Disappointed with Europe, Thousands of Iraqi Migrants Return Home
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
> “I felt like I couldn’t live in an open society,”
> said Aqeed Hassan, 26, who plays the clarinet and,
> back in Baghdad after going to Finland, is trying
> to get a job in a military band.
> “My wife has her head covered, and I didn’t feel like they liked Arabs.”
I'm really happy to know people from Syria, Pakistan, Taiwan & Japan. It's so cool when we all try to understand more about the way we live our every-day life , but on the other hand all of us will feel offended if forced to change it. No matter what "When in Rome, do as the Romans do ...", if you can't just leave.
You mean the Greek subjects of an emperor who spent his time adventuring past the known extent of the world, with all the communications technology the world could offer 2400 years ago? The Greeks who split off from the Asian part of Alexander's empire immediately after he died in a foreign country thousands of miles away?
The empire split after Alexander's death into the Macedonians proper, the Seleucids in Asia, and the Ptolemies in Egypt. The Ptolemies certainly kept a lot of cultural continuity with the Greek / Macedonian world -- so much so that the last Ptolemaic pharaoh, Cleopatra, is believed to have been the first one who was able to speak the Egyptian language (after ruling Egypt for 250 years!). They did set up syncretistic temples, which was standard practice basically everywhere in the classical period. That was an effort to get the Egyptians to accept Greek religion, not the other way around. The Ptolemies even set up a major new city for Greeks. Their accommodations to Egypt weren't particularly impressive.
To the extent that the Greeks and the Macedonians had a common cultural identity, it was because the Macedonians aspired to Greek culture (it seems safe to say that the Ptolemies eventually succeeded at this). The Greeks didn't think highly of the barbarians to their north.
The Romans, IIRC, were uncommonly willing to allow subjects to participate in Roman society as long as they followed the rules. This did not mean that the Romans themselves changed their own lifestyles.
The article talks about more than one migrant. This poor Iraqi's story sounds a lot like a refugee. How safe would you feel after that happening to you?
> “In the early days when we arrived, the people
> were impressed with us,” he said. “They were taking
> pictures of us, inviting us into their homes.
> They liked our brown skin and our dark hair.”
Which is not bad in itself, but can be dangerous when there's no substance to that, and their hosts become bored with that "cause" and forget about them or turn hostile.
If they can't survive on their own, they SHOULD go back to where they came from and make a life there.
Now, the main point in the whole migrant / refugee crisis seems to be that many people who would be economic migrants are using the asylum system to try to enter certain EU countries, but there also this thing that the-would-be-legitimate asylum seekers are also are prone to have much better economic future if they are granted in asylum in country like Finland: differentiating between those is very difficult. This is why it's difficult mess.
edit. is, not isn't.
when not having documents == {theft, murder, fraud}
What are psychologists going to do? Tell them they have been brainwashed ?
western psychologists have very little clue as to how to deal with things like these.
It seems like a reasonable suggestion to me that people visit trained professionals rather than quacks, or people who will give advice or 'help' skewed by their own personal, perhaps fundamentalist, beliefs.
Curiously, psychology itself was quite mixed with religion in the past; in some places, it still is. I remember reading Polish psychology texts as a kid, quite a lot of them had serious Catholic undertones (and sometimes explicit references). Which is sort-of understandable when you can count on religion as being an important part of your average person's life.
There's not much of a culture shock. You probably think they lived captive or in some "iron curtain" regime. They know everything about Europe, the follow the same tv shows, they use the internet etc. Including poorer people.
They don't come because suddenly they were let free and can now experience the world for the first time. They come because they had a devastating war in their country, and they, sadly (for them), can no longer stay there safely.
About war yes, but lots of those people have not "suffered" gender-inequality or homo-phobic state-politics -- In fact those things might be part of what the believe and support themselves.
Those things are part of their culture -- and grassroots -- not stuff that some bad regime imposed upon the masses. The same way they are not "imposed" upon the people in the Bible Belt.
And lest we feel much superior, those kind of laws and public sentiment was common place in the far more wealthy and educated West too. Just 50 years ago there was open, legal even, segregation. Just today there's widespread support for police brutality. And just 75 years ago several million jews/homosexuals/communists and gypsies were obliterated in the center of "civilized Europe".
