Europe-Middle East-Africa Refugee Crisis General Thread

[DavidB.]

In my opinion only DavidB in this thread was honest about why he fears immigrants: fear of being stabbed by an Arab walking down the sidewalk. Others could learn from him.

wut. I don't "fear immigrants" and never said so. One part of my family consists of immigrants. My mother is considered "allochthonous" by the Dutch government (an official term in this country). It would be rather ridiculous to fear my family, my Polish neighbors, my Moroccan barber, the guy from the Kurdish mini market, some of the people in my synagogue. I also think it's cheap to dismiss people's legitimate sentiments regarding the inevitable negative consequences of mass immigration as "fear".

Sure, if I walk around with a kippa in my neighborhood I wouldn't feel entirely safe - I don't really expect violence, but I feel self-aware all the time, people are staring and something might happen, so that's why I wear a cap if I do that -- and sure, that's not because of Dutch people (or the Polish neighbor), but I'd never state that I'd "fear" "immigrants", or even "Arab immigrants", which is way too generalizing a statement. As long as people on the street don't see I'm Jewish, I don't think it's even remotely likely anything will happen to me.

My opposition to mass immigration from Muslim countries stems from the fact that it would add to tensions that are currently problematic enough for society to deal with (tensions which are specific to immigration from Muslim countries), that it would influence the demographic balance whereas I think people have a right to their own nation state and mass immigration from Muslim countries contributes to societal (and in the long run political) instability, and that it would endanger my community in the present and in the future.

[DavidB.]

Or maybe they get these privileges because the weather is better: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15725.html

lmao

[DavidB.]

The argument "immigration is good for Europe because of the low fertility rate" has been rebutted several times lately, mostly by politicus - for instance here:

This is a deeply flawed argument for a number of reasons, but a few points:

1) Low reproduction rates makes it harder to accept immigration in ethnically defined states, not easier, simply because it changes the ethnic balance more. It is therefore more likely to lead to tighter immigration policies than laxer. Becoming a minority in ones own country over a couple of generations is the primordial fear behind anti-immigration sentiments in Europe.

2) Reproduction rates vary a lot across Europe. 1,7 as in DK is manageable, while 1,1 in parts of Southern Europe isn't. The problem is a sharp drop, not a gradual decline. Making this a continental wide problem is erroneous.

3) You do not need to have a 100% reproduction rate to have a good society. Automatization and a more gradual retirement pattern makes it possible to secure a high standard of living with a gradually declining population.

4) Most Europeans do not want the kind of labour market with low minimum wage and low benefits, that would be required to successfully integrate a large influx of immigrants. Many employers and right wing think tanks love the effect immigration will have on the labour market, but the average voter don't.

5) Europe is a small and densely populated place. Many Europens were looking forward to cashing in a "green dividend" from declining population in the form of less pressure on the environment and infrastructure, more nature, and more available housing. Immigration forces us to retain a "use all available resources to the fullest" model.

Then there is a number of problems related to the type of immigrants Europe attracts:

6) Labour market participation among non-Asian immigrants is low. In fx Sweden this hasn't increased for 15 years. So immigration ends up being a burden on top of the skewed age pyramid, not a solution.

7) Children and grandchildren of immigrants generally do worse in the educational system than "natives". A large group ends up as a permanent unintegrated underclass, which drains the system (this group also has a high crime rate, which is costly).

8 ) There are fewer and fewer unskilled jobs. We already have a large pool of unemployed unskilled workers (many from the ethnic minorities already in Europe). It is generally more sensible to "upgrade" unskilled European workers than receiving immigrants. Youth unemployment is extremely high in several countries.

9) Vocational and technical training in the Middle East and Africa is sub-standard, and this is the groups Europe could use.

[DavidB.]

Do you have a chart of countries by refugees per capita?

[DavidB.]

Thanks for this, Tender and ingemann. It seems Austria gets even more applications than Germany and Sweden, relatively, and whereas the high number of migrants in Sweden and Germany seems due to open-border policies, the high number in Austria is largely due to a combination of socio-economic prosperity and geographical location.

At the same time, I don't really understand the chart Tender posted, since it shows that many migrants apply for asylum seeker status in Hungary - but in reality, almost everybody travels along to Western Europe, right? Nobody wants to stay there. So how is the number that large?

[DavidB.]

