Ship of Fools: What To Do: Refugees, Migrants, Undocumented Immigrants, Homeless...

Thread: What To Do: Refugees, Migrants, Undocumented Immigrants, Homeless... Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

When, who, and why do we help? Where? Here? (Your particular "here".) Or where they came from?

Resources and energy aren't limitless, and we have to help local residents, too.

So what can we do? And what are the right things to do?

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

It is such a difficult question, isn't it? I have been listening to various phone-ins, comments on radio and articles in papers, but I'm afraid I'm going to remain on the sidelines.

There was one comment I heard yesterday: someone asked why the father of the two drowned boys and their mother who were on all the front pages subjected them to a sea journey in an over-loaded boat when they were already in Turkey.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

"No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land" (Warsan Shire)

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

I find the media really doesn't help to know the answer.

For one thing, it hopelessly distorts circumstances and numbers and focuses on what will fuel clicks rather than less exciting material that may be just as critically important.

For another, it fuels guilt, which in my experience and theology is a particularly bad motivator.

My personal commitment to social action is embodied right now by prison chaplaincy, a field I did not enter through guilt, in which I like to think I have some ability, can become familiar with some aspects of migrancy, and perhaps even do a little to help. I find it hard to envisage doing more.

If people want to do something more, my personal recommendation is to get involved with any reputable local non-profit association catering to migrants that has a good working relationship with local government. Useful abilities range from foreign languages to being able to dole out soup. Meeting people as fellow human beings is where solutions, experience, and changes in attitude can begin.

I also think that a long-term political solution involves giving migrants the right to work: any significant policy moves in that direction would be one of the things I'd look out for in terms of deciding who to vote for.

Posted by Humble Servant (# 18391) on :

We hear (particularly from our Prime Minister here in the UK) that helping individuals won't solve the problem, and we have to fix the problems that are causing them to migrate.
I fear that his "fix" is going to be more bombs, more guns, more death.

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Humble Servant:
We hear (particularly from our Prime Minister here in the UK) that helping individuals won't solve the problem, and we have to fix the problems that are causing them to migrate.
I fear that his "fix" is going to be more bombs, more guns, more death.

One of the self-righteous types phoning in was a woman whose response was something on the lines of, 'We must face them with love.' When challenged by Stephen Nolan with the obvious statement that the IS have no respect at all for anyone's reasonable opinions, she of course had no even half-rational answer.

Posted by Humble Servant (# 18391) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
... she of course had no even half-rational answer.

The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.
Don't expect a rational answer if you live in "Christian country".
[edit - I hadn't finished before it submitted itself]

[ 05. September 2015, 06:57: Message edited by: Humble Servant ]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I'm deeply ambivalent about this. The plight of the Syrians moved me a lot in the past couple of years. But I'm not comfortable with what I've seen recently. There are some terrible stories coming out and people in genuine need and of course they should be helped. But at the same time, the impression I'm getting is that many of the refugees seem to know exactly what they want and refuse to settle for anything less. If you really are desperate, do you refuse the first offer of help you get?

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
There was one comment I heard yesterday: someone asked why the father of the two drowned boys and their mother who were on all the front pages subjected them to a sea journey in an over-loaded boat when they were already in Turkey.

Yes. I read this article recently about one young Syrian's journey from Turkey to Sweden. The bit that stands out for me is:

"For two years in Istanbul, she enjoyed a comfortable life. Nour found work in a hair transplant salon, and later with Turkish state TV. She learnt Turkish, went horse-riding and dyed her hair blonde for the summer.

But she wanted to start a new life away from the region. She aimed to make it to the Swedish city of Gothenburg where her brother lives with his young family. There, she would apply for political asylum."

She and her mother were safe, they had a comfortable life, she had a job, and presumably friends. But she left her mother behind on her own in Turkey and embarked on a journey involving a lot of subterfuge and danger to get to Sweden.

Cameron is right that something needs to be done about the root problem. Trying to have a dialogue with Daesh isn't going to work.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Part of the solution has to be to address the issues at source. Why are people leaving their homes in such massive numbers? For Syria, it's obviously the ongoing war which has already resulted in 4 million people fleeing the country, and many more displaced within Syria. We're going to be faced with a Syrian refugee crisis until either the war is stopped and a moderate government established or the entire population has fled. And, of course, that isn't going to happen by sending over more bombs - that's just likely to make things worse. It doesn't help that there is no moderate government in waiting in Syria either - so an attempt to stop the war with more bombs will (at best) only give us another Libya.

But, stopping the conditions that result in people fleeing their own countries is a long term project. In the mean time there are crises all along the refugee routes. The first destination nations simply can't cope with the numbers (almost 2 million Syrians in Turkey, similar numbers shared between Lebanon and Jordan), these people need adequate housing, they need schools for their children, hospitals for the sick, food, water and clothing, jobs so that they can earn the money to pay their own way. Turkey can not provide that, so a minority (though still a large number of people) risk overcrowded boats to enter Europe.

Immediate action is needed to help those countries neighbouring Syria, and other source countries, to provide for the refugees there. Because that is where the majority will remain at least until the war finishes. And, coupled to that we need to provide refuge within Europe (and beyond) for a significant number of people - and, provide transport from the camps in Turkey or Libya so that they aren't going to drown in the Med or die in the back of trucks.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Humble Servant:
We hear (particularly from our Prime Minister here in the UK) that helping individuals won't solve the problem, and we have to fix the problems that are causing them to migrate.

This is such a stupid comment (from Mr Cameron, not from you). The last few years have shown the problems in Syria are pretty much insoluble by Europe. On the other hand, taking in refugees at least helps those refugees.

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:

One of the self-righteous types phoning in was a woman whose response was something on the lines of, 'We must face them with love.' When challenged by Stephen Nolan with the obvious statement that the IS have no respect at all for anyone's reasonable opinions, she of course had no even half-rational answer.

On the other hand, I thought one of the key tenets of conflict resolution was 'de-escalation'. Except when it involves nations, of course, when it must be 'more dakka'.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

A few mixed thoughts...

1. I definitely think that making the places people are leaving into better places is the long term solution. Not only does that help refugees, it also discourages economic migrants. That is, however, a long term goal and frankly with some of the current situations, such as Syria, it's going to be pretty much all refugees and not much in the way of economic migrants.

2. It's necessary to have a good hard look at why people aren't claiming asylum in the first Refugee Convention country that they reach. (One also, consequently, has to look very carefully at which countries are signatories to the Convention, because in some cases - such as en route to Australia - a lot of commentary misses the fact that refugees have no rights at all in the transit countries.) Is it because there is no help for them there, or just because they are deciding they want to choose another country with a better economic deal? I don't think the Convention was ever meant to allow the latter kind of choice.

3A. Germany is not helping matters in the slightest by encouraging people to move there to claim asylum rather than staying put in some other safe location. We need a coordinated, joint effort to solve these problems, not countries going off on their own tack. And that's just as true for a country breaking ranks to "help" in that fashion as it for a country refusing to help.

3B. Countries further away need to help countries closer to the action

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

This seems to be being regarded as a European problem. It isn't, necessarily. Pressure needs to be put on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to start taking refugees. And why not Africa? It's not all unstable. There's a long tradition of Lebanese in West Africa, for example.

And further afield, why not America? It was very welcoming to refugees during WW2. Would they not help this time during a crisis of similar proportions?

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

The parallel that comes to my mind is the Vietnamese boat people in the late 70s, but continued into the 1990s. Similar stories of people taking to boats to escape an intolerable situation, the nearby countries becoming inundated and an international solution.

The big difference there was that the war was over.

(I remember this one well as where I worked at the time took a substantial number of Vietnamese workers who had come over as refugees and I was aware of some of the stories.)

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
One of the self-righteous types phoning in was a woman whose response was something on the lines of, 'We must face them with love.' When challenged by Stephen Nolan with the obvious statement that the IS have no respect at all for anyone's reasonable opinions, she of course had no even half-rational answer.

There is seldom a rational answer to a stupid question. The question makes the assumption that the refugees are ISIS or ISIS supporters rather than the truth that the vast majority if Iraqi and Syrian refugees are trying to get away from ISIS.

We must face them with love.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

Ariel

Lets get some facts in here. The rest of the world is dealing with less than 10% of the refugees from Syrian that surrounding countries are.

The developing world houses 86% of all refugees. For instance Sudan (hardly the most prosperous of African countries) housed around 160k, compared to the UK 125K according to the World Bank.

Jengie

[ 05. September 2015, 08:20: Message edited by: Jengie jon ]

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Germany is not helping matters in the slightest by encouraging people to move there to claim asylum rather than staying put in some other safe location.

Yeah, despite my previous post I think Mr Cameron is bang on the money when he says we should be taking refugees directly from the camps on the Syrian border.

The German approach turns asylum into a sort of Tomb Raider style challenge where if you break through all the deadly obstacles - or are rich enough to get reliable transport - you are rewarded with the right to claim. I think Germany is commendable in being willing to take a multiple of the number of claimants the UK is allowing but Mr Cameron is probably correct about the means of selecting those claimants.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Let's get some facts in here. The rest of the world is dealing with less than 10% of the refugees from Syrian that surrounding countries are.

That was last year; things have escalated a bit since December. Here are some more facts for you.

The population of Syria is 23 million. Currently, 4 million have left as refugees/migrants, etc. A further 9 million are displaced internally.

Currently, roughly 3000 people a day arrive in Macedonia/Greece. Assuming that rate remains constant that would be just under 1 million a month.

Germany plans to take in 800,000. That is equivalent to the entire population of the city of Munich.

One person in 4 in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee. It may be that the actual numbers are higher, because not all of them have been registered. At present, the infrastructure is struggling to cope. Many refugees in Beirut are sleeping rough, under bridges, in doorways, on the seafront. The hospitals are having to cope with an influx of people with physical wounds from the wars and mental scars. Lebanon already has long-established Palestinian camps. There are tensions within both Syrian and Palestinian refugee camps - there always will be when you have large groups of troubled people, children with nothing to occupy them, and young men with nothing to do. Ethnic tensions are high and rising. Jordan and Turkey have similar problems.

The media have been focusing on the exodus of Syrians, but the ethnic mix of migrants also includes and is not limited to Iraqis, Palestinians, Kurds (some of these first three will fall into the category of double refugees, having fled to Syria for refuge in previous years), Afghans, Eritreans, Sudanese, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Albanians and Vietnamese, all seeking to start new lives in the West.

[ 05. September 2015, 08:52: Message edited by: Ariel ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

European countries should get their act together and decide how many refugees each can take - many are doing too little too late. It's good to see Germany showing the way.

Cameron talks like a prat. Solving the problems in Syria etc is not something within our ability. Caring for those displaced is.

[ 05. September 2015, 09:04: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

I think we need quotas internationally, financial aid to the closest countries - and probably also practical help not just money. On the today programme one contributor was suggesting quotas should be designed based on landmass, current population and GDP per head - which seems a sensible set of factors to consider.

It would help if people could work whilst claims are processed. We also need a system for economic migrants that is in some way functional. We also need people to understand that the economy is in part fueled by how many people we actually have. It is not simply that people arrive and resources diminish.

It might help to document skills and quakifications at the same time as registering the claim.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

The media have been focusing on the exodus of Syrians, but the ethnic mix of migrants also includes and is not limited to Iraqis, Palestinians, Kurds (some of these first three will fall into the category of double refugees, having fled to Syria for refuge in previous years), Afghans, Eritreans, Sudanese, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Albanians and Vietnamese, all seeking to start new lives in the West.

The Internet is playing a large part in encouraging people to leave their homelands in search of a better life. Some of the refugees sleeping rough in European countries post I-phone images of themselves standing next to new cars which they pretend to own. Which in turn encourages more to embark on hazardous journeys under false pretences.

The world has fudged over the Mid East for a very long time, civil wars and famines have occurred in Africa for even longer. However mass migration, in the way we,re seeing it now, is a new phenomenon. One which has to be dealt in isolation to these other problems.

Many of us are mistaken in playing Molly Brown to the current refugee problem in Europe. The problems in Syria could be remedied if the joint global political will was there to do it. As we know, sadly, such a will does not exist. All we can do to help is continue in lending assistance to people in their own countries, and stand firm against chaos, including the chaos of open boarders and an unsustainable immigration policy.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

Course, we could cancel the national debts of the closest countries and use the interest payment money for the refugee crisis. Billions a month seems like it would be helpful ...

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

The media have been focusing on the exodus of Syrians, but the ethnic mix of migrants also includes and is not limited to Iraqis, Palestinians, Kurds (some of these first three will fall into the category of double refugees, having fled to Syria for refuge in previous years), Afghans, Eritreans, Sudanese, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Albanians and Vietnamese, all seeking to start new lives in the West.
The Internet is playing a large part in encouraging people to leave their homelands in search of a better life. Some of the refugees sleeping rough in European countries post I-phone images of themselves standing next to new cars which they pretend to own. Which in turn encourages more to embark on hazardous journeys under false pretences.

The world has fudged over the Mid East for a very long time, civil wars and famines have occurred in Africa for even longer. However mass migration, in the way we,re seeing it now, is a new phenomenon. One which has to be dealt in isolation to these other problems.

Many of us are mistaken in playing Molly Brown to the current refugee problem in Europe. The problems in Syria could be remedied if the joint global political will was there to do it. As we know, sadly, such a will does not exist. All we can do to help is continue in lending assistance to people in their own countries, and stand firm against chaos, including the chaos of open boarders and an unsustainable immigration policy.

Mass migration is definitely not new, it is how the world wass populated, and there have been waves ever since. Colonisation was also a form of mass migration.

Explain to me what is unstustainable about our net immigration + birthrate levels ?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
The Internet is playing a large part in encouraging people to leave their homelands in search of a better life. Some of the refugees sleeping rough in European countries post I-phone images of themselves standing next to new cars which they pretend to own. Which in turn encourages more to embark on hazardous journeys under false pretences.

Not just the internet: it's in the traffickers' interests to persuade people to part with huge sums of money. Of course they're not going to tell them that the boats will be hopelessly overcrowded, that they may die long before they ever reach their chosen destination, that they will be maltreated, threatened with guns and have the rest of their money and maybe their belongings taken by the traffickers on route, that they may be crammed into a lorry with the doors welded and no air. The traffickers sell people in need a vision and an illusion of hope and they don't care how they enforce payment. Trafficking is a serious evil that urgently needs to be addressed and stamped out.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

How can you distinguish between a political refugee, an economic migrant and a potential sleeper terrorist? Those coming out of Syria are, by an overwhelming majority, political refugees seeking desperately to escape from an intolerable situation. And as Ariel observes, mixed in with them are folks from many other countries with a wide variety of motives for wanting to live in Europe.

