It's the refugee crisis. I know how I should be responding to it, but still...
This could be a turning point in European history. I'm living this stuff and I have no idea how I want it to turn out. My heart says help these people, my head imagines the worst. I cast my mind back to the Salman Rushdie book burnings and I shudder.
I'm not proud of these feelings. They do me little credit. All I can hope for is that one day same-sex couples and transgender people will be able to walk along any street in my country - any street - without attracting a second glance. That would suit me fine.
Feel free to shout me down. I'm conflicted, I won't hold it against you.
Music!
School Of Language is half of Field Music, Sunderland's finest by some distance. I live 5 minutes walk away from most of these places.
Go on, click on it. You know you want to...
Comments
You can't have an influence.
I'm wondering about the etiology of the refugee issue. What is the root cause? Is it famine caused by global warming? I know a Syrian guy that said that they were having a huge drought there and when they appealed to Assad, people got violent and the war started. Perhaps it was not the best thing to get rid of Saddam? The only weapons of mass destruction he had was the Mustard gas that America gave him. Sure, he was a despot but look what we have now? America really blew it when they destroyed the infrastructure there. Dangerously, many of the Iraqi refugees that came to America are people displaced by American adventurism.
I've tried to be a Muslim since 2005 and I have to say that the whole of the religion has many factions and some are anxious to kill each other.
As to gays and lesbians, I wish no one harm. I do not know what to do, so I keep silent on that.
Gwen
I share your confusion
I want to help but I'm concerned that we seem to be losing our identity as we become more multicultural besides, I feel we need to address the root causes of these migrations - war and politicking. Western intervention caused the mess in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to enable these people to live in their homelands and feel they have a future with worthwhile jobs and security. I'm still working on the how.
Angharad
Sometimes you just don't know...
Are you afraid of criminals and / or terrorists among the immigrants? Yes, there will be such ones. However, there will also be firemen and doctors saving your life, policemen guarding you from both the immigrant and the local bad guys, scientists discovering amazing things that do miracles, artspeople raising your spirit in dark moments, and a lot of very ordinary, nice and decent people suffering just because they weren't as lucky as you, but still ready to help you if they can. All of these are many, many times more than the criminals and the terrorists.
Are you afraid that immigrants will take your jobs or suck dry your welfare system? Yes, there will be such ones. However, there will also be ones that create new jobs for you, and ones that will work extra hard and pay taxes much better than the people born in your country. These are many, many times more than the freeriders, especially if you take some very basic measures against freeriding. All studies show that immigrants improve the economics of a country instead of burdening it. Show me an immigrant country that is poor and struggling, and I will show you ten ones that are proverbial for a good life.
Are you afraid that immigrants will retain their culture and try to force it upon you, destroying your country's one? Yes, there will be ones to try it. However, even in the most multicultural countries your culture is in reality better protected, much like the cis people by definition have most things in the life easier than the trans people - you have the advantage. Moreover, a country's well-being and wealth depend mostly on its culture, and the majority of the immigrants will know this well, or will understand it very easily. (Deciding to emigrate is already half of this understanding.) Very few of these will want to bring the problems of their former country here with themselves. So you will very easily convince most immigrants to accept your culture, and the few who wouldn't will have no lesser enemies than those who accepted because they don't want more of the same they had and know far too well.
Last but not least, there will be plenty of immigrants who came because they are trans, gay or otherwise sex- or gender-different, and their country is not as tolerant to them as yours will be. Would you refuse to these? Would you send them back to Iran, or North Korea, or Syria, etc?... If you wouldn't, then why would you send back those who just happened to not be different? Are they inferior? Are they less decent, honest, hardworking, suffering, hoping, ready to help?...
From my experience, fear rules where truth and knowledge do not abound. So, my counsel is - go, meet and befriend some immigrants. You will see with your own eyes that they are human beings exactly like you, sometimes even better. That, moreover, you don't realize the privilege and chance you had to be born in a peaceful and rich country, while most of them, having to overcome a lot to get a part of this, know how big this privilege is. And that they are often ready to sacrifice far more than you to keep and protect it, both for themselves and for you.
Darkness cannot be won over with more darkness. It is light that wins over darkness.
What A Sane Contribution
From Curiosityitself. Our Government (Australia) is treating Asian refugees in an appalling manner, and I have to say I am terribly conflicted by this. On the one hand my heart cries out for the people trying to reach our shores because they are desperate and set to sea in boats that you wouldn't take out of any harbour, and our problem here is only a fraction of what Europe is experiencing, and on the other hand it does seem that there are those amongst them who are Muslim of whom a fairly large percentage want to change our laws and society to suit themselves as soon as they arrive. I admit that I am offended when I see women in full burkha walking around. This is a country where I don't feel that it is necessary even though freedom of religion is respected here.
While there are many who contribute to the economy and to our society and just want to live normal happy lives it seems that there is a disaffected minority who will never be satisfied until the rest of us are living according to the dictates of their extreme interpretation of their religion. Now I know this will never happen while we live in a democracy but it strains our society in uncomfortable ways.
Earlier waves of immigrants, like the refugees from Europe after WW2 and the Vietnamese after the Vietnam War have successfully integrated into our society. Maybe this latest influx will do the same. Time will tell.
My POV
My perspective will not be popular with many in America, but I invoke that free speech right we are suppose to have. So for the weak of mentality consider your self warned, this is not for children or Right Wing Military, Industrial. Prison, wonks.
I went to school with several people from Central and South America who filled me in on the the real history of that region. from the Spanish Conquistadors, then Amer / European's all seeking the wealth the land held at the expense of any one else living there. [Yes We have done the same thing here to our First people population and landed poor]. If the big guys wanted it they took it. There was a break when the Liberals had there day running the clock forward updating our countries policy's to more humane treatment of the peoples in that region. That did not stop the atrocities that passed as capitalism only slowed them down. Not just taking my fellow students word, I researched this further finding so much horrid behavior I gagged.
Then when I thought things could not get worst the Ronald Reagan who's [death cult ] revolution . Actively supported even more evil on the local populations. White Americans have been brain washed to accept that the there people of color and there poor in this region were stupid backwards and didn't understand how capitalism worked.
The people of south America are as smart as any one in the world, [ Same for the people of Africa.] but how can any one get traction to carry them selves when the American powers continue to destroy the good elected governments and steal there resources. I believe that the same thing has happened in Africa and other underdeveloped nations directed by the Western Banks.
Now we are seeing that flock of battle crows have come to roost, with wave after wave of people coming to this country to run from the humanitarian catastrophe of death and environmental destruction our business peoples ruthless practices have created. And those who created this Monsanto, De Beers. Alcoa etc, etc, etc,. And the western powers are fighting to keep these starving masses from eating our lunch.
There are many solutions, first however we must admit to our mistakes, and acknowledge there is a problem, That is the first step in any recovery.
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
Thanks For Your Comments
I found all of them to be much more balanced and articulate than the vast majority of views I've read or heard since this crisis began to escalate.
If the whole sorry situation has one redeeming feature, it's that it might finally expose our so-called leaders as the devious, manipulative, self-serving incompetents some of us have known them to be all along.