And if you think those times are "ancient history" and can't understand why everyone hasn't moved forward since then, just remember stuff that's still acceptable (or going on anyway) in some places, from the death penalty and racially motivated police shootings, to mass surveillance. Or consider the fact that "sodomy" stopped being a crime only 10-15 years ago in tons of places. And that "moving forward" is easier when you're not in a state of war or even fearful of those preaching "moving forward".
Precisely. Indoctrination literally from the moment you are born is unimaginably hard to undo. Impossible, even.
On an aggregate level, perhaps, but on an individual level, not at all.
From what I've seen, the ability to handle the culture shock varies wildly from person to person and is strongly correlated with age.
The younger a person is, the better they adapt to the new situation. IMO the two main reasons for this are that younger people are more flexible intellectually, and that a significant number of them (but not all!) have had more exposure to other cultures due to the Internet.
I also get the impression that frustration and language skill are correlated. The ability to learn a new language is obviously also correlated with age and educational history.
Note that there are outliers in all directions, but these are the trends that I observed.
[1] http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/gsi2-overview-1.png
ISIS is not creating Sharia in the commonly understood sense. It's creating a Nazi-version of Sharia.
I suggest you get a few (I would also suggest from respectable universities, not polemicists) and compare what they describe to ISIS.
https://fullfact.org/law/uks-sharia-courts/
> While feuding couples have to at least consider mediation before going to court, it doesn't override family law. A court has to sign off on any agreement made after divorce for it to be legally binding, and won't do so if the judge thinks it's unfair.
> In 2013, the High Court was asked by an Orthodox Jewish couple to accept the ruling of a Jewish religious court on post-divorce family arrangements. The judge said that while the agreement would carry weight, it would be non-binding—neither party could get around English law by agreeing to abide by the decision of another tribunal.
edit: I mean practically, not formally. It's enough that violations of host country's laws stay unreported and violations of whatever other norms are punished unofficially.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-go_area#Contemporary_no-go_...
Getting people from oppressive cultures who end up living in isolation with others like them to suddenly start exercising their new rights is a hard problem which can't simply be wished out of existence.
This (certainly as far as I'm aware) isn't true. The laws and courts of England and Wales apply in England and Wales, and the relevant local laws and courts (e.g. Scottish laws in Scotland etc) apply elsewhere in the UK.
In terms of Sharia, there is a voluntary arbitration system for civil issues as an alternative to the civil courts, the same as the Beth Din Jewish courts voluntarily used for Jewish civil issues in the UK.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/anders-breivik-trial-lu...
From your link:
Local police forces denied the claims [of no-
go areas]
Katie Hopkins could not name areas of Britain
that were no-go areas because it would not be
"legally accurate"
British Prime Minister David Cameron described
Steven Emerson as "clearly a complete idiot".What else would they do if the claims are not true?
Either way, that instance was related to drug dealing, not Sharia law.
1. http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-wh...
> this guy wasn't really a migrant
> he was pretty close-minded in regards to integrating into a new
> culture/diet/environment
1. Take in all the refugess
2. ...
3. Integration done.
It's an uphill battle for any country that relies on sweeping issues under the rug instead of managing them up front.
If you're going to talk about "integration" (read: assimilation), it's worth remembering that they were there first, and it's the Chinese immigrants who are now the majority that has sidelined them.
You can look into Iran, Iraq and even Afghanistan. Unfortunately they didn't have a Lee Kuan Yew to draw in the line. My mum told me how no one cared about Halal only sections in Iran, my dad said the same about Iraq even though they would identify as muslims.
It worked well enough for the influx of Vietnamese refugees too.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3412....
With 28% of our population being born overseas, we're doing integration okay (21% if you discount UK and kiwiland - and our #1 country of import in recent years is China). For comparison, the UK is 12% and the US is 14%. If you look at the current migrant rate (migrants/1000 pop/year), there are only two sizeable western countries higher than Australia, being Norway and Spain. If you exclude conflict areas, there are no other large countries higher than Australia[1].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migra...
Basically, the WAP is dead as a dodo as of 40 years ago. The idea that Australia is an insular country afraid of immigration is clearly a myth once you look at the stats. Of course, that doesn't sell newspapers.
In short, no, we haven't gone backwards. We're actually a success story, it's just that we have a very visible wart on our nose at the moment (thank you, politics).
--
[1] this data is from 2014, which is before Germany took in 1% of it's population in the form of Syrian refugees
Edit: For half a decade I was an expat in a monocultural country. Being open-minded (giving in more often than demanding) and member of a too small community to be considered a threat I could enjoy peace to a greater extent than everywhere else before - even as a member of the majority group in my own country. Probably that's why I'm very bearish regarding multiculturalism.
