Mediterranean migrants- specific questions

jmayo

Lockstep wrote: »

Very true but if we're expecting humanitarianism out of the Gulf States, we'll be waiting a very long time. They're hardly beacons of generosity and liberalism.

They are beacons of blowing money out their ar**es when it suits them.
How much is the WC costing Qatar again ?
Some of these states have helped create the mess, maybe it is time they helped solve the resulting fallout.

And yes I know that there are differences, but I think a lot of the refugees may have more in common with gulf state citizens than with some atheist in Scandinavia or some mass goer in Monasterevin.

Our generosity and liberalism, while one of our best traits, is also now our greatest weakness.

Nodin wrote: »

You could have said that about Europe for most of its history.

Just because we used to behead people for a different religious belief a couple of centuries ago doesn't necessarily mean it is an excuse to do it somewhere today.
What makes it even worse is a lot of the people doing it have modern technology at hand to show them how much better things could be and that half the shyte they have read and heard about religion and imaginary beings is bullc***.
Hell some of them have been westernly educated and have had life opportunities only due to fact they lived in a western democracy.

Nodin wrote: »

Yes, and in time it will change, painfully more than likely. The notion that the situation in the middle east is some exception to the norms of human or European civilisation overall is fundamentally incorrect.

We have managed to move on while they have regressed.
Even when they have had a chance the knuckle draggers are allowed pull them back centuries.

Nodin

jmayo wrote: »

And yes I know that there are differences, but I think a lot of the refugees may have more in common with gulf state citizens than with some atheist in Scandinavia or some mass goer in Monasterevin..

The fallacy in that thinking has already been dealt with.

jmayo wrote: »

Our generosity and liberalism, while one of our best traits, is also now our greatest weakness..

Is there a point to that?

jmayo wrote: »

Just because we used to behead people for a different religious belief a couple of centuries ago doesn't necessarily mean it is an excuse to do it somewhere today...

Nobody has stated that it was, so why are you saying that?

jmayo wrote: »

What makes it even worse is a lot of the people doing it have modern technology at hand to show them how much better things could be and that half the shyte they have read and heard about religion and imaginary beings is bullc***...

Theres been no changes to humans in an evolutionary sense in tens of thousands of years so expecting technology to produce it is a bit much. Besides, techonolgy can spread ignorance as quickly as knowledge, as these kinds of threads often show.

The person standing beside you today is the same that was drowning people in bogs a few centuries back with a different culture.

jmayo wrote: »

Hell some of them have been westernly educated and have had life opportunities only due to fact they lived in a western democracy.***...

Living in a western democracy, and indeed being a "western democrat" is no barrier to criminality, the commission of atrocities etc.

jmayo wrote: »

We have managed to move on while they have regressed.
Even when they have had a chance the knuckle draggers are allowed pull them back centuries.

Simplistic hyperbole really gets the discussion nowhere.

jank

Passports for sale?
https://twitter.com/HaraldDoornbos/status/644056427716345856

Wurzelbert

jank wrote: »

Passports for sale?
https://twitter.com/HaraldDoornbos/status/644056427716345856

and pretty cheap, too...compared to what ireland charges foreigners for a (legal) irish passport…

David Fiala

Wurzelbert wrote: »

and pretty cheap, too...compared to what ireland charges foreigners for a (legal) irish passport…

Hey can you tell me what's the price for legal Irish passport for Foreigners ?

Wurzelbert

David Fiala wrote: »

Hey can you tell me what's the price for legal Irish passport for Foreigners ?

i seem to remember that a good number of years ago it was around 900-1000 euros for foreigners to become naturalised irish, but i might not be up-to-date on that…in germany it's 255 euros, apparently

Lockstep

jmayo wrote: »

They are beacons of blowing money out their ar**es when it suits them.
How much is the WC costing Qatar again ?
Some of these states have helped create the mess, maybe it is time they helped solve the resulting fallout.

And yes I know that there are differences, but I think a lot of the refugees may have more in common with gulf state citizens than with some atheist in Scandinavia or some mass goer in Monasterevin.

