hasn't a thing to do with color of skin or country of origin.

Try taking a spin in Czech road traffic. Ever try crossing a "zebra" in the downtown core without being overrun?

If that factor alone doesn't contribute to the climate of fear in the city, I don't know what does.

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Bottom line: we must stimulate the arrival of greater numbers of non-white immigrants to this country in the very near-term. Not a vast number, mind you, but a sizable enough sample size that whereby a more accurate baseline can be established by Czech demographic experts (not the witchdoctors).

Until that day arrives, all of the above Claims are without scientific merit. They remain merely speculative, prejudicial, and belie an irrational level of fear on the part of Czechs which is unworthy of a nation carrying within it their veins the bloodlines of Premyslid kings and Hussite warriors.

(excerpted from A Sad and Tragic Tale of Mister Douh, by Adam Daniel Mezei)