This isn't simple at all.

Like Doublethink, I think there probably is a need for some kind of quota system but there is also a need for some consistent screening process. It is really hard to do the latter well, when dealing with people in great distress. The genuine ones must think their plight is obvious to anyone with half a brain. The fellow-travellers know that as well.

In the UK, this also getting mixed up hopelessly with membership of the EC and seems likely to colour the referendum debates.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Let them ALL come and share them ALL out on a population size basis in ALL of Europe.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Martin, I don't think any government these days can turn a blind eye to the potential security risks of a completely "open doors" policy. That's leaving on one side the vexed questions of accommmodation, education, economic support etc.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The parallel that comes to my mind is the Vietnamese boat people in the late 70s, but continued into the 1990s. Similar stories of people taking to boats to escape an intolerable situation, the nearby countries becoming inundated and an international solution.

The big difference there was that the war was over.

(I remember this one well as where I worked at the time took a substantial number of Vietnamese workers who had come over as refugees and I was aware of some of the stories.)

It's a parallel that's been raised here along the way. Malcolm Fraser was the Australian Prime Minister at the time - from the Conservative side of Australian politics - and he stared down some of his own government to insist that Australia welcome the boat people.

He died earlier this year, but in the last couple of years he had a fair bit to say about our current government, from the same party, and none of it was complimentary. He resigned from the party. Among other things, he was appalled by our current "turn back the boats" strategy which others are being encouraged to adopt.

It's worth reading the Wikipedia page about him just to get a bit more flavour of a man who considered human rights extremely important in his political career.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
How can you distinguish between a political refugee, an economic migrant and a potential sleeper terrorist? Those coming out of Syria are, by an overwhelming majority, political refugees seeking desperately to escape from an intolerable situation. And as Ariel observes, mixed in with them are folks from many other countries with a wide variety of motives for wanting to live in Europe.

The sleeper terrorists need to be weeded out for sure. But there's nothing wrong with economic migrants imo.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

Does "screening" for "sleeper terrorists" result in less terrorists in one's country, than treating refugees like shit and thereby radicalising a subset of your existing population ?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

You can weed out people for whom there's evidence of them having done something - whether it's associations or whatever - but apart from that, you can't spot future terrorists any better than you can spot future burglars, future rapists, or future American shooting spree killers.

The world is not a risk free place, and given that one of the factors involved in creating terrorists is treating people like shit, trying to exclude people on the basis of vague ideas about what you think they might become later on is likely to be counterproductive.

EDIT: Cross-post/Snap.

[ 05. September 2015, 11:02: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Yes, fair point orfeo and Doublethink.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

That's politics Barnabas62.

We're Christians.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Weren't Christians told to that:

quote:
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

(Matthew 10:16)

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

That little boy.

I'M GUILTY of 'Yeah but ...' until that happened.

(I mean never mind the thousand that have died elsewhere at sea ...)

God forgive me.

LET THEM IN.

[ 05. September 2015, 11:39: Message edited by: Martin60 ]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
How can you distinguish between a political refugee, an economic migrant and a potential sleeper terrorist?

As you say, it isn't simple at all. It isn't helped by incidents like this.

[ 05. September 2015, 11:52: Message edited by: Ariel ]

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

It's VERY simple.

Let them in.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The sleeper terrorists need to be weeded out for sure.

Would Syrians sympathetic to IS be leaving the country in the first place? Wouldn't those inclined towards armed struggle already be fighting in Syria? A terrorist attack in Europe requires some sort of organisation. An immigrant straight off the boat would need to get hold of some guns or explosives, that isn't going to happen unless there's an existing cell waiting for him. If a terrorist group is organised enough to get a cell in Europe to procure weapons and explosives they're not going to rely on the rather chaotic refugee migration routes and people smugglers with overcrowded boats and trucks. There would be more secure routes they could take to get someone in, or recruit someone locally.

Which basically means I consider the chances of an active terrorist entering Europe with the refugees is so close to zero that it can be discounted. On the other hand, if those refugees are dumped in inadequate accommodation, not allowed to work, treated almost like animals by the authorities the chances of some of them becoming radicalised and turning to terrorism are very much higher.

quote:
But there's nothing wrong with economic migrants imo.

Every study I've ever seen has shown that migrants are a net economic gain to the host country if they are integrated reasonably well into society (ie: allowed to work and/or study). The UK, and probably the rest of Europe, has desperate labour shortages in some sectors. The NHS depends heavily on non-UK doctors and nurses. There is a housing crisis due to low rates of house building and we are short of bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, plasterers etc to build houses. Without immigrants vast swathes of our agricultural produce would go unharvested.

The group of migrants that almost always cost the host nation are asylum seekers - usually because they are not allowed to work while their application is processed, and that processing takes a long time and costs money. Which is where Germany has been smart, they have effectively removed the cost of processing asylum applications by declaring that anyone from Syria doesn't need to demonstrate they are fleeing from imminent danger - cutting the costs to practically nothing and allowing these people to enter the workforce straight away, reducing the costs of providing welfare for them.

The refugees and migrants coming to Europe are a self-selected group. By definition they are the people with the resources to come this far. That may be determination, resourcefulness etc. More likely it's because they have (or, had) money. That almost certainly means they are professional, educated people (doctors, dentists, lawyers, teachers etc), skilled workers or entrepreneurs who have built up businesses (and then seen them destroyed by bombs from one side or the other). These are people that will rapidly make a contribution to the economies of their host nations if given the chance. Though, in some cases there may be difficulties establishing their qualifications - with certificates charred paper in the ruins of their homes, and no chance of anyone giving them a reference.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Would Syrians sympathetic to IS be leaving the country in the first place? Wouldn't those inclined towards armed struggle already be fighting in Syria?

Not necessarily. The latest tactic is for jihadists to return to their previous countries somehow and launch lone wolf attacks or organize local ones. The recent French train incident shows how much damage one man by himself could achieve. So yes, those sympathetic to IS may well be seizing the opportunity to cross back in.

quote:
The refugees and migrants coming to Europe are a self-selected group. By definition they are the people with the resources to come this far. That may be determination, resourcefulness etc. More likely it's because they have (or, had) money. That almost certainly means they are professional, educated people (doctors, dentists, lawyers, teachers etc), skilled workers or entrepreneurs who have built up businesses (and then seen them destroyed by bombs from one side or the other).

Not only but also. They come literally from all walks of life: not all are from cities, some are from rural backgrounds. Some are wealthy enough to have paid for taxis to take them from Hungary to Germany, others haven't a penny and nothing but the clothes they're wearing. Determination springs from the drive to survive, not a background of confidence and wealth.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
The recent French train incident shows how much damage one man by himself could achieve.

Does it? In that case the answer is "not a lot".

Seriously? Is that the best incident you can come up with? Was it necessary for your example for the person to be Muslim? Because there are a heck of a lot of other people who've managed far worse. If you want to see how much damage one man by himself could achieve, look at Anders Breivik.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Yes, I said some had simply determination. Which is the sort of characteristic that employers would value.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

It's silly to think that the only "useful" refugees are educated professionals in any case.

Do you know what happened when we used to let Afghan refugees work here, before a whole lot of Kafkaesque rules got put in place? All the rural Afghanis went to the small Aussie farming towns and took jobs like fruit-picking. They were happy, the communities were happy... and then the politicians started ruining it on "principle".

It's utter madness to stop asylum seekers from working. I assume the theory is that you don't want them settling into the community, but the end result is you stop them settling into the community. No integration, no contribution to economic growth, just a lot of frustrated and bored people left in legal and monetary limbo.

Gee, I can't imagine how that could ever go badly. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Does it? In that case the answer is "not a lot".

Seriously? Is that the best incident you can come up with? Was it necessary for your example for the person to be Muslim?

Well, most members of IS are Muslim and I was thinking of their "lone wolf" attacks. If it hadn't been for the off-duty marines, his attack would have resulted in a massacre followed by an explosion and setting the train on fire. It was just pure good luck that they got hold of him and prevented him from doing that.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It's silly to think that the only "useful" refugees are educated professionals in any case.

...

It's utter madness to stop asylum seekers from working. I assume the theory is that you don't want them settling into the community, but the end result is you stop them settling into the community. No integration, no contribution to economic growth, just a lot of frustrated and bored people left in legal and monetary limbo.

Gee, I can't imagine how that could ever go badly.

I entirely agree. And, I thought my example of the UK dependency on immigrants to harvest our fruit and veg would have made it clear that I wasn't talking just about educated immigrants.

Preventing anyone from working is a recipe for disaster, whoever they are.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

I keep thinking about the large number of houses here that are left empty for 9 months of the year, mostly starting now. We could probably house 500 people extra on this island alone for the next 6 months while more permanent accommodation is built. School capacity might be a problem depending on the proportion that are children. We could probably find permanent work to support as many as a dozen families and that many wouldn't overstretch our local services, excepting a short term need for interpreters.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

As I said in response to Steve Chalke's FB feed

"I'm SICK of hearing my OWN 'Yeah buts.' Steve! Thanks to you. Open ALL the borders and share them ALL based on a fag packet population by a per capita GDP multiplier. It's not just the Christian thing to do, it's the economic 3rd way. PEOPLE are a blessing."

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Does "screening" for "sleeper terrorists" result in less terrorists in one's country, than treating refugees like shit and thereby radicalising a subset of your existing population ?

Heck I don't have any problems with benefit of the doubt. But I think Ariel and I must have been looking at the same data. Why should you trust a cheat, masquerading as a Syrian refugee? It is actually possible to spot frauds, there are frauds in the queues, there are people making money out of producing and selling fraudulent documents.

Unpleasant as the consequences are, and they do seem to be that to me as well, immigration officers and security agencies have live with this stuff every day, try to produce necessary protective measures. These aren't "buts", they are a part of the real situation on the ground.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:

Unpleasant as the consequences are, and they do seem to be that to me as well, immigration officers and security agencies have live with this stuff every day, try to produce necessary protective measures. These aren't "buts", they are a part of the real situation on the ground.

You'd do more to prevent terrorism (as well as vastly reducing the number of refugees) if there was a concerted aim to stop funneling more arms into the conflict zone. Stuff like this:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/31/petraeus-use-al-qaeda-fighters-to-beat-isis.html

Should be treated as aiding and abetting the terrorists (and lets be clear - these aren't just proposals, these kinds of things already go on). The same with any UAE, Qatari and Saudi official with any links to groups funding ISIS - funds frozen and persona non grata anywhere in the west, and subject to arrest.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Refugee crises are indeed symptoms of other prior failings. Treating these failings at source is a good principle. It still doesn't change the present problems, though it may alleviate future ones.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:
Does it? In that case the answer is "not a lot".

Seriously? Is that the best incident you can come up with? Was it necessary for your example for the person to be Muslim?
Well, most members of IS are Muslim

According to Abdel Bari Atwan many of their recruits order 'Islam for Dummies' from Amazon before joining.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Refugee crises are indeed symptoms of other prior failings. Treating these failings at source is a good principle. It still doesn't change the present problems, though it may alleviate future ones.

There is a very small gap between the 'prior' and the present in this case. The Kurdish forces fighting ISIS have in the past month been bombed by Turkey - is that more or less likely to see more people leave Syria?

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Explain to me what is unstustainable about our net immigration + birthrate levels ?

The UK population has risen by 10 million since 1964 . Half of that figure has occurred since 2001 due to immigration and increased birthdate levels. One reason for the increased birthdate is down to the large family tradition of some immigrant groups.
Given that, and adding in the exponential factor, one might expect to see UK population top 100 million by 2050.

I personally do not wish to see that rate of increase and regard as it unsustainable to are present infra- structure. I do however have to accept the argument that many regard such an increase as entirely sustainable. Also economically desirable as infra-structure will have to be expanded thus creating jobs and wealth.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

The increase in the UK population was absolutely needed to pay for social security, particularly pensions.

Immigrants worked, paying for my grandfather's generation to retire for upwards of 30 years.

If we want to continue with an expensive social security system, we will always need waves of immigrants.

Of course immigration is a totally different issue to giving sanctuary refugees anyway.

[ 05. September 2015, 17:59: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

I was a teenager through the 70's and saw what the British workforce was capable of, or not capable of. Year on year for as long as I can remember there's been talk of skills shortages in the UK, which makes one wonder what the education system is for.
It does though seem that people, for some strange reason, instinctively work harder and with more commitment when working in a different country.

The current refugee crisis is a different matter I agree. Although there does seem to be some blurring between those escaping war and those in pursuit of a new life with better advantages than they've previously been used to.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

Course one of the reasons we have a better opportunities is the massive exploitation of Africa and the Middle East.

If feeling political, one could argue the French should take Syrians because it used to be their colony. Britain would be fairly fucked in that scenario though, given the amount of the world we stole.

It is worth remembering though that many of these problems have their origins, at least partly, in the actions of the European empires.

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

The long term solution is, of course, to make places like Syria good to live in, so that no one will want to risk life and limb by becoming a refugee. But that is the long term solution - very long term. When you think of how useless most governments of any stripe are at fixing problems in their own countries, I am not filled with confidence in their ability to fix a foreign one.

In the meantime, these refugees are here, on our borders, and we have to do something. Ancient Israel was a small land, few resources, and often conquered, yet its laws were quite clear about how strangers / foreigners should be treated:

quote:
Leviticus 19.34 (and many others) "The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself"

Above all, there are the words of Jesus himself:

quote:
Matthew 25.34-36 “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Call me a simple fundamentalist, but that seems to me to give us a pretty comprehensive list of what to do with refugees - we feed them, give them something to drink, welcome them in, give them clothes and medical treatment. And what we do to them, we do to Jesus.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
The long term solution is, of course, to make places like Syria good to live in, so that no one will want to risk life and limb by becoming a refugee. But that is the long term solution - very long term.

The short to mid term solution is not make things worse by cack handed military intervention. On which note:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11843772/The-Syrian-refugee-crisis-has-exposed-how-irrelevant-Jeremy-Corbyn-r eally-is.html

In which the author seems to think not waging war is a negation of Britain's responsibility to the world.

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

Chris - a writer in the Telegraph doesn't like Corbyn? Hold me up, lest I faint from shock.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Chris - a writer in the Telegraph doesn't like Corbyn? Hold me up, lest I faint from shock.

Corbyn is entirely incidental to the point I was making. Which was that plenty on the right are speaking out in favour of further weaponising the situation (without actually taking the steps that could make military intervention succeed)

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

God bless Germany.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Course one of the reasons we have a better opportunities is the massive exploitation of Africa and the Middle East.

