Other cases of massive diaspora immigration (back) to the "homeland"?

If Israel won its 1948-1949 war without significant Middle Eastern/North African Jewish manpower, wouldn't it be likely for Israel to likewise win a future war with the Arabs even without significant Middle Eastern/North African Jewish manpower?
no they made up the majority of the jewish population in Israel until 1990s so it is a large % of the Israeli army . The Arabs with a better officer core , better trained army and better weapons stand a good chance
 

CaliGuy

Banned
no they made up the majority of the jewish population in Israel until 1990s so it is a large % of the Israeli army . The Arabs with a better officer core , better trained army and better weapons stand a good chance
Aren't Arab countries generally poor at fighting, though?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
The people didn't directly say who ran the country, unfortunately, but I suppose it's at least understandable considering the country had been at war with imperialists and itself for two decades. But on lower levels Mao was really big on democracy. His policies were absolutely horrendous during the GLF (there's a drought, why are we continuing the policy that lowers grain yields?), but he was very interested in decentralization and the people driving socialism. Especially after the Sino-Soviet Split when he no longer had to pretend to like Stalin (who was hugely into centralization).

In fact the GLF was supposed to make the rural regions self-sufficient. The rural industry would provide for the people so that they didn't have to get goods from the cities. Unfortunately the people were a bit... too revolutionary... and not only worked on making pig iron but then turned all their tools and implements into pig iron, and the Chinese steel industry was not prepared for that much pig iron. In provinces which had a history of steelmaking production did increase because the people knew how to work pig iron into steel, but elsewhere it just sat there. But when it comes to huge countries of the 20th century that had revolutions, Mao probably came closest to getting some nice and good lateral socialism going on.

Of course this is a pretty rosy picture I'm painting because I'm focusing on the pre-GLF (and therefore pre-huge political instability) era.
Thanks! :) Very interesting information! :)

Indeed, Mao is generally portrayed as a monster but, based on what you're saying, it looks like China's decline under Communist rule only began around 1960 or so.

Also, out of curiosity--had a nationalist Malaysian government after independence portrayed all Chinese as Communists and thus discriminated against its own population, could we see large-scale ethnic Chinese immigration to China from Malaysia?
 

Towelie

Banned
If Israel won its 1948-1949 war without significant Middle Eastern/North African Jewish manpower, wouldn't it be likely for Israel to likewise win a future war with the Arabs even without significant Middle Eastern/North African Jewish manpower?
Kind of a touchy topic there, as there were stereotypes of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews being poor fighters and relegated to rear eschelon roles in the IDF. Of course, a lot of it was simply racist bullcrap, and Eastern Jews performed quite well from the '67 War onwards in the IDF (and nowadays, it is not uncommon for even the elite units to be mostly made up of Mizrahim or those from the National-Religious Sector while the secular Ashkenazi have seen increasing rates of evasion of service).

A lot of the issue was a culture clash in that the IDF was organized along European lines with ideas like autonomous initiative taking junior officer corps being built along German lines, with armored units and the air force based around American doctrine of combined tank-artillery-aerial integrated communication, and the elite units taking much from the British Commandos. They generally faced Soviet esque Overcentralized armies that placed a lot of emphasis on overwhelming the enemy with men and machines on a front wide basis, and this fell apart once the air battle was lost and lines of communication were imperiled, leading to disasters like the retreat to the Suez Canal in '67 or the failure in the Golan Heights in '73. There were even racial issues among the Mizrahi, where the Moroccans and Iraqis were treated like garbage while the Yemenis and Algerians were seen as quite good.

Israel likely could have won the wars after 1948 without Eastern Jews, as they won not because of manpower but because they faced incompetent enemies and won the air battle early and decisively. But the Arabs of 1948 were hardly even nation states, with the best unit, the Jordanian Arab Legion, led by British officers, and the other units deployed half heartedly and not coordinated at all. That has little to do with manpower and more to do with incompetence.
 
