Having read so much witless shit about the migrant crisis, I don’t think I can bear to hear or read one more paranoid alcoholic blogger prattling on about the ‘conspiracy’ to ‘wipe out the white race’; it was funny at first, but we’re way passed levity by now.
Just in the last day, two more horrific incidents have occupied headlines. One concerned the bodies of ’70 migrants’ found in an abandoned lorry near the Austrian border. The decomposing state of the bodies suggest that they had been dead for one to two days, the police have said, suggesting that the victims must have already been dead when the lorry crossed into Austria (a country swaying ever more to the Far Right).
Almost simultaneously, hundreds of people are now feared dead in the latest ‘Libya sinkings’, after two boats carrying up to 500 migrants have just capsized off the Libyan city of Zuwara. This is in addition to the well-over-a-thousand who’ve already drowned at sea just in this year.
Let’s establish a quick fact: the overwhelming majority of these people aren’t ‘economic migrants’ – they’re refugees.
An example of ‘economic migrants’ are the scores and scores of Europeans who emigrated en-masse to America a few centuries ago and displaced the native population. Another example of ‘economic migrants’ are the scores and scores of Europeans who emigrated en-masse to Australia and New Zealand and displaced and persecuted the native populations. Another example of ‘economic migrants’ are the scores of European who emigrated to South-Africa and Rhodesia and subjugated the native populations for generations.
Those are all classic examples of ‘economic migrants’.
Which is not to say, by the way, that this historic European migration/colonisation of faraway lands didn’t lead to anything good. Without question, this spreading of ‘civilisation’ was, on the balance, probably beneficial to society and to human progress. The point is that European migration (and radical transformation of the cultural make-up and racial demographics of foreign lands) has been far more comprehensive and total historically than immigration to Europe has been.
On the other hand, a classic example of a ‘refugee’ or ‘asylum seeker’ would be all those scores of European Jews who were fleeing Nazi Europe 70 years or so ago and who, almost without exception, were all turned back and sent back to die in the concentration camps.
As Jews fled Hitler’s Europe, representatives from Britain said the UK had no room to accommodate Jewish refugees. Australia (a country built exclusively on immigration) told them “We don’t have a racial problem and we don’t want to import one.” Canada said of the fleeing Jews that “none was too many.”
Only the Dominican Republic offered to take 100,000 Jews, but their relief agencies were so overwhelmed that only a few Jews could take advantage of the offer.
How sad that in this 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the concentration camps, the same uncaring, xenophobic sentiments are being echoed across Europe.
The view that these aren’t economic migrants who are arriving in Europe is also taken by the United Nations, which estimates that 85-90 percent of people arriving in the EU are bona fide refugees, fleeing violence or persecution in their home countries.
In fact the eye-watering statistics, according to the UNHCR’s annual Global Trends Report, is that one in 122 people worldwide is now either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum. And 58% of all refugees are children. According to the UNHCR report, the number of refugees had risen to a staggering 59.5 million in 2014, an increase of over 8 million in just one year. The main reason is the war in Syria, which had an average of 42,500 people becoming refugees every day last year.
The response, by the way, from most Western countries to the Syrian refugee crisis has been described by humanitarian agencies, including Amnesty, as ‘pitiful’.
If you really think that people would leave their entire lives behind and get on a rickety boat to travel from Libya to Europe (many of them having paid virtually their life-savings to do so), with great risk of drowning, and with no promise of charitable treatment upon arrival, simply to sponge off the ‘benefit system’, then you’re a fucking idiot.
You’re also probably conflating the motivations of legal migration from within the EU with the motivation of migrants from elsewhere – which are two different things. In key cases, such as Syria (where a large percentage of the refugees are fleeing from) and Libya, the conditions they are fleeing are either partly or wholly the creation of Western governments. Frankly, anyone fleeing Libya should get automatic asylum in France, Britain or any of the other NATO member-states or 40 nations that destroyed that country in 2011.
I can categorically go further and say that this migrant crisis is a direct consequence of the British, French, American, NATO destruction of Libya in 2011. If you doubt that, then hear it from one of the migrants’ own mouths.
Libya, which was a stable country that had a reasonably high quality of life, is now a failed state, with ISIL, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist militias fighting over the spoils and with no functioning government. Some will argue with me that many of the migrants aren’t Libyans but Africans simply coming *via* Libya: but you’d be missing the point that an enormous number of the African migrants that are now ending up in Europe were people who used to end up in Libya. Libya used to be THE END DESTINATION for large numbers of sub-Sahran Africans. There were well over a million of them living in Gaddafi’s Libya up until 2011; they were part of the society and the migrant workers worked mostly in construction. When the NATO-backed Islamist militias and terrorists were let loose on Libya in 2011 by France, Britain, America and the other co-conspirators, the Black Libyans were persecuted, many killed or lynched. From that point on, Libya was no longer a safe place for African migrants.
I’ll refrain from going into the Libyan intervention again, as all of that is covered at exhaustive length in my book on the subject (download it, if you haven’t already – among everything else, it explains why the migrant crisis exists).
But if you want to blame someone, blame David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and co – blame the 40 nations who bombed Libya to pieces four years ago. Because Europe didn’t have a ‘migrant crisis’ when Gaddafi was alive. And in fact, as I’ve already noted, Gaddafi himself warned that NATO’s actions in 2011 were going to turn the Mediterranean into “a sea of chaos”.
No one was fleeing Libya or being sent from Libya as ‘psychological warfare’ prior to the West’s ‘intervention’ in 2011.
As for Syria, that too was an internationally generated crisis, in which the US, the UK, Turkey, the Saudis, Qatar and Israel are all culpable.
I propose that, at the very least, any migrant coming out of Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan is *owed* automatic asylum in the UK, the US or any of the other countries involved in those wars. And Australia too, of course – a country whose government seems to regard all refugees the same way as it regarded the Jews 70 years ago: as some kind of sub-human vermin.
Meanwhile the conditions and attitudes many of the migrants encounter when they arrive anywhere is becoming increasingly hostile.
Two particular stories of Syrian refugees that recently went viral are heartbreaking. One concerned a young Syrian refugee boy in Turkey who was violently assaulted by a shop-owner for trying to sell tissues to make a little money for his family, and the other concerned a Syrian man who had resorted to walking around trying to sell pens on the streets in Lebanon in order to feed his young daughter (who he carried on his back).
These aren’t ‘swarms’ or statistics, but desperate human beings fleeing violence and loss. The pathetically low number of Syrian refugees being taken in by Britain is an embarrassment; particularly given how much support our government has given to Al-Qaeda-aligned ‘rebels’ in Syria.
But the backlash in Europe is growing dramatically. This is now party time for the Far-Right across the board. The eruption of Far-Right, anti-migrant activity in Germany will in all likelihood be followed by similar events in other countries. The recent attacks on immigrants in Germany are probably a sign of things to come; the violent anti-migrant mob were shouting “foreigners out” and carrying banners against the “asylum flood” while they threw bottles and stones at bus-loads of asylum seekers arriving in Heidenau, near Dresden. The demos were said to have been infiltrated by Germany’s Neo-Nazis. A car belonging to a politician who spoke up for the refugees was even blown up.
Support for far right-wing parties across Europe, including France’s National Front, Germany’s ‘Alternative For Deutschland’ and Austria’s Freedom Party, has continued to grow throughout the summer, as they are now in a great position to feed off of all the heightened xenophobia and tension.
Like the European Jews seven decades ago, the dehumanisation process has already begun; and Far-Right groups and figures are cleverly manipulating anyone they can. See more on that subject here.
And even those asylum seekers who do manage to reach Europe are in many cases held in poor conditions for an indefinite amount of time (or worse in Australia, where they’re held indefinitely in off-shore concentration camps). To the traffickers operating in Libya (including ISIS/ISIL, who openly threatened to use the post-Gaddafi Libyans as migrants and ‘psychological warfare’ against Europe – which they appear to be doing), they are pawns, while to most European and Western governments they are inconvenient statistics and to many newspapers and European citizens they are ‘lousy immigrants and asylum-seekers’, ‘swarms’ or according to some high-profile commentators, ‘cockroaches’, trying to ‘sponge off our countries’.
Many refugees and migrants are arbitrarily detained by the authorities. Hundreds, including families, pregnant women and unaccompanied children, were being detained for prolonged periods at Macedonia’s ‘Reception Centre for Foreigners’, with no indication of when they’d be allowed to move on. Former detainees told Amnesty International that they had been beaten by police officers, with some reporting that they’d been told “If you die here, nobody will come and ask about you. We will throw your dead body out.”
Violent xenophobic attacks on Syrian refugees were being reported from much further back and said to have been occurring in Bulgaria. A Human Rights Watch report details physical abuse of Syrian refugees by Bulgarian police (including beatings and the use of electric shocks), and the confiscation of personal possessions and money by border guards. There have been stories of the refugees being either robbed, assaulted or deliberately misled in various European countries.
Meanwhile, desperate to escape beyond the ill conditions of the Hungarian train stations, migrants who pay money to criminal operators promising to smuggle them across the border or even all the way to Germany are often tricked and left nowhere near where they were supposed to be going; or worse, simply abandoned.
The shanty town in Calais, a desolate wasteland near a chemical factory, has been described as a ‘horror movie’. In this piece from The Guardian, ‘Karim’, an Egyptian politics graduate with an admiration for Winston Churchill and “all things British” describes being pelted with potatoes and subjected to racist abuse from a passing car, while an Afghan physics graduate seeking asylum simply said, “I didn’t believe places like this could exist.”
Worse, Australia is a whole other matter. A ‘Pit of human misery’ is what Manus Island has been called; meanwhile the various off-shore concentration camps the Australian government uses to keep asylum seekers in indefinitely are shrouded in official secrecy, but are described by those few who’ve been able to visit them as hell-holes that dehumanise their scores of refugee inhabitants.
What we are witnessing now, especially in Europe, is an evaporation of humanitarianism and instead a growing tribalism and even a sectarianism that is being deliberately exacerbated by right-wing organisations and the right-wing elements of the media. Much of this is driven by the growing anti-Islam movements (even in Germany, where you’d think there’d be a lot less of that, given the historic stigma).
As I’ve said before, you’d be depressed by how many people haven’t learnt anything from history.
__________________
The best way to end here is to direct you to this piece by Zena Agha in The Independent earlier this year, in which she talks about her cousin from Syria, who died drowning on one of these ‘migrant boats’ trying to flee the war in Syria – and you can decide whether he sounds like a refugee or an ‘economic migrant’ looking to milk the ‘benefits system’. She writes, ‘Our apathy towards those dying in the Mediterranean epitomises this growing intolerance. We are moving inextricably towards a point where we worship borders and security over human life‘.
There’s probably a lot more to be said here; but I find this subject so depressing and frustrating that I should probably just stop.
But I almost wonder if everyone who was in favour of the war on Libya or the invasion of Iraq can be sent to live in post-war Libya or post-war Iraq. That’s poetic justice, surely. David Cameron would love a weekend in Gaddafi’s old home-town of Sirte – ISIS only executed 100 people there last week; those are decent odds.
And there’s got be a Baghdad bungalow with Dick Cheney’s or George Bush’s name on it, just waiting for them to move in.
Read more: ‘The Migrant/Refugee Crisis: Fully Exposing the Racist Lies & Propaganda‘
The name of the game: Build Eretz Israel…
In regard to the economic migration by Europeans to the rest of the world, you assert, “And that historic migration was *entirely* economic – no one was fleeing hardship, deprivation, famine or war.”
Have you actually read any of the European history relating to people fleeing famines, clearances, civil wars, religious persecution and such like?
From your stance, it would seem that you are quite unfamiliar with the history of enforced emigration to the New World and Australasia.
Please look up the Irish famine, the Highland Clearances, the Lowland Clearances, and the selling of human beings into ‘white slavery’ (Sorry, I meant to say ‘indentured servitude’). And I haven’t even mentioned what went on in England.
Your ignorance is remarkable, if not downright deliberate.
Thank you for the enlightening article Blogger and, above all, for your patient and respectful responses to those who disagree with you. Something that is urgently needed is an open dialogue with people who do not understand what is going on here. It’s really helpful to see these comments handled in a constructive way. I don’t know how much people really want to listen but it’s certainly worth trying. A big part of the problem here in the UK (and presumably in other European countries) is a narrative constructed by the government/media that we do not have enough – to fund our schools, our health services, social housing, and so on. Of course people are frightened of the idea of ‘outsiders’ coming in who might try to share these scarce services, when they are already underfunded. Perhaps even more so people who are not so privileged themselves who feel they will be pushed further into poverty when others arrive and start competing for what little there is to go round. Unfortunately the government also starve normal people here of a good education that might enable them to get a more accurate and well informed world view. The truth is, of course, that there is stacks of money for services – but the system is designed to benefit the richest, with nowhere near enough money being distributed to where it is needed. There are plenty of campaigns trying to change this (such as the so called Robin Hood bankers tax proposing 0.001% tax on banks speculative financial transactions, which could raise billions of £s- an idea opposed by our government). Whatever we can do to get the message out there that this is political and economical, the better. The same people we are terrified of letting in because they will nick our scarce services are victims of the same system that protects a global elite and claims there is not enough to go round. It takes a brave person to seek the truth and face it and accept that we have a huge fight for justice on our hands and that the simple idea that we are being spoon fed where all the immigrants and muslims are the bad guys is just a handy story that we swallow – Divide and conquer… Those at the top are watching the poor desperate British people kick off at the poor desperate refugees and sit tight safe in the knowledge that nobody is challenging THEM. This is not even a conspiracy theory, which lots of people seem to suggest – well respected academics write about this situation and there is plenty of evidence to back it up. Yet those who are claiming such things as ‘100s of terrorists are getting in’ or ‘90% of them are extremists’ don’t have any sources to cite – no facts, no evidence, just fear….Incidentally, to whoever said ‘they can’t even live together in peace and harmony’ – please be careful with the word ‘they’. It appeared you were talking about Muslims – this is a huge generalisation. Take Malaysia, for example – it’s a muslim country where I have enjoyed a wonderful holiday and witnessed hindus and buddhists living there very happily along with the muslims and plenty of white british ex-pats as well – so please be careful when you make such sweeping statements. Finally, I should add that my only experience of mixing with muslims in the UK was working at a multi-cultural school where the kids all respected each other’s religious and cultural differences, openly discussing their religions and cultural backgrounds with interest. Thank god that they are better than so many adults at mixing and accepting one another. Let’s hope that they are the ones who will soon be in charge. Thanks again Blogger.
Thanks so much for that contribution, Anonymous. I hope everyone reads your comment. This post has gotten so many aggressive, racist, insulting or just plain ignorant responses; but a comment like yours counteracts all of that beautifully and restores some of my faith in the goodness and intelligence of people.
Very leftist and very stupid.
I wanted to reply to the “expensive phones” issue. In Canada, we pay the highest rate in the world for our cell phones. A basic contract that includes texting, data, and 10 free phone numbers costs me $70 a month for three years..$2,520. The law has just changed around contracts, so I am looking forward to paying less. But in India and other third world countries, there are a lot more “pay as you go” programs and phones do not cost anywhere near they cost us here.
The last time I did pay as you go here, you had to pay a minimum of $10 a month and if you were late to pay, you lost all your built up equity.
