To think it’s easier to want open boarders if you’re privileged?

[Theselfishsister]

Having an ongoing conflict with my sister regarding refugees, she’s very ‘let everyone in’ I would say I’m somewhere in the middle.

She’s given up spare bedrooms to refugees, spends weekends in Calais helping them and is posting everywhere on SM about letting them all in. As well as attending protests regularly for the last 4 years or so.

What strikes me is that her and her other friends going to all of the events are white, MC (although she is by marriage, we grew up very WC) and live incredibly comfortably. She’s a SAHM and her husband owns his own company, they have never needed benefits or social housing and her children are privately educated with all of them receiving private medical care.

A massive increase in people here are unlikely to ever have much affect on her life, she won’t have to fight for jobs or wait for a house or deal with benefit cuts when too much is paid out, as well as the increase in waits for Medical care and school admissions. Whereas for someone like me, this is obviously a more worrying factor and the thought of just opening our borders to everyone does scare me. As much as I would love to be able to take every person fleeing a great life, it just causes me worry and I don’t think I could support completely open boarders.

She obviously just thinks I’m a selfish heartless bitch for not protesting to remove our borders or similar. When I asked why she let refugees sleep in her spare rooms but never the homeless man on the road behind her (who’s been in the same spot since she moved there 5 years ago!) she called me a racist!

So AIBU to think it’s easier to want open boarders if you’re privileged or am I just a selfish cow?

I am not in favour of people putting their and their children's lives in danger in unseaworthy vessels when they are already in a safe and prosperous country

Which safe prosperous country do you think people are in when they board these boats? (Genuine question)

To legally claim asylum in a country you have to get to that country. To legally get to that country you need a visa that will be denied. So people will take dangerous illegal routes (often forced or encouraged by the border controls of the first closest safest country because the country cannot cope with the numbers).

Which safe prosperous country do you think people are in when they board these boats? (Genuine question)

France. Obviously.

OK i will bite If a housing association tenant disappeared for weeks or months the HA class it as an abandoned property.

Not to mention the nosy neighbours who would post on here how hes done a moonlight flit and they havent seen him for months so the flat should be given to someone else as he obviously no longer needs it!!!!

all while hes living in a caravan while fruit picking. Its not just the benefit system that makes Brits doing this work impossible The housing system makes it impossible too.

Some refugees have seen their whole family killed in front of them

Forgive me but who said this happened.

I know it isn’t politically correct, but from what dp has read in statements, (also know a couple of immigration people) it becomes very hard to believe when every statement reads exactly the same.

Not really that obvious considering how unsafe France is for refugees

And I mean exactly the same. Word for word.

Sorry my last comment was for IcedPurple

MrsAriadneOliver you are insistent we "have done nothing to harm these people" while we live off the wealth we stole from their countries

No, we don’t

As grown ups, as responsible adults in the world we helped (forcibly) to shape we should take responsibility for our actions

What nonsense is this? No actions of mine. No responsibilities here.

Pretty sure 'we' means collectively. 'We' elect the governments and support the corporations that profit from misery

I don’t see why European people (mostly white) should have different migration rights in the U.K. than citizens of the rest of the world (mostly non white).

The U.K. doesn’t take in enough refugees and this has been an pattern since before the A8 (Eastern) countries entered the EU in 2004.

Most of the people that enter the UK via Calais are economic migrants. They are encouraged by people traffickers / smugglers who want these migrants to go to the furthest country possible to earn as much money as possible.
By accepting and helping these migrants, we are actively encouraging the trafficking of people. Because while the trafficker can advertise a country of "milk and honey" he will be able to run a lucrative business. And the lucky ones that get taken in by the UK confirm the traffickers promises, to friends and family left behind...

I think it is our duty to stop this dreadful circle.

MrsAriadneOliver
Just because you as an individual didn't do something doesn't mean the country you live in is not responsible.

We, you, me all the residents of the U.K. benefit everyday from the slave trade. As I said before, the wealth of the country, the buildings, the power, the companies and structures are a result of our industrial past which was funded by slavery.

If you live in the U.K. you benefit from its history. That history also involved weakening the power base and structures of other countries.

We live off the wealth of Empire - go to a museum, read a book, study economics, history or sociology all these will confirm what I say.

Although, your response "no, we don't" does indicate a slight lack of intellectual rigour.

Sarah - what about people from the Commonwealth? Don't they deserve "priority" for historical reasons?

Refugees
When I became British I went through the Citizenship Ceremony
in the group of 40 swearing allegiance to the Queen that day were

A Pakistani Christian family - mum, dad, two sons - so proud but still so scared

A Rwandan family - mum, dad, two daughters and a son. Dad had clear machete scars in his skull and mum had scars across her face.

An Iranian family - unclear which part of Islam, they just looked exhausted

as a white middle class person I felt almost a fraud in their presence
but it made me value that purple passport
far more than any native born Brit ever would
my kids and British DH found it utterly humbling as well

purple passport

I thought it was maroon

My other passport is blue ....
Be careful what you wish for

EU migrants are actually good for the economy, these are people from a similar cultural circle arriving in their most productive age 18 -40 post-schooling and healthy. They pay more in taxes that they take out (LSE have done multiple studies on this, and the figures confirm.)

Refugees however pose a different problem. These people often come with no education, language or other skills needed in the British economy. On top of that they come from a cultural circle very different to ours. I once knew an Iraqi exchange student who told me "many of my fellow countrymen can seem angry and violent. When you grow up in fear and combat conditions, it shapes and changes you." It really resonated with me.

YANBU but I would not pigeon hole EU and refugees together.

We, you, me all the residents of the U.K. benefit everyday from the slave trade. As I said before, the wealth of the country, the buildings, the power, the companies and structures are a result of our industrial past which was funded by slavery

How long do we have to pay for this? Germany has been forgiven for WW2 - when we will be forgiven?

Yanbu

Moussemoose I think that todays residents of the UK also benefit from the fucking hard work that our ancestors put in to help make this a prosperous, decent place to live

I’m in social housing on a low income and struggle to make ends meet, but feel we should do all we can to help refugees. This no doubt goes back to the fact that my grandparents came to the UK to escape persecution and to make a safer life for their families. I feel strongly that we have a duty as fellow humans to help one another in times of crisis. It’s unbearable to think of so many people desperate to escape from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict, only to find everywhere they turn, borders closing in front of them. I can’t imagine their terror and hardship. I’m struggling but I’m safe, I have medical care, food, a roof over my head as do my children and grandchildren. By this country’s standards I’m not well off but compared with millions of people I am rich beyond their imagination in so many ways.

Germany has been forgiven for WW2 - when we will be forgiven?

How do you classify forgiven? I've definitely heard Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear making jokes about Germany invading Poland and WW2 ended before the British Empire left Commonwealth countries in the 60s.

My son is a Brit who's born in Germany and regularly hears jokes about Nazis and he's born in 2006. Admittedly I hear more comments about Japan than Germany but still- wouldn't say forgiven.

The British Empire rules 100+ years in many territories so I suspect it takes 100+ years to rectify things.

But MC people don't want houses being built on green belt so wouldn't want a higher population. Better to make people not need to be refuges or economic migrants by improving their situation.