The European Refugee Situation

Well, thing is that people are being told fantasy stories in their home countries, probably told by smugglers in order to lure them out of the country.

For instance there is a rumor that every refugee gets their own house in Germany and our embassies have their hands full with trying to tell the truth but you know how it is: People believe what they WANT to believe and if some jerk promises them paradise on Earth when they come to Europe, it's no wonder they become irritated when they arrive in a camp in the middle of nowhere.
Didn'd you previously think that they had absolutely no choice but to leave their home countries (and other safe countries on the way, like Turkey) or else they would be killed immediately? Now you're saying that some of them may have left based on lies about European countries presented in their home countries. Careful there, Hitler, you're almost suggesting some of them might be economic migrants! What's the modern Stasi I should report you to?
 
I wasn't expecting to hear good news on this, but there was a governmental healthcare crisis over the last week and one of the second largest government party's MEPs (and possibly the most influential politician in that party) has started pressuring the government so I guess this could have been a part of that deal...

Finland will start housing them in tents and (shipping) "containers". I'm sorry, Sweden. Good luck, Sweden.
 
Sweden, one of the richest countries in the world, has taken in too many immigrants... According to recent immigrants (those who've come this year). Given how bad the conditions in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia (where the people actually come from) must be, you'd think no one who's experienced those conditions would be heartless enough to send anyone back. It's heart-breaking. :cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

I haven't felt this good in a while.
 
Heh, suddenly yesterday a rushed press conference revealed that border control will be re-instituted at 12:01 (why 1 minute over 12 I have no idea but anyway) today. This idea, which was deemed fascist and racist the week before, is now suddenly OK even for the red-green mess we call government.

The reason is that the Migration authority are overwhelmed and have lost control. However because we're Sweden and cant' do anything right when it comes to refugees our method of border control will mean that you'll be only left with the choice of going back to Germany or seek asylum in Sweden. Transit to Norway and Finland will not be allowed, meaning that the number of seekers will only increase (which is the opposite of what the Migration authority say they want).

So congratulations to Finland!

For those that can't read Swedish the article says that refugees want the border closed because "we're full". It's also highly refreshing to see that Aftonbladet of all papers publishes an article like that.
 
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"The problem of professional Romanian and Bulgarian beggars is, for visitors, the most striking."
Presumably not visitors to Roseng?rd, Rinkeby, Tensta... (Romanian) Beggars (mostly women) aren't really a problem to the general population as long as they're not given state money or free housing or whatever. Unless you need a Whole Foods safe space to shield yourself from poor people. The men who control them may be, but if stupid people didn't give them money and the police weren't such pussies, they'd all be gone anyway.
"Britons fret about border controls, but we don?t hesitate to hire immigrants when they arrive."
Yeah, you get lots of Commonwealth immigrants who have family ties and community connections and generally seem to be prepared to work hard as well people who come to work in the City. When it comes to the Iraqis, Somalis and Iranis, the UK is no better.
 
Britain consists of people who descended from immigrants. Battle of Hastings anyone?

Hell, my grandparents from my mother's side were refugees, too. As were 12 million other Germans after the war.

Maybe that partly explains our generally more welcoming attitude towards people who lost their homes through war and persecution.
 
[...]Maybe that partly explains our generally more welcoming attitude towards people who lost their homes through war and persecution.

I don?t agree with that part. While Germany has be one of "better" countries towards asylum seekers this year - there won?t be a medal for being "least worse". There are the same nationalist and racist movements rising in germany as they are in other european countries, there is the same violence, the same growing sentiments.

We shouldn?t applaud ourselves for "not being as bad as country X" ... what happens in germany concerning immigrants and refugees mirrors every other country in Europe at the moment. Just maybe a bit less strong.
 
The European Refugee Situation

I refuse to believe they make up a bigger part of the population. They are just louder.

I admit, though, that the worries grow. But for what I'd consider completely irrelevant reasons. There is an irrational fear of the unknown in many people, even though the refugees so far have much more reason to be afraid of us than vice versa.

At work I jokingly suggested an easy solution for the problem: Collect all the Nazis, the Pegida idiots and the AFD jerks and make an exchange -- send them to Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq and send more refugees to us. I think it's a win-win situation for Germany :mrgreen:

I was surprised to find that many agree with me on that...
 
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This whole situation reminds me of the movie Elysium. Basically the western world is pretty wealthy and most of our problems really are "first world problems". We could probably do a lot more to help, but it would cost us money and comfort. And people usually don't want to give up either of those things. I'm not even saying I'm any better than that - I pretty much have an "everybody has to make it on their own"-attitude, but this is easy when you basically never had to worry about money, food, a home, a job, your education...