So you see impoverished Indian farmers with cell phones and in African countries too. So do not equate what you are paying to what they are paying in Syria
I stumbled upon this post just now, and the scope of racist shit storm and celebration of ignorance just amazes me. Xenophobia and racism all come from fear and ignorance, making generally people an easy subject to manipulation. I usually never comment on any public discussion so please excuse if my reasoning will be not too logical.
First, I would recommend to most of the haters in here to get themselves familiar with macroeconomics and the functioning of the state finance. I’m an economic migrant myself, working in Germany. I got 2 university degrees and speak 5 languages. German government didn’t spend any money to get a worker as I am. So I’m getting my earnings in Germany, spending most of it here, contributing to the welfare system. That’s how put very simple the economy works. Given there are working places available (e.g. in our city in South Germany it was a huge trouble to find the cleaning personnel for the office!), the newcomers will create also the value for the economy, and btw help to support our pension system which will crack when millennials will hit the retirement age. So please consider this.
Second, I read a lot of hate comments that among the refugees there are a lot of young ‘rich’ looking males. People making it to EU as refugees aren’t the poorest as they need to pay to the traffickers to get here in the first place. The most deprived people have literally no chance to flee the country. That’s why among the refugees we can see decent looking people. Then most of the families can afford to send only ONE family member to hit the road investing often all of their savings. They send males as they have higher chances to survive during the trip.
Third, everyone is saying here about how all of us should be afraid of Muslims which is absolutely nonsense. Once again please look at Germany. In the city where I live between 30-40% are foreigners or immigrants. Still everyone coexist quite well. I have a few neighbors: one of them is Turkish working for the local police and who used to help me with groceries when I had a broken foot; and the other neighbor is a white German (apologies for such a racist description) who smokes pot every day, and every other month trashes his flat so that we have to call the police. And at the end of all that as an immigrant from ex-USSR country I would fall into a slut-shaming attitude equally by all the nationalities. So everything is relative, please inform yourselves on the matters. There are crazy individuals, radicals and fanatics among all the ethnic and national groups.
Staying ignorant you just make yourselves an easy subject for manipulations. Get your own opinion on things.
Thanks anonym, that’s a great contribution. People are really stupid, getting swept up in all the right-wing, anti-refugee nonsense that’s going around the web. I hear that argument all the time too – about the refugees being all young, ‘rich’ looking males: it’s not actually true, but lots of people believe it and keep spreading the myth. I was aware anyway of how much right-wing racism and anti-Islam sentiment there is these days, but even I was surprised by some of the ignorant or nasty comments I got with article.
Leftist? Stupid? Please explain.
Sharon, it’s pointless to ask them to explain. They just leave a buzz-word comment, often without having read the article, and then they disappear.
What a thoughtful post. Thank you
We should be responsible for our own action. Killing, war, is never been an answer to any crisis. Communication is, educating people, the leaders should provide it. Let’s go back to basic, where love, sharing, respect to one another could make the world a better place to live in. We are in one planet. Why don’t we share our resources. Greed can cause human misery.
When the Allied forces overran the concentration camps of the Third Reich, they uncovered
something worse than war. World War II was a longer and more extensive war than most
wars, so that it was a worse war ( more deaths, more wounded, more destruction, more
lingering hate ). Yet if the Allies had not resisted Nazi aggression effectively, the result
would have been much worse, and there would have been no end to it.
War is the answer to some crises. M. K. Gandhi’s resistance to Imperial Great Britain
was successful. M. L. King’s peaceful resistance to Jim Crow laws, based in part
on the teaching of Gandhi and the Congress party was successful. These successes
resulted in part from the civilized nature of the British Empire and of the United States.
The non-violent campaigns were resisted violently. Injustice did not disappear easily or
quickly. But part of what led to victory was that when, for example, people saw
photographs of police dogs and fire hoses being used on non-violent teenagers, they
were surprised, shocked, and moved to change this. Resisting the Soviets, Nazis, or Imperial
Japanese forces by such methods would not have been successful, because the Nazis,
Soviets, and the Kempe-tai were not ashamed of what the did and they would not have
changed their methods.
The crusades was 800 years ago. That you attempt to draw a moral equivalency between what is happening with Islam today with what happened with Christianity 800 years ago makes you know better than Barack Obama at the prayer breakfast.
Christians are not stoning their wives. You’re trying to defend Islam by bringing up 800 year old examples of Christianity.
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you think it is insulting to vet anyone who was brought here from Middle East.
As for humanity I think it’s pretty likely you are also pro choice. And likely pro late term abortion if not partial birth abortion.
Finally, that you use names like Bush and Cheney freely but have not mentioned Hillary Clinton’s role in Libya or Barack Obamas roll with red lines and failure to eradicate ISIS when he could have says a whole lot about you and your bias.
Just like the pro illegal immigration people are never there when they murder someone so to be pro Islamic apologists will be first in line to blame the Tea Party and guns when one of these Syrians shoots up another Army recruiting office.
Excuse my iPhone’s inability to take correct dictation.
Mike Gorga, I was responding to a comment that Islam hasn’t ‘evolved’ since its birth and was making the point that the religion has gone through different stages, just as Christianity has – hence the reference to the more violent Christian eras. And there’s no bias when it comes to the blame-game; I didn’t mention Hilary or Obama specifically in this post, but have mentioned them in other articles – and mentioned them at length in the book about Libya; I’m not going to keep repeating the same information in every single post. Clinton, Cheney, Bush, etc, are all as guilty as each other.
The extraordinary degree of absolute ignorance and entirely non-Christian attitudes that this article has provoked in response makes everything written in it even more justified than it originally was. Also, I’ve never heard of ‘these Syrians’ committing *any* crime in America. All Muslims aren’t Syrians, and all Syrians aren’t Muslims. And what has gone on in Syria – a country that used to be stable – is largely the result of external interference by foreign parties, of which the US government has been one of the biggest contributors.
” largely the result of external interference by foreign parties … biggest contributor ”
Perhaps, although surely foreign Daesh fighters are also a candidate for biggest contributor ?
I find it hard to believe that no Syrians ( not even Bashir al-Assad or his infamous father )
are important causes in the terrible situation n in Syria now. The father of the current tyrant
used artillery on a rebellious city ( Homs ?). Who does that ? I don’t think that the brutality of the Ba’athist regimes in Syria or Iraq can be fairly blamed on outside influences.
To place primary blame on outsiders is a way of infantilizing Syrians. If their problems are not their fault, then are you seeing them as children, not responsible for their own actions ?
When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia ( or any other country they invaded) the terrible events that happened were the fault of the Nazis, who were much more powerful than the countries they invaded, except for the Soviet Union, I suppose. But few surrounding countries are even as powerful as Syria was. One exception is Turkey, but Turkey has played more of a role of saving helpless victims of Assad than victimizing them.
The terrible violence committed by Daesh, the Syrian Ba’athist regime, and other ‘rebel’ groups ( many of whom are not Syrian, most of whom are Syrian ) is the faut primarily of those who are pulling the triggers, dropping the bombs, and raining down artillery on helpless, innocent civilians ( and on each other).
Yes violent muslims are just sweet little migrants, they mean no harm you say. They are flooding the west, here in Michigan they cry and whine about movies (American sniper), trying to censor the university of Michigan, they fill our welfare offices (birthright citizenship), they demand mosques in residential areas. Yet if we don’t do what the want, when they want the victim card comes fast and furious. Take your diatribe and shove it, I want my children to be safe, my schools to not be halal, and our nations future to be free of sharia.
Well, then you should ask your government to stop arming and funding terrorism, conducting regime-changes and importing ‘sharia’ into other people’s countries. There’s absolutely no real danger of American schools becoming ‘halal’ or America being subject to ‘sharia’ – and I think you know that.
Glad to see more and more articles like this one on the rise. It’s scary to see how many racists started to speak up and threaten with violence (both physical and verbal). I’m ashamed of those who are trying to excuse their racism and xenophobia with false accusations like “they’re terrorists, they’re trying to convert us” etc.
It scares me too. Too many people seem to care more about their tribal/racial issues than about humanitarian concerns.
Is the fact that it’s the poorest in our countries that are gone suffer first from those new arrivants bother you? Is the fact that most of those illegals have several thousands of euros to give the criminals that conduct them in Europe and are not fleeing war bothers you? Is the fact that the more we let them come the more will take the road and die on the way bother you? Is the fact that when they leave their countries they empoverish it a great deal bother you? By the way do you receive migrants in you home?
“Glad to see more and more articles like this one on the rise.”
There is no need for more articles like that, all western medias are already spraying the same irresponsable message.
Notice you didn’t mention Tony Blair in your accusations? David Cameron had nothing to do with Libya? I don’t defend politicians cos they’re all Liars, who do what they want when they get in office, but don’t play “Left/Right”politics with this issue. Refugee is not Immigrant and that line needs to be firmly drawn.
David Cameron had everything to do with Libya – he was the reason we bombed Libya and overthrew the government. Blair was Iraq – i’m not playing left/right politics.
Iran’s nuclear warheads will eliminate this Sunni problem in the near future. All of this mass suffering will soon be over. God is great! الله أكبر
الله عظيم
The Sunnis aren’t the problem. Saudi-funded extremism is the problem.
No genuine refugee refuses food even if it does have a red cross on it from the RED Cross, no genuine refugee throws food and water onto the ground because the French gave it to them, rampage through the streets of Italy and Greece, Germany too, because they did not get the best hotels and halal food, no genuine refugee would go through one safe country one after another to get to the richer countries with more generous benefits, nor would genuine refugees chant Allah Ackbar, kill the infidels, riot and rampage through the streets burning cars because they did not get what they demanded. These are predominantly healthy, well-dressed, well-fed, strapping males with expensive phones. Where are all the women and children? The elderly? These facts alone are suspicious. Where are all the Christians, Chaldeans, Yalzidi’s???? Oh that is right, thrown over the side of the boat to drown. 15 muslims were arrested in Italy for that crime. Sorry, these are invaders nothing more. There is plenty of evidence of all this to be found.
Msw3681 sw, if that’s true – and I don’t know that it is – then it’s the crime of a few people (15, you said). That’s out of *thousands* of people seeking asylum. I saw a Hungarian journalist trip and kick an elderly Syrian refugee carrying a child yesterday – by the same logic you’re using, is she representative of all Europeans..?
The burning blogger, you don’t adress MSW point so i repeat :
“These are predominantly healthy, well-dressed, well-fed, strapping males with expensive phones. Where are all the women and children? The elderly? “
How do you know they have ‘expensive phones’? Honestly, you might want to stop getting all your info from right-wing press or websites. And are you seriously telling me you haven’t seen any children or women among the refugees? I’ve seen plenty. A whole bunch of children just washed up, dead, off the Libyan coast last week. You can’t be that ignorant unless you’re deliberately ignoring whatever information doesn’t fit your pre-existing viewpoint.
I appreciate you taking the trouble to reply courtesiously. As a Christian I take my morality from the New Testament and Christ. Whilst some might not accept even that Christ existed, what is unmistakable is that the teachings of Christ are unambiguous……. essentially love you enemy, and forgive those who offend you.
The law of Allah as proscribed in the Qur’an is alive and well and is NOT an archaic piece of history. Recent studies are clear that Muslims in Europe want Sharia Law, where, for example, the testimony of women is worth half that of a man, where homosexuality is to be punished, and so on. This is not extinct law or law for the extremists as we see brutally practiced across the Mediterranean waters, but what the majority of Muslims, living in and enjoying our democracy want. Do you want to live under Sharia?
No, John, I don’t. But your information is second-hand conjecture. I could just as easily – and logically – suggest that ‘all Christians’ are waiting for the Rapture and for all the ‘non-believers’ to be left behind on the earth. After all, that’s part of Christian lore. But I know that most Christians don’t think that way. And I know that Muslims don’t think the way you’re suggesting either.
“European Jews who were fleeing Nazi Europe 70 years or so ago and who, almost without exception, were all turned back and sent back to die in the concentration camps.” ?????? Just plain wrong.
Dom, study history. Here’s a few links, but do a search for more if you like.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/none-is-too-many-memorial-for-jews-turned-away-from-canada
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jun/08/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27373131
Some of your points a valid but the vast majority are just pointless waffle….nowhere do you mention the probability that after declaring in May isil would send 500k troops into Europe also you fail to mention that the vast majority of these “refugees” are remarkably well dressed and groomed considering they have just fled a war torn country.Granted some are genuine victims but anyone who knows the story of the trojan horse knows how that ended…..those are the concerns and fears of people which has resulted in the backlash you mentioned
Well, if ISIS’s intention was to cause panic and paranoia in Europe, then it has succeeded. Firstly, there’s no way 500k ISIS troops will ever get into Europe. Only the Daily Express takes that kind of idea seriously. But secondly, the argument I seem to be mostly encountering now is that we should let as many people die or starve as is necessary to keep out one or two possible terrorists.
Finally, if you consider that mentioning an illegal war (Iraq) or the destruction of an entire nation (Libya) as ‘pointless waffle’, then you probably ARE someone who doesn’t mind watching people drown or die.
Where´s a honest question for you…what do you believe? Are you cristhian, muslim, atheist, hinduist, monk, priest, prayer? It´s very important that you understand the fact, that we don´t want people to die (at least i don´t), EU citizens are inclued in the pot as well, so the reason of “i believe in humans”, is invalid, because, humans don´t believe in humans, humankind is an evil that roams the earth to leech changes out of life. Religion is a dicease, that preaches something that occured (who knows if it´s real) thousands of years ago, christianity evolved it´s teaching over the time, yet islamism remain the same. It´s fanatic! don´t you agree? It is of no importance if muslism are radicals or not, they follow their religion, no matter what! On a side note i offended you earlier on a post i made, wich i ask sorry for! Regarding the future of Europe, Siria, Iraq, US, it´s uncertain. For humans to believe in kindness and sympathy, religion must be purged from our lifes. and if in fact there´s a almighty GOD in the after life, then you make scores with him, and ask for justification on the shitty job that is being carried out and his name!
I don’t believe in a religion. But what’s going on with Islamic extremism is less to do with the religion and more to do with political and social conditions in those countries and the effects of warfare. You can’t say that ‘Islam’ hasn’t evolved; people in certain countries have evolved according to their situations and their societal conditions.
A thousand years ago it was Christian Europe that was beheading people and mass-murdering its own minorities and burning ‘witches’ and all those things; and it was the Muslim East that was developing philosophy, astronomy, medicine and the sciences. The Islamic world had an Enlightenment long before Christian Europe did, even though it was a much younger religion – you can look this all up; it’s history.
And maybe, as you say, it would be better for ‘religion to be purged’ from our lives, but how would you do that?
Sadly there is no way to purge religion. But Greece created democracy, and yet was founded on top of multiple gods! Today, those gods are relics of passed times, can´t christians, muslims, and other religions do the same? Is it so inveterate in the human being that has no more room for improvement? When you say in your title “The MIGRANT CRISIS: Simplified For Idiots and Xenophobes…” you need to realize that the xenophobs are not atheists, or christians or whatever matter. Islam preaches that either you are muslim or need to be converted by sharia if you don´t you die,in the converson aspect of course. I do not wish the death of refuguees, i wish that this needs to be delt in a different maner. You can see UK, France, draw examples from there, and i´m not speaking trought the media, the insulting and discrimination from the muslims, towards the EU citizens from those countries! It´s not new! It´s old! It´s pack mentality! Their different points of view on this issue, humans need to be humans! When they deny food from the red cross, doesn´t that strike you as a xenophobic attitude? When in Rome, be Roman!
