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Ship of Fools
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What To Do: Refugees, Migrants, Undocumented Immigrants, Homeless... (Page 3)
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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: What To Do: Refugees, Migrants, Undocumented Immigrants, Homeless...
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I think it highly credible, Mrs Merkel is nobody's fool.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
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.
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
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?
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
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.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
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.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
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
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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Beenster
Shipmate
# 242
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Posted
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.
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Dormouse
Glis glis – Ship's rodent
# 5954
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Posted
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.
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What are you doing for Lent?
40 days, 40 reflections, 40 acts of generosity. Join the #40acts challenge for #Lent and let's start a movement. www.40acts.org.uk
Posts: 3042 | From: 'twixt les Bois Noirs & Les Monts de la Madeleine | Registered: May 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
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 ]
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arse
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
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.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
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.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
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.)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
We'll see how it's done when the gas tank needle reaches 800,000.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
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.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
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??
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Longer than the ethnic cleansing of Europe, which one very much feels in Spain.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
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.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
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.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
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.
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I thought I should update my signature line....
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
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.)
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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 ]
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
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
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Alaric the Goth
Shipmate
# 511
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Posted
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!
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'Angels and demons dancing in my head,
Lunatics and monsters underneath my bed' ('Totem', Rush)
Posts: 3322 | From: West Thriding | Registered: Jun 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
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.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
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.
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arse
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
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
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
[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 ]
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
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.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
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.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
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".
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
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 ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
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
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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cliffdweller
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# 13338
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Posted
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.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
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...?
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
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).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
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.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
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.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
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.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
And read. I suppose there's no point in getting a group from Sussex and London to ask Putin to give it back.
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