Our generosity and liberalism, while one of our best traits, is also now our greatest weakness.

I'm not sure what your point is here. That we shouldn't have to do anything and the Gulf States should take up more of the slack?
If you expect the Gulf States to suddenly become humanitarian, then don't hold your breath. We don't rely on them because they're vicious and oppressive theocracies. Hardly something a democracy should use as a benchmark. Maybe we should ask North Korea to start taking them in as well.

Nodin

jank wrote: »

Passports for sale?

If you'll pardon me asking, what has that to do with anything?

RDM_83 again

Nodin wrote: »

If you'll pardon me asking, what has that to do with anything?

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2015/09/dutch-journalist-buys-fake-syrian-passport-with-prime-ministers-photo/

English

Nodin

RDM_83 again wrote: »

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2015/09/dutch-journalist-buys-fake-syrian-passport-with-prime-ministers-photo/

English

Thanks.

I'm still however, not seeing the connection between it and the thread. If Mediterranean migrants had EU passports, they could fly out of Turkey, land and travel as they wished.

A Primal Nut

Nodin wrote: »

Thanks.

I'm still however, not seeing the connection between it and the thread. If Mediterranean migrants had EU passports, they could fly out of Turkey, land and travel as they wished.

It's not a fake EU passport, it's a fake Syrian passport.

Sand

Nodin wrote: »

Thanks.

I'm still however, not seeing the connection between it and the thread. If Mediterranean migrants had EU passports, they could fly out of Turkey, land and travel as they wished.

Hes making the point that Syrian passports are easily and fairly cheaply purchased, and that people traffickers will be happy to sell them to anyone who thinks having a Syrian passport will increase their chances of getting into Europe.

Someone really needs to have a word with Merkel in particular and the German leadership in general. They went off on a completely harebrained solo run without consulting with the rest of the EU or their neighbours more generally. Refugees and migrants obviously react to the German policy and Germany's neighbours are thrown into chaos as hundreds of thousands of people march across their borders in the biggest movement of people since the second world war. During which many of those people have suffered and even died.

Having been completely overwhelmed by the impact of their own dumb policy, Merkel and Germany are now trying to strongarm other European states into bailing them out of their own stupidity. We already know exactly how Germany would act if the shoe was on the other foot. Germany is a rich and prosperous state and it needs to bear the consequence of its own stupid policymaking to avoid moral hazard. Ireland and the rest of the EU should stand ready to advise and assist, but Irish taxpayers shouldn't be asked to bear the costs of German incompetence. If anything Germany should be compensating its much poorer neighbours for the costs imposed on them of attempting to police and help the huge inflow of people German policies sparked.

foggy_lad

A Primal Nut wrote: »

It's not a fake EU passport, it's a fake Syrian passport.

Normally fake passports from other countries are quite easily found out due to fairly rigorous examination and checks but in the current climate of get them processed before the Angel merkel fooks up again it is unfortunately much more likely that such a fake would be accepted as legitimate.

Nodin

A Primal Nut wrote: »

It's not a fake EU passport, it's a fake Syrian passport.

.....which would leave them no better in terms of mobility than they were before.

Nodin

Sand wrote: »

Hes making the point that Syrian passports are easily and fairly cheaply purchased, and that people traffickers will be happy to sell them to anyone who thinks having a Syrian passport will increase their chances of getting into Europe.

..............

It will not make them, however, speak the form of Arabic spoken in the region, give them a Syrian accent, idioms of speech and local knowledge.

jank

Nodin wrote: »

.....which would leave them no better in terms of mobility than they were before.

Yet right up there on the top of the list when it comes to refugee spots....

Apparently, the equipment to make these passports was stolen during the civil war hence why anyone with a few hundred Euro can now get a Syrian Passport with no questions asked.

http://www.politico.eu/article/migration-fake-syrian-passports-asylum-request-frontex/

Daily Mail copies the Dutch reporter
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3235320/PASSPORT-TERROR-MailOnline-reporter-buys-Syrian-papers-sold-ISIS-fighters-sneaking-Europe-hidden-refugees.html

jank

Nodin wrote: »

It will not make them, however, speak the form of Arabic spoken in the region, give them a Syrian accent, idioms of speech and local knowledge.