I must admit that most of the ppl in the West are incredible naive. As an open-minded guy I can understand this wave of sympathy for them BUT: Do you think they are all refugees? NO, largest share, 90% is represented by economic migrants…So please explain me why do they refuse to settle down in other countries of the EU than Germany, Holland etc ? Well in rest of the EU benefits are lower, and they have to work hard, not to stay on taxpayers money as usually the middle easterns do in the UK. So since they claim that they wanted to flee from death and destruction, what’s wrong with relatively safe like countries Poland, Italy, Romania, Estonia, Czech Republic, etc. ? On the other hand, tell me why rich countries from arab world don’t want to help more ? This wave of people, mostly muslims will change the fragile social equilibrium of the EU forever. Please don’t tell me stories, or dreams about multiculturalism, because this is a huge hypocrisy, most of the white people will avoid areas possessing a large muslim community, and this is a fact anywhere in the West. If EU will turn to Islam, that day will be the end of Europe with all our privileges, culture and our common lifestyle. Our children will put the blame on us, be sure of that.
I don’t know where the 90% economic migrants figure is coming from. Who worked that out? As for the rich Arab countries – specifically Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, etc – they refuse to take refugees because they’re corrupt, nasty dictatorships and supremacists. I tend to think European nations have somewhat higher moral standards. But if you’d rather be like the Saudis and Qatar, that’s fine.
I don’t think we will ever equal the saudits or qataris only because we still have a different opinion, the right to say no, or simply to refuse what’s basically imposed by our politicians. Indeed in history we did have plenty of examples about successful integration of refugees but muslim migrants are totally incompatible with Europe. I have thousands of reasons to think so, remember how dangerous life in the big cities of France is when they consider Islam somehow offended, or the wave of thousands of “european” recruits flocking to IS controlled territory – how is that possible ? Just another simple proof that our efforts to integrate them have failed~!. Our moral standards are still there but nevertheless they represent also our biggest weakness, as they have learnt how to use them in their advantage. I am working with muslims and there is only one true and reliable conclusion so far: never trust them, under no circumstances. About 90% figure, that’s what I observed in pictures/movies/online resources: standard refugee would be a young male, 20-35 years old, relatively well dressed, uses a smartphone keen to go to Germany or Holland only. If I were a war refugee, I would have kissed the land of Greece or any other european country without imposing suspicious preferences.
Anyway, islamisation is in progress and in just couple of years will shift in the fifth gear. Until then we open the doors wide , smiling and saying Welcome, please feel like home!
QCD, firstly I disagree that Muslim migrants are ‘totally incompatible with Europe’ – I know lots of Muslims who are totally integrated and get on just fine. It’s also incredibly unfair to expect Greece or Italy to carry the burden of all the refugees just because they’re geographically the first point of entry, especially as both countries are having serious financial problems, particularly Greece. And also even if you’re correct about the 20 – 35 year-old demographic, are you going to apply the same rule to mothers and children and just bar everyone from asylum?
It’s incredibly unfair to ask Greece to allow any refugees in, considering their own trouble with the Islamic Turks in the Ottoman empire. Janisaries anyone?
I do not know who you are, Mr. Burning Blogger, but I like your attitude!
Your point about the ” fragile social equilibrium of the EU ” and of almost everywhere else
is without question both true and important. I don’t necessarily agree with every other point
you make ( or disagree, these are difficult questions ), but any rational course of action must take into account the fragility of any complex society. Societies which are slow changing,
ethnically homogenous, and very traditional are probably most fragile to the challenge
of many new-comers with very different customs. For example, Japan two hundred years ago
was much more fragile to such a challenge, which it did not allow, than today’s Japan.
But any society when challenged sufficiently in this way can suffer from the disruption
of too sudden change. This does not mean that many newcomers always cause severe problems, it does mean that the danger of these problems ought to be planned for and
avoided. The very large immigration to this country one hundred years ago was
a great benefit to our country, but it was not easy either for those already here, of for the
new-comers. It di help greatly that the immigrants and their children worked hard to become Americans, and, to a larger extent than native born Americans did study hard, work hard,
and obey the law. Those who are unwilling to obey the local law and respect ( not necessarily adopt, but respect ) local customs are both unfair and imprudent to settle somewhere
whose ways they can’t accept. If the clothing worn on American beaches bothers you a lot, don’t go to the beaches. If being within twenty miles of a beach still bothers you, don’t come here,
or at least don’t stay here. Even from generation to generation, with no moving about, different generations have different customs and bother each other, for example parents and children. Such friction can only be solved with mutual respect. I don’t play or buy RAp mmusic, and no one truies to make. I don’t interfere with anyone of anyage who enjoys it. I don’t hate fans or practitioners of rap. I don’t look down on them or bad mouth them. I ;leave them alone
( actually I associate with them all the time, but not at musical events, maybe.)
If Moslems find our country just too modern and immodest, well, they have a point. But either get used to it, or don’t come. Those few Msolems who are in the habit of killing people who have never done them any harm are culturally insensitive. They don’t realize that in our culture
killing in nocent people is not tolerated, and often can lead to being killed yourself.
Reblogged this on Wind up bird chronicles from berlin.
LOL… you really do have to laugh at the OP’s original article … it is so contradictory to the cause he wishes to project … YOU provide the counter claims to your own view point with stunning effect to degrade yourself
firstly – within anything ‘IN LIFE’ you need to take into account a few things – how things evolve and most importantly human nature to leave these out and just take things at face VALUE just because they are seen to be righteous or politically correct is the reason why the world is in the SHIT in the first place …. EVOLUTION of humanity is about taking into account a chain of events caused by action and reaction to determine the lesser EVIL and less turbulent path to further humanity this does not mean the path is always sunshine and lollipops ie:your own designs of basking in righteous ‘what would jesus do’ adulation ….. even HUMANITY has a price or cost as it is a ACTION that causes a reaction and evolution of ‘actions and reactions’ will create a SPECTRUM ie: rich -poor , righteous to evil ugly to beautiful -love and hate ,fat and slim everything has a counter point in life etc etc
– in the topic terms the negative effects of 20+ years of uncontrolled MASS immigration are being suppressed and ignored ….they are building up and infecting humanity until they can’t be contained any more,Then a volatile reaction will occur probably born from frustration – SOCIALLY the containment of this negativity is contained by INDIVIDUALISM but as the social indicators indicate hate crimes , a few bombs , and divisional race,religious and nationalistic collectives are being formed and are on the rise within such countries were immigration is a problem – … this is eroding the containment of the negativity as individualism is being formed into collectives – COLLECTIVES have higher purpose and has needs or agenda’s that will will supersede individualism ( the break down of humanity ) due to your Jesus approach that is creating it ( fuelling the CORE motivation ) by your actions of suppression – YOU ARE THE PROBLEM and creator due to your ignorance of your actions seduced by the glory of humanity – you believe fanatically that you can do no wrong and that no consequence is created from your actions at face value being humane is the lesser EVIL but it disregards the build up over time of negativity deeming it always as acceptable, YOU can not rule or control a collective 100% of the time with individual ideology as it works on the greater good ..to have purity within a national collective it must have individualism , family values and ‘national’ being a mirror image of family values as a collective of people working together for the greater good of as a LAND MASS ( regardless of race religion or gender etc etc ) at it’s core with the humanity and world stage as a by product of the foundation it creates
you kick of the article with saying how America ,Australia new Zealand ect etc were all economic tourists …. one could debate – of the limited view points and social knowledge of the time .It was COLONIZATION as the populations were not very big and the land mass was enough to house all of them but it does not matter either way as two NEEDS collided ie: one out grew the other …
infact at the time TRADE was often set up amongst indigenous populations and settlers and this had a period of time were they lived in harmony side by side on the same land MASS . As resources and space were in abundance
It was only when things EVOLVED and the settlers needs ( plus tributes to the empires ) and numbers expanded did the displacement occur as one need or design super seeded the other ….
SO with one hand in the article you are using this HUMAN NATURE MODEL as a defence for modern day MASS immigration .But then you go on to say that people are idiots and Xenophobes ( a fashionably over used word to stigmatised people for going against your agenda = pathetic ) for not taking into account the probability of displacement in their own countries based on increasing numbers and needs . which you are indicating as a ISSUE of migration So can you really go on the offensive calling people names to hinder their perception or views to further your own selfish image projection ..WHEN you have infact acknowledged the causes and effects of introducing foreign bodies to a host —- our nature is biological in the way it manifests socially ‘the stronger will consume the weaker ‘ ie: darwins law of nature – survival of the fittest . SO the ‘fear’ is actually endorsed by your own ramblings but then rejected when it serves you no purpose for your agenda
I don’t entirely get what you’re trying to say. But OK then, let’s just build a really high electric-fence all around Europe. Would that be better?
Amazing but not surprising that this whole article blames the western civilizations for all the problems, also how it blames all peoples in Europe and beyond for all the ills in the world, I did not vote for open borders for Wars or any of the government’s who may have contributed to the unrest ,therefore I accept no responsibility for these problems . The mainly Muslim and Jewish factions in these regions are to blame for the unrest and for not subdueing the problem in the bud, to continually blame the west is obsurd way to continue. The Arab countries should take responsibility for their action and should help their fellow brothers and sisters not rely on the rest of the world to once again bail them out.
I didn’t blame ‘all peoples in Europe’ for anything – I blamed the specific governments that waged immoral wars and carried out disastrous regime-changes. But I find it hard to believe you honestly think what’s happening now in the Middle East and Northern Africa is solely the fault of the people there and that Western governments have no fault or responsibility.
Dude lay of the hyperbole, illegal wars, blah blah blah. Sovereign nations don’t ask what everyone else wants, they act in their own interests. I am sure you live in a migrant heavy area. They are in a mess because they are involved in a death cult, are extremely lazy (refuse physical labor) and reproduce like rabbits.
Am I a xenophobe?
Most of these migrants/refugees are fit young men and within their ranks are many jihadists who WILL bring atrocity to our streets. It has been ISIS’ stated policy to infiltrate Europe with thousands of their people. Compassion without any caution is criminal negligence.
We are importing a cult that hates our democracy and hates us, and we’ll pay a heavy price.
Read the Qur’an and see.
John, I understand your position; but is the answer therefore to let hundreds or thousands of people either drown or be permanently displaced (including children) just so we can keep two or three possible jihadists out of Europe? And again, the real extremists are the ones LEAVING Europe to go to Syria and join the Islamic State, not the one fleeing Syria.
Yes, it is. No one is forcing those people to come to Europe. Pakistan is right through the mountains, Russia through Afghanistan. Turkmenistan is open, and surely could use the “economic benefits” that mass refugees supposedly bring.
In parts of the United States you can no longer fly an American flag because it is offensive to Muslims, in Germany girls are already being told to change the way they dress to protect them from Muslims who might be offended. In Sweden, rapes have grown by 1472% over the last thirty years, since they decided to become “multicultural”.
You want refugees, you open your home to them. You bring in twenty refugees yourself, feed and clothe them yourself, see to their needs, before you call the rest of xenophobes for not wanting to do the same.
Wow, you don’t sound like a xenophobe at all.
Also that bit about not being able to fly the American flag because offends Muslims sounds like you just made it up.
Understand Islam. Read the Qur’an.
Islam’s intention, as in the Qur’an, is to subjugate Infidels – that’s you and I; the “unbelievers”. To criticise Islam is to incur a death sentence. Same, if you leave Islam.
Sex slaves are permitted in Islam. Mohammad was a slave trader; he used and abused captured girls and had sex, at the age of 54 with a nine year old. Fact.
Islam is intolerant, it is authoritarian and hates democracy. Islam was and is spread by the sword and now the Kalashnikov.
Read the Qur’an. There’s no mercy or accommodation for unbelievers, according to their God, Allah, who demands that infidels be struck in the neck. It’s all there in the ‘holy book’ and is happening now.
Understand the agenda, but you won’t unless you read the Qur’an. Understand that our flawed democracy is under grave threat and that Angela Merkel and our simpleton politicians will have to answer for the atrocities that are to come. By then it’ll be too late.
John, I read the Koran years ago. And there are some pretty unsavory verses in it. But most moderate Islamic scholars (as in not Saudi or Wahhabi) easily explain those as passages being in direct reference to events in the specific era the Koran was written in and not dictates for how all Muslims should live forever. Muslims and extremists aren’t the same thing. Extremists have an extreme interpretation/ideology to suit their political or military purposes; most ordinary Muslims don’t, just as most ordinary Christians don’t go around stoning adulterers.
Everything you think is morally wrong with the Koran is also morally wrong with the Bible; because the Bible contains just as many, equally questionable, passages and in some cases virtually *identical* ones to the Koran.
You say ‘sex slaves’ are permitted; well, they’re permitted in the Bible too. You say Muhammad was a slave-trader; well slavery was condoned in the Bible too. You say he used and abused and captured girls? I don’t know where you’re getting that from – unless it’s from the EDL. He had a nine-year old bride, true – it was normal at the time, however unacceptable it is now. The same things occur in the Bible – the Biblical Prophet Lot, so says the scriptures, had sex with his child daughters. ‘Islam was spread by the sword..?’ Well, how was Christianity spread? Ever heard of the Crusades or the Inquisitions? ‘Allah demands infidels be struck in the neck’? The Biblical God demanded the same things. Read the Old Testament.
I’m not here to defend Islam or the Koran – that’s not my fight or my area of interest. But it’s easy to pick things out from a book to suit a pre-existing agenda. If all the Muslims in the UK were the people you seem to think they are, the streets would have been filled with blood years ago. The extremists/terrorists of the so-called ‘Islamic State’ are criminals using an extremist ideology – and who only exist, by the way, because of US-led Western warfare and policy in the Middle East. If you’re position is to let thousands of people die or drown, including children, because you didn’t like some passages you read in a book, then I really feel sorry for you.
I actually meant to write Mexicans. And it’s actually true. California schools have on several occaisions banned students from having American flag shirts, a college campus actually banned the flag out right, out of fear that it would inspire racial based attacks by Mexicans. Mexicans, which is what I mean to say, as Muslims are not as visible a minority as they are in Europe. Sorry for the confusion.
And no, I’m not a xenophobe, I’m just not a fan of colonization and annexation, which is how America gained Texas in the first place.
America in size and in economy is the best-placed nation to take in a much larger number of refugees. Not from everywhere – but specifically from Iraq, Afghanistan and probably Syria, given the US role in the destabilisation. That’s all I’m suggesting.
We don’t have the jobs for these people to work. Too many of our own people are out of work, so how will these people support themselves? Are we expected to foot the bill for them? Because I can assure you the politicians who commit those actions without our consultation or approval won’t pay for them, themselves.
Where are they to work, where is the housing for them going to come from, the schools (most American schools are already over crowded)? Are they going to adapt to us, learn English, ditch the burqa, integrate with the community – or they going to form insular groups, with their own social laws that they enforce among themselves? Is America going to have to deal with a rise in sexual violence like Sweden is?
Because frankly, I personally don’t owe them anything. What actual benefit do I derive by taking on an new underclass in my country that I will have to support. We already have some forty million illegal immigrants, why the hell should we take a single one of these people in?
And Qaddafi was a monster, Hussein, monster, Assad, monster. If we toppled Polpot you’d cry about that.
