They're not refugees, we're being invaded

[goonthenflameme]

I admit, the Syrians have got it bad. There is a war and those boys who haven't been shot by ISIL are being conscripted by the President.

But if life is that bad, why do they only want to go to Germany and if they can't go then then they'll go back to Syria.

Why are we now seeing people from Kazakstan joining the throngs?

I agree that people from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria need help. But the thougsands and thousands of people coming through can't all be refugees in dire need of help if they are so picky as to where they will live.

They're invading Europe. And we are letting them. What's going to happen in 20 years? Will Christianity and western ways be swept under the carpet?

[shins]

GB the Crusades were a reaction to the Muslim conquests in the Middle East ffs- the catalyst was the fall of Jerusalem. Istanbul was Constantinople, the home of the Eastern Christians. The Ottomans invaded and conquered a large chunk of Eastern Europe right up to the siege of Vienna in 1683. The Barbary pirates of north Africa kidnapped and enslaved thousands of Europeans from as far away as Cornwall. Can we stop the poor oppressed Muslim narrative where all their troubles are our fault since history began?

Sure I'm focusing on the positive side of Europe's legacy. I'm trying to counter the self hating guilt I hear so much of. Why do you think importing millions of people from very different cultures is fair or do you believe we deserve punishment somehow?

[Fatmomma99]

I knew you could catch "gay" (obvs), but it wasn't until Peggy's post that I realized you could catch "Muslim" as well!! We all need to hide under our beds until it all goes away! We should all stash bacon down our pants, that will definitely help!

[howtorebuild]

The BBC featured disabled woman with the fit young Brother, she travelled on a rubber boat, pushed across Europe by her sister. When her Brother was living safe in Europe.

[shins]

Oh and someone mentioned the Daily Mail. Bingo!

[MrsGentlyBenevolent]

TheCatsFlaps - I'm sorry if you feel I'm being sanctimonious, I was only trying to point out that our now mostly great few countries in the West have taken a long and dark road to get here, in terms of human rights at least. As I pointed out, some of our group (mainly the USA, but others as well), still like using religion to deny people rights. So we're not perfect, and we should not forget it. The moment we start forgetting the bad, because we're now so "good and free", is the moment we lose sight of where we came from. Not everything that comes from the Middle East is bad, barring religion that has caused most of the world's problems (not just Islam). It's just very easy to concentrate on the bad ISIS is doing, instead of welcoming the chance of showing that we too were once part of countries that tried to impose ourselves on the rest of the world, and how it never wins in the end. Unless it's through money and capitalism, of course - that will always be untouchable.

[Bogeyface]

I am glad that I gave you a full house shins

And your point is?

[MaudGonneMad]

It's historically very common for all forms of migration (voluntary, economic or fleeing persecution) to predominantly feature young men, in the first instance. Nothing new in this case.

[howtorebuild]

We as Women in this day and age think this is still ok?

I am not a Tory voter. I am glad the vulnerable and not the fit young men are our priority.

[Bogeyface]

Fit young men are sent first as they are the future for many families. They can work, earn, send money back, marry, have kids, create the next generation, keep the family name going. In a patriarchal society, the young men are more important than the young women.

Wrong to our eyes, but understandable if you look at it in terms of the society they come from.

[MrsGentlyBenevolent]

Bogeyface - sorry, very tired, not making much sense. I was trying to make a point about how Germany were once the big bad, and how it too once basically collapsed into chaos (and the Berlin wall that caused much political strife). After the second world war, Britian tried to help Germany but some of our politicians were also very happy to see it being divided and it's people pretty much "displaced". Sometimes it's just easier to control the chaos, than try and sort it. History has a habit of repeating itself in times of crisis.

[BrideOfWankenstein]

I'm more worried about that kind of shit

[Lamination]

Wtf wouldn't refugees be picky? I am picky about the fucking fruit I buy, the clothes I wear, the car I drive. Wtf wouldn't other humans be picky about where they live.

Will the world look different in twenty years? Of course, it always does. Will Christian ways be less valued, yeah possibly and we have done that all by ourselves. Western ways? Enshrined in law, going no where.

[mimishimmi]

Christianity isn't fading because of the immigration. A lot of people left the churches because of all the abuses and wars. We could barely get a good education either. Many of us have been in the recent immigrant's shoes just a few generations ago.

They got their new world order. The rest of us gave up.

[Garrick]

This crap about women & children being left to get shot while fit young men storm across Europe conducting some kind of jihad by stealth is damaging and conceals the real problems, which are many and severe.

Getting logistics out of the way first - leaving Syria, Afghanistan and Libya for unknown destinations in Europe is physically gruelling, very dangerous and very expensive. The refugees Europe's seeing at the moment are those who had both the money and enough strength to tackle it. Thousands of times more refugees, mostly families, are slowly starving in Lebanon which is geographically closer and presents fewer issues with language. International aid to the enormous camps in Lebanon has recently dried up; it was already inadequate. There is little hope for the 2 million people there now. Lebanon stopped registering new refugees several months ago, but they are still arriving.