I'm not sure if it qualifies, but the OP mentions hundreds of thousands. Nearly 290,000 Argentines, most of them with dual European nationality due an European grandfather (most likely Spanish or Italian) currently live in Spain and I'm going to guess the majority left around the 2001 crisis. But, while not exactly a drop in the bucket, we are talking about 300,000 migrants leaving a country with a population of 40 million to go to a country with a similar population. It's not really a massive diaspora returning to the homeland.

Maybe if there was a low cost airline operating a Buenos Aires-Barcelona route in the early 2000s (was an intercontinental low cost even possible at the time?) more people would have left? Or if the USA hadn't allowed Argentines to travel without visas through the 1990s, resulting in a lot of the migration that went to the USA going to Spain instead? Potentially, that might get you near the half a million mark.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
I'm not sure if it qualifies, but the OP mentions hundreds of thousands. Nearly 290,000 Argentines, most of them with dual European nationality due an European grandfather (most likely Spanish or Italian) currently live in Spain and I'm going to guess the majority left around the 2001 crisis. But, while not exactly a drop in the bucket, we are talking about 300,000 migrants leaving a country with a population of 40 million to go to a country with a similar population. It's not really a massive diaspora returning to the homeland.

Maybe if there was a low cost airline operating a Buenos Aires-Barcelona route in the early 2000s (was an intercontinental low cost even possible at the time?) more people would have left? Or if the USA hadn't allowed Argentines to travel without visas through the 1990s, resulting in a lot of the migration that went to the USA going to Spain instead? Potentially, that might get you near the half a million mark.
Very interesting! :)

Also, out of curiosity--how large was Argentina's ethnic Italian and ethnic Spanish population in the 1980s and 1990s?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Kind of a touchy topic there, as there were stereotypes of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews being poor fighters and relegated to rear eschelon roles in the IDF. Of course, a lot of it was simply racist bullcrap, and Eastern Jews performed quite well from the '67 War onwards in the IDF (and nowadays, it is not uncommon for even the elite units to be mostly made up of Mizrahim or those from the National-Religious Sector while the secular Ashkenazi have seen increasing rates of evasion of service).

A lot of the issue was a culture clash in that the IDF was organized along European lines with ideas like autonomous initiative taking junior officer corps being built along German lines, with armored units and the air force based around American doctrine of combined tank-artillery-aerial integrated communication, and the elite units taking much from the British Commandos. They generally faced Soviet esque Overcentralized armies that placed a lot of emphasis on overwhelming the enemy with men and machines on a front wide basis, and this fell apart once the air battle was lost and lines of communication were imperiled, leading to disasters like the retreat to the Suez Canal in '67 or the failure in the Golan Heights in '73. There were even racial issues among the Mizrahi, where the Moroccans and Iraqis were treated like garbage while the Yemenis and Algerians were seen as quite good.

Israel likely could have won the wars after 1948 without Eastern Jews, as they won not because of manpower but because they faced incompetent enemies and won the air battle early and decisively. But the Arabs of 1948 were hardly even nation states, with the best unit, the Jordanian Arab Legion, led by British officers, and the other units deployed half heartedly and not coordinated at all. That has little to do with manpower and more to do with incompetence.
Thank you very much for all of this information! :) Indeed, it's great to learn more about all of this! :)

Also, though, I've got a question--even if the Arab countries would have refused to allow their Jewish populations to leave in the years after 1948, could large amounts of Western money (bribes, really) have eventually caused these countries to change their minds on this? After all, didn't Communist Romania change its mind on this once it received large amounts of money in exchange for allowing its Jewish population to emigrate? If so, why couldn't this have also been true of the Arab countries in this TL?
 