If feeling political, one could argue the French should take Syrians because it used to be their colony. Britain would be fairly fucked in that scenario though, given the amount of the world we stole.

It is worth remembering though that many of these problems have their origins, at least partly, in the actions of the European empires.

I seem to recollect that the empire Syria was part of was the Turkish one.

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Mandate_for_Syria_and_the_Lebanon

(I am equating colony and mandate here.)

[ 05. September 2015, 22:51: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
God bless Germany.

For inciting people to leave the shores of Turkey?

Sorry, no.

If Germany wishes to resettle people, and I think it's a great idea, then they should be organising the transport. Not creating the refugee version of The Amazing Race.

[ 05. September 2015, 23:56: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

The fundamental failing is ours in saying "if you come to us we will help you".

Coming to us should not be a requirement. The obligation is on us to come help them.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
rolyn: Given that, and adding in the exponential factor, one might expect to see UK population top 100 million by 2050.

Not going to happen. Even with immigration, the UK population will start decreasing before that.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
rolyn: Given that, and adding in the exponential factor, one might expect to see UK population top 100 million by 2050.
Not going to happen. Even with immigration, the UK population will start decreasing before that.

Rather depends on how much immigration, don't it?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Not creating the refugee version of The Amazing Race.

Amazing Race, Master Race -- Germany definitely needs to stop trying to create races.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
mousethief: Rather depends on how much immigration, don't it?

Not really. If you look at long-term trends for the world population, it is going to decrease in many parts of the world before that time. Realistically, I see the population of all European countries decreasing before 2050, even with immigration.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
mousethief: Rather depends on how much immigration, don't it?
Not really. If you look at long-term trends for the world population, it is going to decrease in many parts of the world before that time. Realistically, I see the population of all European countries decreasing before 2050, even with immigration.

There are 1.3 billion people in India. If they moved to the UK at the rate of 1,000,000 per year, they could do it for 1300 years before running out of people, and it would counteract any drop in the birth rate of the UK you could possibly imagine. So you are wrong that no level of immigration could stem the tide. Just no level that the people of the UK are likely to approve.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Our countries think all will continue, with the structure of the world economic-politics feeding us and sustaining us. We have not learned that loving our neighbours as ourselves is not just an individual instruction. The refugee situation is our responsibility. We created its foundation with the Bush-Blair-Haliburton war. Same as it ever was. Of course we won't really take responsibility. As for the Germans, they are doing the best thing they can.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
mousethief: There are 1.3 billion people in India. If they moved to the UK at the rate of 1,000,000 per year

These are not realistic scenarios. The population of the UK is now 65 million. I bet you a bar of chocolate, payable in 2050, that by that time it will be less than that.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The fundamental failing is ours in saying "if you come to us we will help you".

Coming to us should not be a requirement. The obligation is on us to come help them.

I don't think this is how international law is worded: states are obliged to shelter anyone fleeing war and persecution that asks for it.

I can see what you are saying, in that it is obviously problematic if Germany saying it will look after refugees is causing demand for more people to go on this dangerous journey.

However, two points: the refugees currently streaming across Eastern Europe started their journey before Germany made this statement. In fact a few weeks ago it looked like Germany was gearing up to take a harder line.

Second, it is hard, in my opinion, to make a moral line which says that someone who has spent all their life savings in order to get to (in their perception) a free country is less deserving of help that someone who sits in a refugee camp in Jordan. I am not saying the effort makes them more deserving, but they are an immediate crisis on the doorstep, so the moral responsibility is clearly to do something about them first.

There is a lot of scaremongering about the possibility in the future of the whole population of North Africa attempting to leave for Europe. I don't think this is going to happen. But in a sense, I think it would be more than we deserve after decades of colonialistic attitudes followed by proxy wars and playing with other people's lives.

In a changed climate future, there are likely to be even more wars and even more refugees.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Second, it is hard, in my opinion, to make a moral line which says that someone who has spent all their life savings in order to get to (in their perception) a free country is less deserving of help that someone who sits in a refugee camp in Jordan. I am not saying the effort makes them more deserving, but they are an immediate crisis on the doorstep, so the moral responsibility is clearly to do something about them first.

Some of the people in the refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan have been there for some years now - since the camps were first started. I'd say that they're the ones who need hope most of all. The children have been out of school all that time, have grown used to running wild - the children are Syria's future, and education and a stable environment are essential for the next generation if the country is ever to get back on its feet. It has to have its own people involved in rebuilding it. They need to be taken out of the camp environment into normality asap, the people of working age need something to do, the older people and the disabled need care and they have waited a long time without hope.

They were saying on Radio 5 last night that the number of Syrian refugees is now over 7 million, and still rising. I think military strikes and war are probably inevitable if Daesh have started using mustard gas and Russia is building up aircraft and munitions.

Come to think of it, Russia could take refugees, surely.

[ 06. September 2015, 07:33: Message edited by: Ariel ]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

Come to think of it, Russia could take refugees, surely.

Would they want to go there? Swapping Assad and a warzone for Putin?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Perhaps the reason that Putin hasn't made any moves is because he doesn't want to be seen to disagree with Assad, who wants the refugees to "come home".

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The fundamental failing is ours in saying "if you come to us we will help you".

Coming to us should not be a requirement. The obligation is on us to come help them.
I don't think this is how international law is worded: states are obliged to shelter anyone fleeing war and persecution that asks for it.

I can see what you are saying, in that it is obviously problematic if Germany saying it will look after refugees is causing demand for more people to go on this dangerous journey.

However, two points: the refugees currently streaming across Eastern Europe started their journey before Germany made this statement. In fact a few weeks ago it looked like Germany was gearing up to take a harder line.

Second, it is hard, in my opinion, to make a moral line which says that someone who has spent all their life savings in order to get to (in their perception) a free country is less deserving of help that someone who sits in a refugee camp in Jordan. I am not saying the effort makes them more deserving, but they are an immediate crisis on the doorstep, so the moral responsibility is clearly to do something about them first.

There is a lot of scaremongering about the possibility in the future of the whole population of North Africa attempting to leave for Europe. I don't think this is going to happen. But in a sense, I think it would be more than we deserve after decades of colonialistic attitudes followed by proxy wars and playing with other people's lives.

In a changed climate future, there are likely to be even more wars and even more refugees.

I'm not strictly speaking about the international law situation, although that is part of it. To me, it seems clear that once someone has reached a Refugee Convention country (of which Turkey is one), then that ought to be where asylum is claimed, but I don't think that is supposed to mean that the people solely become the problem of that country. There is supposed to be a system for then resettling the refugees, and it feels as if that system isn't working. One of the obligations of signatory countries is to work with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

And no, I am not trying to say that people who make the journey are less deserving. I am in fact trying to make the second point, that they are not more deserving.

I suppose not everyone would place as much significance as I do on the fact that these people are transiting through other EU countries and other Refugee Convention countries. The reason I place significance on that is partly the Australian situation, where people often argue that the refugees could have safely stayed in Indonesia and Malaysia. But if you look at a map of the countries that are signatories to the Convention, you will soon see that actually it's perfectly possible for someone who has fled southeast from Afghanistan to have reached us without having transited through any other country where they have the right to claim asylum.

[ 06. September 2015, 07:49: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

Even if you have the nominal right to claim asylum somewhere, isn't it more logical to support those refugees with knowledge of a particular language or relatives in a particular country to settle in places they can use those connections? Doubly so if the country you are passing through has a history of abuse of minorities and recently elected a pretty vile government (looking at you, Hungary). There should certainly be a short-term cost sharing mechanism so that if Germany or the UK takes a disproportionate share then other countries stump up some cash instead.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

orfeo - before I posted God bless Germany, I'd already said to my wife that the demand Germany has created caused that little boy's death and the thousand others.

Germany has a track record of doing maverick things without thought of the consequences: giving the Ostmark parity with the Deutschmark, unilaterally recognizing Croatia and Slovenia, expanding the Eurozone.

Her policy is bereft of diplomacy back down the trail through Hungary, the Balkans (again...) and Turkey who couldn't organize a PUIAB. Which isn't fair on Turkey with a million refugees. Which still doesn't excuse the chaos on Turkish beaches. They have the biggest army in Europe. This needs a NATO response.

So, God bless Germany AND all her allies.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Even if you have the nominal right to claim asylum somewhere, isn't it more logical to support those refugees with knowledge of a particular language or relatives in a particular country to settle in places they can use those connections? Doubly so if the country you are passing through has a history of abuse of minorities and recently elected a pretty vile government (looking at you, Hungary).

Yes. And I don't know much about the Hungarian government... but why are they in Hungary in the first place?

The first Convention country is Turkey. The first EU country is Greece. If the system was working properly, refugees with some connection to Germany could be settled from Turkey or Greece. Claiming asylum and being registered as a refugee is not supposed to mean you get settled in the place you claimed asylum.

That was kind of the whole point of what I was saying. And it's exactly that system that Germany is ruining by saying "claim in Germany and you get to stay in Germany". That's not what the EU rules say, and I think Hungary was entirely justified when it tried to apply EU rules.

[ 06. September 2015, 10:13: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

There has to be some way of claiming refugee status and being settled, often somewhere else. It reminds me of the evacuation of children from London and other cities during the Blitz. The kids weren't dumped at the first point unlikely to be bombed, they were spread out so that resources weren't overstretched in any one place.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Hungary is poor and Islamophobic. The chaos follows. An enlightened response, for which she didn't initially have the capacity, is to waive legalism. Which she's now doing. Which we ALL should do. The consequences WILL be dire whatever we do. Our ignorant poor will react. As Germany's already have.

WE must reap this whirlwind we sowed exponentially for two hundred years now, before it gets worse.

[ 06. September 2015, 10:25: Message edited by: Martin60 ]

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Three things I've gleaned from places since yesterday.

One, on the radio, the suggestion that Austrians are appalled by Hungary, since in '68, Austria was giving aid to Hungarian refugees. (Though I suppose it's possible to argue that the ones being so obnoxious are not the ones who fled.)

Two, Turkey is not giving work visas to any but a very few refugees it has there, so they have no means of support except for aid.

Three, the amount of aid to camps has been cut by half recently.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

For those who want statistics in 40 (2055) years time if current trends continue the median age of the population of the UK should be 60. It is an accelerating trend so it should happen quickly, in fact it is expoential if I compare the past two decades instead of just the last which means somewhere in the range of 25 years (so 2040) we will hit that landmark.

So lets say that 50% of the population will either be dependents (i.e. children) or retired.

My work is a crude interpretation of this graph

Jengie

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Yes. And I don't know much about the Hungarian government... but why are they in Hungary in the first place?

They've come over land through the Balkans. There is a smuggling network via that route. There's no future for them in Turkey but they hope their might be one in Europe. I presume Greece is in such a mess it's not a viable option, and doesn't give easy onward travel to somewhere that is.

[ 06. September 2015, 15:47: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
mousethief: There are 1.3 billion people in India. If they moved to the UK at the rate of 1,000,000 per year
These are not realistic scenarios. The population of the UK is now 65 million. I bet you a bar of chocolate, payable in 2050, that by that time it will be less than that.

If the UK Office of National Statistics is to be relied upon, that doesn't seem to be a very good bet. Even their lowest plausible scenario (figure 6-7 here), which assumes low fertility, low life expectancy, and low migration, has population at 69 million in 2050 and only falling below 65 around 2085. Every other combination of scenarios shows continued growth through 2087; the principle projection has 77 million in 2050.

Jengie Jon:
The ONS also has data and projections of the dependency ratio (figure 2-5 here.) Currently it's about 612 dependents (under 16 or of pensionable age) per 1000 working age adults, which comes out to 612/1612=38% of the population; for 2050 the principle projection gives 656 dependents per 1000 working age adults, or 40% of the population.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

A friend on Facebook has just linked to a video clip of the President of the "Council of Gulf International Relations" explaining why the Gulf states aren't taking in refugees. The clip is in Arabic but the gist of it (translation courtesy of a friend of hers) is:

"Kuwait and the Gulf countries are expensive and not suitable for refugees' lives: they are suitable for work. Also, travelling cost is high, and the cost of living in Kuwait is high, whereas the cost of living in Lebanon or in Turkey might be cheaper. Therefore the amount of money that's paid for Syrian refugees there is easier paid. In the end, you can't receive people from a different environment, from a different place; where they have psychological problems or traumas... And then to allow them in within a society."

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
There are 1.3 billion people in India. If they moved to the UK at the rate of 1,000,000 per year, they could do it for 1300 years before running out of people, and it would counteract any drop in the birth rate of the UK you could possibly imagine. So you are wrong that no level of immigration could stem the tide. Just no level that the people of the UK are likely to approve.

They're also not the colour that some people of the UK are likely to approve. Plus there's the eternal Schrodinger's Immigrant problem - immigrants and refugees take all the jobs and lounge around and collect welfare at the same time. And there's also this weird expectation that immigrants and refugees should all have perfect health, and have completed all their education, and be fluent in at least two languages so they won't be a "drag" on the country that has so grudgingly opened the door just a crack.

To me, displaced people are just another terrible example of how developed nations have externalized their costs - the costs of colonial and corporate economic exploitation are borne by people far away, the benefits are ours to enjoy.

The Grauniad just ran multiple stories on the aging and depopulation of small towns in Europe. It's possible to BUY entire villages in Galicia, so the solution seems pretty frickin' obvious.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

They're tiny countries. City states. And yes I have worked there. It's a pity Turkey won't assimilate them. As they have been in Germany.

I was a stranger and you took Me in.

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
...
It does though seem that people, for some strange reason, instinctively work harder and with more commitment when working in a different country.

Chicken, egg. The courage and effort and willingness to make sacrifices and endure losses doesn't just vanish upon arrival in the new country. People who can't or won't do those things don't become immigrants.

quote:

The current refugee crisis is a different matter I agree. Although there does seem to be some blurring between those escaping war and those in pursuit of a new life with better advantages than they've previously been used to.

Try to imagine what makes a family risk their lives and leave everything they own and everyone they love - it's not because they're dreaming of eating bonbons by the pool. Were Jesus, Mary and Joseph seeking a bigger carpentry business in Egypt? No, they were trying to save their son's life.

Posted by molopata (# 9933) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
The consequences WILL be dire whatever we do. Our ignorant poor will react. As Germany's already have.