So what do you propose America – and I don’t mean American people but the American government, DOES to help all these refugees that have been created from the (illegal) Iraq War, and from the interventions in Libya and Syria? Libya has been rendered a no-man’s land and Syria now too, along with Iraq. Why should a country so directly responsible for that not bear any of the burden?
People are also getting confused about the ‘Muslims’. Syrians don’t wear ‘burqas’; it’s not in their culture to be extremists or fundamentalists. It was a broadly secular country until Saudi Arabia started sending in jihadists. I also have to disagree with you on Gaddafi – he wasn’t a monster. Hussein was, but that’s another matter.
I propose the American government does nothing, as it won’t be the American government that suffers, just the American people. Sorry, but again we cannot afford the endless hordes of Mexican illegals, we cannot afford to house people, give the jobs at the expense of native jobs and economy cannot bear the burden. Let them beggar Africa, or Asia. America is full.
Ogami Itto (below) has quoted a statistic about the increase in rape in Sweden. This article may help illuminate why the numbers appear to be so large.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19592372
“In Sweden there has been this ambition explicitly to record every case of sexual violence separately, to make it visible in the statistics,” she says.
“So, for instance, when a woman comes to the police and she says my husband or my fiance raped me almost every day during the last year, the police have to record each of these events, which might be more than 300 events. In many other countries it would just be one record – one victim, one type of crime, one record.”
Good article but not really fair.
Germany takes the most refugees, together with Sweden. And when you ask them they all want to come to Germany. Some questions must be allowed without being called a Nazi!
‘Why Europe, why Germany? Why into Christian countries when Muslims actually are not allowed to even touch us? (not to forget they can’t even live together in peace and harmony) Why not going to Dubai, Oman, Abu Dhabi? How many more can we stand?’
You only write about the attacks on refugees by some stupid idiots who will never learn but nothing about the hundreds of thousand people who do welcome the refugees!
Nothing about the people who stand up against those brainless brown scum.
In my eyes the USA should take most of the refugees because they (or lets say their governments) caused the wars almost all over the Arabian world. But look how they treat Mexicans!
It’s also a fact that the USA does have more racists nowadays than Germany and Austria together.
For years I’m telling my friends Gaddafi was right when he said the West would be flooded by refugees. Almost everybody laughed about it. As you said, Libya was a stable country, so was Iraq.
Assad in Syria is a Dictator, yes, right, but with him even Christians could live their lives and religion. Now there’s Hunger, Death, Anarchy.
As long as Western governments are trying to get their so called democracy to other countries there won’t be peace. Democracy is nice but it just doesn’t work everywhere.
This should be accepted!
You also talk about ‘Historic Stigma’….
To be honest, I am fed up with being blamed on something I haven’t done! My whole family tried to fight against Nazi Germany. My grandma went to jail because she helped Jews and Sinti/Roma and she spit on the SS scum. Only by luck her than 7 children got her back (and me in the end the best grandma in the world!).
Don’t we all have a historic stigma? USA, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, France, Great Britain, Russia……even the good old Incas did wrong in their past.
Btw….not only the Dominican Republic told Jews to come some 70 years ago. Palestine did so as well. Now see what’s going on there!
Oh well, we could also say humans are a faulty design and as long as humans are alive peace on this beautiful planet is far far away…..
Manuela, sorry I wasn’t attacking Germany, I was only referring to incidents that have been well reported in the media involving the Neo-Nazis. And I actually did devote an entire article to how much of a welcome the refugees received in Germany:
https://burningblogger.com/2015/09/06/refugees-welcome-merkel-germany-show-the-world-how-its-done/
As for the historic stigma, I wasn’t pinning it all on Germany either, but mentioned the Jewish refugees turned away by other Western governments of the time.
And you’re right – the US should be taking much more responsiblity for the crisis and the refugees, since most of it is a result of US foreign policy.
Finally, I’m not sure which ‘brainless brown scum’ you’re referring to, so I won’t address that.
Don’t know your name Burning Blogger, so sorry for just saying Hi.
Just read your other article. As a German I have to say lots of thanks for that one!
With ‘brainless brown scum’ we name our ‘beloved’ Neo-Nazis, the ones that will never learn, the ones I would love to shoot in the universe as far away as possible!
Well, we are not at all satisfied with our government. I think the main reason why some Germans don’t like to welcome everybody is the fact that all refugees get money. Money from our social system, money that could also been spend for our own poor people. And believe me, we have a lot of them.
Nevertheless we have to help as much as we can.
I so much wish we would have peace all over the world, but it seems this will remain a nice dream.
Thanks Manuela. What Germany is doing is fantastic. And I apologise if I sounded like I was criticising Germany in this article; I know from experience that Germany is probably the most progressive, liberal society in Europe, maybe in the world. And thanks for clearing up the ‘brown scum’ business – I get it now; ‘brown’ as in the ‘brown-shirts’, right?
Yep, as in ‘brown-shirt’. It’s a pity, actually I like the colour brown. Unfortunately it really sounded like lot of critiscm the first 2 or 3 times I’ve read your blog. Well, normaly I would not have replied but this whole thing is just too emotional and because of this article I did have an argument with a Dutch friend and this was not so nice. We made it up, still friends. 😉
Good you made up with your friend. It was criticism, Manuela, but it wasn’t directed at Germany. And you’ve hit the point right there – the whole thing does get emotional and sometimes we get carried away with out language and we have no choice but to offend people.
I know it was critism and because it read like ‘all the shame on Germany’ I got a bit angry. Emotions.
You’re right, sometimes it does happen that we offend others without wanting to. And you’re right with your critism but this is for the whole world. Or lets say almost the whole. I do dislike politics, I dislike our Merkel and Co….as much as politics in the USA and the Arabian World. At the momemt everything feels just wrong! German politicians say we have to stop people from going to Syria to join the IS. I say: let them go and never get back to Europe!
I never had a problem with religion at all but I do have a problem with fanatics, no matter which God they call to. Live and let live, that’s what I believe in.
Christian countries? There aren’t any. I am a Christian and there has never been and certainly aren’t any Christian countries that exist. Most people have very little knowledge and understanding of our faith.
There are plenty of Christian countries – I don’t know what point you’re trying to make.
You are misunderstanding either intentionally or unintentionally what
is meant by the phrase ” Christian country.” No country has a mind,
a soul, or a body. Countries are political beings, geographical
abstractions, and groups of people. As such a country can not be
atheist, Jewish, Moslem, or Christian in the way that a person can be.
Most people have very little knowledge and understanding of our faith.”
I am quite sure that you are right in saying that. Many people whom you,
perhaps have minimal knowledge or understanding of the Christian faith
are themselves Christians. No doubt you will deny that those ignorant
people are ” real ” Christians.. I suggest that setting yourself up
as a judge of whether people, most of whom you do not know and
will never meet, are ‘ real’ Christians is arrogant. Only God sees into our hearts.
Now I do not see Mormons, Christian Scientists, or, perhaps, Jehovah’s
WItnesses as Christians. this is not meant as a negative judgement on adherents
of those religions. It merely means that I don’t recognize much similarity between
the ; little I know of these religions and the teachings of Christianity through the ages
( and there is a lot of variety in what different Christian groups have taught, but there
are some essential common beliefs).
The usual meaning of a Christian country is a country the majority of whose
citizens do and have been Christians. this does not mean that you have personally
approved each of these people as being ‘ real’ Christians ( virtuous people whose beliefs
accord with yours, perhaps ?). So Turkey and Iraq are Moslem countries .
And even countries such as the Czech Republic and Germany, where, perhaps, the
minority of the current residents are Christians have a centuries long tradition which
is largely based on the Christian traditions. You no doubt think that most Germans
or Czechs have an inadequate knowledge and understanding of your faith.
Even you in the eyes of many may have an inadequate knowledge and understanding
of your faith. That does not mean that you are not a Christian.
Being a Christian does not mean meeting with your approval, nor does it mean
being perfect. Being Christian means a number of things, some having to do with belief,
some with being a member of a community of faith, some having to do with a public
profession of faith. There are other things which point to or away from being Christian.
But being a Christian does not mean being perfect in this world , but beig forgiven.
Natasha, for you to contradict someone who says that he or she is a Christian is an interesting,
but ultimately rather arrogant, perhaps even ‘Unchristian’ classification. I am not saying that
everyone who says that he is a Christian is being truthful ( some are truthful and others not, I
suppose ). I don’t even say that people who sincerely think that they are Christians might not
be mistaken A person can being honestly confused about what being a Christian means.
I do say that even someone whose knowledge of and understanding of your faith may very
well be a Christian. Do you have any Biblical warrant or rational argument for saying
that you are the final judge of who is and is not a Christian, even to the extent that you
are right and the person is wrong about the person being a Christian. How deep must be
your discernment , if you are able to contradict people about what they believe – and be
correct.
Much of the literature, art, music, and architecture of Western civilization over
many centuries has been heavily influenced by Christianity. This is so, even when the
author, composer, or architect is not Christian. Bach and Beethoven were, as I understand it
Christian. Hemingway was, I think, not Christian ( I don’t know ). But his novels were
certainly written ( and for the most part read by readers ) in a Christian tradition.
You are in a very narrow ( and perhaps insincere ?) way that there are no
Christian country, nor, perhaps can there be in any complex society ( any society whose
economy has gone beyond barter ). But if you mean to set yourself up as an authority
ruling on who is and who is not really Christian – be careful. Judge not, lest you be judged.
As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above your ways.
Many, many people are Christian and have quite limited understanding of and knowledge
of your faith. Examples of these people are young children, poorly educated people,
and newly converted Christians ( not all of these people ).
Can we think for a minute that Jesus loves these people less ( or even that these
people love Jesus less than better instructed people or even more intelligent people ?
Jesus knows his own. It is not given to us to judge the relationship between anyone else and
that person’s Savior, with, possibly, a very few exceptions.
We are told that we ought to cast first the beam out of our own eye, so that we can see
better to cast the mote out of our neighbor’s eye.
No real Christian would ….. I would be careful about finishing that sentence, especially
if I were applying it to a specific person. One could finish it ‘ deny Jesus three times.’
But I would not finish it that way.
Peter later, after the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles on Pentecost, was a
fearless preacher of the good news, and later was a martyr for his faith.
While it is probably true that the USA has more racists than Germany and Austria have combined, it is also true that the population of the USA is much greater than the combined population of those two countries. I suggest that deciding how many racists there are in
any country, much more to compare the numbers is attempting something which is neither
important to do nor practical to do, except for people who are gifted mind readers. With the exception of the rather small number of people who admit to being racists ( or brag about it ),
it is hardly easy to know whether someone is a racist. Someone having political views or opinions with which you disagree definitely does not mean that that person is a racist
Yes. a lot of truth in what you write, but have you thought of the consequences if ISIS are sending hundreds of their recruits to Europe, posing as refugees? I am proud that most of Europe are welcoming the people in genuine need, but they must take great care.
Hi,
I don’t think I am an idiot or a xenophobe. I think the refugees need to be welcomed.
I live in Brussels. Here, i don’t dare to go to certain parts of the city where there are a lot of muslims living. I have been called all names because in these places I don’t ware a scarf.
In my neighborhood, there are muslims, belgians, portuguese, congolese, polish, … and everybody gets along.
Thruth is, I am starting to fear muslims. Not the ones in my neighborhood but the ones where there are only muslims and where islam brings the rules of life and were women are less than men.
My son is in a private school because ohterwise he would be in a school were 60% of students are muslims (no pork, Halal food…). This is not multi-culturality.
I would like to say all that (because these are worries I have) wihtout being called a xenophobe.
Yes. Refugees need to be welcomed but the muslim community needs to think about integration also. I think that so many European countries do not want to receive refugees because lots of them have had problems with the muslims community. On the other hand, muslims need to have the same access to jobs and revenues as all the europeans if we want them to be integrated.
I am sorry my english is poor.
I just wanted to say that I am starting to be a islamophobe and sincerely, if the rich middle east countries could take refuges, I would feel better. I really do think they have to be welcomed but I am afraid to have more muslims in Europe.
Sorry. I almost feel ashamed.
Lia Santiago, there’s no need to apologise for expressing your sincere view or speaking from your personal experience.
You do not need to apologise for your english, it is excellent. You raise some good points. Its not racist to notice that ghettoisation has led to many problems. Like in Brussels , in London we have certain area of Muslim immigrants that have many problems. Extremist Islam has become a problem and we cannot ignor that.
In the past many services have been provided in other languages which didn’t help migrants learn english. Thankfully this has stopped and you either learn engish or do without services.
Lia, i don´t think you are xenhophobic, in order for you to pass tha feeling of “guilt” just remember that they are the one´s who can be xenophobics, because they only accept their religions, creeds and ideologies, you are an infidel for them! I believe that the refugees should be helped, but not by letting them enter on the EU unrestricted! They don´t need to be extremists, their muslisms period, their religion comes first!
I am from England and your English is better than most.
Lia, I do not think you are wrong in your conclusions. And your English is not poor. Islamic people who refuse to integrate into the communities that shelter them are doing both themselves and the communities a terrible disservice. A group of us brought a family of Iraqi refugees out of Syria and they have refused to change in any way.
They are still living the life of medieval Muslims. The eldest daughter finally ran away and moved in with a man she had met through school. The family has held a funeral for her as she is dead to them.
This family had all the community support imaginable. A fully furnished apartment, a car, a job for the father. The problem, I think, was they did not get the life skills training and counselling they needed. THAT is the missing link to integration.
We are not asking them to assimilate. We are asking them to become Canadians and integrate. And they will not. Their three younger daughters are kept inside the house and rarely go out. They are home schooled and have no friends their age. If they were Canadian, they would have been reported to Children’s Services long ago.
I would say that this is not xenophobia but fear… and there is a very fine line that is easy to cross.
When one start to categorise people by saying “muslims”, “jews”, “blacks” as if all muslims, jews, blacks were the same and worse associate them with stereotypes then it is a very dangerous thoughts.
You mention that these populations need to make an effort to be “integrated”- integration is a word quite debatable- is it only one way? or is it the role of the hosting society to help these population build a future and have the same chances as everyone as well. The reality is unfortunately different in Europe- let’s face it these populations face so much discrimination and are often put in some ghetto and have to do the shittiest jobs that european do not want to do. Furthermore their children who were born in the soil of let’s say France, Belgium, italy, spain do not have the same chances even when they reach university and graduate. They face discriminations for jobs, housing, going to night clubs when they are younger etc.
The problem with Europe is that instead of seeing these population as a source of wealth they see them as a threat to their values- looking at them as sub-humans- let’s be honest about it. Now if these population could help create better bridges with Europe and Africa, the middle east economically, diplomatically- not based on exploitation but on economic and social development then it will great for all sides.
It is easy to blame- it is better though more harder to understand the complexities of things. It is not about getting along but thriving together- the day we will understand that we have one planet and that we are one human race then we can imagine a better world (that we are destroying at the moment). Call it utopia I call it realism.
Fear is what the mainstream media want you to feel and they are doing a great job at it!
Zack, that’s a brilliant comment – and I agree with you 100 %.
” Integration is a word quite debatable.”