Very interesting! :)

Also, out of curiosity--how large was Argentina's ethnic Italian and ethnic Spanish population in the 1980s and 1990s?
I don't know if anyone kept track, but tens of millions. According to wikipedia, 65% of Argentines have at least one Italian ancestor, so that's above 26 million people by now. But none really identifies as "ethnic Italian" or "ethnic Spanish", even if they may refer to Italy or Spain as their grandparents homeland. After all, you can't call yourself "ethnic Italian" if one of your grandparents is Italian, another Spanish , another is creole and the last one is an odd case of a Lithuanian immigrant.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
I don't know if anyone kept track, but tens of millions. According to wikipedia, 65% of Argentines have at least one Italian ancestor, so that's above 26 million people by now. But none really identifies as "ethnic Italian" or "ethnic Spanish", even if they may refer to Italy or Spain as their grandparents homeland. After all, you can't call yourself "ethnic Italian" if one of your grandparents is Italian, another Spanish , another is creole and the last one is an odd case of a Lithuanian immigrant.
OK; understood.

Also, though, is there any way to increase the number of Italian and Spanish emigrants from Argentina in your scenario to 1.0+ million?
 

Towelie

Banned
Thank you very much for all of this information! :) Indeed, it's great to learn more about all of this! :)

Also, though, I've got a question--even if the Arab countries would have refused to allow their Jewish populations to leave in the years after 1948, could large amounts of Western money (bribes, really) have eventually caused these countries to change their minds on this? After all, didn't Communist Romania change its mind on this once it received large amounts of money in exchange for allowing its Jewish population to emigrate? If so, why couldn't this have also been true of the Arab countries in this TL?
It sort of varied country by country. In some cases there were pogroms (Iraq) that led to an exodus, in some, the Israeli government ended up doing evacuations (Yemen, for example). In some cases, what you stated is what actually happened. American pressure allowed the Jews of Syria to emigrate, for example, and the same likely happened with Iraq. The Jews of Jordan and the West Bank were expelled in the 1948 war, with the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem completely under Arab control.

The truth of the matter is that some areas have done what you have said, like Iran, while others like Algeria actually expelled the Jews in actions reminiscent of the Middle Ages. But the notion that the emigration of Middle Eastern Jews was forced is a contested one, as some think that it would undermine the Zionist outlook of Middle Eastern Jews, while others contend that it would open up claims of property restitution in negotiations with the Arab states and the Palestinians.

As for Romania, that may have been the case. Romania was a pretty shit run country and needed all the money it could get, especially considering that they got a bit loose with following the Moscow line as time went on and that didn't help them at all.
 
OK; understood.

Also, though, is there any way to increase the number of Italian and Spanish emigrants from Argentina in your scenario to 1.0+ million?
I don't think so. An even harsher economic crisis would mean more people would be unable to afford to emigrate. A milder economic crisis would mean fewer people would emigrate. The European Union might have decided to grant double nationality to great-grandchildren of European emigrants, increasing the "pool" of South Americans with double nationality, but I don't think that would double the amount of emigrants.

Unless Spain actively subsidizes Argentine migration, I don't think it would happen, and I doubt Spain (or any other country) would subsidize immigration.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
I don't think so. An even harsher economic crisis would mean more people would be unable to afford to emigrate. A milder economic crisis would mean fewer people would emigrate. The European Union might have decided to grant double nationality to great-grandchildren of European emigrants, increasing the "pool" of South Americans with double nationality, but I don't think that would double the amount of emigrants.

Unless Spain actively subsidizes Argentine migration, I don't think it would happen, and I doubt Spain (or any other country) would subsidize immigration.
Two questions:
1. What about if Italy and/or Spain pay for the emigration of ethnic Italians and Spaniards from Argentina? Indeed, think of Israel paying for the aliyah of poor Jews.

2. Why didn't many ethnic Italians and Spaniards emigrate from Argentina in the years and decades after the end of World War II? After all, wasn't Argentina an economic hellhole during the second half of the 20th century? :(
 

CaliGuy

Banned
It sort of varied country by country. In some cases there were pogroms (Iraq) that led to an exodus, in some, the Israeli government ended up doing evacuations (Yemen, for example). In some cases, what you stated is what actually happened. American pressure allowed the Jews of Syria to emigrate, for example, and the same likely happened with Iraq. The Jews of Jordan and the West Bank were expelled in the 1948 war, with the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem completely under Arab control.

