Europe-Middle East-Africa Refugee Crisis General Thread

[Simfan34]

Artificial countries are bad for global stability. Particularly when they are terrorist entities.

[Simfan34]

In the German city of Tübingen, the Green mayor Boris Palmer, threatens to confiscate [unused] private property to forcefully house asylum seekers and/or illegals ...

FF

No, that's not an FF move. That is a violation of basic property rights, which is at the core of any liberal understanding of liberty.

[Simfan34]

In the German city of Tübingen, the Green mayor Boris Palmer, threatens to confiscate [unused] private property to forcefully house asylum seekers and/or illegals ...

FF

No, that's not an FF move. That is a violation of basic property rights, which is at the core of any liberal understanding of liberty.

"Property rights" are among the most unimportant rights there is, and certainly rank waaaay below the fundamental right to housing.

What a ridiculous thing to say.

[Simfan34]

This is obviously not a sustainable state of affairs.

European states can either do nothing and see waves of immigrants keep on coming, or actually spend reasonable amounts of money on defence, act to ensure stability in the source countries, and stem the flow.

[Simfan34]

I am not trying to get your sympathy. You as a person are completely irrelevant in this discussion. I am trying to explain the political realities in Europe and what I think will happen.

I will tell you what will happen. WWIII will happen. And sooner than you expect. Pandering to racial resentment rarely ends well.

And what shall this war be? Eritrea and Syria vs the EU?

[Simfan34]

I am not trying to get your sympathy. You as a person are completely irrelevant in this discussion. I am trying to explain the political realities in Europe and what I think will happen.

I will tell you what will happen. WWIII will happen. And sooner than you expect. Pandering to racial resentment rarely ends well.

And what shall this war be? Eritrea and Syria vs the EU?

As usual: Germany invading Denmark, of course.

I may be jesting here, but it is sad jesting.

Surely France and Poland are "the usual", no?

[Simfan34]

I find the notion that ag is ruining any thread incredible.

Why?

Because it seems to be Xahar's learned opinion that Europeans have nothing to contribute on any subject unless it is perfect concordance with the wishes of those of, ah, entirely or partially non-European heritage, whatever those wishes might be. He's made this rather clear on numerous occasions, and, I guess, he's entitled to that view.

Is it? I've known Xahar for many years, but I've never drawn that conclusion.

[Simfan34]

The idea articulated by some that we should reject national differences and identities in a full throttled embrace of multicultural is not just extreme but paradoxical. Doing such a thing would presumably erase cultural differences between peoples.

I think we humans can find a way to live together peacefully without being reduced to a state of culturally indistinct greyness. The idea seems practically dystopic, even. If there was just one ("progessive", sure) world monoculture human civilisation would be far worse for it. We all have our own countries. People in need should not be left to suffer due to insecurities about identities. But the idea that any culture should be willing to wholly surrender its distinct identity and customs to merely accommodate outsiders is an indefensible one. Migrants should be willing to abide by prevailing customs on the host country, not the other way around.

Fundamentally, Europe needs to get its act together to stop the flow. If they want a viable state of affairs they must be willing to make sacrifices and take a more proactive stance towards the conflicts and other causes of migration. Otherwise they will have to pay a far higher cost.

[Simfan34]

Colombian refugees?

[Simfan34]

The only workable solution may be something drastic-- an EU-backed UN special administration or maybe even a NATO Trust Territory lasting for a medium-term period. Crazy idea, of course. But it's unlikely that there's any real way to have the situation in Syria, Libya, and Iraq solve themselves soon on their own accord, peacefully.

You could even lessen the amount of "boots on the ground" needed by relying on local troops led by foreign commanders and a strict recruitment and commissioning system. That way you could maintain peace and entice migrants to return to their native countries.

That reminds me: on a tangential note, if I was a particularly diabolical Indian Prime Minister, I might attempt to forment a migrant worker uprising in one or more of the Gulf states, sweep in claiming R2P of nationals, and manipulate the place into becoming a Union Territory. Aden was once part of the Bombay Presidency, after all.

[Simfan34]

Could the traffickers not just switch to alternative routes through Romania or Croatia?

Isn't that how those trucks carrying migrants travelled?

[Simfan34]

It is hard for many, after seeing a constant litany of portrayals of them as attackers and terrorists, to simply see Arabs and Middle Easterners in general as victims.

[Simfan34]

I have not seen much evidence to back up the claim that most of these refugees are part of the "educated middle-class". Indeed, I haven't seen any, aside from these fact these people could cobble together several thousand dollars to pay the smugglers, and that they had pictures lying around. I find this an interesting claim, though, and would like to see some support for it.

If governments emphasized that the migrants were mainly "middle class and educated, Kurdish, or Christian", I suspect the reception would be far warmer.

[Simfan34]

Okay, that's quite enough you guys.

[Simfan34]

Sturgeon saying Scotland is willing to take in 1000 refugees. A pointless gesture on a meaningless scale. If she was serious she'd propose 50,000. Even that would be pointless, because she has no control over immigration.

[Simfan34]

Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer will invite Viktor Orban to the next conference meeting of his party's state parliamentary group. This is quite a big move considering that the German media and political class have painted Orban as an autocrat who's one step away from erecting concentration camps for refugees. Seehofer has also gone out of his way to criticize Merkel, calling her decision to accept refugees from Hungary a mistake.

(In German) http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/horst-seehofer-wettert-gegen-angela-merkel-in-fluechtlingspolitik-a-1052455.html

Orban IS an autocrat who's one step away from erecting concentration camps for refugees, though.

I believe those would be called "refugee camps".

[Simfan34]

The Austrian broadcaster ORF today said in their main evening news show that more than 80% of Hungarians (!) backed the tough new isolationist policies of the Orban government on the border.