Well yes, we indeed have the ignorant poor. But for unskilled people either ethnically from Europe or already living here, the prospect of their end of the labour market being flooded with a lot of people who are ready to undercut their already meagre salaries is daunting.
And at this juncture perhaps we've got to mention the elephant in the room: Europe has at best a chequered record on her ability to absorb and assimilate new minorities. In many countries we now have ethnic and religious ghettos with considerable potential to destabilise whole societies. Maybe the ignorant poor are rather more savvy in this regard than the ignorant reasonably-well-off (to which I probably belong), because they are more likely to be confronted with these tension-fields than those who have the money to live in areas where they can pretend that the problems don't really exist.
I am not saying that we don't have the responsibility to respond to the plight of refugees, but we do also have to muster the courage to think carefully about how we measure and direct our response in consideration of migration's mid- to long-term consequences. And this has to be discussed openly and dispassionately.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Agreed. I integrate what you say in to my head despite my bleeding heart. My must embrace our poor too.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

It can work if all parties are prepared to be flexible. However, there are going to be settling-in problems.

One will be cultural adaptation. Syria is a conservative Muslim country. I'm just not sure how some of the migrants will cope with concepts like premarital sex, acceptance of gay marriage, Jews, illegitimate children and unmarried mothers, transgender people, recreational drugs, the enjoyment of pork products, increasing secularism and atheism, a culture that talks freely and openly about sex and where sexual imagery is sometimes explicit in films, etc. It's entirely likely that some will not want their children to absorb or be exposed to these elements of western culture.

The other thing is that many of these are people who have seen and experienced horrific things. There are likely to be some with deep psychological scars, people and children needing counselling: some adults may be simply unfit to work or to hold a job down. Life will have been so far removed from normal for some that it may take some time for them to adjust and I'd expect PTSD within their community.

Not that this is anything new within refugee communities, but it may take a long time for some migrants to feel truly at ease in their new countries and I think some of them are likely to have some illusions shattered.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

Syria is reasonably conservative but not particularly devoutly Muslim. It's been very much secular under Assad. It's got more in common with Turkey than Saudi Arabia on religious matters.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:

The first Convention country is Turkey. The first EU country is Greece. If the system was working properly, refugees with some connection to Germany could be settled from Turkey or Greece. Claiming asylum and being registered as a refugee is not supposed to mean you get settled in the place you claimed asylum.

A little bit of Googling suggests the ECHR case MSS vs Belgium and Greece is to blame.

Under the Dublin convention, asylum seekers who claim in the 'wrong' country are indeed supposed to be transferred to the first EU country they entered, and have their claim processed there. For a disproportionate number of claimants this is Greece, and in the aforementioned case it was successfully argued that Greece is simply not capable of processing the claims of 'transferred' asylum seekers in a manner that is consistent with their human rights*. This, as can be imagined, shot a great hole in the Dublin convention.

I have not, however, spent enough time with Google to find out if this was resolved (I suspect it wasn't) although if you give me a few days I will have found enough Wikipedia articles to make myself look like a seasoned expert.

* I'm not convinced Britain is either, so Greece must be really bad ...

[ 06. September 2015, 20:47: Message edited by: Ricardus ]

Posted by molopata (# 9933) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Syria is reasonably conservative but not particularly devoutly Muslim. It's been very much secular under Assad. It's got more in common with Turkey than Saudi Arabia on religious matters.

Additionally, from what I can gather, a high percentage of the arrivals are in fact Christian, which would be positive for the process of cultural realignment.

Nevertheless, while I am (at least as yet) not too worried about Europe's ability to feed, clothe and house them, I am, as Ariel, concerned about how easy it will be to assimilate them, with or without trauma. On current experience, many sections particularly of Muslim immigrant communities appear to have become more conservative and now reject more strongly than ever the values of the autochthonous population, although it must be noted that these values have likewise shifted in the other direction in the last 40 years, leading to a strong polarisation.

The question is, what could stop the new arrivals travelling the same path as those before them to an ever more explosive future in Europe as the demographics shift in their favour? (And the assertiveness of at least the people passing through Hungary and getting themselves in front of the cameras does frighten me a bit.)

Can we foist assimilation upon them, or might we have to become a bit more conservative in our own values to accommodate them?

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
rolyn: Given that, and adding in the exponential factor, one might expect to see UK population top 100 million by 2050.
Not going to happen. Even with immigration, the UK population will start decreasing before that.

My prediction may well be alarmist.
2050 does seem be the chosen year for everything going tits-up anyway, like the warmed oceans boiling with methane release and such like.

I always have some chocolate bars in the cupboard LeRoc and there is a slim chance I'll still be here in 2050. So we'll see how it turns out [Biased]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

*Does some maths*

Hmm. There's a moderate chance I'll be around in 2050. Maybe I should live fast and die young just to avoid it?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by molopata:
On current experience, many sections particularly of Muslim immigrant communities appear to have become more conservative and now reject more strongly than ever the values of the autochthonous population, although it must be noted that these values have likewise shifted in the other direction in the last 40 years, leading to a strong polarisation.

Expatriate communities the world over tend to be a bit more idealistic about their home countries and cling more to their values and customs than they would if they were actually living there. The Syrians probably won’t be any exception, and homesickness is going to play a large part in that too.

With the passage of time the children will start to forget their lives in Syria. That’s going to make it difficult if and when the war ends and families start returning, because the danger is that the children (who are the next generation) will feel like aliens in their country of origin, and by then there’ll be some children born abroad who haven’t ever experienced Syria and will find it a culture shock in reverse. There is no easy solution to this.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
rolyn: I always have some chocolate bars in the cupboard LeRoc and there is a slim chance I'll still be here in 2050. So we'll see how it turns out

Hmm, it seems that Dave W. is right, and the UK population is projected to be 77M around 2050. This is still less than 100M, but it does come as a bit of a surprise to me. In other EU countries, the population seems to go down earlier (it has already started in Germany). Is the UK some kind of exception? Why? That's an interesting question.

Anyway, I'm not sure whether my bet was with you or with mousethief, so I'll keep two chocolate bars. The only problem is that I'm planning to spend the year 2050 in a hammock on a Brazilian beach, so I'm not sure if the chocolate won't melt before sending it to you [Smile]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Eurostat has a fancy graphics interface for population projects across Europe.

So, in agreement with the data already given the UK population is projected to grow from 65 to 77 million by 2050, and continue rising beyond then. The population of Germany is projected to fall from 81 to 75 million by 2050 and continue falling.

Summary:
Growing populations: UK, France, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Iceland
Falling populations: Germany, Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, Baltic States
More or less static populations: Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Spain, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Greece, Ireland

I'm not sure I'm seeing any obvious pattern there.

Posted by lowlands_boy (# 12497) on :

The BBC's Robert Peston has a piece on the news web site today in which he touches on the various statistics, drawing together population size, demographic, age profile etc.

Conclusion is that Germany really really needs lots of immigrants more than the UK needs them, and Merkel is ahead of the game by getting all the entrepreneurial ones through the door now.

I'm not sure what to think of that article TBH

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :

I think it highly credible, Mrs Merkel is nobody's fool.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

It makes sense, however she'll have her hands full. From what's been shown in the media there's a contingent of people who don't take no for an answer and will insist on getting what they want, which has the potential to be a disciplinary nightmare in a work situation if their energies aren't channelled into something suitable.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
It makes sense, however she'll have her hands full. From what's been shown in the media there's a contingent of people who don't take no for an answer and will insist on getting what they want...

News spots on this crisis has been inexcusably thin in the US. For those of us cross-pond, can you clarify what you are referring to here?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
News spots on this crisis has been inexcusably thin in the US. For those of us cross-pond, can you clarify what you are referring to here?

The migrants who arrived in Europe (having travelled from Turkey and through eastern Europe) have been fairly clear about not wanting to register for asylum in the countries they've been in so far. Attempts to get them to comply with the EC ruling that this needs to be done in the first EC country arrived in have met with considerable resistance with the vast majority saying that they were going to Germany (or Sweden) and would not consider any alternative. In some cases riot police have been called in, tear gas and rubber bullets used, sit-ins, stand-offs, brute force, people cutting through fences, getting through razor wire, and a lot of ill-will generated on either side. The weekend reached a climax with several thousand migrants forming a march up a Hungarian motorway towards the Austrian border, on their way to Germany, at the weekend. The Austrians let them through, and they have now gone on to Germany. Several thousand more are now on their way.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I don't blame the refugees for not wanting to stay in Hungary, whose prime minister has been making quite strong anti-Muslim speeches, and whose police have been quite harsh. Turkey already has 2 million Syrians, and they are often in poor accommodation, with no work available, no education.

It's not surprising that they are heading for Germany, which seems to have shown some kind of welcome, whether or not that is based on economic considerations, I don't know (a la Peston).

I don't know how it's going to continue, but some commentators are saying that the tide of people will diminish as winter approaches.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Guardian coverage
BBC coverage
Independent coverage
Daily Telegraph coverage

The Times is behind a paywall.

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

No matter how hard it is for refugees to establish themselves in a new country, it's still better than being beheaded by ISIS. And no matter how challenging it is for us to accept refugees, it's still better than being beheaded by ISIS.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

It's strange to remember the Hungarian refugees who poured over the border with Austria, when the Russians invaded, after the 1956 uprising. I think about 3-5000 a day were going over the border, and it became a heavy burden to the Austrian economy.

Eventually, other European countries began to accept refugees, although I don't know the numbers. I think eventually some went back to Hungary, but some never did.

I was thinking about this in relation to the current situation, where various Hungarian politicians seem quite hostile to the Syrian refugees. How times change.

Posted by John Holding (# 158) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's strange to remember the Hungarian refugees who poured over the border with Austria, when the Russians invaded, after the 1956 uprising. I think about 3-5000 a day were going over the border, and it became a heavy burden to the Austrian economy.

Eventually, other European countries began to accept refugees, although I don't know the numbers. I think eventually some went back to Hungary, but some never did.

I was thinking about this in relation to the current situation, where various Hungarian politicians seem quite hostile to the Syrian refugees. How times change.

For the sake of completeness, Canada took tens of thousands of these refugees -- it wasn't just other European countries.

John

Posted by Beenster (# 242) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
The BBC's Robert Peston has a piece on the news web site today in which he touches on the various statistics, drawing together population size, demographic, age profile etc.

Conclusion is that Germany really really needs lots of immigrants more than the UK needs them, and Merkel is ahead of the game by getting all the entrepreneurial ones through the door now.

I'm not sure what to think of that article TBH

Robert Peston knows a hellava lot and is usually fairly accurate. I worked in the City during one of the banking crises - in a bank. He was always on the money with his reports on confidential information. How he knew.

Posted by Dormouse (# 5954) on :

What I find depressing and sad is the news report sying that the refugees/migrants at Calais are reciving stuff they don't want and are abandoning it at the roadside. "We don't want shoes" they said "we want to go to Britain" Donations are being burned, charities are saying "don't send any more stuff" and people are sending high heeled shoes and handbags...I can't help feeling that those who have been mobilised into showing compassion will be discouraged as they find that what they are trying to do isn't actually very welcome.

There seems to be a lumping together of the Calais situation and the situation in the south of Europe, where perhaps it isn't quite that simple. I don't know, TBH.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dormouse:
What I find depressing and sad is the news report sying that the refugees/migrants at Calais are reciving stuff they don't want and are abandoning it at the roadside. "We don't want shoes" they said "we want to go to Britain" Donations are being burned, charities are saying "don't send any more stuff" and people are sending high heeled shoes and handbags...I can't help feeling that those who have been mobilised into showing compassion will be discouraged as they find that what they are trying to do isn't actually very welcome.

This is such a common phenomena - after a disaster people rush to collect any-old-used-crap to donate, which ends up being rejected by recipients - that aid workers have slang terms for it.

The fact is that people feel compelled to "do something" but the thing that one can arrange overnight is rarely cost effective, or even needed.

As a rule of thumb, if the giving is more about the need of the donor to feel that they are "doing something" rather than the needs of the recipients, it is a rather useless gesture.

[ 07. September 2015, 19:11: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Beenster:

quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
The BBC's Robert Peston has a piece on the news web site today in which he touches on the various statistics, drawing together population size, demographic, age profile etc.

Conclusion is that Germany really really needs lots of immigrants more than the UK needs them, and Merkel is ahead of the game by getting all the entrepreneurial ones through the door now.

I'm not sure what to think of that article TBH
Robert Peston knows a hellava lot and is usually fairly accurate. I worked in the City during one of the banking crises - in a bank. He was always on the money with his reports on confidential information. How he knew.

I'm sure Pesto is correct on the economic side, but I'm not convinced that this is the whole story about Germany's welcome to refugees. There are many other possible factors, e.g. Merkel's wish to counter the extreme right, and its threats to immigrants; possible residual German guilt over Jewish refugees who fled Germany; and not least, a genuine sense of humanity.

I had to laugh when Cameron announced that the UK would take 20, 000 over 5 years, when that is the number that has arrived in Germany this week-end! I know that the circumstances are somewhat different, but I can't help seeing Cameron as a moral pygmy.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I forgot to mention that Merkel grew up in E. Germany, and many E. Germans were welcomed in other countries, such as Hungary, when they fled over the border. Also after the war, millions of refugees fled to Germany. So in a way, this is a recapitulation of recent German history.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There are many other possible factors, e.g. Merkel's wish to counter the extreme right, and its threats to immigrants; possible residual German guilt over Jewish refugees who fled Germany; and not least, a genuine sense of humanity.

I thank God that the German Nation has been granted this opportunity the show the rest of us how humanitarian compassion is done.
To think 100 yrs ago millions thanked God for matching them 'with His hour' as a result of Germany's actions. Comparing the period of aweful turmoil triggered then to what's happening now does tend to put things in perspective a bit.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
The migrants who arrived in Europe (having travelled from Turkey and through eastern Europe) have been fairly clear about not wanting to register for asylum in the countries they've been in so far.

Again, I would refer to the ECHR case of MSS vs Belgium and Greece, which I learnt about yesterday, thus allowing me to talk in a knowledgeably superior way about it.

The gist of the ruling was that Greece was (and is) incapable of processing asylum claims properly and Belgium was in the wrong for transferring an asylum seeker back to Greece even though that's what the Dublin Convention said they were to do. Given the chaotic scenes in Kos and Athens - and given the likely results of years of endemic corruption followed by troika-mandated fiscal waterboarding of the most vulnerable Greek citizens - it is hard to dispute the ruling, and also perfectly reasonable for asylum seekers to come to the same conclusion. I believe a similar ruling was expressed against Bulgaria.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I think many of these things occur because of certain historical accidents or details. Thus, a whole concurrence of things about Germany are present - its history in relation to mass migration, both from and to; its struggles with its own right wing, both now and past; its relation with the EU, as economic leader; the position of Merkel herself; the declining birth-rate, and so on.