> I wonder, what is the percentage of those hundreds of thousands who do not have the same mindset.
Rather than wondering how many people do share that mindset you wonder how many do not share that mindset. This comes across (to me) as if you're coming from a starting position of "they all share this mindset" and are looking to see how wrong you are.
Your sensitivity to it maybe illustrates that you are much closer to it politically and are easily offended.
Islamism is an ideology -- or arguably a catch-all term for a number of ideologies -- that want to force Islam into the government, law and everything.
http://www.danielpipes.org/954/distinguishing-between-islam-...
The average Iraqi or Syrian isn't Islamist. E.g. the Alawites in Syria aren't Islamists, and the former Baath party in Iraq wasn't either.
How about we treat their opinion as "unknown" rather than a foregone conclusion (for either side)? Is this too much to ask?
> 2. ...
Learning Finnish won't solve every problem of integration, but without it, I would suggest that integration is impossible.
Also, chances are Finland doesn't teach asylum seekers Finnish while they await that verdict. That makes sense if that process doesn't take much time, but it is hard to make due process take little time if there suddenly are many asylum seekers.
This is such an important point - I'm German, living in Australia, and the Germans here tend to hang out almost exclusively with other Germans, same goes for the Chinese etc. I haven't yet seen a good solution for that "insulation" - It takes real effort and motivation to step outside of your comfort zone, you can't force people to do so, they'll quickly bounce back.
Honestly, it just comes down to being open minded, which has to happen on an individual level. I'm open minded by necessity, because there are very few of my race in the USA, much less my current city.
I have a Greek acquaintance who lives in my city's unofficial Greek neighbourhood. Everything from groceries to bakeries and cafés, it's all Greek and he doesn't like to stray much from his routine in these shops. All the owners and patrons know each other personally. They get to feel like they're still back home. It keeps them sheltered a bit too much from the rest of us, but hey - they have a real community versus me that doesn't know the first name of anyone that serves me in any of the shops I frequent.
There are values that are the same across all Europe and those should be the focus of integration. Learning local language is not one of them.
But this is exactly what they want to cause, chaos and civil unrest, so these same people who benefit from selling weapons to war zones, can push in more laws like the TTIP during times of civil unrest, to support their militant and money based control systems.
Americans are one party, it is the Iraqis and Syrians themselves who are responsible for much of the mess, and let us not begin with Qatar, Saudi, Kuwaiti funders and Iran and its proxies.
The nice simple narrative to bash the America is much more fun even though intellectually lazy.
This applies to a large segment of migrants and refugees from the middle east.
I can say this because I did immigrate from there.
It's hard to argue with people who have been brainwashed that everything good comes from gods who also demand all those superficial rituals and arbitrary cultural norms. Questioning their rituals throws their whole worldview and morality out the window and they aren't exactly appreciative for that.
There's also a sense of entitlement, because: "The destruction of our country is largely the responsibility of the West". This mindset is very prevalent. So instead of appreciation for being taken in, there's discontent because reality is not turning out like they imagined it to be.
Have I missed something about the word "migrant"?
> Have I missed something about the word "migrant"?
In Europe, in past couple of years, 'migrant' has almost become a synonym for asylum seekers and refugees.
Doesn't mater how you paint the picture the moment these guys ended up in Turkey and kept going west they became economical immigrants, and they don't even stop at the first European country they get into they strive to go deeper and deeper to countries that (they think) will give them more benefits.
Heck as we speak you have anywhere between 75,000 and 300,000 "migrants" holding their fort in France (Mainly in places like Clais, Dippe, Rouen etc.) waiting to get into the UK and constantly avoiding registration in France in order not to get "stuck" there.
And the fact that you can hardly have an open discussion about this without being labeled as a racist is just mind boggling and the worst part is that it will make things 100 worse down the line because the pressure that the left imposes on everyone will just means that the whole situation will literally explode when it will reach the boiling point and were not that far off.
Please understand that some people think that people that have "fled" through multiple safe countries might not be the ones who most desperately needs help.
Huh? Where did I indicate I want other people to pay the price? We live in a democratic society and I believe our government should use the money we give them via taxes to help take in refugees. If you disagree vote for a party that doesn't want to help. I'm not sure where you're from but if you're in the same part of the world as me you're not going to have much luck.