Yet another central European country that wasn't properly de-Nazified (de-Horthyfied?). Very sad.

Now this is too much. Four decades under communist rule and 1956 wasn't enough for you?

[Simfan34]

The Austrian broadcaster ORF today said in their main evening news show that more than 80% of Hungarians (!) backed the tough new isolationist policies of the Orban government on the border.

Yet another central European country that wasn't properly de-Nazified (de-Horthyfied?). Very sad.

Now this is too much. Four decades under communist rule and 1956 wasn't enough for you?

The Soviets did not do proper denazification. They screwed them up - certainly, true. But ideologically they were far too close to being Nazis themselves.

I would begin angrily flapping my arms at this if I did not know you better. In lieu of that, might I ask in what ways were Soviet denazification efforts in the Eastern Bloc insufficient? Surely the "special camps" and the crushing of "neo-fascist bourgeois reaction" in 1956 went far beyond anything in the West? Of course, this completely overlooks the question of whether Horthy deserves to be demonised to such an extent at all, but that's beside the point.

Yes, Orban is a populist who, despite a fair amount of positive attributes, decidedly leaves much to be wanted (particularly his cozying up to the revanchist Putin, despite history), and yes, Jobbik are a utterly loathsome group of ultra-nationalists whose success reflects badly on their country as a whole, but to act as if the entirety of the Hungarian people are somehow exhibiting crypto-Nazi tendencies in favouring strict border controls is patent absurdity.

One would have to completely disregard the fact that these refugees represent a significant financial and logistical burden on their host countries, or that a non-negligible portion of these asylum-seekers appear to be doing so under false or misleading pretenses-- that they are feigning their refugee status and are simply economic migrants, or that they come from ethnoreligious backgrounds that European countries have had difficulty integrating into their societies-- while migrants generally appear to plan on remaining permanently, or that Germany's mercurial policy towards admission means that a transiting country could unexpectedly find itself having to host a large number of refugees. None of these concerns make one a "fascist" or in need of "denazification", as they're entirely reasonable.

It's very easy to condemn the responses of countries like Hungary as morally deficient and anti-humanitarian, and in all fairness it's not hard to see why one would draw such a conclusion. Putting up barbed wire fences to keep out people fleeing a horrific civil war, particularly those escaping ISIL, seeking mere respite from unceasing violence. Stories of children drowning at sea, hundreds of lives lost on capsized boats, are gut-wrenching and instill a sense that anything and everything must be done to stop the loss of life.

It is one thing to criticise those demonising refugees, but criticism of those calling for restraint is another entirely. Such criticism of criticism is unproductive for as long as no viable alternative is being proposed-- and "accept everyone seeking asylum" is not viable from an economic, social, political, logistical, or practical standpoint.

Orban's proposal of setting up refugee camps is in all honesty a more sustainable solution if we are talking in the range of millions. The refugee camps could be planned as medium-term (in the range of 4-7 years) settlements that would provide safety, shelter, and basic sustenance, while being able to sustain their own internal economy and thus provide a meaningful living for their residents. The refugee camps could be allowed a degree of responsible administration. They could have their own institutions-- administrative, educational, medical, etc. The refugees' institutions would be able to employ skilled workers (civil servants, teachers, academics, doctors, etc.) that would otherwise be unable to apply their skill set in another country, as is too often the case with educated immigrants, who instead end up doing menial jobs like driving taxis.

Of course, this is only a viable plan if the conflicts end within that timeframe, otherwise the "temporary settlements" would become "permanent minority enclaves".  This would require, as I've said time and time again, a far more comprehensive European response to the Syrian and Libyan conflicts and a proactive effort to bring it to an end-- that is, direct intervention. This sounds exceedingly drastic, but it must be weighed against the alternative of having to permanently accommodate millions of refugees. In terms of monetary cost-comparison, it's hard to imagine that the former would be more costly, in the long run, than the latter.

It's a matter of political will-- take action now and pay nothing later, or do nothing now and pay the costs later. It's a solution nonetheless-- and one is in no position to criticise those asking questions if they do so without one.

[Simfan34]

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.

It does deserve mention that it's not as if Iraq or Somalia are particularly peaceful places at the moment, nor, indeed, that the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts have nothing to do with each other. People fleeing ISIL are people fleeing ISIL.

Nor do I think that there's anything particularly "misleading" about the media choosing to focus on women and children refugees. It certainly is an emotive focus, but it's one that you see in pretty much every tragedy, since most people are inclined to see women and children as particularly vulnerable (which, in times like these, they generally are). Again, it's also not as if the men aren't suffering or somehow lack the ability to be victims, either.

[Simfan34]

I think we're both fairly reasonable people. I'd be disappointed if you didn't offer your thoughts-- provided you aren't trying to insinuate that refugee camps are comparable to ghettoes.

[Simfan34]

I'm glad some have achieved a degree of normalcy and are learning.

[Simfan34]

The refugees’ path to Europe marked by new threat: land mines

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It seems like it's a matter of time before someone is killed by one of these. Horrific.

[Simfan34]

The Salzburg Red Cross is to build a couple state-of-the-art Scandinavian-style wooden houses for hundreds of asylum seekers in the next 2 months, for the price of 1 million €:

http://www.salzburg24.at/fluechtlinge-rotes-kreuz-errichtet-holzhaeuser-in-salzburg/4464122

State of the art wooden houses?

[Simfan34]

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?

This does not help their case, no.

[Simfan34]

Migrant men are torching tents in Slovenia and take selfies with "victory" signs after it:





I'd take them straight to the next airport and deport them back to where they came from. I'd even be willing to pay for their ticket home if they never come back.

Didn't they come to Europe to escape violence and destruction?