Europe-Middle East-Africa Refugee Crisis General Thread

[Helsinkian]

But rize of nationalist parties may tear down th EU

God, I hope so. The EU is a failed project. And the talk of the EU being responsible for maintaining peace in (Western) Europe is mostly non-sense; NATO gets the credit for that.

[Helsinkian]

Even a seriously broken clock like Austrian Chancellor Faymann (Social Dems) is right once:

Faymann today said he favours a EU-wide asylum quota plan that basically forces non-complying countries like Poland, Portugal, Baltics etc. (which are taking in almost no asylum seekers) to take them, or face a cut in their EU-net receipts. The big "net payers" like Germany, Austria, Sweden etc. (who are also taking the lion's share of asylum seekers) would simply stop payments to the net receivers who are lazy in taking in the refugees. Apparently, these countries only think the EU's good if they receive money from us, but not when it comes to taking responsibility. Time to apply the thumbscrews on these countries and cut EU funding for them ...

Given a choice between accepting thousands of asylum seekers and losing a certain amount of € in subsidies, I am sure plenty of people would choose the latter.

[Helsinkian]

Why do Saudi-Arabia, UAE or Iran not take in asylum seekers from Iraq and Syria? Why should it be Europe's responsibility to settle them?

[Helsinkian]

Why do Saudi-Arabia, UAE or Iran not take in asylum seekers from Iraq and Syria? Why should it be Europe's responsibility to settle them?

Because not everybody should act like an asshole?

So having borders now means that one is an asshole?

[Helsinkian]

Why do Saudi-Arabia, UAE or Iran not take in asylum seekers from Iraq and Syria? Why should it be Europe's responsibility to settle them?

Why do people who tout the superiority of "Western values" and the institutions of liberal democracy want migrants to take refuge within the borders of authoritarian regimes?

They are countries which have a culture much closer to the culture of the Syrians and Iraqis, thereby making it easier for them to integrate (Shias to Iran, Sunnis to the other Gulf countries).

Authoritarian regimes are what they are used to. By moving from one authoritarian state to another, they will avoid experiencing a culture shock.

[Helsinkian]

Why do Saudi-Arabia, UAE or Iran not take in asylum seekers from Iraq and Syria? Why should it be Europe's responsibility to settle them?

Why do people who tout the superiority of "Western values" and the institutions of liberal democracy want migrants to take refuge within the borders of authoritarian regimes?

They are countries which have a culture much closer to the culture of the Syrians and Iraqis, thereby making it easier for them to integrate (Shias to Iran, Sunnis to the other Gulf countries).

Authoritarian regimes are what they are used to. By moving from one authoritarian state to another, they will avoid experiencing a culture shock.

I will remind you of this comment when Russians invade.

I am a military reservist. If Russia were to attack, I would fight for my country, not flee to other countries. And that's exactly what the young men of Syria and Iraq ought to be doing: supporting their government by enlisting to fight against the monster that is ISIS, not fleeing the country.

Over two thirds of the asylum seekers coming to Finland are men of military age. I wonder what they would do in the scenario you describe. Since they were not willing to fight for their own country, I doubt they would fight for this country either. They are happy to claim the social welfare paid to them by the Finnish state, but if Russia were to attack, they would be on the first ship to Stockholm.

[Helsinkian]

ITT: Middle class White people living in liberal democracies lecturing poor nonwhite people living in authoritarian regimes on what they should do.

Today I read an interview of a 21 year old Iraqi asylum seeker in a Finnish newspaper. He said that he had paid 11,000 euros (that's 12,245 dollars, for the American readers) for his trip from Baghdad to Finland. If you think poor Iraqis can afford to spend that kind of money, you're fooling yourself. Many of these people are middle-class themselves; some are upper middle-class. The truly poor Syrians and Iraqis cannot afford to leave the country let alone travel to Europe.

For the same amount of money that the European states use for the upkeep of a single asylum seeker, we could vastly improve the lives of 10-20 more needy Syrians and Iraqis living in the camps in neighbouring countries or displaced inside their own country. But the Left does not want that, because the Left has its own agenda in advancing third world immigration into Europe: getting more voters for the Socialist parties, now that the native Europeans are growing tired of Socialism. I believe you admitted this in an earlier thread, so this is not merely a conspiracy theory.

[Helsinkian]

I've read a few posters talk about "we should put these refugees here, and those refugees there". Hint : you don't get to put people wherever the hell you want. They're not livestock. They're people. I guess that also seems lost on a number of people nowadays.

They don't get to come wherever the hell they want. States have the right to control their borders and decide who gets in and who gets to stay. A state that has lost control of its borders is essentially a failed state.

Also, of course these people are fleeing appalling countries and situations, and of course, once they do, they don't just stop one mile after the border. Once you flee, you ask yourself : "where could I get the best opportunity to start a new life and potentially help my relatives who've stayed at home?" So they keep on travelling until they get to financially healthy(-ish) countries such as Germany, France, the UK or Sweden.