>> "That's the whole problem with this whole "social/ism" notion that it puts people in power to decide the fate and obligations of others."
Again - these people are voted into power to represent the views of the entire society. This is nothing to do with 'socialism'. If you find yourself consistently annoyed that your government is helping people instead of letting you keep your money (because screw everyone else, right) you're either living in the wrong place or you might want to take a look at what you place importance on because most of the people around you disagree with you, probably for a good reason.
This is not a zero-sum game, If government pays it via taxes they have to stop paying something else or increase taxes.
That is not what irks me most though. What irks me most is that we could help a whole lot more people, -and less fortunate people at that, if we applied the same resources in the neighboring countries instead of giving those resourceful enough to cross Europe "golden tickets".
I would be happy to pay a little extra tax for that, if I knew the money would be spent helping those poor souls that are now hunting cats in the ruins of those towns instead of the current golden tickets mostly to young men who leave their families behind,
That is literally the definition of a zero-sum game.
Anyway, my larger point stands I guess.
So, as a coercive state with guns, if I want to fund some program that costs $1M, I would need to tax much more.
Whether one can be defined as "economic refugee" is questionable. One is not going to get asylum anywhere in Europe because one is fleeing from "unemployment". The expression makes little sense. These are economical migrants, who came to Europe illegally for the most, especially those who can afford to go back home because Germany didn't give them the job, the house and the welfare they thought they were entitled to.
Quite true, asylum is not granted, but it is still very difficult to send back those whose asylum application is rejected. Often it is not even clear where to send people "back" because they have no papers (human traffickers instruct them to destroy or hide passports) and no one can really tell where they came from.
The applicants have a right to appeal the decision; process takes years, then people make a new residence permit application based on "changed circumstances" (for instance, starting a family or having studied something) and more time passes.
This will be particularly flammable in cases where even hardened criminals cannot be deported because now that they are criminals, their home country (if known) definitely won't take them back.
And then the applicants may simply leave one country and emerge in another one as new applicants (unless biometric tracking is really started and made working).
I predict volatile times and violence for Europe.
Leftists and Europeans derided it as a violation of human rights. Now I be many are secretly wishing they had implemented it.
This is hard to say - under "Operation Sovereign Borders" all boat arrivals are military secrets, so there's not much data on arrivals except what the government announces. The Australian navy has literally towed back boats in defiance of international laws (Wikipedia: "In August 2015, minister Dutton stated that since December 2013, 633 people on 20 vessels have been subject to turnback operations, including a boat from Vietnam in July), so at least on that front the boats haven't been quite stopped (they just don't go all the way any more).
And as for the violation of human rights: you have a right to seek asylum. You're conveniently forgetting that people who have been placed on Nauru by the Australian government have been murdered and raped, completely unnecessary.
Quote Wikipedia again:
>In 2015, several staff members from the detention centre wrote an open letter claiming that multiple instances of sexual abuse against women and children had occurred.[6] The letter claimed that the Australian government had been aware of these abuses for over 18 months.[7] This letter added weight to the Moss review which found it possible that "guards had traded marijuana for sexual favours with asylum seeker children".[8] [9][10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru_Regional_Processing_Cent...
We can't really judge the situation there because journalists or international observers are not allowed in.
We do know that IMAs have significantly decreased. As the department reports on the numbers in detention[1] (See figure 1)
The ABC also kept a log of all reports[2]
1) http://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/st...
2) http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-25/log-of-boat-arrivals-a...
That and the big ocean lying between them and everyone else.
You do know that they use to fly to Indonesia, burn their passport and pay for a boat to take them from there to Australia
My point is that the difficulty in making the journey is a major factor. So its not clear cut in deciding how much credit should be assigned to Australia's policy of overseas processing centers.
And the Schengen external border is particularly porous in Greece towards Turkey, because people can cross from Bodrum to Kos in any toy boat. And they will. Then there's also the traffic towards Lambedusa of Italy from Libya, and many other somewhat more difficult routes, but the idea is the same: bypass any border controls, and you can't be sent back.
Of course, a number will drown trying these crossings, but by the time they are about to depart for this hop, they have already paid thousands of $ to traffickers, and if they choose not to try, they've lost their money for nothing.
And once people are in Kos, Greece is not very interested in enforcing the Dublin protocol, and the people are free to move on towards their preferred target countries (Germany, Nordic countries, and UK; that latter one still has border controls at English Channel as they are not in Schengen).