O K. Here is what is not debatable. If you come to live
in my community, then you should be prepared to
obey the law, abstain from violence except in cases
of self-defense or protection of innocent third parties threatened
by aggression, and to let your children learn the English language,
even if you are too old and unwilling to learn English. Otherwise please
look elsewhere to live. This has nothing to do with race, color, nationality,
or religion. If I decide to move somewhere else, I will be prepared to
obey the local law. I did live in another country and as a guest in that country
I was prepared to obey local law and abstain from violence. We are one human race
and violence against innocent people whether Hamas, Taliban, Hezbollah,
Da’esh or any other group of loony tunes need to accept that others have
a right to life, or they will need to be exterminated. My grandmother came here
as an immigrant. She obeyed local law, spoke English ( not her native language)
and her child became a registered professional engineer, a graduate of MIT,
and an officer in the U,.S. Army who served in combat on Eniwetok and Okinawa.
It was not easy then. It is not easy now. But we can accept no less.
I don’t disagree with a word you’re saying. There is, however, a negative appropriation of the term ‘integration’ in some countries, where what they really seem to mean is that the migrants should ‘do as we do’ – in regard to everything from dress sense, food, religion, and social activity. That’s the unreasonable type of ‘integration’ demands I’m mostly thinking of.
I don’t disagree with your point at all.
Our country has been greatly enriched by the customs which newcomers from around
the world have brought to add to our mosaic. The idea of ‘cultural appropriation,’
which I don’t understand too well, seems to see such things as a bad thing.
Seeing Americans benefit from the riches of nations all around the world
I would be sad to see such cross-fertilization disappear from some misguided
excess of political correctness
This country accepts people of any religion or none, all as equals.
What Islamic country can say the same. There is no such crime
as apostasy in our country. In Pakistan apostasy is a capital
offense. Who are Moslems to speak to us about accepting others ?
This country has the kind of freedom that few, if any, Moslem countries
can even pretend to have. Turkey used to be a free country, but
recent event shave put that state into jeopardy.
I don’t disagree. But that’s the point – a better society obviously aspires to higher standards and ideals. Those countries you’re talking about – including Pakistan – are disasters.
You put forward an interesting and persuasive point .
You remind me of a remark attributed to an IDF officer:
” I can forgive you for what you did to us, but it is hard to forgive you
for what you have made us do to you.” The hypothetical person addressed
is, I think, a PLO terrorist.
As far as welcoming refugees and other immigrants, they have over the life
of our country greatly enriched our society. Examples include Billy Wilder,
Dr. An Wang, Irving Berlin, Bob Hope, Alexander Hamilton, Dr. Henry Kissinger,
and Andrew Carnegie among many others.
And Steve Jobs, whose roots were in Syria, is another good example.
Ideally we can live up to our motto: E Pluribus Unum.
” if the middle east countries could take refugees … ”
I assume that you are thinking of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
States. Those countries are sparsely populated and have
more fragile cultures and regimes than almost any European
country . It may make more sense to ask those countries
to give money to aid refugees living in other countries.
Large, modern, stable countries such as France and Germany
are now suffering from an influx of refugees and migrants
( even before the past two years ), because many of the new residents have
no desire to do in Rome as the Romans do, to assimilate, or even to
respect the laws and customs of the host countries All too many even commit
crimes. In our country we are used to immigrants being loyal Americans,
hard workers, stable families, and law-abiding. There are exceptions
but the typical immigrant, I think, is more ;likely to finish high school,
be employed, start a company, and obey the law than we native-born
Americans are. It is noble to welcome refugees with generosity and kindness.
It is prudent to require new residents to obey the law, to refrain from
committing crimes, and to respect the customs of their new ( or temporary )
country, even if they do nt choose to adopt some of those customs.
Many more immigrants can be welcomed if these rather minimal conditions
are insisted on, and met. I had a student in a nursing program from Algeria
who ( unsolicited ) said that as a guest she felt a moral obligation to respect
her host country. Native born citizens ought to do the same, of course. But those
who do not insist on new arrivals who are adults refrain from violence
and property destruction ( which the French have not done in the case of many
children of Algerian immigrants – to the great disadvantage of all French people )
do no favor either to those already here, or to new people, and do great harm
to the relationship between the two groups. I am a victim of violent crime
( committed by native-born young men ) and I suggest that people who
live in safe neighborhoods and have not been victims of crime do not realize
how much damage both direct and indirect that violent crime does. It does not
help at all in developing the kind of trust which good relationships among
people in modern, civilized societies needs.
To suggest that every person coming from Libya or who is in calais jungle at present, should just be let in is bonkers. Genuine refugees fleeing war should be granted asylum but by letting a mass of population transfer from subvsaharan Africa to the UK will cripple the services that we offer to Syrian refugees. Common sense is needed here.
I agree. I’m not saying let everyone in. In terms of Libya, it shouldn’t just be the UK, but France crucially too – and to some extent the rest of the 40 nations who bombed that country. The UK should by no means bear the responsibility alone.
Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews in the second world war and he is rightfully considered a hero and savior of the people he saved. Humans are suffering again and the rich western countries need to show compassion and full support for those who seek help. It’s like the article said above no one in their right mind would put their families on a dinky little boat and cross the ocean for the promise of living on benefits and scraps that governments provide. Why is the world reluctant to help these people, how many more bodies are going to end up on shores, how many more people are going to be marginalized, poorly treated and racially abused and looked upon as a threat.
This is a fantastic blog post.
Everyone should read this.
Especially the idiots on the Internet spreading inaccurate crap.
Great article and some good points particularly around how some of the western countries are responsible for this mess as they contributed to the cause.
I saw a comment on here from someone saying the refugees want to come to countries with a rich social system and don’t want to work but just sponge off the system.
Why is it that so many people automatically assume that refugees just want a free ride on the system?
I have read some amazing stories about former refugees who are very astute business people and done really well for themselves. (Ie rich) In fact they have tried to give back to the country that gave them a “fair go” in the first place.
I think so many people forget that many are grateful for a second chance and will quite often have a good work ethic and be more reliable than many westerners who are picky about the jobs they do and how much they make.
If I look at Australia (I am half Australian) many small business owners tell me how hard it is to find reliable staff. One cafe owner was telling me in the little Queensland town there are so many people on welfare and in some cases 3 generations of the family all working the system because it’s easier than getting a real job.
I just can’t understand why people don’t see that many of these refugees are well educated intelligent people who could actually contribute to society in their new country not necessarily sponge off the system. rant over.
Great point. And of course what people don’t realise is how many of these people are well educated; students, doctors, nurses, engineers, etc. They have plenty to contribute.
Hmmm, last time I looked at a map I noticed Russia was a lot closer than Europe to Syria. Russia has loads of spare space as well, so why don’t they go there? Oh let’s see maybe it’s all about “benefits” ….
Please remove me from this unpatriotic site
would you like someone to edit your language usage and grammar so that you come across as literate???
I sure would, whissy!
Being literate serves you little if you have little to say. I didn’t come across any serious grammatical faults (and won’t be looking for those, really, as I don’t think it really matters) as I was more interested in the contents.
As i saw the headline i’m prepared to read bullshit at all. But i’m surprised, you hit the point!
Regards from Germany
A good slap in the face. While I don’t see myself as a xenophobe, I see that it is very easy to slip into xenophobic views of this issue, the media is contributing to the problem, and people are feeding each other’s fears. I feel like I needed to read this, because I was extremely divided. For one, I think that this isn’t a problem we can handle (do we have the means to? How will support all these persons for what can be years to come?), and everything seems so hypocritical (everyone is hailing Germany as knights in shining armor to these refugees, while their politics are killing off and burying countries like Greece, where people are killing themselves because of Merkel supported Troikas; on the other side, things are being televised as someone from the portuguese government saying that houses that were taken away from families who had lost the means to pay for them, should be sold by the banks, who now own them, at very special prices, to the Syrian refugees). On the other side, these are real people who really need our help, and what are we if we turn our backs to them? Is this how we show them progress? I think we should proceed with care, but that everyone should be given a chance, and we’ll sort out the problems later. We have already failed so many persons in the past, and we have contributed to so many problems (indirectly, sure, but it’s our governments). We have let ourselves be blindfolded by entertainment and disinformation. we ar e not being told what we need to be told, and we are being led to think the problems in the Middle East and Africa have nothing to do with us. They have everything to do with us. We need to stop taking for granted that our governments are fighting for our best interests, and to think they are going to be just and human. They have shown us otherwise.
That’s a great comment, Filipe. I think Germany has been a ‘knight in shining armour’ in this particular context and that’s all I’m referring to. And I think if more people understood the extent to which our governments have destabilised the Middle East, they might have a little more sympathy for all these displaced or fleeing people.
Yes, I believe we must tackle this problem, in a positive way. We can’t work out miracles, but these persons can’t go back until their countries are stabilized. It hurts to think that we rely on politicians to make their part, but it may be that they come to reasoning.
This was an absolute pleasure to read. I found myself fervently nodding at the words appearing on my screen as I scrolled down. It saddens me that such a piece had to be written in the first place but alas, I’m glad it was.
As someone who had grown up in Libya in the 90’s and whose parents often helped out the African migrants on the streets of Tripoli (by giving them work which the Africans readily accepted and were extremely grateful for), I can attest to what you said about Gaddafi’s government keeping the migrant crises in check.
And yes, the piece was emotional and reactionary, the profanity at times quite unnecessary but, to be completely honest with you, it read perfectly to me.
So, thank you for the piece. And thank you for inspiring me to write again.
You’re very, very welcome. Sometimes you can’t help but slip up and get reactionary when you’re reacting to hundreds of people drowning while trying to flee as a result of international policies that were completely unnecessary and immoral. And I’m especially glad to have someone who grew up in the old Libya support the point I’m trying to convey. Thank you very much.
These people are refugees not migrants, its a pity some people seem to have lost any scrap of humanity they ever had. Whats wrong with the world, there but for the grace of God and all that we all live on this planet and its about time that those who have nothing are given a their share from those who have everything.
I´m tired of people pointing fingers… the few mislead Germans are making the news but did you all see the majority of Germans they welcome all the refugees? I am German and well aware of our historcal heritage, it´s been always a huge part of history at school, so no one will ever forget, no one should ever forget. Discussions I see and read on social media making me sad, because people here getting at each other throats, they only see black and white, good people or rassists, theres no grey zone left. I totally agree to take those people in, putting up fences at boarders and let people die in front of it? What bullshit idea is this, we still live in a country were on a daily basis food hits the trash cans. But I also see the grey zone, I understand why people are scared here. Germany ain´t paradise, one basically can´t survive here with only one job anymore and sometimes it´s about buying grocerys not luxury stuff. I am speaking from experience, been there, done that, the kids in need of new shoes or a broken washing machine can cause a financial crisis and sleepless nights. Single parents are financial survivors here and the German government will find new ways to tax the average people more and more, but one day this country will be sucked dry. We will face truck loads of problems and I get angry when I see the US Governments ignorance about what is happening here. We basically trying to clean up their mess.
My heart is with the refugees and their dangerous way to a safe haven. But I am also scared because this will change our country drastically for worse or for better, no one knows yet.
I did see all the German people greeting the refugees – it was wonderful to watch and I wrote a whole post about it. And I agree with you completely that other countries are having to deal with America’s mess. Especially as Germany didn’t agree to the War in Iraq, for example. And it may also be the case there is some negative effect from the large amount of asylum being offered; but regardless, there was still a humanitarian catastrophe and it came down to a choice of whether to let people suffer or even drown or whether to offer them asylum: and Germany took action.
Ok I agree it must be terrible for people and children being threatened with their life but answer me this. When they arrive in France their life is no longer a threat and I would guess I don’t think the French are going to murder them or whatever so why do they want to come to the UK particularly and why don’t they stay in France.
Some try to get to England from France, true; but not most of them. Most of them are going to Germany. There are also different categories of the refugees, so I’m not sure what the make-up is of those trying to get into the UK compared to those trying to go elsewhere. Most Syrian refugees, for example, aren’t trying to get to the UK.
good shout TBBoB – I wish there had a been a better, less destructive, way to remove Gaddafi. There wasn’t and it had to be done. And yes, the wars we are fighting seem to be leaving huge vacuums in the power structure. So we definitely need to think what possible good and can come from any action we take.
Yep, particularly as the government is still talking about removing the Syrian government.
Well put! I just wrote a blog about the same which has a list at the end of resources and links for refugees and those that want to help them. https://anenglishwomaninmumbai.wordpress.com/2015/09/07/immigration-heartache-pt-3-dead-children/
will check out your book also 🙂
Thanks, will look at your blog too.
the west will do what it pleases, those in power don’t care for another working class, so they won’t let them in, or will do at a ridiculously low rate. Those who hold true power are never held accountable, there is always someone lower to blame.
”I don’t think I can bear to hear or read one more paranoid alcoholic blogger prattling on about the ‘conspiracy’ to ‘wipe out the white race’; it was funny at first, but we’re way passed levity by now.”
Not a conspiracy at all, it’s just a matter of doing the math.
In fact you yourself even mention what happened to the existing populations of NZ and Australia after mass immigration. And you can read between the lines on that one: white people, your ancestors were pure evil, you must atone for their sins, even if that means we target people that look like you that live in Europe and two centuries later.
”But if you want to blame someone, blame David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy”.
Do you mean the Jewish president of France that also came out and said that France in the 21st century will not be French, rather it will be of mixed race people, and that those native French people that are reluctant to intermix outside their race will be forced through tougher measures to intermix?
Sure I can blame him. I can blame a lot of people like him. Wanting to help refugees that need help is one thing, but denying there is action to deliberately destroy native Europe, is disingenuous at best and pure BS at worse:
“The goal is to meet the challenge of racial interbreeding” Sarkozy told the French public, “Not to intermarry racially is bad for the survival of the country.”
Nicolas Sarkozy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfXhKY-ybA8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q90kmUbEv7c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFE0qAiofMQ
”We’ll keep bashing the dead White males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as the White race is destroyed. Not deconstructed, but destroyed.”
“The goal of abolishing the White race is on its face so desirable that some may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other than from committed White supremacists.”
http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/09/abolish-the-white-race.html
“Abolish the White Race – By Any Means Necessary”
“The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race.”
“so long as the white race exists, all movements against racism are doomed to fail.”
“Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.
http://racetraitor.org/abolish.html
“Arab migration has been the best thing that’s happened to Europe in the past 50 years. Arabs in Europe are a fact of life. It’s time we started to accept that there’s no way to block the migration of Chinese, Pakistanis or Arabs to Europe. … It’s true, Europe won’t be what it once was, but that’s a good thing. … [The] more migrants from Africa and Asia who arrive, the better off Europe will be. Sooner or later, their children and grandchildren will marry into veteran European families and change the demographics of their countries. Europe will be different.”
Yigal Ben-Nun, Israeli Writer
The White Majority is the Problem”
“The Swedes must be integrated into the new Sweden , the old Sweden will not return.”
Mona Sahlin.
Interesting, but denigrating people as ‘paranoid alcoholics’ oddly enough sounds like something that those evil white settlers to Australia might have called the Aborigines once, you know, like right before they displaced them.
( Please delete my former comment because I forgot to add something important)
Hi,
I read your entire comment, and I agree with you in most part. Most of these people need to helped because they come from a country that is in a devastating civil war.
BUT,
There are some somethings that I do not agree.
First, european boarders must be controlled, because you never know if some of the people coming in Europe are terrorists infiltrated in the middle of the refugees. Simply letting in everyone is beyond irresponsible and it is goiong to creates tons of problems in terms of security. Remember that that muslim fanantics absolutely hate western nations, and would love to infiltrate there so they can easily perform terrorist attacks.