And yet, and yet - if I believed in karma, there is almost a karmic denouement going on - Germany as leader of a compassionate Europe, reaching out to refugees, 'give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses ...

But maybe this is too romantic, and next week will see a new disillusionment! It's the economy, stupid.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

I was wondering if memories of the 10-14 million ethnic Germans who were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War have any bearing on Germany's current welcome.

(Although I understand that the post-war expulsion of Germans is something everyone would prefer to forget.)

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I was wondering if memories of the 10-14 million ethnic Germans who were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War have any bearing on Germany's current welcome.

(Although I understand that the post-war expulsion of Germans is something everyone would prefer to forget.)

Yes, Germany has witnessed many tides of migration, both from and to. Thus, the Jews (and others) who fled Germany, the E. Germans who fled to Hungary and other countries, the many Germans expelled from other countries (as you say); the Turkish Gastarbeiter from the 60s.

It's quite odd to hear people say 'how are they going to cope?'. They have been dealing with waves of migration for a long time.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

We'll see how it's done when the gas tank needle reaches 800,000.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's strange to remember the Hungarian refugees who poured over the border with Austria, when the Russians invaded, after the 1956 uprising. I think about 3-5000 a day were going over the border, and it became a heavy burden to the Austrian economy.

Eventually, other European countries began to accept refugees, although I don't know the numbers. I think eventually some went back to Hungary, but some never did.

I was thinking about this in relation to the current situation, where various Hungarian politicians seem quite hostile to the Syrian refugees. How times change.

Or rather-- how they don't.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

Can these countries, which generally have an ethnic basis, cope with a massive influx of people who are Other?

We'd have a hard enough time, here in the US--and we're *supposed* to be diverse. (We often handle that very badly. Re immigrants, the bad feelings tend to be towards the most recent group off the boat. And then there's religion: if most of them are Muslim, they'd run into "Islam = evil, Muslim = terrorist".

Something I've been wondering: does the Moorish invasion of Europe still cast a long shadow??

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Longer than the ethnic cleansing of Europe, which one very much feels in Spain.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Something I've been wondering: does the Moorish invasion of Europe still cast a long shadow??

My impression is that, like the Romans, it’s now so long ago and overlaid by recent events that it’s more a historical feature than a cause for concern. On a day to day basis I don’t think much of Europe has really thought about it a great deal in the past hundred years, except until recently: one of the key points of the jihadists’ manifesto is the ambition to regain the formerly Islamic parts of Europe and also to expand the caliphate so some unease may well be reviving.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
... Something I've been wondering: does the Moorish invasion of Europe still cast a long shadow??

Obviously it does in Spain and Portugal. That is 500 years ago but the Barbary pirates with their slave raiding weren't subdued until the end of the eighteenth century. They afflicted the whole northern shore the Mediterranean and western seaboard as far north as Iceland.

The Turkish invasion though is more recent. They got as far as the gates of Vienna. They occupied Hungary for a century, Serbia and points south for much longer. It was only a century ago that they were ousted from Northern Greece. The Armenian genocide was during the First World War. The sack of Smyrna and the population exchanges were after it in conditions compared with which the present scenes are a badly organised Bank Holiday.

Tony Blair who had never done any history, didn't understand any of this.

Posted by lowlands_boy (# 12497) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We'll see how it's done when the gas tank needle reaches 800,000.

German gas tank needle. Possibly the most unfortunate turn of phrase ever recorded on the ship.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Something I've been wondering: does the Moorish invasion of Europe still cast a long shadow??

IMO not nearly so much as the (considerably more recent) European invasion of North Africa.

(Bit of a tangent – but on the subject of terrorists: please note that to date the Islamists shooting up France, in particular, are not from Syria. Most of them are disaffected Algerians, although because variety is the spice of life, the most recent one was a disaffected Moroccan. Anyway, see above re. European invasion of North Africa.)

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Golden Key: Something I've been wondering: does the Moorish invasion of Europe still cast a long shadow??

I've read at least one opinion saying that it is a pity that we cast them out of the Iberian Peninsula. The idea is that this was a form of Islam that was relatively tolerant towards other religions, open to scientific progress and impressive in the arts. If we had learned to live together with this form of Islam for a longer time on our continent, it could have changed the relations we have with Muslims in the present day.

I know far less about Spanish and Portuguese history than I ought to, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of this claim, but it is an interesting viewpoint.

[ 08. September 2015, 09:17: Message edited by: LeRoc ]

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Golden Key: Something I've been wondering: does the Moorish invasion of Europe still cast a long shadow??
I've read at least one opinion saying that it is a pity that we cast them out of the Iberian Peninsula. The idea is that this was a form of Islam that was relatively tolerant towards other religions, open to scientific progress and impressive in the arts. If we had learned to live together with this form of Islam for a longer time, it could have changed the relations we have with Muslims in the present day.

I know far less about Spanish and Portuguese history than I ought to, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of this claim, but it is an interesting viewpoint.

It's certainly an interesting viewpoint. Who's the "we" that "cast them out" though?

Seems to me it was various permutations of Franks, Aquitanians, Castillians,* and sundry other local types more than a little peeved at having their country nicked.

Quite apart from it being an utterly unreasonable aspiration for any "don't reconquer Spain" order to have got through the web of early medieval dynastic politics, it does seem slightly harsh/spectacularly unlikely to suggest:

"hold on chaps, we know you're aggrieved at the war of conquest which has just swept up your peninsula displacing you and your families and forcing the conversion of those that remain at the point of the sword but don't worry - it's going to settle down in a flourishing of scholarship and decorative art in a hundred years time and in any case if everyone just accepts that Christian Iberia is gone for good it *might* really be to everyone's benefit in Europe in 1300 years time...."

With a following wind, favourable weather conditions, and the continuation of the (genuinely) benign Moorish Andalucia of that one small snapshot of time for the following 1300 years it *may* indeed have worked out better for everyone. But it might not.

*etc ad nauseam - trying to sort out which kingdoms were involved, overrun, allied, etc over the time between the late 700s and Ferdinand and Isabela is a nightmare

Posted by Alaric the Goth (# 511) on :

quote:
Seems to me it was various permutations of Franks, Aquitanians, Castillians,* and sundry other local types more than a little peeved at having their country nicked.

It was Visigoths*, please!

*OK, our descendants!

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
betjemaniac: it does seem slightly harsh/spectacularly unlikely to suggest:

Yes of course, that's not what I was trying to discuss here. Although I'm not fully into it, I like this Alternative History thing sometimes; it is from this point of view that I made my post. Let's just say that a couple of birds happened to poop just before the feet of the Castillians and they didn't manage to drive the Moors out.

I find this interesting in the sense of how we never were forced to have some kind of living agreement with Islam on our continent is colouring the relationships we have with them now.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alaric the Goth:

quote:
Seems to me it was various permutations of Franks, Aquitanians, Castillians,* and sundry other local types more than a little peeved at having their country nicked.
It was Visigoths*, please!

*OK, our descendants!

It was Visigoths in the 8th century, it was Castillians in the 15th - really proves my point that a lot happened in the 700 years the reconquest took!

Anyway, I agree with LeRoc that this is an interesting diversion away from the point of the thread so whilst alternative history is fun I'm not convinced it's useful (except as an intellectual exercise) - so happy to leave it there and get back to refugees.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

Like I said, I do think it is interesting to see our relationship with Islam in a wider picture sometimes. To me, the fact that we haven't been forced to work out some agreement with them on the Iberian Peninsula is an interesting data point in this wider picture. (I know even less about the Ottoman Empire on the Balkans.)

If you don't want to discuss it that's fine, but there was a discussion going on on this thread about the mutual influences Europe and the Islamic world have had on each other, and at least to me this question is relevant to that discussion.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

I think the relationship between the Spanish and the Moors is quite complicated. Over quite a long period, the Moors lived in Spain but were frequently involved in insurrection and were often caught and executed. I am not even sure it is clear how many remaining Moors were actually "cast out" of Iberia, rather than being executed or forced to convert/assimilate.

That said, I think the long history of Muslim-as-renogade has had an impact on latent xenophobia in Southern Europe in a similar (but not exactly the same) as historic anti-Semitism in Northern Europe until fairly recent times (and of course continuing in some parts to today).

In the South and East of Europe, many today use similar language about Muslims that was frequently used about Jews a century ago - that they're "different", that they could contaminate "Christian" Europe, that their culture is at odds to ours, and so on.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Can these countries, which generally have an ethnic basis, cope with a massive influx of people who are Other?

And in answer to that question, here's this morning's news.

Refugees storm Lesbos registration office

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

[Crosspost]

Ooh, history geek opportunity!

My impression of Spanish history is that both the Christian and the Islamic kingdoms were relatively tolerant until the state religion became the majority religion. Umayyads and Taifa kingdoms were admirably pluralist (for the time), whereas Almohads and to a lesser extent Almoravids were the spiritual ancestors of the Wahhabis. Christians tended in the early days of the Reconquista to model religious tolerance laws on dhimmi principles but would suspend this if expedient.

After the fall of Granada the Muslims were all supposedly converted but they were too numerous for anyone to police their conversion. Some almost certainly did conspire with the Ottomans and after a century of mutual hostility they were all expelled. There was some unease about this in the rest of Europe (even Cardinal Richelieu thought it was wrong).

Leaving Spain, a few years ago I visited Rhodes and was struck by the number of mosques in varying stages of decay, legacies of the Ottoman period. Presumably there are similar mosques all across Greece but one never hears about them.

Also I found out recently that Poland had a significant Muslim population right until the population transfers at the end of the Second World War, to the extent that the Polish Army had a separate oath for Muslim soldiers. They were descendants of Lipka Tatars who had helped the Poles defeat the Teutonic Knights.

[ 08. September 2015, 11:17: Message edited by: Ricardus ]

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

Also I found out recently that Poland had a significant Muslim population right until the population transfers at the end of the Second World War, to the extent that the Polish Army had a separate oath for Muslim soldiers. They were descendants of Lipka Tatars who had helped the Poles defeat the Teutonic Knights.

Historically there were ties between Poland and the Ottomans after the treaty of Karlowitz, and the Ottomans didn't acknowledge the partition of Poland in the 18th century.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

All over the world there are large communities which are descended from immigrants. Sometimes they integrate almost immediately, sometimes they maintain a distinct identity for generations. There's nothing new under the sun. I read a while back about an English colony in the Crimea during the 12th and 13th century, Anglo Saxon refugees from Norman taxes.

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
... I find this interesting in the sense of how we never were forced to have some kind of living agreement with Islam on our continent is colouring the relationships we have with them now.

The living agreement with Judaism in Europe didn't work so hot either. Maybe the problem isn't Islam or Judaism, but just plain old human fear of "the other".

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

On the cruise around Greece I went on, we were shown the only remaining minaret. There was a major process of eliminating the remains of Islam. (I can't remember where it was! I was all Byzantined out with narthexes and mosaics and paintings.)

Alan, I'm interested in the Crimean English. I knew men went out to Constantinople, as well as the Viking communities in Ireland, Scandinavia and Russia, but not that they went that far east.

[ 08. September 2015, 14:47: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by sabine (# 3861) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
No matter how hard it is for refugees to establish themselves in a new country, it's still better than being beheaded by ISIS. And no matter how challenging it is for us to accept refugees, it's still better than being beheaded by ISIS.

Amen!

I've been a refugee advocate for many years, working professionally for a resettlement agency and a refugee social service agency, and then as a volunteer for a refugee social service agency.

There has never been a time when war, conflict, and oppression did not produce refugees. Each time has its own set of complications, but the important point to remember is that while we may discuss the abstractions (who is behind the war, conflict, oppression; how do we stop it; how do we cope with "strangers in our midst," etc) the most salient point for the refugees is the most of them have had to run for their lives.

Yes, there will always be a few who abuse the system. But think of it this way: If a person undertakes the horrendous task of being a refugee (even if not technically one) there is something lacking at home.

Few people are going to join the suffering migration just to make a simple lateral move.

It can be daunting to think of thousands of people who are culturally different coming into our own countries, but I think the quote above says it all.

Meanwhile, I have become a social activist in my retirement. I want my country to do more, much more. I don't care if it "dilutes the
cultural fabric of the nation."

I want all who are under the threat of war, conflict, ethnic cleansing, rape, forced military service of children, bombing of our homes and cities, etc. etc. to have a safe place to go.

sabine

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

Amen, Sabine. And may God bless you in your work, and find you 10x more productive in retirement than you ever were in your actively "employed" years.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

[Overused]

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

And yet, and yet - if I believed in karma, there is almost a karmic denouement going on - Germany as leader of a compassionate Europe, reaching out to refugees, 'give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses ...

I like that.
Unless we really do seek to jump head-first into a pit of despair and bare the soles of our feet to the heavens, then a spot of karma has to be good for facing all the heavy-weight issues that bear down on humanity past and present.

History is being made all the time. In 50 years time some may look back on this period and conclude something massive occurred around that time. Or will it be just a case of the same old, same old...?

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Alan, I'm interested in the Crimean English. I knew men went out to Constantinople, as well as the Viking communities in Ireland, Scandinavia and Russia, but not that they went that far east.

This was the account I read earlier this year. Basically, a large force of English refugees defeat a Turk army besieging Constantinople, and as a reward some join the elite Vanagrian guard and the rest are given permission to settle the Crimea (which would involve reconquering territory the Byzantine empire had lost).

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
"hold on chaps, we know you're aggrieved at the war of conquest which has just swept up your peninsula displacing you and your families and forcing the conversion of those that remain at the point of the sword

As a point of interest, the Muslim conquests rarely converted anyone at the point of the sword. They could tax Christian (and Jewish) communities more than they could tax Muslim communities so it wasn't in their financial interests for anyone to convert. The mass conversions of populations to Islam were well after the conquests.

And likewise, as Ricardus says, the Christians didn't force conversion from Islam to Christianity during most of the Reconquista. They didn't start coercive conversions or expulsions until they began building a centralised state towards the end of the Reconquista.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

And yet, and yet - if I believed in karma, there is almost a karmic denouement going on - Germany as leader of a compassionate Europe, reaching out to refugees, 'give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses ...

I like that.
Unless we really do seek to jump head-first into a pit of despair and bare the soles of our feet to the heavens, then a spot of karma has to be good for facing all the heavy-weight issues that bear down on humanity past and present.

History is being made all the time. In 50 years time some may look back on this period and conclude something massive occurred around that time. Or will it be just a case of the same old, same old...?

Nobody knows, which I suppose might induce panic.

Some journalists are talking of two great movements going on now, and in fact, often overlapping.