I didn't know that people who travel on to other countries were registering themselves in different countries earlier on their journey. In that case, it is hard to derive any meaning from these figures and it seems like Austria's numbers have been inflated, even if many people are, indeed, staying in Austria.

[DavidB.]

But they're all rocket scientists, they will make up for that

[DavidB.]

The tricky thing for Sweden is that asylum seekers probably won't care so much for Sweden's problems in terms of finding proper accommodations and financing everything. Due to its reputation and its laws, Sweden will likely remain a destination more attractive to migrants than, say, Denmark or Finland.

[DavidB.]

Funny. This same afternoon I already figured that it wouldn't be long until the next left-leftist would make an angry post here, and wondered who it would be

[DavidB.]

Meanwhile, migrants in The Hague are fed up with the situation. A group of migrants has decided to sleep on the streets, as a protest. The video with the complaints (in English; video itself is in Dutch but the migrants speak English) speaks for itself: "This is not a life, when you get inside a room without a tv. Maybe we should go back to our country and die there." Also lmao @ the guy who complains about "only" getting 12 euros a week while lighting a cigarette.

[DavidB.]

Greek authorities just confirmed that one of the people who likely perpetrated the Paris attacks crossed through Greece as a refugee on October 3, and was a Syrian passport holder.

Say it loud, say it clear...

[DavidB.]

Today in the Dutch news: the organization that helps refugees in Amsterdam decided to place LGBT refugees in separate asylum seeker locations. Quote from an Amsterdam-based newspaper: "They are being spat on, threatened, called a disgrace for their people: gay and transgender refugees have a hard time in asylum seeker centers". Men from Syria, Iraq and Iran who were threatened have been relocated.

Already in October, the main Dutch LGBT rights organization COC called upon the government to ensure the safety of LGBT refugees, stating that many of them are too scared to file a complaint. However, the government does not want to implement segregated locations for refugees who have been the victim of violence on the basis of their sexual orientation on a national level. Deputy Immigration Minister Klaas Dijkhoff (VVD) called the practice of separating migrants on the basis of sexuality "stigmatizing". Prime Minister Rutte stated that segregation is not the solution and that every migrant has to comply with Dutch "values and norms" from day one. Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher (PvdA) proposed that aggressive migrants, not LGBT migrants, be the ones who should be relocated. Perhaps it would be an even better idea to send these aggressive people on the first plane back to the Middle East.

In any case, the Amsterdam-based aid organization felt compelled to nonetheless relocate LGBT asylum seekers: after two violent incidents, it stated that "we could not guarantee their safety".

[DavidB.]

"The refugees posing on this picture in front of the Amsterdam Central Station are looking for host families. They are not safe in the asylum seeker centers in which they are currently staying. They are being discriminated by fellow refugees on a daily basis due to their sexual orientation."

This post, by Dutch NGO "Secret Garden" for LGBTs with a non-native ethnic/cultural background, went viral.

I have been critical of the migrant wave, yet LGBT migrants are exactly the ones whom we should welcome in our countries, since they are simply not safe elsewhere. I am ashamed that they are basically begging to stay in a safe place. The government is responsible for this, and even if I am glad the Amsterdam-based organization is finding homes for these people it is a disgrace that this is happening. It is also a disgrace that we are admitting people to our countries who make asylum seeker centers unsafe for LGBT people.

[DavidB.]

In Finland, the asylum seekers keep molesting young girls at such a rate that a school in the town of Heinola has issued a statement in which the school advises girls not to go outside alone after dark (in December that means after 3 pm). In the statement the principal also says that girls should avoid making eye contact with "a group of men" and that they should think what kind of effects "an easygoing behaviour" among girls might have on men from certain countries. (So basically she's blaming the victims as well.)

The whole of Europe is turning into Rotherham. Here's a wild idea: instead of curfews for our girls, why don't we try locking up the animals who are molesting them? But I guess not: according to our civil servants in the immigration office, not even a conviction of rape will prevent an asylum seeker from breing granted asylum if he meets the criteria of a "refugee".

I have never been to Finland, but it saddens and angers me so much that Finnish politicians are allowing to happen the same things that were already known to be extremely damaging in other European countries.

[DavidB.]

Geert Wilders called upon people to protest a new asylum seeker center in Geldermalsen, a small rural town in the center of the Netherlands. Tonight, people did. Violently. Two policemen have been injured; eleven people have been arrested. The members of the municipal council and the mayor had to be evacuated and brought to safe places. Hundreds of people hurled stones and fireworks.

