why no data for Italy?

Just curious, why does nobody think of the US like this? There was an indigenous native Indian population too! The US like Australia, would be nearly 90-99% "foreign" i.e. not indigenous!

Anyway, carry on...

There's about 33'000 Brits in Switzerland. The total population is around 7'000'000. So I make that 99.5% of the population are foreigners.

Luxembourg does not have that many foreigners because about 500.000 people drive in to work from Germany, France and Belgium every morning and then they leave in the evening.

However I saw quite a lot of asylum seekers from Africa while I was there.

Even the native indians in north america came over from Asia. If we're nit picking what is considered foreign, time frame means a lot as well.

This discussion could go on for ever with every new definition of the metrics.

I do

(when push comes to shove, and someone offends me about my heritage..)

Maybe... but wasn't it really one country at that stage? (ie no sea in between?)

And the Maoris of New Zealand came from Haiti,
and the Australians came down through Papua New Guinea(? i think)

Time frame. There were little "Swiss" Villages here, at the time *whoever the first settler was* moved to the usa1.

(though the little "Swiss" villages might have been German or Austrian or whatever due to some war or other where some plot of land was lost..)

My point being, everyone is at least part foreigner if they go back far enough in their own history.
As Mr Knopfler said, when you point the finger (cos your plan falls through), there are 3 more fingers, pointing back at you.


1 never believe everything you read in history books - they are written by those who can write, not those who were there.

I can't be @rsed; can someone please cut'n'paste this across to Fail Of The Day.

Assuming this is still English Forum

Fair point - I sometimes forget how widereaching the British Empire was - I just never had the b@lls to claim that we beat the native americans to america

Not too sure about the exact geography, it was a bit before my time :P.

But I believe the accepted theory at the moment has to do with colder climate creating the so called "Bering Land/Ice Bridge" between Siberia (Asia) and Alaska (North American). The hunters/gathers crossed here a few thousand years ago to become whats now know as "Native Americans".

Not sure how a little history lesson can be considered a fail.

He was right which is why I extend my fingers so that they all point away from me.

Regarding foreigners I think a white young rasta who I saw on the bus recently has got the right idea. He was singing about going back to his roots......(drum roll)........... Ethiopia (Africa). Him singing the song brought a smile to my face as we are all from Africa originally anyway. It also reminded me of Paul Chowdhry's comedy sketch.



P.S- If that white rasta is on the forum could you point me to the exact song you were singing?

"Foreign born" is a particularly stupid statistic to use. First of all, borders change (India/Pakistan, Czechoslovakia, Ireland/Britain, East Prussia, etc etc), second of all what people are really getting at is some concept of national identity rather than lines on a map. There are Magyar people in Slovakia, Germanic people in South Tyrol, native north americans whose customary homeland spans both sides of the US/Canada border, and countless examples of mixed ethic and cultural heritage. Surely Switzerland is a fine example of what can be achieved by ignoring this silliness. When the 19th and early 20th century idea of a "Greater Germany" was popular (see Bismark and later un-mentionables), the Swiss (rightly, IMO), told them where to get off (as they have been doing repeatedly since 1291. The Swiss are composed of Germans who don't want to be German, French who don't want to be French and Italians who don't want to be Italian, plus the Romansch who were here all along, and those of us more recent new-comers who generally like the idea of not being in our "national" homeland. Down with 19th century "nationalism", I say!

Not quite. As Haiti is in the Atlantic that would be a fairly indirect trek for anyone!

Maori are part of the larger Polynesian group; fairly recent DNA/genetic and social profiling shows that Polynesians are likely to have come from Taiwan through Indonesia, sailed West to East across most of the mid-Pacific where they either landed on or met peoples from Latin America (where the kumara is from) before sweeping south-east again across the lower Pacific to land in NZ.

A remarkable feat of sailing whichever way you look at it.