First, a movement from poor areas of the world to more affluent. This is an ironic and karmic reversal of the movement from Europe to other parts of the world (colonialism). But countries such as Germany tend to suck up people, as economic expansion produces shortages of labour, as in the Gastarbeiter movements in the 60s (mainly Turkish I think). (Guest workers).

But second, global warming is going to produce massive movements of people. Some analysts are already saying that this is happening in parts of Syria, where aridity is making agriculture very difficult. I've read some accounts of Syrian farmers going to Damascus asking for help, and being machine-gunned by Assad's troops.

I don't think anybody has an accurate picture of these two movements, and I suppose it might be an exaggeration.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Alan, I'm interested in the Crimean English. I knew men went out to Constantinople, as well as the Viking communities in Ireland, Scandinavia and Russia, but not that they went that far east.
This was the account I read earlier this year. Basically, a large force of English refugees defeat a Turk army besieging Constantinople, and as a reward some join the elite Vanagrian guard and the rest are given permission to settle the Crimea (which would involve reconquering territory the Byzantine empire had lost).

Thank you very much, it is now bookmarked.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

Some analysts are already saying that this is happening in parts of Syria, where aridity is making agriculture very difficult. I've read some accounts of Syrian farmers going to Damascus asking for help, and being machine-gunned by Assad's troops.

There is a theory that a large contributing factor to the Arab Spring was climate change - in that desertification and rising temperatures led to falling wheat yields which then raised the price of food in the parts of the Middle East who import most of their staples, and thus greater unrest.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

And read. I suppose there's no point in getting a group from Sussex and London to ask Putin to give it back.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Amazing story that the so-called 'Army of Conquest', a coalition of different Islamist forces in Syria, and which has been making gains in Idlib province, is being financed by the Saudis and Turkey.

So, hang on, Saudi and Turkey are considered to be Western allies, and are financing one of the main Islamist groups, or super-group, and the US is bombing some other Islamist areas?

This may well produce more refugees from Syria, fleeing the fighting.

I suppose this all makes sense to some high-powered analysts in Washington.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

It might well do us some good to stop talking about "Islamists" as if they were a cohesive group. Its a bit like putting the Scottish Free Presbyterians with Lebvfre-ite Catholics because both are extremist Christians.

Jengie

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Well, there are a 1000 groups in Syria, but anyway, here's some more detail. The Army of Conquest includes Ahrar ash-Sham, Al-Nusra Front, the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria linked Sham Legion, the Knights of Justice Brigade, which is supposed to more moderate.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
It might well do us some good to stop talking about "Islamists" as if they were a cohesive group. Its a bit like putting the Scottish Free Presbyterians with Lebvfre-ite Catholics because both are extremist Christians.

Jengie

I'm not sure I'd describe the SSPX as being "extreme". I always thought they were never quite radical enough.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As a point of interest, the Muslim conquests rarely converted anyone at the point of the sword. They could tax Christian (and Jewish) communities more than they could tax Muslim communities so it wasn't in their financial interests for anyone to convert.

The reasaon for the tax was that non muslims were not giving zakat - 5% of their earnings to their equivalent of a welfare state.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Amazing story that the so-called 'Army of Conquest', a coalition of different Islamist forces in Syria, and which has been making gains in Idlib province, is being financed by the Saudis and Turkey.

And ISIS have long been funded by Saudi, Qatar, UAE (all of whom try to export the more radical elements within their population) and elements within Turkey.

The airstrikes that Turkey was going to perform in Syria to great fanfare have hit a total of one ISIS target - the rest of the strikes have been directed against Kurdish forces fighting ISIS.

Our allies, so called, are playing a nasty series of proxy wars in the region, any intervention that doesn't involve dealing with them will just generate more chaos and further weaponise the region.

Oh - and General Petreaus has floated the idea of supporting Al Qaeda in Syria as a bulwark against ISIS (and the CIA have already been trying to do this to splinter elements within AQ).

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Refugees put our rich western nations' current and past policies in front of us don't they? We either respond humanely (Germany taking 800,000) or per usual symbolic non-involvement (UK says 20,000). We will live the real human consequences if we care to look at them. But most often we don't really look. Our assertion of global domination cannot continue without a high, high price on our humanity. We own it, but may not take it, until the wheel of history makes us.

Yes, they want our stuff, they want our lifestyles, but more than that, they want safety and a future. Does anyone deny we did things to cause all of this? We have to take refugees now, but we also need to stop the exploitation that started the mess.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
It might well do us some good to stop talking about "Islamists" as if they were a cohesive group. Its a bit like putting the Scottish Free Presbyterians with Lebvfre-ite Catholics because both are extremist Christians.

Jengie
I'm not sure I'd describe the SSPX as being "extreme". I always thought they were never quite radical enough.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:

quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
It might well do us some good to stop talking about "Islamists" as if they were a cohesive group. Its a bit like putting the Scottish Free Presbyterians with Lebvfre-ite Catholics because both are extremist Christians.

Jengie
I'm not sure I'd describe the SSPX as being "extreme". I always thought they were never quite radical enough.

To explain why would be a major digression, though if you're really interested in why I think that then I'd be happy to explain why either on another thread or by private message.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Refugees put our rich western nations' current and past policies in front of us don't they? We either respond humanely (Germany taking 800,000) or per usual symbolic non-involvement (UK says 20,000).

AIUI the UK has quietly spent the Syrian conflict to date spending a billion quid on rations, medicine, clean drinking water and other aid to refugee camps as part of a strategy dedicated to focus on the camps.

I wasn't aware aid was either 1) a stick to beat the Tories with or 2) a competition between countries over which is more humane, but if we're going to go down that route it might be worth noting that the UK is the second largest state aid giver to the Syrian crisis after the US.

Germany is third, but given Germany's got a bigger economy, population, and indeed landmass than the UK it could be argued that they could have been doing more for longer than they have been in the time before they became the poster children for a moral response to the Syrian crisis last week.

I mean, sure we could and probably should be taking more refugees, but unfortunately "the evil Tories are doing nothing as usual" isn't going to wash when we're one of the few countries in the world meeting the target of 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid (which the evil Tories ringfenced)...

Germany is now leading Europe on a strategy of "what to do when all these people turn up at the front door"

It's arguably a shame that it wasn't leading Europe when the strategy was more about trying to stabilise the camps and create a safe haven...

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

Missed the edit window.

No Prophet I'm aware that that was a very UK centric response to your post given that you're in Canada, but there again you did use the UK as your example of "per usual symbolic non involvement."

The Syrian crisis, indeed the refugee crisis, did not start on a Turkish beach the week before last.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

I was talking to a colleague yesterday who suggested that an unknown number of the refugees in Europe are actually from the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, and have limited or no passports or travel documents.

It will be interesting to see if this prediction turns out to be true, as the Palestinian refugees have been living in Syria for getting on for 80 years in supposedly "temporary" refugee camps. Recently, I understand, the conditions in those camps has become particularly bad.

The status of Palestinians in Europe is often difficult. I know of some who have been refused refugee status but remain because there is nowhere safe to return them - they are effectively stateless.

What is certainly true is that this wave of refugees are well educated and relatively wealthy people, who could afford to pay for the long, dangerous journey. They have often also been forced out of several different countries - either by the fighting or by very poor conditions. Food is a particular problem in some of the refugee camps in Jordan, I understand, because of shortages due to funding of UN agencies in the region.

The camps themselves in Jordan and Turkey sound desperate, so with no solution in sight it isn't surprising that anyone with the wherewithal and funds attempts to reach safety in Europe.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I was talking to a colleague yesterday who suggested that an unknown number of the refugees in Europe are actually from the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, and have limited or no passports or travel documents.

It will be interesting to see if this prediction turns out to be true

I think it's almost certainly true. It's one of the angles which the press have decided to pick up on this week (the guardian had a long article on it yesterday) - what do people that are already in refugee camps do when the country their camp is in itself degenerates into a warzone....

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

It is difficult as an Australian to post on this thread. Our present government campaigned at the last election on a policy of "stopping the boats" - ie discouraging those tempted to make the journey here on a dangerous boat. These people were berated for not having proper documentation with passports, visas and the like, as if someone fleeing persecution in (for example) Afghanistan would have had the opportunity not only to obtain an Australian visa, but also have any necessary exit permits issued by the government from which they were escaping.

Those arriving by boat are now transferred to detention camps in countries in the SW Pacific. The governments of those countries, most of which are reliant upon Australian aid, have entered into agreements with Australia to house those transferred there, who will never be permitted to enter Australia.

While details of the scheme are questioned by the Federal Opposition, it has not maintained an in-principle stand against the inhumane and uncaring attitude policy the Govt espouses. It is embarrassing to see the open welcome given to these unfortunate people by the various European countries - apparently not just the governments but the people as a whole. The general opinion here is that to welcome refugees would be political suicide for any party. At least our government has agreed to take some refugees, perhaps shamed by the policies of the EU in general and the Germans in particular.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Missed the edit window.

No Prophet I'm aware that that was a very UK centric response to your post given that you're in Canada, but there again you did use the UK as your example of "per usual symbolic non involvement."

The Syrian crisis, indeed the refugee crisis, did not start on a Turkish beach the week before last.

No indeed. The roots go back to the dismembering of the Ottoman Empire post-WW1, and then as French and English domination faded, America took over. All have set the foundations for the chaos.

We could also learn something in North America, if we reflect on the parallels of the USA's response to Mexican and other Latin American migrants, and in Canada, our desire for historically compliant indigenous people and preference to take their land base.

We want their resources, whether actual physical things like oil and food, and their labour so long as it's corporations which profit from cheap labour which stays put in their own countries or stays in the north or on reservations. A response I hear frequently is why should we give aid and why can't they manage for themselves. Which both ignores the history of what we have done to them, and the unwillingness to apply the same to corporations which receive more aid and assistance than any other group.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

Should there be a hierarchy of who we help? In the thread title, I listed "refugees, migrants, undocumented immigrants, homeless..." Can and should we help all of them? How do we decide?

In the US, people can be very supportive of victims of natural disasters--though there can be some grousing if (for instance) they keep rebuilding in a flood plain and running into annual trouble. Not as good with refugees, and much worse with migrants. Very mixed feelings towards undocumented immigrants. Attitudes towards homeless people are very mixed, especially if they're are visible, and/or are perceived to cause health, safety, property devaluation, and business problems.

I've often wondered why people who've suffered a *life* disaster (the homeless, in this case) are deemed less worthy of real help than victims of natural disasters. Is it just because we don't want to admit we could become homeless? We're afraid?

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

I think you ought to help the people within your own life circle (that is, your neighbors) as well as those you believe God is specifically calling you to focus on. So in my case that would be family, friends, people in the area of my city/state, and Vietnamese immigrants/immigrants of all types. The last is the particular calling that has been made clear as my focus. I'm still concerned about the hungry, homeless, etc. but my efforts are concentrated on the Vietnamese, and that's where my personal expertise is. That will hopefully make me more useful all in all than I would be with a totally diluted focus.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Should there be a hierarchy of who we help? In the thread title, I listed "refugees, migrants, undocumented immigrants, homeless..." Can and should we help all of them? How do we decide?

In the US, people can be very supportive of victims of natural disasters--though there can be some grousing if (for instance) they keep rebuilding in a flood plain and running into annual trouble. Not as good with refugees, and much worse with migrants. Very mixed feelings towards undocumented immigrants. Attitudes towards homeless people are very mixed, especially if they're are visible, and/or are perceived to cause health, safety, property devaluation, and business problems.

I've often wondered why people who've suffered a *life* disaster (the homeless, in this case) are deemed less worthy of real help than victims of natural disasters. Is it just because we don't want to admit we could become homeless? We're afraid?

Yes. There's a lot of misinformation about the homeless as well as immigrants. Generally Americans are more supportive of refugees than they are economic immigration, which is why I'm a bit concerned about the switch from calling those leaving Syria "migrants" rather than "refugees". Heard differently over here, unfortunately.

I think there's a big difference from the sorts of prioritizing based on calling or life setting that Lamb Chopped is advocating and the sort of resentment/grousing that you're talking about-- particularly when it affects political policies. I don't feel called to care of Vietnamese immigrants, but I certainly support what LC is doing, and hope she would support my work with the homeless.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

There is a considerable amount of loaded language used, often describing deep seated bigotry ISTM.

"Migrant", especially "economic migrant" is one of those terms. In the UK those are often taken as meaning people who are coming for a handout, too lazy to make a living "at home", someone to be pitied and given handouts as acts of charity.

But, if someone from the UK moves overseas they aren't "economic migrants", we're "ex-pats", adventurous go-getters grasping opportunities to improve our lives, using our education and talents to benefit societies overseas and enriching UK society as we keep our friends and family informed of our lives especially when we come back and share new recipes and spend our foreign earned money in Blighty. It's good to be an "ex-pat", they make TV shows sending UK families to Australia and New Zealand to see what life is like there and whether they should move, lifestyle shows about how to retire to the south of France or Spain.

Is there a whiff of hypocrisy in the air? Surely not!

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

Actually, "ex-pat" conjures up an image of sun-reddened Pommies moaning into their fish and chips about how Britain's gone to the dogs and you can't get vinegar on your chips here.

Speaking as an ex-pat, y'know.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Matter of perspective.

In the UK, being an ex-pat is (often) seen as somehow glamorous, as "I'd go if I could".

As an ex-pat living (in my case) in Japan the reality is less glamorous.

And, what the local communities we dump ourselves on think of us ex-pats is yet another question.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Now the inevitable has happen. Water cannon and tear gas used on the Hungarian border, providing patient cameras with the definitive image of a travel-weary young child being drenched and overcome with gas.

A very uncomfortable state of affairs for all concern. O for this humanity with it's wretched injustices and sufferings.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

"Migrant", especially "economic migrant" is one of those terms. In the UK those are often taken as meaning people who are coming for a handout, too lazy to make a living "at home", someone to be pitied and given handouts as acts of charity.

The word "migrant" is never applied to Americans, Western Europeans or Aussies living and working in the UK. It's only applied where there is a large and more-or-less unidirectional transfer of people.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

I say it's applied to people who are less like the receiving culture. An Englishman in NZ is not a migrant, and is not really foreign. An American might be. A Chinese person certainly is. I don't see the offence in the term. It is quite natural to want to live with people who we can easily understand and sympathise with, and I think it's time this desire was respected a bit more.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

We seem to be on the edge of a vast leap forward that we cannot make.

Without ... the Spirit.

Tears.

For Hungary, for Croatia. Where the sight of a cop lifting a little girl on to a train was too much. For Germany, Denmark.

For my fantasy of a second Dunkirk rescue from England. That won't happen if it's down to me ...