Nothing will stop this migration except EU-wide declaration that you can't get in as a spontaneous asylum seeker, you have to come via camp where your application is processed -- much like Australia.
This is a very hard decision for EU leaders to make, as there has been so much grandstanding about the humanitarian superiority of EU countries (e.g. towards Australia). However, if nothing is done, this migration is the end of EU.
Russia may yet decide to mix things up further by enabling transit of asylum seekers - it would be an even straighter and cheaper route to Finnish and Norwegian borders, and people wouldn't need to pass through the fairly hostile nations in Balkans. And then the only option for Finland and Norway would be to permanently close the border to Russia for all passengers.
1 http://neurope.eu/article/russia-is-using-asylum-seekers-to-...
But Russia has here a great chance of miscalculating and increasing pressure, making Finland close the border and even move towards NATO membership.
> He arrived in Belgium with this in mind:
> “I was expecting them to give me a house,
> a good job, so I could have a better life.
> This is what I was dreaming about.”labor? you mean - like, work, right? europe is full of welfares and free housings and subsidies. no migrant is going to labour here, just accept what is rightfully theirs. labour is for local suckers.
Btw, everyone suddenly forgot about existing unemployment in Spain (20%, dec data) or Greece(24%, dec data). Other EU countries also struggling, especially in youth employment...
The refuees are not leaving Syria/Iraq etc looking for benefits. They are leaving a severe civil war. Yes there are economic migrants moving to Europe as well but they are and will be deported. The reason they aren't staying in the poorer countries is simply that. They are poorer and simply can't handle the refugee intake nor provide basic essential services.
You can't blame genuine refugees for wanting to goto countries where they have the best opportunity of leaving a normal life.
According to the EU 60% of these people are economic migrants[1]. But lets continue killing Europe with compassion[2].
[1]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/12123684...
[2]http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/its-not-only-germany-that...
And there lies the crux of the problem: many - if not most - of these migrants want to lead a 'normal life' among people of their own ethnic group, from their own background, speaking their own language and perpetuating their own culture. A culture which is often diametrically the opposite from that in which they landed. They don't want to 'integrate' or 'assimilate', they want to be amongst their peers. While this is understandable, it is a recipe for disaster as a quick look at eg. Malmö/Rinkeby/etc in Sweden, the banlieux in Paris, Schilderswijk in The Hague (etc) shows. It leads to segregation, unemployment due to language barriers, increased crime rates due to the latter as well as due to cultural differences (see the 'rape epidemic' in Sweden) and more such destabilising problems.
Iran, Pakistan, Turkey are all peaceful and prosperous countries. And religiously similar.
Most Eastern European countries are extremely against refugees from northern Africa and the middle East actually.
Frankly Eastern Europe has enough problems with it's own economic burdens - lack of capital, low productivity, low % of capable working population and significant brain drain, high corruption and low respect for property ownership, a lot of destroyed capital and outstanding obligations to existing retired people, etc. - most of which can be traced back to Communism. Also they already have problems with poor integration of Roma.
It's easy to see why refugees are not welcome.
For example there were/are a lot of Muslims in the Balkans after the Ottoman empire - but they are integrated within the society - some of them drink/eat pork, none of them expect gays/adulterers to be stoned etc. Just like modern Christians reject the extreme parts of their religion (eg. they mostly ignore the stuff in old testament).
I don't think "islamophobia", in the sense that you'll be ostracized for being a muslim, is more common than the rest of EU.
One of the few good things from Communism I guess - although the methods used were disgusting
> He arrived in Belgium with this in mind:
> “I was expecting them to give me a house, a
> good job, so I could have a better life. This is
> what I was dreaming about.”
Once here they should notice that they've been duped, but many don't seem to be able to accept this and go on a rampage to get whatever is is they expected. Which, of course, is not forthcoming - not even in Sweden, even though the level to which this country goes to accommodate so-called 'refugees' is beyond the pale (claim to be 16 and you're set as long as you don't look older than 40...).
It is going to take a long time, and cause a lot of trouble for both the affected European countries as well as the migrants who chose to come there to solve this problem. It could break the EU. It will topple governments.
After speaking to a few colleagues in Europe, it makes me want to take a trip to Europe just to get an un-obfuscated picture of what's really going on.
Until then I'm going to try not to form particularly strong opinions on the matter.
