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Aussies 'stealing' NZ players
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<blockquote data-quote="ZeFrenchy" data-source="post: 532876" data-attributes="member: 47244"><p>My two cents. I was part of the "outside world" who thought NZ wer poachers, etc, but in a previous thread sort of like this one the arguments given by kiwis there (and that are repeated here) made me understand the situation. In part, it relates to my personal experience which has to do with Cooky's post below</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'd like to relate this post to the situation in France. Our football team is seen abroad as poachers too. I've even been told by people abroad that we poached Zinedine Zidane from Algeria... when he was born and bred in Marseille. That thought, unfortunately, is fed from within the country by nationalists and racists (closet or not) that consider the sons of immigrants to be "less french". I've had that myself, being born from immigrant parents. I didn't grow up speaking french at home, but I feel as french as the next guy, despite what I've heard from some people over my life (I admit, my nickname in this forum has to do with that identity search, and has a lot to do with the fact that, while living abroad, I was seen as "the french guy"). </p><p>However, some other immigrant families have had the opposite reflex. They don't feel welcome, they feel that the citizens of this country don't want them to join, so they search their identity elsewhere. You will hear french-born citizens whistling and booing the french national anthem and waving Algerian flags, and I certainly don't blame them. The way you describe New Zealand makes me pretty jealous I have to say.</p><p>Luckily enough, that feeling doesn't seem to have reached rugby, where we have a mixed, Ivoirien-born captain and no one has ever implied it is nothing else than fully deserved. And when you compare it to what has been heard about Zidane, Vieira or Makélélé (football players), you can only be grateful to rugby for being the way it is.</p><p></p><p>All that to say that societies behave differently and it's not (exclusively) the fault of the english of indian descent that they don't feel english. And congratulations to the NZers for the way they have shaped their multicultural society.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ZeFrenchy, post: 532876, member: 47244"] My two cents. I was part of the "outside world" who thought NZ wer poachers, etc, but in a previous thread sort of like this one the arguments given by kiwis there (and that are repeated here) made me understand the situation. In part, it relates to my personal experience which has to do with Cooky's post below I'd like to relate this post to the situation in France. Our football team is seen abroad as poachers too. I've even been told by people abroad that we poached Zinedine Zidane from Algeria... when he was born and bred in Marseille. That thought, unfortunately, is fed from within the country by nationalists and racists (closet or not) that consider the sons of immigrants to be "less french". I've had that myself, being born from immigrant parents. I didn't grow up speaking french at home, but I feel as french as the next guy, despite what I've heard from some people over my life (I admit, my nickname in this forum has to do with that identity search, and has a lot to do with the fact that, while living abroad, I was seen as "the french guy"). However, some other immigrant families have had the opposite reflex. They don't feel welcome, they feel that the citizens of this country don't want them to join, so they search their identity elsewhere. You will hear french-born citizens whistling and booing the french national anthem and waving Algerian flags, and I certainly don't blame them. The way you describe New Zealand makes me pretty jealous I have to say. Luckily enough, that feeling doesn't seem to have reached rugby, where we have a mixed, Ivoirien-born captain and no one has ever implied it is nothing else than fully deserved. And when you compare it to what has been heard about Zidane, Vieira or Makélélé (football players), you can only be grateful to rugby for being the way it is. All that to say that societies behave differently and it's not (exclusively) the fault of the english of indian descent that they don't feel english. And congratulations to the NZers for the way they have shaped their multicultural society. [/QUOTE]
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