Second, some of the countries that accepted to receive refugees are going through financial problems, and in those countries there are homeless, starving and phisycally disabled people walking in the streets ( I live in Portugal and I helped a person like this 3 days ago, and I do believe that even in rich countries like Germany and Great Britain there are people in these conditions also, and Spain for example has a huge number of unemployed people , but those cases do not attract mediatic attention. Yet the governments of those countries do nothing to help those people, in fact, Europe only took action on this migrant problem after that photo of the poor child found on the beach of Turkey, before that most people and the governments just didn’t care about it. I wonder if people and the governments only decide to act on certain problem when it gets mediatic attention, and if that is the case, than that is simply disgusting honestly.
Third, some of the “racist, nazi, white supremacist, whatever you want to call it” people are using evidence that some of the refugees are not good people and are actually extremely violent. There videos of some of the refugees trashing food that it is given to them, when there are many hungry children in sub-saharian Africa that would love that food for example. Of course videos like that are going to generate revolt and create a xenophobic sentiment in people, because that it is just as natural as being sensible to photos of dead children. You just can’t label people as racist simply because of that. I understand that people maybe desperate, but they shouldn’t disrespect people who are trying to help them because of that.
The ones that should be blamed for this problem are the USA and the rich Gulf nations that wan to control the oil in the middle east and are selling armament to the psycopaths of ISIS, especially the USA. Those countries are the ones that should receive most of the refugees from the middle east, while the UK and Fance should receive the refugees from Lybia because they overthrow the Gaddafi government.
Still, you have made a great post that had great arguments and was pretty clear.
I know people are going to probably call me a racist but I don’t mind, I gave my point of view without insulting anyone and I think I didin’t direspected anyone.
Sorry for the bad english.
Peace and good luck to everyone.
08gole, thanks. No, your English is fine. And no, I would never have called you a racist. And I totally agree with you about governments and media only reacting when they saw the image of the drowned boy – it’s pathetic.
And of course there should be borders and there should be screening, but it’s fairly easy to determine, for example, that a woman carrying children isn’t a terrorist or a threat. In terms of what you say about some of the ‘Muslim fantatics who have hatred of the West and would love to infiltrate’, there’s a couple of key points. Firstly, most of the Islamist terror groups in the Middle East have been armed and funded by certain Western governments as well as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Gulf States – it isn’t some natural outgrowth of a religion, but a policy undertaken over a number of years by various intelligence agencies to use terrorist/proxy groups to overthrow certain governments (for example, Al-Qaeda was used to overthrow Libya, ‘ISIS’ was created to overthrow Assad/Syria, etc).
The actual ‘fanatics’ we should be most worried about are the ones who ARE ALREADY HERE and are trying to go INTO SYRIA to join the fighting and work with the Islamic State – not the people who are coming OUT OF Syria, who are refugees (and not just Muslims, but Christians and other sects too).
The actual threat that ISIS made about using Libyan refugees as ‘psychological warfare’ against the West is working – not in the sense of terrorist attacks, but in the sense of causing a mass panic and psychological anxiety and getting people in Europe and the West so paranoid that many would rather let people – including children – drown in the sea than ‘risk’ letting one or two possible terrorists into our societies.
The only real winners of this is ISIS, had all these refugees been Christians, ISIS would have been dealt with by putting boots on the ground from all the Countries affected by this mass exodus, but then the Islamic Countries would have accused the West of mounting another crusade. It is a catch 22 situation, go in and be accused, or accept and help these wretched souls which could lead to be eventually taken over by Islam which is also stated in their Koran, dominate the world.
omg if people dont agree with your views calling them names is not going to solve anything there is a big difference between a refugee and a migrant look it up fact of the matter as soon as they leave one safe country for another they turn in to economic migrants regardless of there personnel situation from the past they are well within there right to apply for asylum to any other country once they are in a safe country but they have to stay put in a safe country until a decision is made there is a reason why there is a asylum policy stated by the u.n its not just there for the sack of it its to stop people from travailing in a unsafe manor and losing there lives this is being used by the e.u to displace the native population and as a political weapon to destroy national loyalty so they can create there E.U super state it includes people who are fleeing from poverty do you understand how many people that covers of course when things happen we should do our bit and help genuine refugees but to cast these economic migrants as refugees is unfair on the genuine refugees its about time people understood these people are not refugees i appreciate some of them may be genuine but others may be isis they claim to have 4000 isis fighters in Europe we must not loose sight of our national security if we loose our abilty to keep people safe within our own country and we cant help and protect ourselves how can we help genuine refugees we cant we cant even look after the people we already have here 1 in 10 homeless people are ex soldiers etc
Ok, that’s unreadable, so I’ll just respond to the last bit. The government not helping ex-soldiers is an issue with the government – has nothing to do with refugees. If the government wanted to do more to help ex-soldiers it could do so easily.
My lifelong school friend is a Royal Marines veteran and is regional counsellor for the Royal British Legion in Wales and has an MBE, he is currently drafting a letter to various organisations which are using the plight of Veterans as a way of building an argument as to why this country shouldn’t take in fleeing refugees. His words “this is absolutely fucking despicable, the actions of the lowest of the low”.
That’s brilliant, Discordion. And yes, I’ve heard that argument a lot – even here in the comments for this post. I don’t get it: the treatment of ex-soldiers and the issue of whether to take in refugees are completely unrelated subjects.
Reblogged this on discordion {Artist Ian Pritchard} and commented:
The refugee crisis explained in language that even a complete fucking idiot, a.k.a a Sun reader, can understand.
Reblogged this on Carole's Stuff and Occasional Nonsense and commented:
I’ve never reblogged anything before, but people really need to read this piece.
Reblogged this on Michael Tavares and commented:
Broken down, nice and simple for you.
All of u seem to be forgetting Israel.
Israel, IE , Jewish Zionism, they want to expand there country, all banks in the west are owned mostly by Jews,
What we call Capitailism is the 2000 year old system of usury, the Muslim world is the only place left that dose not use this system of compound interest, that is also why Muslims are being bombed, just like hitler try to stop it, and got a fake hollacust blamed on him, pls just check out the history of Germany before and after World War One and two, the power men of the west are not acting on white mans behalf,
You keep saying there is no plan to swamp western EU country’s with no whites, u must be pretty thick, as a Brit
I no longer recognise any major city in the UK, in Island whites are set to be the minority by 2050, in Britain 2040,
I can not find my history or culture any more, white people make up 8% of He worlds population, this is dropping all the time, as white peole are not having kids, I don’t want to see any person suffer, but what has happened to my race is sad, why are all white people who stand up for there race culture and country labeled , bigots, and racist, I’m so angry with your post,
Why is it only EU country’s that take people in why can’t Israel,
What about the many stable States in the Middle East like sauid Araba why won’t they take there own people but odd don’t u think, why is no other country in the world being arsked like China,
When I walk around London now I see hardly any Celtic people, just other races living in the homes that my ancestors built, if u think I hate other races your an idiot, u use racism so u don’t have to look into world history and understand the world u live in,
Pls take note of this Israel,
Waitrose – Jewish owned
Sanisburys – Jewish owned
Asda – jewish owned,
Cumb and loan, freddy mack, and all the other central banks – Jewish owned, how can my people be responsible for these wars when they weren’t even arsked, I think u watch too much BBC. Try altertive media the Internet, what scared what u might find, that maybe u don’t understand power sturture of this planet , the White mans power base ihas been lost…. We let our country’s and race be taken over and now we have to allow others to take our voice away, i wish harm on no one, not even Jews but your a stupid man . No one want these peole to die, but we can’t take anymore, every animal breed in nature needs its own space to reproduce with its self, look into your Celtic Nordic race history and then maybe u can fight your own people’s battles as your ancestors would of wanted, and no the white man is not the reason for all the worlds problems….
Oh God, this is getting so ridiculous. Are you seriously trying to tell *me* I ‘watch too much BBC’…? You obviously haven’t read *anything on this site*. I just wrote a whole fucking BOOK on how the BBC and other corporate-owned media lied about the war in Libya.
And the thing is, I’ve apologised already for the overly antagonistic title of this post – but now that I’ve read your comment, I’m no longer apologetic, because you’re exactly the kind of person I was talking about.
‘The white man’s power base has been lost…’? What the fuck are you talking about? Is the British Establishment and government run by anyone other than the ‘white man’s power base’? Who runs the US military-industrial complex? Have you heard of the Royal Family, for that matter? How many African migrants or Syrian refugees run the World Bank or the IMF? And what’s the ‘power base’ you’re so nostalgic for anyway? You mean the British Empire? Or Holy Roman Church? You realise, don’t you, that it’s only because of the Romans that Britain was even civilised, don’t you?
And if you’re going to bring up Israel and Zionism – well, what WAS Israel but a project carried out by white Europeans to create a European colony/state in the Middle East? Who secured Palestine for mass European-Jewish emigration in the first place – the British government 100 years ago. And what ARE the ‘Zionist lobbies’ but organisations run by white corporate/political campaigners of European heritage? How many Syrian, Afghan or African refugees do you think are lobbying or controlling Western governments at the highest levels?
I’m usually polite to people who comment on my posts, even the insulting ones, but you are just so extraordinarily stupid that it would take a fucking ESSAY to correct you. How the fuck is Israel going to take in lots of refugees, when it doesn’t even tolerate its own Palestinian refugee population? And why would they take in refugees from Syria, when the two countries are enemies? And for the tenth time, the reason refugees come to Europe is because Europe is safe, has the infrastructure and portrays itself as the embodiment of freedom, liberty, rights, and civilisation – which is what it wants to be seen as and what it should be.
Thanks for commenting though, man – your comment is actually a very useful illustration of what I was talking about in the post and therefore reinforces this article very nicely.
Also, Dan, one last thing; I didn’t say ‘the white man is the reason for the world’s problems’ at any point. I only said the specific governments who carried out those specific wars and policies are responsible for the specific refugee crisis that has now come from those policies. Don’t put words in my mouth and then get upset at something that wasn’t said.
knob
This reads like the blogpost I’ve been wanting to write all week.
Well done.
Thanks evertb.
Bloody awesome post. We never hear about the fact that a lot if these people had to flee as a direct result of UK action. Once ‘we’ had decided to step into their lives we should have ensured them safe passage from day 1.
Thanks Jenny. It’s actually really obvious, but the political leaders never speak about in those truthful terms.
Thank you for writing this. I haven’t the skill to do it so well. I couldn’t have put it any better.
Well my friend you seem to not undestand the cultural collision ,oke they suffer I agree but their religion is the problem infact all religions are problems but they seem to take everything to the extreme,you will have to wait just a couple of months and see.What are they doing right now in England in France etc? Nobody is a fascist or hate but when you come from a war zone dont complain and start posing allah and other provocative invocations.its easy to say lets welcome all but its hard to put that on the table.
After ww 2 in the first months of the war ,europe was carved by war 170000 refugees went in Australia,the commonwealth paid all their fairs now the question ho is paying all of these people wich its estimated to come in millions their fairs.You just have to put logic to the test and dont be a hipocrit.
Not sure how I’ve been a hypocrite. Also they’re not all ‘Muslims’ anyway, plenty of the Syrian and Iraqi and Eritrean refugees are Christian. Not that that really matters.
I sense that dislike of ‘Muslims’ is one of the main thrusts of the anti-migrant position; which is slightly misinformed, as the extremists are the ones GOING INTO SYRIA from the UK, France and wherever else, and not the ones coming FROM Syria.
Reblogged this on Attempted Human Relations and Self.
Is it hat most of British folk are witless, we all feel for them but we have enough problems at home if we send in the Army we are wrong, do nothing we are wrong, Britain cannot win. Our local Getaway Club have to support it’s self, these are disabled people who fight their own war everyday.
That’s because we have a government that doesn’t care about disabled or vulnerable people in the UK any more than it cares about refugees. That government is neglecting its own vulnerable citizens WITH OR WITHOUT the additional refugee crisis anyway.
Reblogged this on My Blog and commented:
Good blog!
That’s an interesting article, but it has one main flaw: I bet most people who read it share my views.
The problem is it isn’t simplified as much as a Britain First meme.
It uses confrontational language In the headline that will antagonise the people who NEED to read it.
I’ve found it interesting and informative, so thank you, but I (and I suspect most readers that get through the article) share your view anyway.
You’re probably right, Someone. But that’s usually the problem anyway – I’m usually preaching to the converted, and when someone does disagree they’ll just say something insulting and possibly not even read the whole article anyway.
Anyway, people like us can’t compete with Britain First memes 🙂
I agree with all of what you say. However, Gaddafi was heading towards Benghazi in order to destroy it when the Allies attacked
Tony, thanks for your comment; but in regard to Benghazi, that’s just not true. It’s a fiction that has been maintained by certain political figures and by certain media organisations. I don’t want to keep plugging the book, but I’ve demonstrated all of this clearly, as have many others – the idea that Gaddafi was going to destroy Benghazi or carry out a massacre was based on a deliberate misinterpretation of a single speech he made in which all he was talking about was rescuing the city (by force) from the armed rebels and Al-Qaeda militants who’d seized control of it by brutally attacking and massacring military personnel and police officers. In actual fact, it was shown in news reports that the column that was heading into Benghazi when the NATO bombers destroyed it was a very, very small column and included ambulances.
The idea of the imminent ‘Benghazi Massacre’ was simply a tool used by Hilary Clinton, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and others to provide an ‘urgent’ pretext for an all-out attack on the Libyan government. There are even now CIA and Pentagon officials in the US admitting that Hilary made the entire thing up and misled them into the intervention.
I think it is very easy to talk the talk but would you walk the walk? What are you doing – yes you? Are you opening up your home to take in a family, are you personally willing to subsidise a family in this country, to give them money, shelter, jobs, education and medical care?
By excepting all this people into the E U which ever country that may be is just sticking a plaster on the problem-a temporary fix. Let’s make their own country safe for them to live their own lives in. I’m not professing I have the answers to this problem – but I genuinely feel that these people who are fleeing their own country need help to keep their country – not help to run away.
As for me- personally- as I asked you the question I will answer it. No I am not prepared to open up my home or sponsor a family and I believe that we, as a country are doing all are able to do. But that is my personal opinion. I believe we should get our own books in order before we go sending money off anywhere- not just the recent problems.
Kate, no, I’m not a home-owner and I’m not in control of my property, so no I wouldn’t be able to take in a family. But I don’t really understand why you’d ask that question. It’s for the government and for state apparatuses to see to that asylum/refugee infrastructure, not for a blogger to do so. There are people in the UK willing to accommodate some of the refugees – many have said so. And to say that ‘we should get our own books in order before we go sending money off anywhere’ is completely missing the point that it was our government(s) that wrecked those countries in the first place – and it is therefore our governments’ responsibility to look after people who’ve paid the price for our policies.
Excellent article.
And Kate, your comment about believing ‘we should get our own books in order before sending money off anywhere’ is a) usually spoken by people who give sweet f**k a** to charity anyway, and b) our government is systematically destroying the welfare system, so they clearly have no interest in helping anyone who is not already rich.
Myself and some other doctors have been to Calais. While the government have behaved appallingly, the kindness of many ordinary people makes me a little prouder. Teenagers driving down with blankets and food. Families putting up other families. They’ve also started a makeshift library.