When you get off the plane in Europe and amble around, you'll probably find nothing has superficially changed much from the last time you were there--assuming you've been before.
TV and social media, not personal experience, shape most of the opinions.
I support the acceptance on principle, but I'm certainly not sure of the consequences, good or bad.
Edit: yes I am aware of the meme dislike here but this one hits home imho
When political correctness appears, logic and reason disappears out the window.
For example, regarding the "intolerant, sexist culture" you allude to. It's easy to paint the middle east in broad strokes, but that misses crucial differences between countries and peoples, particularly as those countries were often Western inventions made by grouping disparate regions and populations.
For example, did you know that in 2010 (before even the first conflict against Bashar al-Assad), there were over 150 thousand Syrians in the US alone?
In either place, you will find people critical of refugees or sympathetic to their plight.
My take is that the great majority of people in Europe (as a whole) only see or hear about refugees in the television, in the news, and in the internet, just like everybody else in the world.
Of course (and just like everybody else in the world) that doesn't deter them from forming a very strong opinion about the subject, to express it very loudly in the internet and to fall prey to their local politicians using the crisis for their personal benefit (no matter what side of the divide they fall).
Just like you I won't form a strong opinion on the matter and I suggest you not to try give it much thought either. It is a very serious and complicated problem but there is a great change that the people who can help is already doing it and, as for the rest of the population, it is more likely their involvement will only hinder and cloud the matter even more.
It took my family over a hundred years since immigration to the USA to really integrate such that I don't feel even slightly foreign. And honestly the USA changed us more than we changed the USA. And I agree with that - it's rude to make demands as a guest or newcomer.
Close to where I grew up was a town called Swedesburg, they fly the Swedish flag there to this day. Lots of Germans and Swedes. One would think Europe would change immigration law to encourage people who would naturally have some affinity or ties to the region. But that doesn't seem to be a popular idea. I think my wife and I would be able to integrate anywhere over there, northern or southern Europe, with zeal. We both speak English, Spanish, we can already communicate with Italians as a result of Spanish, and are enthusiastic about cultures and languages. I've lived in the US, France, Mexico and visited ~10 nations including Russia. My wife has visited equally as many and studied in Valencia. I've been to Finland- it has less snow than the part of the US I'm from (though my wife would probably not be thrilled).
I've always gotten the feeling Europe prefers its former African and mideast colonies to immigrate north, rather than American hordes with their money and talents (which may be more offputting to the natives than a more desperate immigrant).
In the UK immigration from former colonies is no longer treated any more preferentially than immigrants from non-EU countries who aren't former colonies (youth mobility visa excepted).
After WW2 and Britains labour shortage, full rights of settlement were granted to everyone in the commonwealth, hundreds of thousands came and settled from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Why should an american have preference when their family left 5 generations ago over someone who arrived 2 generations ago?
Many Africans and Asians come to university in the UK and decide to stay here, not so many Americans do - they have prestigious universities of their own. These people are not desperate and are talented.
Britain imports lots of doctors & nurses from commonwealth countries, these people are talented.
British Asians contribute something like 6% of UK GDP, despite making up 4% of the population. These people have money.
Spain naturalizes nationals of Iberoamerica, Philippines, and Equatorial Guinea after only two years residence rather than ten for nationals of other countries.
No offense but this affinity people especially from the US seem to have appears from this side like nothing more than a weird fetish driven by nothing more than fantasy. Especially for Germany this is incredibly weird because there is often a certain pride associated with being "German" that would get you considered a nazi in Germany.
If you're well educated and can get a job in Europe, immigrating should be quite easy already. I see no reason to make it easy for people just because some ancestor happened to be from Europe.
How do you figure? My grandmother sang in German to me as a child. Fantasy? Her husband defeated Germany in WW2 and his father defeated Germany in the trenches of France.
It's perhaps time that Germans got a little bit of pride, and it's ironic that to revitalize Germany (and Europe as a whole to former greatness) it would require bringing back your best and most ambitious.
Instead, as I said, I've lived in France- the people will never admit but fear being swarmed by people just as arrogant as the average European. Europe prefers the chaos and civil disruption of mideast immigration because these people are easy to look down upon and pity. Chaos is preferred over having ones mental and financial equal or superior arrive.
It doesn't matter to us, we're doing fine over here. I'm just suggesting the fix to all of Europe's problems of no birthrate and a cloudy future with none of the problems being invited with the current ethnic disruption. One would think a more desirable migrant would be preferable rather than a victim of poor circumstance.