The truth of the matter is that some areas have done what you have said, like Iran, while others like Algeria actually expelled the Jews in actions reminiscent of the Middle Ages. But the notion that the emigration of Middle Eastern Jews was forced is a contested one, as some think that it would undermine the Zionist outlook of Middle Eastern Jews, while others contend that it would open up claims of property restitution in negotiations with the Arab states and the Palestinians.

As for Romania, that may have been the case. Romania was a pretty shit run country and needed all the money it could get, especially considering that they got a bit loose with following the Moscow line as time went on and that didn't help them at all.
Thanks for sharing all of this information! :)
 
Two questions:
1. What about if Italy and/or Spain pay for the emigration of ethnic Italians and Spaniards from Argentina? Indeed, think of Israel paying for the aliyah of poor Jews.

2. Why didn't many ethnic Italians and Spaniards emigrate from Argentina in the years and decades after the end of World War II? After all, wasn't Argentina an economic hellhole during the second half of the 20th century? :(
1. Because their electorates would be screaming bloody murder. Europe encouraged immigration to a point because of declining birth rates. But at some point, the citizens would be asking their governments to keep the immigrants away from their jobs

2. Because it wasn't an economic hellhole. Yes, it had moments of economic crisis and very high inflation, but until the mid 1990s there was full employment 90% of the time and and workers just above average (or plainly average) could not only get a mortgage for their home, but it wasn't uncommon for them to get a second mortgage, once the first was paid, to buy a vacation home they'd only use a month per year at best.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
1. Because their electorates would be screaming bloody murder. Europe encouraged immigration to a point because of declining birth rates. But at some point, the citizens would be asking their governments to keep the immigrants away from their jobs

2. Because it wasn't an economic hellhole. Yes, it had moments of economic crisis and very high inflation, but until the mid 1990s there was full employment 90% of the time and and workers just above average (or plainly average) could not only get a mortgage for their home, but it wasn't uncommon for them to get a second mortgage, once the first was paid, to buy a vacation home they'd only use a month per year at best.
1. So, why not cut immigration from elsewhere to compensate for this?

2. Wouldn't Argentina have been much wealthier right now if it wasn't for decades of government-supported autarky, though?
 
1. So, why not cut immigration from elsewhere to compensate for this?

2. Wouldn't Argentina have been much wealthier right now if it wasn't for decades of government-supported autarky, though?
1. Is subsidizing immigration even politically viable? A country would be taxing his own citizens to actively pay for foreign workers to compete with them in the workplace. Cut immigration from elsewhere and the electorate would still be against paying South Americans to migrate to Europe. Merely accepting them? Yeah, probably. Giving them free airplane tickets to arrive and free rent for a few months? I don't see that happening anywhere.

2. Full employment ended for good when imports were opened in the 1990s. That's not to say Argentina wouldn't be much wealthier, as a whole, if plenty of economic decisions had been different. But I'll believe in buying Chinese knock offs and exporting commodities when the First World Nations stop showing up as the highest ranked in the "more protectionist countries in the world" lists
 
Full employment ended for good when imports were opened in the 1990s. That's not to say Argentina wouldn't be much wealthier, as a whole, if plenty of economic decisions had been different. But I'll believe in buying Chinese knock offs and exporting commodities when the First World Nations stop showing up as the highest ranked in the "more protectionist countries in the world" lists

This applies to NZ so much it's not even funny. I reckon, given the current government's hard-on for primary exports at the expense of everything else, in the next decade we'll probably start turning into a miniature Argentina, except without the population base for domestic industry. That's primary export-dependency for you.

Actually, if you get borderline-ASB shit hitting the fan in Australia, you might see a return of the massive Kiwi population over there (returns are already at record levels, largely due to NZers being relegated to second-class citizens) - but then, given our economic dependency I feel NZ itself would be going down the tubes in that case.
 
Actually, if you get borderline-ASB shit hitting the fan in Australia, you might see a return of the massive Kiwi population over there

Please do, my housemate fetishised your accent so now every girl they bring home sounds horrible!

EDIT: In all seriousness though, it would likely hurt our industrial sector just as it is. A lot of Kiwis work in the mines and factories as tradespeople or machine operators
 
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