You bring this point up the odd time but there is no reason to believe that such scrutiny will be brought to bare especially when things are so chaotic where each state is just trying to cope with the sheer numbers, never-mind finding out and investigating who is actually who.

BuilderPlumber

jmayo wrote: »

Some of these states have helped create the mess, maybe it is time they helped solve the resulting fallout.

You can bet. Saudi Arabia in particular has become a malign influence and the template that other states followed when they implemented their own tyrannies. Take the ultra conservative template from the Saudis and add in some Khmer Rouge terror and the dream of going back to the 4th century (+ guns!!) is achieved.

Countries like Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and the ones in North Africa all represented a very different form of Islam up until they became infected by the Saudi-inspired doctrine. People could dress, eat/drink, socialise and work as they pleased in a lot of these up until the Saudi-inspired death cult took over.

But, are Saudi 100% to blame? The Americans and the West also have to get credit. It was they who saw Saudi as a valuable partner in winning the cold war. It was the UNFORTUNATE location of countries like Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, etc. on the USSR's border that also helped mess things up.

Today's Middle East and Arab World is mainly moving backwards (Iraq, Syria, North Africa) or is stubbornly staying the same (Saudi Arabia and its Gulf State allies). Only some are trying their best to improve and roll back years of the virtual Wahabisation of their local forms of Islam (Afghanistan is struggling, Iran - as long as no one jeopardises its current moderate government - more successfully).

Countries making that effort to improve should be rewarded. This was exactly the mistake made in the past (Iran being labelled as one of the so-called 'Axis of Evil' for example at at time when there was as with now a genuine effort to improve itself). Not to mention the mistake that was the Iraq war (Saddam was hardly a threat to anyone by 2003 and there was no viable alternative). The main fear if some clueless person like Trump got into power in the US and started another war or insulted countries that are making the effort to improve and setting things back once again. We need to encourage Iran's current moderates, we need to keep other already stable countries like Turkey stable and we need to have a unified approach to dealing with ISIS and 'Islamic' and 'Arab nationalist' fascism in general.

Saudi Arabia needs to apologise to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan and North Africa for its inspiration and funding of groups and individuals and for promoting this brand of Islam it has. Saudi Arabia also needs to take in these refugees and help defuse this conflict. Everything that happened in the area since the 1970s regarding Islamic extremism can be attributed to the Saudis in one way or another.

Lockstep

jank wrote: »

You bring this point up the odd time but there is no reason to believe that such scrutiny will be brought to bare especially when things are so chaotic where each state is just trying to cope with the sheer numbers, never-mind finding out and investigating who is actually who.

Eh, you seem to falling into the common European trap that all Arabs are very similar to one another. They might have a common language and some cultural similarities but that's about it. This is a key reason why the pan-Arab movements kept failing: Arabs are very fractured and different from one another. Assuming that states are incapable of deducing this is a large stretch.

Nodin

jank wrote: »

You bring this point up the odd time but there is no reason to believe that such scrutiny will be brought to bare especially when things are so chaotic where each state is just trying to cope with the sheer numbers, never-mind finding out and investigating who is actually who.

I refer you back to what I stated and Locksteps post.

jmayo

Nodin wrote: »

Theres been no changes to humans in an evolutionary sense in tens of thousands of years so expecting technology to produce it is a bit much. Besides, techonolgy can spread ignorance as quickly as knowledge, as these kinds of threads often show.

You see technology allows one to see the world.
You know you can go on the web and see that there is more to the world than what you may have been fed by the backwards thinking yokos.
They are able to use technology to spread their hate, but can't damm well use to see there is a world out there where slashing someones head off is not the done thing.

Nodin wrote: »

The person standing beside you today is the same that was drowning people in bogs a few centuries back with a different culture.