Is this a roundabout way of saying that European countries ought to prefer white immigrants? Europe has a little bit of history with regard to governments making laws that discriminate on the basis of race. Might not be such a great idea to turn back the clock on that one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_relating_to_the_Sta...
I guess in 1950 the lines between rich and poor countries were even starker, with the rich ones not really having the capability to deal with all the poor that would want to claim economic asylum.
This video does a good job of showing that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE
Basically anyone from a country with an internal conflict or a less than ideal government (this covers most of the world) can become a refuge by claiming they have been persecuted. Even those from countries that don’t meet these very common criteria can still claim to be refugees by destroying their documentation and claiming to be from a conflict zone.
Since you don’t need to provide any evidence other than your own word [1], all having two separate categories does is screen out the people who are too stupid (or honest) to make up a plausible story of persecution.
https://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs
Plenty of people starve to death. Plenty of people are still hungry. Hunger is increasing.
Many of my grandparents generation immigrated to the US from Ireland in the 1920s and 30s. Not everyone stayed! 3-4 grand uncles and aunts moved back because they missed home, weren't making it, or missed farming.
It's hard to move into a different society, and as order is restored in places like Iraq, i think it is natural to see people return.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraq-says-security-wall-being-bu...
The migrants are always refered to as war refugees when really only a minority are.
The migrants seem to come with the perception that they will be welcomed with open and generous arms where the European public opinion is becoming very visibly hostile to this wave of migrants. And European countries will not have the means and the will to subsidise immigrants on this scale.
The European public opinion turned against the migrants after the Paris attack, just because some of the attackers travelled through these immigration channels, but all attackers were either French or Belgium nationals, not migrants. Same thing in Cologne where it seems all the attackers where from Marroco and Algeria, not Iraq or Syria.
What I am worried about is the combination of these factors:
1. This is only the start of the migrant crisis. Migrants stopped crossing the mediteranean sea during the winter, but spring is coming, and the Russian backed offensive in Syria will lead to more war refugees. Not only that but when Bashar will likely regain territories from Isis, we will really see many Isis fighters returning home in Europe, ...or seeking asylum from the certain death if caught by Putin/Bashar (and then what do Europeans do?). And on a longer term, the African demographic explosion means millions of africans trying to make their way to Europe every year will be the new normal. Add to that the fact that our societies will increasingly reduce our reliance on oil, which will bankrupt half of the states in the middle east. Saudi Arabia for instance will be a pretty problematic failed state.
2. The threshold of tolerance to migrants seems to have been exceeded pretty much everywhere in Europe. In the UK the EU referundum will largely be about polish immigration and current polls suggest the UK will exit the EU. The far right is rising pretty much everywhere in Europe. And the standard politically correct response of the medias/political class (if you don't want these migrants, you are a racist, end of discussion) will not do anything to contain the far right.
3. With the exception of the UK, pretty much all of Europe is in recession and has high unemployment, and therefore will not be able to absorb this immigration. To make things worse, all the technological change we foresee (AI, robotics, more automation) will only reduce the supply of low-skill jobs in favor of high-skill jobs. The exact opposite of what would be required to absorb this immigration.
The whole thing feels like a slow motion train crash, like the accumulation of public debt. It seems pretty obvious to me that one way or another it won't end well.
I, French, and many others, have seen through the game. Terrorists were actually French/Belgian. And French born. It's a failure with our "Egalité des Chances".
- That President Hollande triggers 3000 home bustings with no warrant is extremely racist. They did uncover arms but one should notice that they busted a lot of... countryside hunters. What a shame on police.
- That President Hollande triggers house arrests on hundreds of Muslims is extremely racist again. At best they lose their jobs, at worst those Muslims will turn back their opinion against revenge-based democracy, and we're feeding tomorrow's terrorism with new French-born-and-raised citizen.
- That Holland considers bombing a foreign country because we had some terrorist attacks is, again, using politics for another agenda. By the way, war creates new poverty, and 90% the West goes at war, they create the terrorists of tomorrow.
- If our terrorists have made a trip to Syria, that's at minimum a big failure of the Shengen borders. Shengen borders which, we were told, were stronger than just national borders, but have just let about 1.1million migrants through. What a mockery over the voters.