What a great article. Like you and others, I’ve been getting malignancy overload from all the racist and bigoted comments I’ve been seeing everywhere, with every single reason under the sun being thrown in for good measure as to why we shouldn’t welcome these refugees. I just had to go and drill holes and sand wood for an hour today just to let off the head of steam that’s been building up over the last few days.
I think I’ve passed my anger peak now. The thing to do is just to concentrate on what we can do, organise, arrange, donate, plan for refugees coming to local communities, when it can be arranged for them to come. I’m just not listening to the hate any more. It does my head in. I’m glad to see that thousands of people across the UK are volunteering to share their homes with refugees – it will give them space and support to draw breath and to start to deal with their shellshock, their traumas, their losses, in warmth and safety, being cared for by people with big hearts. What they’re going through is beyond any imagining. That’s who we need to give our attention to. Those who need us. Not the racists.
Well said, Sooz.
Very clearly written, with rich details…
How condescending, simplistic, arrogant, ignorant, and Ill-informed
‘Normal Citizen’, I’m willing to concede to ‘condescending’ and even ‘arrogant’, but I’m not sure what your basis for ‘ill informed’ would be. Which bit is ill-informed? I’ve already apologised for overdoing it a bit with some of the language and sentiments, but you’ll have to point out which part is ill-informed…
Reblogged this on langspoon and commented:
Says it all far better than I could…
I can’t imagine how you would have written this piece this week after the viral exploitation of the pictures of the drown little boy. Wonderful blog post. Thanks for collecting my thoughts for me and posting them here for all to see.
You’re welcome, Gragor. I actually posted this piece a few days before the footage of the little boy went viral. I haven’t seen that footage, but I understand how much it has captured public attention. The fact is, however, there have been lots of other children drowning in the sea for MONTHS already and the media didn’t make anything of it. In fact, a few days ago someone on Facebook posted a whole bunch of photos of dead children washed up on the Libyan coast, having been on a capsized migrant boat – the mainstream media hasn’t shown any of that and in fact Facebook deleted the post and removed all the photos within a day. People only see what they’re willing to see and only when they’re willing to see it.
If only we could force people to read this! Although I think certain people just like to hear their own pathetic ramblings, we could all end up needing help of another human being at some point in our lives and why not? Empathy costs nothing, how very sad that war, money, greed it has taught us nothing.
If I’ve learnt anything, Babs, it’s that you can’t force anyone to read anything. The amount of silly argument I’ve gotten into online where someone will say ‘well, prove it’ – and then I’ll give them a link to information and they’ll say ‘no, I haven’t got time to read that!’…
Good post. It seems the very countries whose armies were most active in creating this refugree crisis are the ones most reluctant to shoulder their share of asylum seekers (e.g. the UK).
Thanks Graham; and yes, that appears to be so. The US, most ironically, seems to get off pretty lightly for geographical reasons. And countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which were heavily behind the wars in Libya and Syria, take in absolutely no refugees whatsoever, despite being immensely wealthy countries; this is in comparison to say, Lebanon, which isn’t particularly wealthy but has something like 1.5 million Syrian refugees and is itself being destabilised. As for the UK, it is pretty pathetic: we’ve offered to take in barely a fraction of what Germany and Sweden have. We’re even right now *deporting* people we’d originally granted asylum from Afghanistan, which seems ridiculous.
Its because we dont have the room as we are a little island which you seem to forget. Also there are plenty of homeless people which would love some money and a roof over there head over hear. Should they not come first?
Anonymous; there are homeless people here because that is government policy. This government kills disabled people. It’s policy, not accident, not something that we can’t do anything about. And as for a small country? I raise you Lebanon.
Exactly – Lebanon has an indigenous population of only about 4.5 million, yet it has well over a MILLION Syrian refugees and something like half a million Palestinian refugees from Israel. And Western nations are bellyaching about a few thousand.
Reblogged this on HumansinShadow.wordpress.com and commented:
IT IS A VERY HEAVY TO SWALLOW THIS THESIS.
BUT I´LL GIVE ALL INTERESTED IN THE CHANCE TO READ THIS ENTRY – I LOVE CRITICAL STANDPOINTS & TO DISCUSS
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating.
While I agree that compassion should be number one for our fellow humans, it bothers me that no leaders are addressing the issues that are causing these people to flee in the first place. In reality, people are not so tolerant and cling to their own kind – forced immigration creates a huge amount of problems. As an Aussie, I see it first hand. A mini riot between Pacific Islanders & Aborigines in QLD highlights the fact that it’s not a black/white issue. Take my step grandparents – Germans, who have lived in Melbourne for 40 years. They shop at German shops, eat German food, mix with other Germans, kids go to German schools, her English is very stilted due to not speaking it much, even after all this time. They live in a virtual suburban prison, now terrified of the influx of new migrants that often roam in gangs at night – and who cling to their own kind, just as the Germans do – as is the natural way. Certain suburbs are ethnically influenced very heavily, and those outside of it are not made to feel welcome. I have wandered into the “wrong” suburb by accident and it’s not good. Tensions run high, many resentful of being here in the first place. I was all for multiculturalism, but in reality it’s a utopian fantasy that creates more problems than it solves. We need to address the warmongers and not apply this band aid solution as a means of “fixing things” which is doomed to fail. People belong in their homelands, surrounded by their own people with their own sovereign & cultural identity intact. Not to mention that lack of jobs & opportunity means dependence on the state – leading to yet another wave of problems.
Meanwhile, what about the true Aussies? The indigenous peoples? They get a ton of money thrown at them, expecting them to assimilate and become good little workers like the rest of us. Is it working? Nope. They want to be with their own kind too. Yet Aboriginal communities are being shut down deemed “un-viable”. Instead they are given housing smack in the middle of white suburbia where I live, they often smash up & destroy the homes and antagonize the neighbours with loud parties & gatherings. No one, no matter how “un-racist” they are, wants to live next door to this. I don’t blame them for it – but again a epic fail, leaving both sides unhappy & displaced. I volunteer at the local indigenous “corporation”, I naively thought I would make new friends & learn about their culture. But they have no interest in mixing with white new Australians like me. It’s not a criticism, it’s just how it is and I can’t say I blame them. A friend said to me recently “I grew up racist by default as every day getting to school was dodging rocks & beat ups by the Aboriginal gangs”. This is the reality but mention any of this is a public forum and the cries of racist will stop you before you get a word out.
Cultural Marxism – no one benefits.
I wouldn’t label you racist at all, sonia. And I appreciate everything you’re saying. I also entirely understand that integration and assimilation, etc, are very difficult processes and often don’t work. I don’t have a solution to that. But the illegal wars and interference in foreign societies is a huge part of the issue in terms of why all these people are in exodus. And the Australian governments, just like the British, French governments, etc, have been a huge player in all of that.
But I understand where you’re coming from and what you’re saying; and maybe I’m being too simplistic in my views, but I’m proceeding from a humanistic position first, with other considerations like secure borders and integration coming only second.
I disagree Sonia and invite you to one country which seem to live this utopia as u have put ti – The Netherlands. Eduacte yourself about it. It is worth you time 🙂
Send a few old cruise ships anchor them at some agreed points , let the refugees live on it till these stupid politicians can organise themselves and do something compassionate and humanitarian!
I don’t know what the consequence of ‘open borders’ would be but surely it would be preferable. At the moment huge amounts of money are being spent on preventing immigrants which could be better spent on helping them. Also if most immigrants can afford to pay to get to Europe illegally… wouldn’t it make more sense to make it legal for them to do so and instead to pay whichever country they choose to go to? Sometimes I think many forget that we are all human beings: all capable of being just as intelligent or unintelligent as one another no matter what skin colour/race.
The ‘migrant crisis’ always seems to reach boiling point leading up to elections. Migrants shouldn’t be used as scapegoats on elections.
Thanks Saine. Yeah, there’s no doubt that we’ve got political parties using migrants as a political football. In terms of having ‘open borders’, I don’t know; I mean I don’t think we should have totally open borders – there needs to be some degree of screening to root out criminals and possible terrorists, etc.
But just outright rejecting everyone is just totally indiscriminate. Do you know Britain has taken one of the tiniest amount of Syrian refugees of all the European nations? It’s pathetic.
I think I might’ve also got a bit carried away with this post and made it seem like all anti-immigration people are ‘racist’ – which probably isn’t fair. But this issue just bugs me a lot.
I know. I wasn’t sure about the ‘open borders’ idea either (though I am sure criminals and terrorists find ways of getting in anyway) but there has to be some workable alternative for migrants.
This may seem a bit random but the other day I thought about how children were evacuated during WWII to ‘host families’ and that if people could take in children back then… why not take in a migrant now? In September 1939: 800,000 children were evacuated to other areas of the UK (10,000 went to other countries such as Canada, Australia and the United States). Just a thought.
46,467,000 UK population in summer of 1939
64,596,800 UK population 2013-2014
That’s a great comment, Saine, and a genuinely interesting point. I guess attitudes are different and we don’t live in that kind of world anymore. You’re the only person I’ve ever heard make that suggestion or reference – and it’s a very good one.
Maybe the PM’s departments will find the idea worth pursuing… as decided to send them the idea re ‘host families’ for migrants yesterday.
Though probably attitudes aren’t so different today as I noticed today on MSN UK that 10,000 Icelanders went on Facebook to offer to house Syrian refugees after their government restricted refugees to 50:
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/10000-icelanders-offer-to-house-syrian-refugees-after-authors-call/ar-AAdOco1
That’s great; even though I don’t see the UK government doing anything like that. Wow, I hadn’t heard about the Iceland thing, but that’s really heartening. There’s something special seems to be going on in Iceland that isn’t being talked about in the mainstream media. I’ve heard that they’ve fired or arrested lots of bankers. But your idea for how we could be taking in more Syrian refugees is the best suggestion I’ve heard.
On the ‘open borders’ question; an old friend of mine used to say “locks only keep out honest people”.
If it’s of interest, after the collapse of the USSR many European countries were asked to and provided temporary host families for refugees, so it certainly has recent precedent. My neighbour still recalls housing one. There’s a great paper by Tishkov on emigration patterns from former USSR: https://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/shared/mainsite/policy_and_research/gcim/rs/RS3.pdf
Fascinating how history has a tendency of repeating itself over and over.
Nice one, Nat. It seems like there is precedent and not just in the distant past; just a lack of willingness.
Do you think there are thousands and thousands of empty houses ready in UK to be occupied rent free or something?
There is already a lack of 250,000 houses in UK as it is, never mind making that jump even higher. WHERE will everyone go if there is an open door? They need immediate shelter and that can be done with tents but UK is already getting cold, which means that isn’t possible.
People are looking to get away from their country because of their safety, so I don’t see why countries like Romania can’t take in many, seeing as there will be a lot of empty houses there lately.
There’s over 200 countries in the world, it can’t just be expected of UK, Germany and France everytime to lead the way. Syrians are mostly muslim, why not overly rich muslim countries such as Saudia Arabia and UAE take them in? It would make sense?
Firstly, there doesn’t need to be an ‘open door’ – there can still be screening. And the UK shouldn’t take sole responsibility of course, but it should be spread across Western Europe. Not so much places like Romania or Eastern Europe, because they don’t have the infrastructure or financial means – and also because they’re very homogeneous, xenophobic societies who probably wouldn’t deal well with foreigners and so there’d probably be really bad incidents in those countries if they were forced to take refugees.
I agree with you that Saudi Arabia and the wealthy Gulf States should do a lot more, but they’re intolerant, supremacist societies ruled by absolute dictatorships, and Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the ones who primarily funded and armed all the terrorists in Syria in the first place. They’re not humanitarians; and it makes perfect sense that Syrian refugees wouldn’t want to go there anyway, into the countries of the governments that funded the destruction of their country. The two Arab countries that have taken in LOTS of refugees are Lebanon and Jordan, who’ve both taken in millions (never mind the thousands we’re complaining about). But they come to WESTERN Europe because Western Europe holds itself up as the shining beacon of progress, liberty and humanitarianism and they believe this is the Promised Land in which they can finally be safe.
Finally, the irony is that Germany has led the way now, but it’s the UK and France has the most moral responsiblity, because it was the UK and France that led the way in destroying Libya and handing it over to terrorists and extremists, and it was the UK that was most involved in the illegal war on Iraq.
I’ve not said I have all the solutions – that’s not my job, it’s the government’s job. All I’ve said is that we have a responsibility.
According to government figures there are 600,000 empty homes in the UK – http://www.emptyhomes.com/
Well, there you go! And some of those too, I imagine, are homes bought by extremely wealthy oligarchs, etc, who aren’t actually living in them.
There are plenty of empty houses in the UK, they are unoccupied as their owners are abroad, usually owned by conglomerates, there are also housekeeping refurbishment which cc h have been unoccupied for years, squatting is rife in some cities, bring all empty buildings in to use, there’s apparently thousands of these unoccupied premises.
Great point, Katie.
As stated elsewhere, moving to Saudi would be moving in with the enemy; although the people of that nation have been very generous with financial donations. And the housing problem in Britain is politically motivated, not accidental. I notice you haven’t mentioned the USA. Seeing as they created this whole mess…. where are you, Leader Of The Free World?
I think the US has just announced it will be taking in a larger number of Syrian refugees; but yeah, the US should in fact be taking in the most, given that most of this is a result of the Neo-Con/Zionist policy in the Middle East.
Do you think there are thousands and thousands of empty houses ready in UK to be occupied rent free or something?
There is already a lack of 250,000 houses in UK as it is, never mind making that jump even higher. WHERE will everyone go if there is an open door? They need immediate shelter and that can be done with tents but UK is already getting cold, which means that isn’t possible.
People are looking to get away from their country because of their safety, so I don’t see why countries like Romania can’t take in many, seeing as there will be a lot of empty houses there lately.
There’s over 200 countries in the world, it can’t just be expected of UK, Germany and France everytime to lead the way. Syrians are mostly muslim, why not overly rich muslim countries such as Saudia Arabia and UAE take them in? It would make sense?
I think we need to remember that our expectations of housing is considerably higher than that of a refugee. They would be happy for a roof over their heads and somewhere dry. We are now so soft we need central heating, fridges, bath and shower, (ensuite?) and if offered a house which does not come up to western expectations our countrymen won’t take it. So yes there are lots of empty houses, but we are just fussy. Some schools have closed….the buildings lie empty and unused.
As stated elsewhere, moving to Saudi would be moving in with the enemy; although the people of that nation have been very generous with financial donations. And the housing problem in Britain is politically motivated, not accidental. I notice you haven’t mentioned the USA. Seeing as they created this whole mess…. where are you, Leader Of The Free World?
Reblogged this on Saine Corner.
Reblogged this on sand49.
America and the West have caused this crisis by their lies of WMD and plundered the Middle East’s oil. They have brought about the rise of ISIL through their agenda of shock an awe Hence why the common people have fled their homelands, the solution to me is this……..The West have a moral Duty to undo what they have done by spending billions of pounds to rebuild that what they have destroyed, but I will not hold my breath though.