These people are not refugees. They are economic migrants. And, as has been stated, they are not even the most vulnerable ones nor the poorest: those who can afford to travel to Europe are the relatively well-off people compared to their poorer countrymen who remain either in their native country or in camps in neighbouring countries.

With one billion euros we could either give a comfortable life to a thousand middle-class Syrians in Europe or we could vastly improve the lives of 10,000-20,000 poor Syrians living in Lebanon and Turkey or displaced within Syria. Which is preferable?

Mass immigration to Western countries is the least effective way of ridding the world of of suffering and poverty.

[Helsinkian]

Last year 3,600 asylum seekers arrived in Finland. The estimate for this year is up to 30,000 asylum seekers. That's an eightfold increase to the previous year. The flood gates are open, and Finland is set to become the new Sweden.

In a populist move to gather political points among those naive enough to support the wave of asylum seekers (and perhaps to deliberately annoy his coalition partner, the Finns Party), our Prime Minister Juha Sipilä (Centre Party) has decided to offer his own house in Kempele, Northern Finland, as an accomodation for circa 20 asylum seekers.

With the news of this spreading internationally, I can only guess that his decision will lead to an influx of thousands more.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/pm_sipila_pledges_oulu_home_to_refugees/8282824

[Helsinkian]

This is the end of Europe as we know it. Get ready to say goodbye to the continent of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In 60 years or so Europe, save for its eastern fringes, will be what Syria is today.

[Helsinkian]

I am amazed by Finland doing this, the Nordic country that could have saved itself. Why don't politicians see what's happening to Sweden? I'd surely feel f**ked if I would have voted for the Finns Party.

Most Finnish politicans have always naively looked up to Sweden. When proposing new legislation in any issue, it has often been enough of a justification to say that "Sweden already has a similar law".

The voters of the Finns Party certainly don't like this, but unfortunately the party's leader, Timo Soini, is an egotist who puts his own career ahead of the party and the country: now that he's achieved his dream of becoming a cabinet minister, he's not going to pull his party from the coalition. He'll probably resign from active politics in a few years, after completing his term as minister, and honestly I'm not sure he cares what happens to the party after him.

[Helsinkian]

In the LOL category: the supposedly 17-year old refugee from Iraqi Kurdistan who appeared in an emotional television interview with Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipilä - leading Sipilä to open one of his houses for refugees - turns out to be 20 years old in reality. What's more, he's been in jail in the past and is posting hateful comments toward Finns on his Facebook page.

I rest my case...

That's him on the right:



"Child war refugee 1939 & child war refugee 2015". This is in reference to the leftists who argue that because Sweden took in Finnish child refugees during the Winter War, Finland has the obligation to take in Syrians and Iraqis...

[Helsinkian]

I used to be naive and think that the EU could be reformed: that it could somehow still return to the days of being a loose coalition centred around free-trade. Now I see that I was mistaken. There are only two possible future scenarios for the EU: a) it becomes a centralised super-state, or b) it is dissolved entirely. I hope for the latter scenario, but the first one is the more likely.

[Helsinkian]

Not a fan of the Finnish government, but their current trolling of PS is very amusing (and way better than the Danish handling of DF), especially taking into account that PS are members of said government..

They say that history repeats itself. The predecessor party of PS was SMP, the Finnish Rural Party, which got a big electoral victory in 1983 on a populist platform (immigration was not an issue back then; their populism was rather about being anti-establishment in general and competing with the Centre Party for the rural votes). The Finnish mainstream parties included SMP in coalition governments 1983−1990, the result of which was the complete collapse of the party.

I am sure some Centre and NCP politicians are hoping that the same will happen to PS. Their support has come down a couple of percentage points, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it continuing to fall.

[Helsinkian]

Of the asylum seekers who came to Finland last month, two thirds were Iraqi. Somalis were the second biggest group. Less than five percent were Syrians. Which makes it all the more absurd to see the media here combine the coverage of the asylum seeker crisis with the coverage of the war in Syria.

Three quarters of the asylum seekers are adult men, yet the media chooses to use images of women and children in order to mislead the public and appeal to the emotions.

I am quite ok with right wing extremists being trolled and, as they usually have a rather destructive influence, would consider that the right moral thing to do.

It's hard to see PS as any sort of extremists after their involvement in the current government where they have done very little to stop the influx of tens of thousands of asylum seekers. Quite the opposite, the party leadership has sold out on their principles in order to become part of the establishment.

Not really a fan of anti-Swedish parties either, though the "bättre folk"-crowd might be emphasizing that too much..

While I don't want to sidetrack this thread, I can't see how it's "anti-Swedish" to demand that Finnish speaking students should get to decide themselves what languages they study at school. That is the issue that has been in the focus of the recent discussion.

[Helsinkian]

"How Do Syrian Women Feel about the Men Leaving for Europe as Refugees?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8n-eo5fDYU

[Helsinkian]

Send 'em all there then, lets see how it plays out.