- France is in economic stagnation. I have lived in 4 countries, I'm not naive. We don't have the money to lead a war in Syria. With that much money we send all kids of Africa to Disneyland (Do make the calculation, we spend 32m€ on war per year).
- French citizen who became terrorists did that out of hopelessness. If anything, we need more social fabric, more social help. We also need a strict police. My cousin was sexually assaulted by someone we have the identity of, and the police isn't arresting him. Sexual assault being one of the worst crimes, it's weak to say that the police is generally lenient with crime and that's our culture. And when our police acts, they just do so in a massively racist way. Way to go. Talking about police, the worst thing to do for a Socialist president is to give free reign to far-right police during Etat d'Urgence.
President Hollande is acting the worst way against terrorism. He's not attacking the roots at all (better economy, equal chances, less debt, less war, balanced police with due diligence and powers in check, safe environment for Muslims, and teaching about equality). President Hollande is teasing the population with racism, imposing a police state on Muslims (and the rest of the population), removing juges from the police system, bombing Syria and losing money.
Between Hollande and FN (far right), I see no difference.
Which brings me to the matter: 1. There is no Socialist party that we can vote for if we're against the war and pro-equality and pro-integration; 2. Voters from the first point will turn to FN if Hollande doesn't have a better program than FN.
I accuse Hollande of failing France, by not applying a Socialist program and teasing France towards extreme-right.
Well since most of the so called Syrian (and many other countries too) "refugees" are healthy young men, I really don't know what are they doing in EU (expecting wellfare money probably) instead of fighting for their own country for better tomorrow (what all young men did in their age around the world since dawn of time). Europe as it is today didn't came for free.
Hacker News: Taking armchair coaching to a whole new level.
Sometimes I despair at the lack of empathy that is possible.
It is easier to grok a meaningful armed struggle (which one may partake in, hypothetically) - after all, it is tangible and concrete, and there's always a bad side (isn't there), etc.; but in the completely messed up state of affairs that people in Syria find themselves in, one can't but deduce that they are in a war zone with no certain optimal equilibrium which one can attempt to bring the future to. And that is really a different picture altogether, I would think.
> He arrived in Belgium with this in mind: “I was expecting them to give me a house, a good job, so I could have a better life. This is what I was dreaming about.”
It's hard to emphasize with someone expecting handouts, vs those who are fleeing true horrors.
This is a guy who has lost three brothers, amidst a civil war that still has been killing more than a thousand of civilians per month. How much horror do you need to empathize?
-- Laurentius Abstemius
After all, you and I are not expected to have people dressed as the KKK throwing rocks at us: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/finland/118...
And actually most of the people from Syria are genuine refugees. They are fleeing a brutal civil war.
But of course would love to know what you would do in this situation. I am sure you would be quite happy fighting, dying the next day all to achieve absolutely nothing.
Those Alawites and Christian living on ISIS-controlled territory on the other hand...
Citation, please.
Yeah, same as the people being persecuted by the Nazis in WW2. They should've just fought, the people leaving to other countries were really stupid. When deciding between a high possibility to die in the near future by staying in Syria and a low possibility to die soon by leaving the country, everyone obviously picks the high possibility because that seems more appealing. /s
And because you are talking about the fact that only healthy young man are fleeing: If you have the possibility to send family members to Europe: Who do you send? The 20-year old healthy male or the 85-year old grandma?
Edit: (In case it wasn't obvious from the writing style or you don't know /s, it marks sarcasm)
Actually the Nazis could only be defeated because not everyone ran away like a traitor. Millions died fighting the Nazi regime.
You should show more respect towards them instead of painting them as stupid.
Maybe you didn't see the /s
What's the case you are making here? Before I understood it as you defending the young males all fleeing the country because it's safer and all.
Additionally men are drafted by the Syrian government. In other words there are areas in Syria that are fairly safe for children, women and the elderly that aren't all that safe to be in, if you're a men and have no means to escape the draft.
All of that combined means that you have a bias towards male refugees, especially when it comes to images you see in the media of refugees fleeing with boats.
Anyway, calling something plebeian or cancerous doesn't improve the debate... I mean all it's says is that you disagree with what most people believe. That should be either enough to question your own beliefs, or at least to defend your point of view, because all you do here is just a slight rant that is petty at best, or a sign of defeat.
Anyway, immigration is a tough political debate, it is controversial since it involves questioning the history of borders. Which is really not an easy thing to solve, even for the most talented politician.