That’s pretty much. Destroyed Libya based on pure fictions. Destroyed Iraq based on a lie. Allowed ISIL/Daesh to run riot and destroy Syria. And now Saudi Arabia is destroying Yemen using British and American weapons. And yet we have the nerve to say we don’t want to take in refugees…
I couldn’t agree more with wot your saying WE in the west an particularly U S A have raped and Pilate our way through the world especially those weaker than ourselves then when there is nothing left to take we then abandon them to some dictatortyrant simply because we can control them with our money is ensuring we have some power in that country regardless of how unjust and cruel the government is and they usually turn against us, then the whole charade begins again whilst it goes on the innocent suffer through problems WE created and yet we try to turn our backs on them!!!you reap wot you sow
Nuts
” plundered the Middle East’s oil ” This is news to me. Have you any details about when, where, and how this took place ?
Sure, look up Haliburton and ‘Iraq War Oil Profits’ in general.
Your reply seems to be about a company making profits which you consider excessive or unfairly gotten. The original comment seemed to refer not to this or that company but to this country “plundering ” oil. Oil from the Middle East or anywhere else that is bought or sold
by the fact that it is bought or sold is not therefore “plundered.” Buyers and sellers who make exchange by mutual consent – this is the opposite of plunder, theft, or fraud.
Have you read any of the documents from two years before the invasion of Iraq – in which Dick Cheney and other senior US government officials talk about invading Iraq to secure Iraqi oil for American companies? Do you know that Saddam Hussein had announced he wanted to abandon the petro-dollar and switch to Euros?
It seems to me that you’re being deliberately naive about these things for whatever reason and coming up with vague semantics instead.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘vague semantics,’ and, I suspect that you don’t know what . you mean buy that phrase either. You are referring me to propaganda when I asked you a
rather simple question. I asked you where, how, and when this plundering was taking place
I live in the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts and I read the Globe so I am up
on all the recent ‘progressive’ explanations of the world’s events.
I think that my question has now been answered, simply by your not even attempting
to answer. If you had an answer there would be no need for you to refer me to dated
ideological clichés. If this to you is ‘vague semantics,’ then I think that you
misunderstand both what I am writing ( probably intentionally) and that you are ignorant
about what ‘semantics’ means. With actual semantics there is no ‘vague’ about it.
I just gave you two specific examples of oil-based motivation for the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation. That’s not semantics – you’re just choosing to ignore it.
I’m not sure why you’re having this conversation – it’s like I’m talking to a child.
You refer me to the ‘motivation ‘ supposedly behind the invasion of Iraq.
If that were the motivation ( I do remember the phrase, Kick their ass and take their
gas – both an unjust sentiment and a vulgar form of the sentiment), then those
with that motivation must be gravely disappointed. There has been no American
plunder of oil either because of this invasion or for any other reason. Oil like
almost all commodities is bought and sold by willing buyers and sellers The
one notable exception to this is the Kleptocracy in the Russian Federation.
But even the Russians are bound by supply and demand and the law of contract.
You began by speaking loosely of plunder. I thought that, just possible, you had
something in mind by your talk of ‘plunder.’ But you seem only to have somewhat
out-of-date ” it’s all Bush’s fault ” narratives in mind. I read all those ideas
back when they were in fashion. I thought that in 2016 you may have been thinking
of some actual …events in talking of oil plunder . In the immortal words of
the late, great Gilda Radner, Never mind.
” abandon the petro-dollar and switch to Euros ”
Oddly enough very few people see this as
an important matter compared to this same man
using poison gas against Iraqi Kurds and teenage
Iranian soldiers, compared to his torture and murder
of innocent Iraqi people, compared to his “rape rooms,”
or compared to his reckless disregard of international law.
When Iraqi armor crossed the internationally recognized
frontier between Iraq and Kuwait the problem was not
a matter of what currency bills are paid in, the problem is
an outlaw regime ignoring international law.
‘An outlaw regime ignoring international law’ – you mean like the Bush Regime?
While parceling out blame, perhaps you can allot some to ISIS,some to brutal
tyrants such as Bashar al-Assad and Saddam Hussein, and even some to the
Wahabi schools teaching innocent children anti-Semitic lies ?
Absolutely – I’ve covered Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia at length, as well as ISIS. But the Saudis unfortunately are largely backed by Western governments, and we could do hours on where ISIS came from – but one thing is certain: ‘ISIS’ wouldn’t exist without the invasion of Iraq.
I suggest that if American troops had not been precipitously withdrawn from
Iraq,then the columns of Toyota pick-up trucks would have been easily
obliterated before ISIS took over one-third of Iraq. Even the Iraqi soldiers had they
had any motivation to resist the ISIS occupation of their country could have
effectively resisted. Ousting ISIS from cities is much. much more difficult,
with much, much, much more collateral damage than destroying their columns
in the desert. Dismissing ISIS as the junior varsity was in retrospect a costly error.
Those paying the price for this error are not the people who made the error.
‘Those paying the price for this error’ are Iraqis, Syrians and Libyans. But I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
I was responding to a post attributing the problems caused by ISIS to…..
this country. While our country is the most powerful country in the world,
the power of this country has narrow limits. It is not within our power
to create a civil society where none exists.
The torture, murder, sexual exploitation, and the fear of millions
of people around the world caused by ISIS are the fault of
… ISIS, not the fault of this country, or the Trilateral Commission, or
of black U.N. helicopters. Nor are these evil deeds the fault of the Vatican,
Queen Elizabeth II, or the Freemasons of the world or the Elders of Zion.
There is a kind of excitement, self-approval, and pride in knowing what
goes on behind the scenes which makes conspiracy buffs enjoy their
elaborate conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, there is no escaping the
perhaps boring, but common sense idea that blame for actions of murder
torture, sexual exploitation, and dividing people along confessional lines
belongs primarily to the adults who commit these vicious acts. Blaming
people in the Bermuda Triangle, the Illuminati, or ‘The Man,’ for these
actions is distracting from the vital question of how to act to protect
innocent people from these monsters..
I haven’t mentioned the Vatican, Freemasons or the Queen or Zion – you’re introducing those references where they don’t exist here.
But I don’t understand how you could not *see* the causal link between invading and destabilising Iraq, arming and supporting militias in Syria, and bombing Libya’s government into the abyss, and the subsequent chaos and barbarism.
I’m not excusing ‘ISIS’ for anything: they’re monsters. But they didn’t come out of a vacuum.
It is true that in human affairs there are complex chains of causation.
Remote causes ( remote in time ) are sometimes quite important,
even if they are more difficult to identify and even more difficult
to modify. Had the Imperial German forces not put V. I. Lenin
on that train would the genocide and famine have still happened in Ukraine
twenty five years later ?
I propose to you two thought experiments, not about past causes of
past or current events, but about likely results of improbable future
events. Suppose that all senior officials of large U.S. corporations,
and all large individual stockholders of such corporations were to
die quietly tomorrow. The second thought experiment is to suppose
that all current ‘fighters’ of Da ‘ esh were to die tomorrow.
Which, if either, would result in a decrease of suffering for innocent
people ( say Yazidi, Christian, Shi’a, Jewish, and even Sunni people )
in Southwest Asia? Please don’t bother to reply about this.
These are ‘ thought experiments, what Dr. Einstein called
Gedankforscungen, and no actual data can be reported.
Chains of causation are important processes and serious
students of current affairs or history can hardly avoid speculating about them.
But the complexity of such speculation ought to, but rarely does, cause
a degree of humility among those speculating about such things .
Libya is a simpler case. The disruption of a fairly stable, if despotic
and sometimes brutal, regime happened not that long ago and the effects
of that cause happened shortly thereafter. Drawing cause and effect relationships between
events of 2003 and 2016 in a larger and more complex area of oiperations is
a much more difficult undertaking. Here’s a question for you Suppose that
the Turkish government had allowed American troops to come against Hussein’s
forces from the North as well as the South, would Ba’athist rsisitance have collapsed
more quickly and more completely resulting in less fear of Sunni forces by the
( majority ) Shi’s, less communal violence, and a more stable society n ow, one, for example,
in which the Iraqi military might have actually resisted the quite resistable forces of Da’esh ?
Those are interesting questions. I will let them sit here for people to ponder.
” Those paying the price for this error are … ”
Exactly right, although throwing in Libyans may
not be exactly right, although an argument can be made
that anything that strengthens ISIS hurts the victims of
ISIS.
Migrant: someone who lives somewhere perfectly safe but not necessarily perfect, who’d like to be somewhere nicer in order to earn more money and have a nicer lifestyle-like most footballers in the premier league,say.
Refugee: someone unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being prosecuted or killed for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion-innocent people escaping conflict, in Syria for example.
I’m a migrant. In my case it means a person who moved from the UK to Canada as a child (1), to Istanbul at the age of 22 (2), and to London at the age of 24 (3). The “pioneers” were migrants. “Explorers” were migrants. Colonists were migrants. So were the.Cells, The Romans, the Normans, the Vikings, the Huguenots. Refugees are migrants. Migration is a natural human behaviour. Stop stigmatising it.
Syrians are statistically quite valuable migrants as they are on average young and highly-educated — just what aging Western nations with their looming pensions and elderly-care crises need.
(1) My mum’s family was in Canada so after she had me, she moved back
(2) To teach English abroad, a fairly common type of migration for privileged Western graduates
(3) To live and work, because it looked like where the best opportunities were at that time.
Thanks, Someone. That’s a great comment – I hope everyone reads what you’re saying.
You fucking moron!! How dare you to call people Xenophobes and Idiots?!! They could live in Turkey but they have chosen to go to the coutries with rich social as Germany, Austria or Great Britain. They don’t want to work or live like we do, they just want to receive money for nothing!! So, lets stop Muslims if we still can. Lets load them to the boats and send them back to Turkey or Saudi Arabia.
Kris, your comment is amazing and I’m really glad you posted it. You start by saying ‘how dare you call people xenophobes and idiots’ and then you proceed to a comment like ‘let’s stop all Muslims if we still can’ and ‘they don’t want to work or live like we do’…? So what you’re saying is ‘don’t call me a xenophobe… but now listen to me say something extraordinarily xenophobic’..?
Secondly, Turkey has almost 2 million Syrian refugees – they can’t cope with the sheer numbers on their own. Saudi Arabia won’t take them and the refugees wouldn’t want to go live with essentially their ‘enemy’ in Saudi Arabia anyway.
Third, the refugees aren’t ‘all Muslims’.
As for ‘they just want to receive money for nothing’ – a large percentage of the refugees coming from Syria, Iraq, or even Afghanistan, are students, qualified doctors and medical professionals, architects and engineers, etc.
And finally, they don’t all come to Germany, Austria or Britain: as far as Syrian refugees are concerned, there are 2 million in Lebanon and there’s more than that in Jordan. Germany has invited them – if you actually examined information rather than being angry at the sight of brown-skinned people, you’d know that.
Kris. What a pric*.
Then what?
how the fuck do you come to the conclusion they would not want to work? being a refugee means you are fleeing a problem you don’t want to be part of , the refugees could live in nearby country’s but they have regimes that would still make your eyes water for an outsider..
Austria Germany france the uk to name a few are places where if allowed to enter will enable these scared people to settle and possibly start to rebuild their lives.. im sure your daily mail attitude makes you feel good but I bet you have a small dick.
reality check mate, go live in a war zone and see how you like it..
remember migrants seem to come to screw the system(not all) refugees don’t want to leave home but realise they must to survive.. I would happily welcome a family into my home if asked and willingly help to teach them our values not the hate and vitriol your spouting..
Thank you for proving the point, Kris. Now go fuck off and die in a corner somewhere. You’re less than human.
‘coutries’? ‘lets’? and how would Saudi Arabia be reached by ‘boats’ from Europe? Pot. Kettle. Black
Kris; you’re a moronic xenophobe.
Might not your first two sentences be seen as a bit vulgar, even a bit rude ?
And your phrase ‘ rich social ‘ seems just the tiniest bit obscure ( I have no idea
what it means and I am a native English speaker. I also wonder about capitalizing
xenophobes and idiots. What can capitalizing those common nouns possibly mean ?
It is odd that you refer to other people as ‘morons,’ when the word might better be applied to ….
Thank you for taking the time to gather and share this information! Education is the strongest weapon to combat the overwhelming wave of ignorance that has been emerging among the european population. And people definitely need URGENTLY to be educated!!! CONGRATS! =)
Thank u I just re blogged a very good article by The Burning Blogger of Bedlam
Calling xenophobes to the Europeans is idiotic! Ask them (muslims) what they do to christians, atheist, or other religions followers for that matter! Fuck tard, here´s something for you, i believe in helping them, urgently, but also i believe that “when in Rome, be Roman” ever heard that? Killing christians on board of the boats is a good thing for your elequent mind!? So we are xenophofics? That´s ok, so are they!!!! Althought a person like me believes that they can practice their religion wherever they want, let it be in EU in the USA, whatever, i don´t believe that they can enter europe and start riots! Yes we should assist, no, we should not assist by letting them enter EU or USA or whatever! Here´s a game for you, go to a islamic country and ask to build a church (and see the “magic” happen)! If you think that EU doesn´t want to assist and aid them, you sir/mam are an idiot! We offer food and water and they toss it away just because there´s a red cross on it! THAT IS BEING XENOPHOBIC (from their part)! You want to be living in residential area like some parts of the UK where they say they rule there and beat people!? You are a condescenting piece of shit who thinks that EU people wants them dead and ill treated. We are trying and we are pushed back when red cross supplies are given to them! Maybe they want a fucking PITA SHOARMA (well, that´s racist and xephofobic from my part). So my good sir/mam, good text, well illustrated indeed, but i bid you farewell with fuck you but have a nice day!
And a nice day to you too, sir.
People who substitute vulgar insults for arguments often do so when they have
no arguments to offer. Might this be the case here ? If you do have arguments to offer,
might it not be best to offer such arguments without the distraction of pointless
vitriol ? Is not civil discourse itself of great value ?
Sorry, let me explain something: at the time this article was posted (which was almost a year ago), the media and Internet was full of anti-immigrant, anti-refugee material and people calling for ‘refugees to be hanged’ and for migrant boats to be ‘torpedoed’. At the time of posting this article, I was responding very much to those things – and the ‘vitriol’ was justified.
You are reading it now, much later. Read some of the comments if you want to see vitriol. I was passionate at the time, because I consider refugees human beings with human rights and I don’t like how everyone was acting as if ‘we’ in the West have no causal link to the reasons people were fleeing from specifically Syria, Iraq and Libya.
Read some of the comments posted in this thread if you want to see what real ‘anti-semitism’ is too.
I think of immigrants as human beings with human rights.
Indeed I think of people who post on these discussion boards
as human beings, some perhaps more ignorant or less thoughtful
than others. Very few people are likely to be persuaded or educated
by being treated with contempt . I suspect that people who treat you
with contempt would be difficult for you to treat their ‘arguments’
seriously, difficult not to dismiss such arguments because of
the insults that accompany them
What exactly are you picking up on? Is it the issue of equating ‘xenophobes’ with ‘idiots’?
” no one was fleeing hardship, deprivation, famine, and war”
when millions of immigrants came to the US ??? !!!
The chief cause of immigration from Ireland to the US was an actual
famine in which over a million people died in a small country. The second leading
cause was persecution of the Irish by the colonial regime. Many of the immigrants
from Russia and Poland were driven out by pogroms. Many other immigrants to
Canada, Australia, the US and other countries which welcomed immigrants, to the extent that they did, were driven from their homes by threats to their lives.
Tom, I am unsure who you are quoting here. Not that I disagree in any way, just curious, since I cannot find the original quote. My ancestors came to North America 400 years ago to escape religious persecution, rampant in the day. I see this migration as not much different.