Comment by bitcharmer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bitcharmer | Hacker News Reader

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It's worth to look at the underlying cause for these sentiments gaining popularity and support in recent years. I'm pretty sure to some degree it has to do with native European populations being unhappy about illegal immigration and the problems arising from that.

And before you call me a racist: mainstream media kept redefining the meaning of the word refugee for a while now. For example: refugees are expected to stop at the nearest safe haven and not traverse multiple countries to end up in the one with the biggest social benefits. Also, tonnes of young men arriving from war-torn regions with disproportionate ratio of women and children. News outlets advertising these groups as doctors and engineers which at this point is a meme.

Economical burden, elevated crime rates and social tensions caused by this are quite apparent. Just look at Sweden, France, Germany. UK has it lucky because it's an island and harder to get into. All that while everyone pointing at these topics as unresolved problems getting branded as racist or xenophobe. It's only natural people get angry and start leaning toward populist assholes who promise to "solve" these problems one way or another.

The pendulum is starting to sway back and that is not a good thing but also not unexpected the way things were going.

>> For example: refugees are expected to stop at the nearest safe haven and not traverse multiple countries to end up in the one with the biggest social benefits. Also, tonnes of young men arriving from war-torn regions with disproportionate ratio of women and children. News outlets advertising these groups as doctors and engineers which at this point is a meme.

The thing is, all of the above is just noise. It's not relevant to the problem at large. Even if they were all PhD educated doctors it would still leave the core of the issue to address - there's SO MANY people coming, and more will come in the next decade. All predictions on this point way up - be it do to instability in various regions, war, or things like actual literal depletion of fresh water sources and food, plus temperatures raising to the point where people are dying and crops can't grow in several African and middle eastern regions.

Getting into whether these people are men, children, skilled workers or uneducated farmers is pointless - the question is what are we going to do(as European Union) about 1M+ arriving here every year. We are trying to do the humane thing, and it's clearly resulting in a massive increase in populism and nationalism everywhere because the native populations don't like it - again, there is zero point in even getting into whether that's justified or not - the question is, where do we go from here. Because the way I see if, if something isn't done urgently we will end up in a situation where the people in power do what the louder and louder groups say we should - and that's a terrifying vision of the world.

I understand that refugees are a significant part of the perceived problem, but as an immigrant, I'm on line two of that Niemöller poem and I won't wait and see where Saxon farmers draw the line.

I'm not surprised by any of this, but I'm definitely not feeling easy about it.

> For example: refugees are expected to stop at the nearest safe haven

If that were true, countries next to warzones would risk destabilization (moreso than they already do). The system's not set up like that, and never has been.

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