They can start by keeping the thousands of Iraqis who are traveling through Sweden to seek asylum in Finland.

[Helsinkian]

Last year 3,600 asylum seekers arrived in Finland. The estimate for this year is up to 30,000 asylum seekers.

The new estimate is 50,000 asylum seeker by the year's end. God knows how many next year.

The numbers coming to Finland per capita are now fully comparable to those coming to Germany and Sweden. Up to 70 percent of the asylum seekers are Iraqi. Very few are Syrians. It seems that the Syrians want to go to Germany and Sweden, while all the Iraqis want to come to Finland. They are well aware of the statistics which show that Finland has been much more lenient in granting asylum or another form of residence permit to Iraqis compared to the other Nordic countries. (For example, Finnish and Swedish officials disagree on how dangerous Baghdad is.) And while Sweden has a bilateral agreement with Iraq on returning rejected asylum seekers, Finland has no similar arrangements. (Thus we see that Finland's immigration policy has not really been less lax than that of  Sweden; there simply have been less asylum seekers wanting to come here, but now that has changed fast.) The government is now trying to tighten the policy with regard to Iraqis, but it'll take time and a lot of damage has already been done.

Last year Finland only had about 40,000 muslims living in the country, so the number of muslims is set to double in a single year.

[Helsinkian]

Recently the asylum seekers in Oulu, Northern Finland, organised a protest where they demanded better food at their accomodation. The protest was led by an Iraqi man who said that the food (the same food eaten by Finnish school children) they were given was suited only for dog-food. This man, as we find out, was a Lieutenant in the Iraqi Army before he left for Europe. What hope does Iraq have of defeating ISIS when even their officers are deserting in order to go to Europe? (Furthermore, what kind of gourmet dinners are they serving in the Iraqi Army?)



I can't see how any country could consider desertion as valid reason for granting asylum. If such a decision were made, how could any country punish its own deserters after that?

[Helsinkian]

Germany is now expecting for 1.5 million asylum seekers to arrive this year: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11911291/Germany-expects-up-to-1.5-million-migrants-in-2015.html

[Helsinkian]

Today Finland's Minister of the Interior announced that, according to the information of the Finnish authorities, the asylum seekers who have recently arrived to Finland include some individuals who have fought in the ranks of ISIS.

[Helsinkian]

"Sweden's fastest 14 year old" Saad Alsaud (pictured with his fellow students) runs 100 meters in 11.82 seconds in a school race, reports Kristianstadsbladet.



If I didn't know better, I'd guess that he's at least 25.

[Helsinkian]

Yeah, here all the politicians are repeating the jargon that the asylum seekers are fleeing the people like those who committed the attacks... Well, apparently at least that one Syrian asylum seeker wasn't.

But as for those who are genuinely fleeing ISIS, doesn't this attack prove to them that they are not safe in Europe either?

[Helsinkian]

In a populist move to gather political points among those naive enough to support the wave of asylum seekers (and perhaps to deliberately annoy his coalition partner, the Finns Party), our Prime Minister Juha Sipilä (Centre Party) has decided to offer his own house in Kempele, Northern Finland, as an accomodation for circa 20 asylum seekers.

While the Sipilä house has not yet opened its doors to asylum seekers, there is already one asylum seeker accomodation centre in the small town of Kempele, intended for underage asylum seekers, whom the media has called "the most vulnerable" group.

Well, yesterday two of those "refugees" raped a 14 year old Finnish girl in Kempele. The suspects, Afghanis, are officially under 18 themselves, though experience (and dental based age determination) has shown that many 20-something asylum seekers lie about their age and pose as 16 or 17 year olds in order to improve their chances of staying in the country, so who knows how old they really are.

According to Finland's current laws, crimes committed in Finland during the time when the asylum seeker's application is processed have no bearing on the decision of granting asylum. Now Sipilä has called an emergency meeting with the ministers of the Interior and Justice, saying he wants to re-examine that law. It's not like this is the first such case in Finland, but apparently Sipilä was willing to shake some of his naivety only when it happened in his home town.

A while ago the Finnish police announced that they would no longer report that the suspects in a given case are asylum seekers (apparently there was an uncomfortably large number of those cases). And even in this case, the police first only announced to the public that the suspects were "of a foreign background"; commercial media then reported the details of them being Afghani asylum seekers. State media, inclined to self-censorship in these issues, repeated that information only when it was commented on by Sipilä himself.

In other news, tuberculosis and diphtheria, diseases thought long gone from this country, are making a come-back now with several cases reported among the asylum seekers.

Is this the "enrichment" of which we have been hearing?

[Helsinkian]

Well, yesterday two of those "refugees" raped a 14 year old Finnish girl in Kempele.

Within a week, there have been two other similar cases: another 14-year old and an 18-year old were raped and in both cases the suspect is an asylum seeker.