... and it is isn't it?

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :

O brave Hungary - a nice new fence, no migrants, no friends, and no investors.......

......and a wonderful BBC news item on the 'lawless migrant ghetto' ( Daily Wail ) at Calais, which now has two mosques, a church, a night-club (!), the 'Afghan Flag Cafe', a 'Chicken and Chips Cafe', a health centre, a number of convenience stores, and goodness knows what else. These awful 'people not like us' seem to have created a small working town out of nothing.......

......but who looks after law and order? Are they self-policing to a degree, or are there friendly gendarmes to hand? And where do they charge their mobile phones?

Let 'em all in - the Afghan Café sounded rather tasty....

Ian J.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I say it's applied to people who are less like the receiving culture. An Englishman in NZ is not a migrant, and is not really foreign. An American might be. A Chinese person certainly is. I don't see the offence in the term. It is quite natural to want to live with people who we can easily understand and sympathise with, and I think it's time this desire was respected a bit more.

But isn't it also natural to want to live with people who are different from me? In London, I've had neighbours who were Lebanese, French, German, Somalian, Irish, and Spanish. The nicest one of the lot was the Somalian lady. Well, I sympathized with her, and she sympathized with me!

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I say it's applied to people who are less like the receiving culture. An Englishman in NZ is not a migrant, and is not really foreign. An American might be. A Chinese person certainly is. I don't see the offence in the term. It is quite natural to want to live with people who we can easily understand and sympathise with, and I think it's time this desire was respected a bit more.

hmmm... I think it's a normal, human tendency to divide these sorts of lines and feel more inclined to people who are "like us" and "those people" over there (us/them). I don't think it's a good tendency. And in fact I think much of Jesus' teaching (and Paul, e.g. Eph 2) is directed specifically at breaking down those sorts of distinctions (see Mark Labberton's excellent The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor). It certainly is harder to accommodate people with different customs, values, beliefs, and worldview-- but Jesus seems to think the effort has merit. So, while we might say the desire to prioritize those who are similar should be "respected" in the sense of understood (since we all do this to a greater degree than we realize) rather than shamed, I don't think it should be "respected" in these sense of giving into it-- any more than we strive to just give in to our default sinful tendencies to be selfish, prideful and acquisitive.

And yes, language is one way in which we strive to overcome this tendency-- even just internally. By forcing ourselves not to use different terms for those who are "like us" and those who aren't, we are reminding ourselves, again and again, of Jesus' teaching about who is our neighbor, reminding ourselves, again and again, to overcome the natural human (but sinful) tendency to make those distinctions. Reminding ourselves to reach out both to those who were "once far away" as well as those who are "near".

[ 18. September 2015, 15:37: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I say it's applied to people who are less like the receiving culture. An Englishman in NZ is not a migrant, and is not really foreign. An American might be. A Chinese person certainly is. I don't see the offence in the term. It is quite natural to want to live with people who we can easily understand and sympathise with, and I think it's time this desire was respected a bit more.

This would come across as completely racist in Canada, and as xenophobic. We have an history of making distinctions among people based on ethnic origin, we recognized this, and it is specifically prohibited under provincial and federal human rights codes. These sorts of differentiation of people based "on similarity to us" have been clearly shown to influence who gets hired for a job, who is preferred for selling or renting property to, and a host of other things.

I am reminded of a colleague, born in Calgary, Alberta, who is non-white non-European appearance. She reports being regularly asked questions about where's she from, and the speaker often doesn't accept Calgary and begins to inquire after her parents (who were both born in Ontario). I'm in complete disagreement with what you posted, and think the desire you express requires thorough examination as to implications.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
I say it's applied to people who are less like the receiving culture. An Englishman in NZ is not a migrant, and is not really foreign. An American might be. A Chinese person certainly is. I don't see the offence in the term. It is quite natural to want to live with people who we can easily understand and sympathise with, and I think it's time this desire was respected a bit more.
This would come across as completely racist in Canada, and as xenophobic. We have an history of making distinctions among people based on ethnic origin, we recognized this, and it is specifically prohibited under provincial and federal human rights codes.

It comes across as racist and xenophobic because it is. And, in the UK is also prohibited under equality legislation.

Which doesn't stop that being how people think and feel. Nor the hypocrisy I originally commented on of the "we don't want immigrants" brigade deciding that when it's "one of us" (eg: a Brit) going overseas being something other than a migrant and, by extension, someone close enough to "one of us" coming to our country not being an immigrant either.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

Yes. Just because something is common, or normal, doesn't make it good. War is common. Desiring revenge on your enemies is normal. Aggression is common. And yes, preferring "people like me" is a natural instinct.

They are common because sin is common. But people who follow Christ-- heck, people who just want to live in a more civilized and just society-- will make the effort to examine the things that "come naturally" and question if there might be a better way.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

As I posted on Facebook:

Dunkirk II

I'm not going to do it of course. I live 150 miles from the Kent coast. And I'd have to buy a dinghy. And learn to sail. But WHEN is Dunkirk going to be repeated? When is anyone just going to sail to Calais and load up with refugees from poverty and lawlessness and not wine? Which means they must be already. And not as traffickers. I'd like to think that there is a humanitarian virtual underground railway doing this. There doesn't seem to be. Camp Sangatte doesn't seem to have an outflow. If there is, PM me. I'll support it.

Otherwise, spread the word. Hmmmmm. Must start a Group.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

I'm in. My sailing skills are rusty but I'd make a pretty good deckhand.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I think it would have been reported on the local news - the Channel is very well watched with radar and so on because of the conflict between ships running between England and France and those running through the Straits between the Channel and the North Sea. It would be very dangerous to navigate in a way that Dunkirk wasn't, because the commercial traffic wasn't then what it is now. And the captains of the east/west ships aren't always as skilled as they need to be. So it is believed.

[ 19. September 2015, 22:41: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Males sense Penny S. How amazingly compliant we all are, either side of the channel. There's plenty of people skilled enough to navigate even the busiest sea-lane in the world. How ... sad.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

You don't need a fleet of small boats. Estimates I've seen have been for 2000-5000 people in the camps at Calais, and that was earlier in the summer I think the numbers have gone down now. Cross channel ferries can carry 2000 people. You could empty the camps with a couple of ferry trips.

All that's needed is for the government to act for the benefit of Britain and let those people come over rather than trying to out-Kipper the bigots to try and claw back some voters in future elections.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Apparently, during the Napoleonic Wars, when the invasion force was camped on the hills between Calais and Boulogne, women from Folkestone would row over together to provide the troops with... whatever they needed.

Information from Head of History in school, who was also a Methodist Lay Preacher, so it must be true.

I believe it is possible to charter space on ferries. The Belgians used to fill them up with school children to visit Dover Castle without pre-booking there, thus completely messing up the system of not overcrowding the place which we had to abide there. (It was ghastly when that happened - staff nowhere to be seen, no worksheets, no nothing, just mad kids.) (This also applied to a private school from Folkestone, with visible but inactive staff who didn't see state school staff attempting to get their attention - just in case someone was going to accuse me of being racist against Belgians.)

[ 21. September 2015, 06:38: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

They're putting refugees in the Dachau concentration camp.
[Mad]

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

That blesses them and it.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Unsavoury comparisons between this situation and the Holocaust are not any help to any one.
These people need help, they must be given it . The Countries they are fleeing need stabilising , this must be striven for, (easier said than done as is painfully obvious).

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

No one is making unsavory comparisons. It's just that people have *actually* been placed in one of the Holocaust camps.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
No one is making unsavory comparisons. It's just that people have *actually* been placed in one of the Holocaust camps.

I don't know what the conditions are like for the refugees who are being housed there. How do they feel about it? Do they feel comfortable there-- or horrified?

While the immediate associations are-- awful, obviously-- I can see Martin's point (for once). If the facilities are able to be quickly transformed into comfortable emergency housing, it could be a way to bring good out of tremendous evil-- an act of grace.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

IIRC, there were some refugee comments in the article to which I linked. One person, I think, didn't really know the history of the place and was just glad to have shelter.

AIUI, Muslim culture in the Middle East tends to deny the Holocaust, so the refugees really may have no clue.

I understand the "blessing" point of view. I'd be more inclined to accept that if the camp was no longer standing, and the refugees were simply on the same property.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
No one is making unsavory comparisons. It's just that people have *actually* been placed in one of the Holocaust camps.

I wasn't pointing at anyone here.
One news report I saw had refugees themselves complaining about being stamped with a number and likening it to the tattoo number Jews were given.
Just saying this train of thought surely cannot be helpful given the situation. My guess is it's media stirring as per usual.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Sensei.

I'm being colossally dumb here I'm sure, so what stops the migrants getting on the ferry? Apart from a ticket? French emigration control?

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

At a guess? Money for a ticket and lack of passport/visa for admission to the UK.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

The border controls at Calais are pretty strict (assuming you try to pass through them and don’t sneak onto a boat, train etc. somewhere else). A few years ago I got the night bus from Paris to London and even travelling on a British passport, I got the third degree at Calais from a French immigration officer at two o’clock in the morning. You won’t be allowed to board a ferry if you don’t have a valid visa for the UK.

ETA actually one of the things the French are very pissed off about is having to effectively police the UK border. That’s why they want it moved – so that the British will have to police their own borders to stop people illegally entering their country.

[ 05. October 2015, 10:11: Message edited by: la vie en rouge ]

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

So back to Alan, how could they get on a ferry even with a ticket? Hence my Dunkirk proposal.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

They get on the ferry because the British government demonstrates some common decency, maybe even Cameron living up to the Christian faith he claims, and lets them into the UK.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

My son lives in Heidelberg in Germany. They have all just had a letter from the Mayor. It says that the recently decommissioned US military base is being reconditioned to house 6000 refugees. He went on to say that Heidelberg is 'an open, tolerant and welcoming city' and he hopes everyone will work hard to keep it that way.

This is the attitude and effort we need.

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
My son lives in Heidelberg in Germany. They have all just had a letter from the Mayor. It says that the recently decommissioned US military base is being reconditioned to house 6000 refugees. He went on to say that Heidelberg is 'an open, tolerant and welcoming city' and he hopes everyone will work hard to keep it that way.

This is the attitude and effort we need.

Wonderful!

And to an extent, saying this helps to make it so. It lifts everyone up. It is moral leadership.

Contrast the craven style of British politics, always asking what the papers will say, always anxious about dropping a few votes. We always get dragged down to the level of the least informed and most selfish.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

There are probably a few unused, or underused, military bases in the UK as well. Several bases used by the US have been vacated in recent years, and our own army has been cut back a fair bit. Those bases would have had barracks and housing, catering facilities and a hospital. Ideally suited for temporarily housing refugees until they can be moved into permanent housing within communities.

I bet no one in the government suggests using them though.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
There are probably a few unused, or underused, military bases in the UK as well. Several bases used by the US have been vacated in recent years, and our own army has been cut back a fair bit. Those bases would have had barracks and housing, catering facilities and a hospital. Ideally suited for temporarily housing refugees until they can be moved into permanent housing within communities.

I bet no one in the government suggests using them though.

In Lincolnshire and Norfolk there must be dozens of RAF stations that haven't been built over yet. They would need some work and the infrastructure is poor now (airfields, for good reason are located some miles from large towns) but I'll bet the immigrants and refugees would be happy to fix them, almost for free.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

But Alan, the FRENCH won't let them, surely. Unless Britain asks them to. Which isn't going to happen. So back to Dunkirk II. I'm astounded that none of us is willing to do that.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

If someone from the Home Office appeared at the camps in Calais issuing visas for admission to the UK then the French authorities will be very happy to see the refugees onto a ferry across the Channel. It's the UK government that is at fault for not issuing the relevant paperwork. It doesn't help that we have May managing to make speeches on immigration that even manage to get condemned by the Telegraph!

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
But Alan, the FRENCH won't let them, surely. Unless Britain asks them to. Which isn't going to happen. So back to Dunkirk II. I'm astounded that none of us is willing to do that.

I sincerely hope you're not trying to advocate illegal action. It would also be profoundly naïve, as well as dangerous.

And since when has France not been a safe country to claim asylum in? If you're genuinely desperate, you don't pick and choose, you accept what's offered to you. Beggars can't be choosers.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

What seems to being offered by the French is a camp in the southern side of the English channel.

And, France doesn't have an outstanding record in relation to accomodation of Muslim beliefs and traditions - the frequent issues with wearing the hijab in France are an example of this. So, I can see why France may not be the first choice for many refugees from the Middle East.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Beggars can't be choosers.

If you had lost everything would you really want to be labelled as a 'beggar'?

They are people, they deserve to be treated as people with just the same aspirations as the rest of us.

What if our country were devastated and we had no choice but to move on, would we not hope for kindness where we arrived?

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I was hearing from someone just back from travelling in southern Germany and Austria: it was a logistical nightmare. Trains were cancelled, or were missing carriages that had booked seats, or didn't go to cross border destinations despite what it said on the front. Railway staff would give no information. In short, the local rail infrastructure was in meltdown because of the impact of the refugees.

So besides talking the talk about welcoming migrants, politicians have to address (and fund - there's the rub) the extra resources not only for those arriving in the country but for those already living in impacted areas. As has been pointed out above, these are usually at the borders, so the temptation is to try and keep it on their side not ours.

Clearly there needs to be more comprehensive, cooperative and international thinking. Either the flow of people needs to be channelled efficiently to places where they can live and work and build a life, or you will have these blockages of accumulating frustration and anger, poisoning the land.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

English is the world's second language. People around the world are far more likely to already have some familiarity with English than they are German, French, Italian, Greek... it's not surprising that English speaking countries (UK, USA, Canada, Australia) are the targets for so many.

I've long thought this to be a major reason for so many migrants and refugees aiming for the UK.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
English is the world's second language.

I've long thought this to be a major reason for so many migrants and refugees aiming for the UK.

For those that come yes it is clear that the role of language plays a part - and there is always the part that colonial history played in all of this.

It is also clear that it often plays the smaller part to other factors given the relative numbers going to other countries (which is something the press tend to downplay).

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
If someone from the Home Office appeared at the camps in Calais issuing visas for admission to the UK then the French authorities will be very happy to see the refugees onto a ferry across the Channel.

I think the French attitude has always been that this would just encourage more people to come to Calais, so it would be counterproductive.

(Not saying they are right, but I don't think the French would be happy for the UK to take everyone out of Calais.)

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I was hearing from someone just back from travelling in southern Germany and Austria: it was a logistical nightmare. Trains were cancelled, or were missing carriages that had booked seats, or didn't go to cross border destinations despite what it said on the front. Railway staff would give no information. In short, the local rail infrastructure was in meltdown because of the impact of the refugees.