[DavidB.]

Fun after the winter break: a municipality in the province of Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands, will make security personnel guard children who pass an asylum seeker center while cycling to their high schools. An NGO for migrants called this measure "stigmatizing".

[DavidB.]

In the lighter news

In Denmark a network of useful idiots humanitarians helps smuggle refugees to Sweden, one of the persons behind it are Annika Holm Nielsen (who are member of the Red Greens and ran as candidate to parliament last election and received 551 votes). They're widely celebrated by both the far right and far left, but for entirely differents reasons.

Amazing. Gotta love Denmark. If only the Dutch far left would be getting these people out of the country instead of helping them in... But why, exactly, do they do this? Because they consider Sweden more humanitarian than Denmark?

[DavidB.]

Some Finnish women have a peculiar way of taking advantage of the migrants in their country. According to this article, older Finnish women use newly arrived refugees as prostitutes.

[DavidB.]

Related to that, I am crossposting this from the Dutch thread:

In response to the unfortunate events in Cologne, Geert Wilders seeks to legalize pepper spray in order for women to be able to defend themselves against, as Wilders likes to call them, "Middle Eastern testosterone bombs". In order to raise awareness for his plans (and to get attention...), he will organize an event in Spijkenisse (a rather depressing "white flight" working-class suburb of Rotterdam where the PVV performs extremely well) where he will distribute what he calls "resistance spray"; apparently there is a spray containing coloring agents that is currently legal and is a (weaker) substitute for real pepper spray. Of course, this is sure to cause more controversy, and people will be outraged, and Wilders will get attention and go up in the polls.

I myself find the wording "resistance spray" to be rather unfortunate (since it contains a WWII connotation that is definitely intentional), but that is just my opinion.

[DavidB.]

The Netherlands officially expects to take in 90,000 asylum seekers this year. Of course, the government is going to do fyck all to prevent that.

[DavidB.]

Austria introduces an upper limit of roughly 38,000 migrants. This "Obergrenze" has been at the center of the German migrant debate as well, with virtually everyone claiming it is inhumane and unconstitutional (remarkable how many constitutional scholars are in our parliament). Guess this means we'll be getting more of them.

The Netherlands will do this when hell freezes over. Not because people claim it's inhumane or unconstitutional (that would be too politically correct for Dutch politicians...), but because the government simply doesn't seem to care about the number of people that are coming -- ironically with the exact same result as in Germany.

[DavidB.]

Anyway, I was subpoenaed to appear in court as a witness. It was about a guy who - in opposition to the refugee policy - had declared his wish to "poke out the eyes and cut off the tongue" of a certain politician last autumn. Defendant refused to appear in court yesterday. Judge couldn't say how the trial will continue. On the upside, because he wasn't there the accused didn't come to know my name and how I look. Because I don't have any pepper spray yet you know.

That's sad Hope you'll be safe. Pepper spray is legal in Germany, right? Though obviously no one should need to have it...

[DavidB.]

Has anyone posted the stories about ing spivs in Turkey making a killing selling fake lifejackets? Honestly, I don't know  how anyone can look at themselves in the mirror after padding a child-sized lifejacket with sponge, but apparently it's the thing to do nowadays.

Nope, but here is a Guardian article on this. Disgusting.

[DavidB.]

I guess that's what you get when there is such a big gap between most of the media's portrayal of events on the one hand and many people's perception of the actual situation on the other hand. That vacuum is bound to be filled.

[DavidB.]

The point is obviously that two wrongs don't make a right. Of course all right-wingers in this thread found it horrible that asylum seekers were being attacked in Woerden and that Reker was attacked in Cologne. But the fact that some countries, particularly Germany, have a problem with nasty far-right extremists doesn't render the negative consequences of mass immigration any less problematic.

The right-wing extremists are German/Swedish/Dutch etc. nationals. Unfortunately, we have to deal with them and the problems they cause. They will not go away. However, we don't necessarily have to deal with the problems of mass immigration,  because our countries are basically choosing to let these people come in. We could stop taking in migrants and one could reasonably assume that the problems these migrants would cause will also not happen. That is not the case with right-wing extremists, who are here already (even if taking in more migrants will obviously lead to more right-wing extremist violence, but I don't think that threat should be relevant for policymakers -- right-wing extremists who engage in violence should simply be punished).