Do they have the same mindset ?
No they damm well don't.

As BuildPlumber mentioned in his post certain countries have actually been dragged backwards over the last number of years.
There is a picture on the net of young women in mini skirts on the streets of Kabul in the late 60s or early 70s.
Try and see how long someone would last dressed like that today.

And this brand of fundamentalist hogwash has been imported into Europe.
And it is growing.
In the last week there was a conference in France to debate whether husbands should beat their wives.
The reason it became very well know was that some topless female protesters got a kicking by the young males at the conference.
It is fairly obvious how these guy think.

Not so long there were headhunters in Borneo and it was considered normal to some tribes.
But guess what attitudes have and are changing.
And this is from people who have only had contact with the western world for less than a century.

Nodin wrote: »

Living in a western democracy, and indeed being a "western democrat" is no barrier to criminality, the commission of atrocities etc.

There is criminality and then there is wholesale slaughter.

But as bad as the ones we have had in the Western world perpetrated by what would be termed natives, I can't recall anyone recently hacking off people's heads or killing others for drawing cartoons.

And I know form past debates that some people around here haven't a problem with some atrocities depending on who commits them.
I always find it gas how some people of a certain political leaning debate on some subjects with such an air of tolerance and yet they have supported organisations that have shown huge amounts of intolerance.

Nodin wrote: »

Simplistic hyperbole really gets the discussion nowhere.

Neither does making excuses and then the usual labeling of the naysayers.

Lockstep wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point is here. That we shouldn't have to do anything and the Gulf States should take up more of the slack?
If you expect the Gulf States to suddenly become humanitarian, then don't hold your breath. We don't rely on them because they're vicious and oppressive theocracies. Hardly something a democracy should use as a benchmark. Maybe we should ask North Korea to start taking them in as well.

When it suits the gulf states can be very vocal about their Arab world and their muslim brothers.
Two members of the Arab league are the only ones taking in refugees.
What are the rest doing ?
We do know that they have been backing rebel groups and orgainsations that have made things worse.

jmayo

Lockstep wrote: »

Eh, you seem to falling into the common European trap that all Arabs are very similar to one another. They might have a common language and some cultural similarities but that's about it. This is a key reason why the pan-Arab movements kept failing: Arabs are very fractured and different from one another. Assuming that states are incapable of deducing this is a large stretch.

They probably have a lot more in common with each other than with someone brought up in the midlands of Ireland who after mass on a Sunday would have a ham sandwich and pint or with some atheist in Helsinki who loves their pet dogs and their same sex partner.

Chips Lovell

I doubt it.

Lockstep

jmayo wrote: »

When it suits the gulf states can be very vocal about their Arab world and their muslim brothers.

If you're expecting the Gulf States to be anything other than corrupt and oppressive, you've a very interesting approach to them. Of course they act badly. They're terrible states. Hell, Saudai Arabia is one of the most oppressive in the world.
Except we're democracies, we hold ourselves to much higher standards than countries like this.

jmayo wrote: »

Two members of the Arab league are the only ones taking in refugees.

I'm not sure which countries have taken in refugees but it's certainly more than two. Presumably you're thinking of Lebanon and Jordan (which have taken the most) but Egypt and Iraq have also taken in hundreds of thousands.

jmayo wrote: »

What are the rest doing ?
We do know that they have been backing rebel groups and orgainsations that have made things worse.

Similar to the Gulf States, I'm not sure why you're expecting so much of the Arab League. Only Tunisia is anything approaching a tolerant democracy. The rest vary from terrible to contemptuous.


If you're saying it's disgusting how little action the Arab states are taking to help their fellow Arabs, I completely agree with you. If you're surprised by it, you only need to look at their bad treatment of the Palestinians, despite their frequent claims to be Palestine's defenders. Likewise, if you think we should do less because there's more responsibility on them as fellow Arab states, you're either ignorant of how bad these countries are or else knowingly using it as a shield to justify your refusal to help refugees.