As I said, my son lives there - there is no meltdown. Travel in the UK is 100 times worse than in Germany, migrants or no migrants. Nobody says our system is in meltdown! (or maybe they do?)

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Of course I'm advocating illegal, naive, dangerous action.

Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I was hearing from someone just back from travelling in southern Germany and Austria: it was a logistical nightmare. Trains were cancelled, or were missing carriages that had booked seats, or didn't go to cross border destinations despite what it said on the front. Railway staff would give no information. In short, the local rail infrastructure was in meltdown because of the impact of the refugees.

As I said, my son lives there - there is no meltdown. Travel in the UK is 100 times worse than in Germany, migrants or no migrants. Nobody says our system is in meltdown! (or maybe they do?)

Deutsche Bahn is warning of problems:

quote:
Severe disruption of services between Salzburg and Munich Like all of Germany, we at Deutsche Bahn do our best to help the refugees. As a consequence, the availability of our public passenger transport services has been reduced.

Here's an article from Sept 22 describing disruptions between Germany and Austria.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
What seems to being offered by the French is a camp in the southern side of the English channel.

Which was not set up by the French, but by the migrants themselves. Nobody asked them to, and nobody asked them to come this far. That was their own decision. If you are genuinely destitute you won't insist on holding out for somewhere hundreds of miles away.

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
If you had lost everything would you really want to be labelled as a 'beggar'?

Without going into details, many years ago I went through a period of extreme poverty and was about to be homeless. I was desperate enough to accept the first opportunities I was offered. Beggars can't be choosers and neither could I in that situation. They weren't ideal opportunities by most people's standards but the sheer relief of being offered them and knowing that I wasn't going to have to be on the street was such a relief. At such times your most prized possessions are worthless unless they have resale value.

quote:
What if our country were devastated and we had no choice but to move on, would we not hope for kindness where we arrived?

If that was the case. If they are genuine refugees with verifiable stories, then yes of course. But I'm not convinced that all of them are by any means. There's a thriving trade in forged passports, there's evidence of people discarding their non-Syrian passports, and there's an unknown amount of people passing themselves off as Syrians when they are not. If their stories can be verified, fair enough, give them the help they need, but the news coverage in recent weeks of migrants throwing rocks, setting fires, breaking into lorries and committing criminal damage to get their own way hasn't helped their image much. YMMV.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

As I said, my son lives there - there is no meltdown. Travel in the UK is 100 times worse than in Germany, migrants or no migrants. Nobody says our system is in meltdown! (or maybe they do?)

I did say 'local'. All's I can say, if you are in a band trying to play a number of gigs in small towns between a Ravensburg and Rosenheim utilising only public transport, best of luck.

[ 07. October 2015, 15:48: Message edited by: Firenze ]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

My country is doing precious little here, so by all rights I should comment at all. For the most part what follows is a rebuke to the US as much as anyone:

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Beggars can't be choosers and neither could I in that situation. They weren't ideal opportunities by most people's standards but the sheer relief of being offered them and knowing that I wasn't going to have to be on the street was such a relief. At such times your most prized possessions are worthless unless they have resale value.

But from the perspective of those who are offered aid, why can't we be as kind as possible? Is there any reason to be stingy, to create more suffering than is necessary? Is there not room for human compassion here?

Again, recognizing my country is doing a good job of taking care of the homeless on our own streets, much less doing much of anything to help this situation.

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

If that was the case. If they are genuine refugees with verifiable stories, then yes of course. But I'm not convinced that all of them are by any means. There's a thriving trade in forged passports, there's evidence of people discarding their non-Syrian passports, and there's an unknown amount of people passing themselves off as Syrians when they are not. If their stories can be verified, fair enough, give them the help they need, but the news coverage in recent weeks of migrants throwing rocks, setting fires, breaking into lorries and committing criminal damage to get their own way hasn't helped their image much. YMMV.

Of course stories are pretty hard to be "verified" when you're running for your lives. Not much time to gather documentation.

And I question how important it is for the refugees to be Syrian. There are people who are fleeingthrough Syria from other places where there is equal danger from war and starvation. As many have pointed out, we don't have a "Syrian refugee" problem, we have a "refugee problem." Some of these refugees are part of very large people groups, some are part of much smaller people groups (sometimes because so many of their people have already been killed). Does it matter whether the fleeing refugees are part of any particular group?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
And I question how important it is for the refugees to be Syrian.

It gives you a head start in Germany and Sweden where they've been running an open-door policy with priority given to these nationals.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
And I question how important it is for the refugees to be Syrian.
It gives you a head start in Germany and Sweden where they've been running an open-door policy with priority given to these nationals.

I wasn't talking about whether or not it was advantageous to them under the current situation, but rather challenging the assumption in the post I was responding to that there was some moral or ethical reason why we should prioritize Syrian refugees in particular.

Again, with the recognition that my own country is failing miserably by this standard.

Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :

We are all going to have to get better at dealing with refugees in the next few decades, according to this projection.

So, if you own property 230 feet above sea level or more, you are probably going to see an increase in its value within 15-30yrs. The other side of it is that you may need to share it with more people!

Now I understand why the Chinese are so keen to buy large properties in Australia. 160 million people on the move from South China, plus most of Bangladesh and a lot of India means the refugee situation will not just be a few boats headed our way.

Even if the Syrian situation settles down, and the flow from that area dissipates, the world needs to take note of how to process refugees humanely, because we may all be impacted sooner rather than later.

Or work out how to live in floating cities. Now there's an idea...

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Pretty daft buying up London if they are worried about sea level rise with global warming.

Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :

And "Miami: City of the Future" may have to change its slogan...

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
If their stories can be verified, fair enough, give them the help they need, but the news coverage in recent weeks of migrants throwing rocks, setting fires, breaking into lorries and committing criminal damage to get their own way hasn't helped their image much. YMMV.

These are desperate people, and desperate people sometimes do desperate things when they see no way out of where they are. That sometimes means getting on overcrowded boats, it sometimes means pretending to be part of a group that's seen to be getting better treatment (eg: to be Syrian when several countries have said they're going to take Syrian refugees), it sometimes means they get frustrated and violent.

The conditions many refugees have to face in Europe are appalling. Make shift camps, violent responses from border guards, accommodation in shipping containers, even when they get a decent welcome they still receive no money and are often not allowed to work, the political leaders of many countries have made distinctly unwelcoming speeches (yes, I'm looking at you Ms May). That's all after a dangerous journey to get to Europe that far too many don't survive. All of this is very widely reported on social media and newsites, and as we know many of these refugees have smart phones to access that information. And, despite all they know ... they're still desperate enough to come and try to find a better place anyway.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

Ariel--

I'm glad you made it through that.

Martin--

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Of course I'm advocating illegal, naive, dangerous action.

And what would you do with the refugees, once you all reached the UK? What would happen to them?

And what if *you* were caught?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

OK, this is how I see it.

1) If you arrive in Europe and are offered the chance of help and asylum legally there is no excuse for not accepting the offer and for holding out, with angry protests, for the country of your choice (or even insisting that if you don’t get what you want you’ll go back home). If you’re genuinely desperate you’ll accept help where it’s offered.

2) A large proportion of the migrants are young men in their 20s. They should have no worries about whether wearing a hijab is acceptable or not, and there are existing Muslim communities in many parts of Europe that they would hopefully not feel too unsettled in.

3) The ethnic composition of the migrants is mainly, but not exclusively, from these countries: Syria, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Eritrea, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Albania, and Kurdish people. Not all of these countries are deemed to be war zones or unsafe to live in.

4) In any large migration of this kind you’re always going to get a mixture of genuine refugees, economic migrants, and petty criminals seeking to throw off the past and start a new life. The divisions between these categories are fluid as are the proportions. Many migrants genuinely do need help. But it would be naïve to assume that every single person who wants to claim asylum is who they say they are. There is emerging evidence that some are not.

5) Immigration has to be handled sensibly in a controlled fashion with priority given to the most vulnerable and needy; Britain’s plan to take in people from the refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon is right. Uncontrolled immigration in Lebanon has led to enormous pressure on the infrastructure with people sleeping rough in doorways, public spaces, on the seafront, under bridges, etc. There's a shortage of housing, the hospitals can’t cope and the schools can’t fit the children in. This is not a sustainable scenario and is likely to be repeated elsewhere in the vicinity before long.

6) This doesn’t have to be perceived as a European problem. It’s a global problem. Many other countries appear to be standing by just watching, or refusing to take in refugees. It’s not up to Europe to take in everybody just because the rest of the world won’t. Compassion and generosity are good qualities, but can be exploited to the point where the givers are disadvantaged and ultimately that benefits nobody.

That’s my view. I don’t expect agreement.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

If I was a refugee, and one country was being harsh with refugees, and making xenophobic comments about Islam, I think I would rather not stay there! And if Germany is being welcoming, it seems reasonable to head there.

As to the mix of different people, Germany has stated that purely economic migrants, e.g. from the Balkans, will be sent back. I don't know how they sort people out, but presumably, they have ways and means.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

Well, of those points:

1.) The problem is that for this to work properly, the EU has to put its own house in order as well. The Balkan countries are just not capable of processing the sheer volume of applications (and again the case of MSS vs Belgium and Greece is pertinent), and even if they were, the EU does not have a functioning system in place to redistribute them more equitably among its members. In such circumstances, I don't think it's fair to criticise migrants for taking matters into their own hands.

That said, I agree we should be taking asylum seekers directly from the camps rather than expecting them to trek across Europe.

3) ignores the fact that one can have a well-founded fear of persecution in a country that is otherwise stable, e.g. I know a few Iranian Christians who have successfully claimed asylum on that basis.

4) is hard to disagree with as stated. The problem is when the presence of opportunists is taken as an excuse to be nasty to everyone else. On the whole, being taken for a ride by an economic migrant is less of an evil than sending persecuted people back to die.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

In addition point 2) I'm not seeing the relevance of a larger proportion of the refugees being young men is. These are the people most able to make a difficult journey, especially if they're still single and don't have to travel with their wife and any children. They're also the people, given the chance, most likely to do all the work that the UK and other nations is desperate to find labourers for and so should be an economic plus for the host nation.

And my comment about the hijab is clearly not directly relevant to young men (but would be for the 20+% of the refugees who are young women). But, indirectly it's important. If a country is hostile towards a minor cultural artefact such as the wearing of a head scarf (particularly ironic in countries with a strong Catholic tradition, with all those images of Mary wearing a head scarf) then it is highly likely they will face hostile reactions to other parts of their culture.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
It’s not up to Europe to take in everybody just because the rest of the world won’t.

Europe is very far from having to take everybody. The majority of the refugees are still in neighbouring countries - the camps were set up because the sheer rate at which they started to arrive.

[ 08. October 2015, 12:18: Message edited by: chris stiles ]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Yes, the majority are in Turkey (1.5 million), Lebanon (1.1 million), Jordan (600, 000), Iraq (230, 000), and some in Egypt.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
It’s not up to Europe to take in everybody just because the rest of the world won’t.
Europe is very far from having to take everybody. The majority of the refugees are still in neighbouring countries - the camps were set up because the sheer rate at which they started to arrive.

Probably Europe will take less than 15% of the refugees, maybe less than 10%. At present more than 11 million people have been displaced, and about 400,000 have crossed into Europe. Germany is expecting 800,000 by the end of the year, across Europe that would be a million or a few more (which is the 10% minimum - and that assumes the expected figure is correct, it could be less, it could be more).

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In addition point 2) I'm not seeing the relevance of a larger proportion of the refugees being young men is. These are the people most able to make a difficult journey, especially if they're still single and don't have to travel with their wife and any children.

It can be seen that way, but it could also raise the speculation that if someone is prepared to leave his wife and young children behind in Syria, the family is presumably not in immediate danger. Which may well be true: some parts of Syria are less racked by fighting than others.

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
It’s not up to Europe to take in everybody just because the rest of the world won’t.
Europe is very far from having to take everybody. The majority of the refugees are still in neighbouring countries - the camps were set up because the sheer rate at which they started to arrive.

Currently. The neighbouring countries are filling up, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have declined to take in any refugees, and there isn't much sign of African nations (including South Africa) taking sub-Saharan refugees. As the Russian campaign in Syria steps up we can expect to see an escalation in the exodus. Germany is expecting its influx to be nearer 1 million rather than 800,000.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In addition point 2) I'm not seeing the relevance of a larger proportion of the refugees being young men is. These are the people most able to make a difficult journey, especially if they're still single and don't have to travel with their wife and any children.
It can be seen that way, but it could also raise the speculation that if someone is prepared to leave his wife and young children behind in Syria, the family is presumably not in immediate danger. Which may well be true: some parts of Syria are less racked by fighting than others.

I expect the young men are probably the first to be targeted by the enemy. They are probably more able to make a run for it, lightly equipped. It's difficult for a family to travel as light.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
It’s not up to Europe to take in everybody just because the rest of the world won’t.
Europe is very far from having to take everybody. The majority of the refugees are still in neighbouring countries - the camps were set up because the sheer rate at which they started to arrive.
Currently. The neighbouring countries are filling up, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have declined to take in any refugees, and there isn't much sign of African nations (including South Africa) taking sub-Saharan refugees. As the Russian campaign in Syria steps up we can expect to see an escalation in the exodus. Germany is expecting its influx to be nearer 1 million rather than 800,000.

The unwillingness of some of the richest nations on earth to take refugees and asylum seekers is disgraceful (although Saudi Arabia did take Idi Amin in: maybe they make a special dispensation for evil bastards).

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Ariel: there isn't much sign of African nations (including South Africa) taking sub-Saharan refugees.

I'll have to look up the numbers, but I understand that the country has taken up refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia ...

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

Here:

quote:
Refugee Council USA: South Africa currently hosts more than 63,000 registered refugees from Angola, Burundi, the DRC, Rwanda and Somalia and more than 220,000 registered asylum seekers from Bangladesh, the DRC, Ethiopia, Somalia and Zimbabwe.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In addition point 2) I'm not seeing the relevance of a larger proportion of the refugees being young men is. These are the people most able to make a difficult journey, especially if they're still single and don't have to travel with their wife and any children.
It can be seen that way, but it could also raise the speculation that if someone is prepared to leave his wife and young children behind in Syria, the family is presumably not in immediate danger. Which may well be true: some parts of Syria are less racked by fighting than others.

It's part of human nature that the known, no matter how awful, is always less scary than the unknown. The pattern of sending young men off to establish a base in the new place before sending for the rest of the family is not at all uncommon in these circumstances.

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