Rape is an horrific problem in Syria, as it has proved to be in many other wars. Women and children are routinely raped, usually at gunpoint and usually with extreme violence. I would have linked to some reports but they're really gruesome. A high proportion of victims die of the injuries, or are simply killed as part of the show. Many child survivors will have been raped & tortured themselves; they are very likely to have seen their relatives or siblings abused like this. The young men arriving have seen this happening to their wives, sisters, mothers, children, friends. It's unlikely that any refugee has an intact family; they have all seen people they love killed in violence. They are traumatised. Also, as intended, they are ashamed by the rapes. And ashamed of their shame.

The trauma of living through intensely awful events, one after the other and continuously for years, then trudging through foreign lands with your remaining possessions in a backpack, to be further abused and endangered, doesn't leave many people unchanged. Our responses to trauma are unpredictable. The level of care needed to enable a safe recovery isn't available - it should be, but we don't even bother to provide it for our own deeply distressed people let alone an influx of more.

Displaced people have always been viewed with suspicion, and this is largely the reason. It is a real problem: not the fiction of terrorists putting themselves through that just to attack us (why? we've got plenty of home-grown terrorists, and IS ain't short of a bob or two to send agents over here on normal airlines.) But the reality of terribly hurt, shocked, frightened, angry, anxious, bereaved & bereft people landing up in our societies with no clear pathways to recovery and settlement.

We could help with this, we really could. We won't, because we're tight and petty-minded. The skills and the means exist. Just not the will. Because displaced people will not be helped as fully and compassionately as they could be, they will be displaced - traumatised, unpredictable, lost - as they've been throughout history when such things happen. As PPs have pointed out, we never seem to learn.

[Brioche201]

I think they can only be granted asylum for 5 years ,can't they?

[Garrick]

Fleeing a war isn't the same as seeking political asylum.

[Garrick]

From the UN: More than 43 million people worldwide are now forcibly displaced as a result of conflict and persecution.

Children constitute about 41 percent of the world’s refugees, and about half of all refugees are women.

About two-thirds of the world’s refugees have been in exile for more than five years, many of them with no end in sight.

Four-fifths of all refugees are in the developing world, in nations that can least afford to host them.

More than half of the world’s refugees are in urban environments, not in camps.

[Garrick]

I couldn't find the brilliant article I read last week, but here's one from the Catholic News (quoting the UN) in 2013:

Half of refugees from Syria are children under 11.

Countries such as Jordan and Turkey have taken in the greater portion of the refugees, spending money their treasuries lack to sustain the burgeoning populations. Turkey says it has spent $700 million on refugees since the crisis began and has been reimbursed only $89 million with foreign aid.

Turkey is not a rich nation and its coffers and cupboards are becoming bare. The same can be said for Jordan.

[Charis2]

YABVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVU

for thousands of reasons, but of which are self evident, but I don't think you are remotely interested in any of the, just in selfishly defending your own little patch of paradise, and justifying it to yourself by pretending this terrible crisis isn't happening to real people.

[UngratefulMoo]

This is an interesting piece Vice challenging some if the anti-refugee rubbish that's been all over the internet: www.vice.com/en_uk/read/kleinfeld-refugee-memes-debunking-846

[Atenco]

You want Europe to turn away refugees fleeing from wars mostly started and financed by the US and Europe in the name of Christianity and western ways?

You must have read a different Bible from the one I was taught.

[ProvisionallyAnxious]

There's a local group collecting for the refugee camps on Facebook and they only want men's clothes. I could have given loads of DD's outgrown things but they don't want women or children's stuff. Where are the women and children we've seen pictures of on the boats?

What local collections ask for will be informed by what camps they are sending to. Many groups are focusing on Calais which is majority men (perhaps because it is a lot harder to get 'that far' into Europe). There are plenty of camps with women and children but a) the infrastructure isn't there to get donations there and b) it's usually a lot more financially efficient in the case of camps that aren't just across the Channel to raise funds to buy the goods in-country.

If you were willing to PM me your broad area I could see if I know any groups in your vicinity that take children's clothes - they are out there.

[DoctorTwo]

An invasion you say? Really? Most, if not all of these humans fleeing violence appear to be unarmed, unlike the humans we sent to their countries to enforce regime change. They don't appear to be destroying entire towns using depleted Uranium tipped high explosives either, causing birth defects in future generations for the next fuck knows how many millenia. All these people want is a safe place to live, something that is common amongst us all.

[LeaveMyWingsBehindMe]

Kazakhstan is an oppressive regime with significant human rights abuses. Well documented over a number of years. But you're not really interested in facts, are you OP?

And there are 17 million of them. As with all these threads, those of you who can't see further than how sad it is for people unlucky enough to come from somewhere where life is tough compared to the UK and western Europe refuse to be drawn on numbers and how many is too many. I think some of you genuinely believe that there should be no limits and anyone who wants to come should be allowed to stay so long as they can physically get here, or at least get part of the way and then sob and throw themselves to the ground in front of some cameras in mainland Europe somewhere.

I thank fuck you lot aren't in charge, frankly. The thought is terrifying.

[LeaveMyWingsBehindMe]

And if tough regimes with poor human rights records are a reason to let anyone in then we are truly fucked. That label applies to more areas of the world than it doesn't apply to.