Lockstep

jmayo wrote: »

They probably have a lot more in common with each other than with someone brought up in the midlands of Ireland who after mass on a Sunday would have a ham sandwich and pint or with some atheist in Helsinki who loves their pet dogs and their same sex partner.

Of course, just like I'd have more in common with an Texan evangelical but that doesn't mean we're in any way similar beyond skin colour, language and nominal religion.
The Arab states are very divided. Assuming they're all the same or even very similar is a very backward viewpoint.

Nodin

jmayo wrote: »

You see technology allows one to see the world.
You know you can go on the web and see that there is more to the world than what you may have been fed by the backwards thinking yokos.
They are able to use technology to spread their hate, but can't damm well use to see there is a world out there where slashing someones head off is not the done thing..

People see what they want to see all too often. Threads like this are often a good example.

jmayo wrote: »

Do they have the same mindset ?
No they damm well don't..

.....because, as I noted, of a change in culture.

jmayo wrote: »

As BuildPlumber mentioned in his post certain countries have actually been dragged backwards over the last number of years.
There is a picture on the net of young women in mini skirts on the streets of Kabul in the late 60s or early 70s.
Try and see how long someone would last dressed like that today...

Culture is not static, and there are many false starts towards modernity.

jmayo wrote: »

And this brand of fundamentalist hogwash has been imported into Europe.
And it is growing.
In the last week there was a conference in France to debate whether husbands should beat their wives....

No such conference took place. The subject was "Women and Islam". I refer you to my remarks about people seeing what they want to see.

jmayo wrote: »

The reason it became very well know was that some topless female protesters got a kicking by the young males at the conference.
It is fairly obvious how these guy think.....

Once man was pictured kicking at the women. Again, people seeing what they want.

jmayo wrote: »

Neither does making excuses and then the usual labeling of the naysayers.
.....

Nobody was making excuses. If you want to continue stating so, and in the event that I am wrong, please quote the individual and link back to their post.

A Primal Nut

Nodin wrote: »

.....which would leave them no better in terms of mobility than they were before.

It's much easier to claim asylum if you have a Syrian passport than if you have a passport belonging Pakistan, Bangladesh or Ethiopia for example.

A Primal Nut

Nodin wrote: »

It will not make them, however, speak the form of Arabic spoken in the region, give them a Syrian accent, idioms of speech and local knowledge.

Yeah, but you know how these things work. German police claimed they had to let you through various Black Africans because they had Syrian passports even though they clearly aren't Syrian. It will take ages before they can be deported again.

Nodin

A Primal Nut wrote: »

It's much easier to claim asylum if you have a Syrian passport than if you have a passport belonging Pakistan, Bangladesh or Ethiopia for example.

Regardless of the fact that there are clear differences in language and appearance between all three.....

A primal nut wrote:

Yeah, but you know how these things work. German police claimed they had to let you through various Black Africans because they had Syrian passports even though they clearly aren't Syrian. It will take ages before they
can be deported again.

Might I see the source for this?

BuilderPlumber

Lockstep wrote: »

Eh, you seem to falling into the common European trap that all Arabs are very similar to one another. They might have a common language and some cultural similarities but that's about it. This is a key reason why the pan-Arab movements kept failing: Arabs are very fractured and different from one another. Assuming that states are incapable of deducing this is a large stretch.

This thankfully is also the reason why ISIS will not take off on massive scale either. Many lump together Kurds, Iranians, Afghans, Pakistanis, Berbers, Tuaregs, Somalis, and even Indians as different types of 'Arabs'. This mentality of course does not recognise that even in true Arab lands, the Arab of Saudi and the gulf states is a very different Arab to those in say Mauritania or Morocco or even in nearby Syria or Iraq. It comes as a big surprise to some that Iran is not an Arab majority country. To some, Iran is the MAIN Arab country!

Others think being Arab and being Muslim are the same. Many non-Arab nations are Islamic such as Pakistan, Senegal, Iran, Afghanistan, Gambia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Afghanistan. As well as this, there are Muslim members of every race in the world. There are many Arabs too who are not Muslim and most of these are either Christians or Jews.