A solution to this whole refugee situation is also pretty much out of sight. So you can't bomb peace into a country (well, at least it hasn't worked since 1945, and god knows the western world has tried it multiple times since then), you can't simply ignore the situation and hope that it goes away, you probably can't integrate millions of people without social and economic consequences... so what do you do instead? You probably have to "solve" the problem at its root. But what is the problem? Some religious nutjobs that interpret their believes in the worst possible way? How do you solve that? How do you cope with people that put their religion on top of everyone and everything else? We had this same situation in Europe quite a while back - but then people only had access to little more than sticks and stones (and they still managed to do a lot of damage with it). And through the centuries people realized that they should probably chill and live together in peace, regardless of their individual believes. And I think this process has to happen in the islamic world as well, but unfortunately for everyone during their "learning period" they have access to modern weapons AND they also get the western world as "the baddies" that try to teach them values (mostly by force) that don't agree too well with their religion.

I'm not saying we should put a fence around the middle east and forget about it until everything sorts itself out, I just don't know *what* to do to improve the situation, to fight the root of these problems. I guess (and hope) an overwhelmingly large fraction of muslims are already quite relaxed and tolerant, the problem are the 0.1% that aren't.

And the recent terrorist attacks in Paris have only made the situation so much worse: predictably some people are already trying to use them to justify closing borders and turning refugees back.
 
And the recent terrorist attacks in Paris have only made the situation so much worse: predictably some people are already trying to use them to justify closing borders and turning refugees back.

Which is quite the perversion, because it's people like those murderers from Paris that the refugees flee from...

Also, documentaries running all day here currently and I wasn't really aware before, that the military leadership of the IS actually mainly consists of former Iraqui members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party and former Saddam's military forces - who were decruited in 2003 by Paul Bremer on strict orders of then president Bush, even though there were warnings not to proscribe them but rather bind them into the process of forming a new Iraq.

One of many mistakes that were made since then...
 
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That sums it up very nicely.
 
Which is quite the perversion, because it's people like those murderers from Paris that the refugees flee from...
Isn't it ironic that the terrorists also want to flee from the murderers (at least one of them had sought asylum in Serbia). But hey, shouldn't we start turning people away now that Europe is demonstrably no longer safe for anyone?
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Isn't it ironic that the terrorists also want to flee from the murderers (at least one of them had sought asylum in Serbia).
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How daft does one have to be to assume that terrorists need to smuggle themselves into Europe among the refugees? And how delusional do you have to be to assume they don't have easier and quicker ways into Europe? I mean, they were able to engineer such a precisely planned and timed attack in Paris after all. Surely they have some resources, don't you think?

Seriously, does anyone with a tiny bit of intelligence left really believe they mix with refugees and then do the stressy and grueling, monthlong journey across the Balkan? :rolleyes:

It's very likely the terrorists have been here for months or even years or were born here. And that Syrian passport, which they found among the remains of one of the terrorists, was very likely fake or left there on purpose. The terrorist's goal, mind you, is to antagonize us against all muslims.

And with the less intelligent parts of our populations it already seems to work...
 
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How daft does one have to be to assume that terrorists need to smuggle themselves into Europe among the refugees? And how delusional do you have to be to assume they don't have easier and quicker ways into Europe? I mean, they were able to engineer such a precisely planned and timed attack in Paris after all. Surely they have some resources, don't you think?

Seriously, does anyone with a tiny bit of intelligence left really believe they mix with refugees and then do the stressy and grueling, monthlong journey across the Balkan? :rolleyes:

It's very likely the terrorists have been here for months or even years or were born here. And that Syrian passport, which they found among the remains of one of the terrorists, was very likely fake or left there on purpose. The terrorist's goal, mind you, is to antagonize us against all muslims.

And with the less intelligent parts of our populations it already seems to work...
Are you saying it's easier to fly from Damascus to Paris with Kalashnikovs, explosive belts and bombs than exploit the total lack of border controls caused by countries not unreasonably wanting to push them on further into Europe? Months? You'd think a serious terrorist organisation (whether ISIS or something else, but an attack like that certainly does seem highly coordinated) can spare 300? for train tickets.

Some of them may have been French. I would be surprised if any of them were French French. Some of them or their accomplices probably weren't French. Getting a fake Syrian passport from Turkey and seeking asylum in Serbia makes very little sense if you live next door to your intended target. And even then it highlights the fact that countries that have something to lose should protect their borders.

Less intelligent parts of the population? Doing nothing and expecting things to change? I would imagine Germany is a much higher-priority target for future attacks than Finland, so I've got that going for me.
 
Also, documentaries running all day here currently and I wasn't really aware before, that the military leadership of the IS actually mainly consists of former Iraqui members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party and former Saddam's military forces - who were decruited in 2003 by Paul Bremer on strict orders of then president Bush, even though there were warnings not to proscribe them but rather bind them into the process of forming a new Iraq.

One of many mistakes that were made since then...

You need to read more of my posts. :p

As for disbanding the Iraqi army, that was the single most stupid decision of the whole war/occupation. I'd even give credit to the notion that Iraq could be a stable government if not for that policy.
 
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