"Haunting Image Of Drowned Boy Sums Up Consequences Of 'The Syrian War'"

Neyite wrote: »

It's very easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to this photo. I did. My son is the same age as the boy and even sleeps the same way, all curled up. I was near to tears for days even thinking about it. I still am.

But one photo shouldn't mean that we should just make it an open border free for all. It should mean that we lobby for our governments to find real ways to help with the crisis, and to do what we can as a nation. So that we can look back and say that we are proud of what we did to help.

If people are getting in rickety boats to get from Libya/ turkey to land in Kos or another part of the EU shores, then maybe an approach from several angles might be better:

Have EU processing centres on the shores of the origin country, or for example in Turkey, so they don't have to go in boats or if they do, they get rounded up and brought back to the processing centre.

Stiff sentences and confiscation of vessels for those who traffick. Make the stakes far too high for both trafficker and trafficked people to risk it.

Maybe if children are getting caught up in the conflict that temporary relocation to foster homes away from the war zones, like they did during the war in the UK and Germany.

Provide safe transit for those who do get correctly processed to their allocated EU country.

Work on political ways to end the wars?

I admit that I know very little about the conflict, or the resultant crisis, so I'm sure that my ideas are full of pitfalls. We cant fix this entirely, but we can help a little bit more I'm sure.

That's some joined up thinking there. Can't see it happening mind you.

Germany is very wary of being seen as right leaning and they have an economic reason behind the "let em all in" too. They have a rapidly ageing population and one of the lowest replacement rate in the western world. An economy can't outrun its demographics. It looks like a great way to bring in youth for their labour market. Now this being the EU, what Germany thinks and needs is usually put above what the rest think and need. Compare them to Spain. The Spanish have a much younger population, half of whom are out of work(and quite the number are going to Germany). An influx of competing workers from outside will do them no favours at all. Plus you can't conjure jobs from nada so they'd have to support these new citizens. Greece is in an even worse situation, they're essentially fooked. Italy and Portugal ain't looking too sweet either. None of them need more mouths to feed, if anything they'd benefit of more of their own left. Germany does see benefits and so will try to get what it wants. They pulled this same kinda thing with Turks back in the day(and then treated them like shít). Ireland? We're doing better than we were, or at least there are signs of that, but IMHO we've gone from Celtic tiger economy, through a reset to Paper tiger economy today. Never mind that our own children will be paying back the debts of the tiger years. In short if Germany or any other EU nation needs new workers then work away lads, but those economies who don't should say no thanks very much.

That's above and beyond the potential future social disaster that "multiculturalism" can bring in its wake. Oh it's a great idea, but in practice history has shown it doesn't always go so well*. An influx of people from cultures that have low levels of diversity of thought into ones that have a high level will not go well.




*In ancient Rome it worked well enough. IMH and mad theory ahoy, that was somewhat down to religion. They had a polytheist system of many gods. This meant that diversity of belief was built in on a spiritual and social low level. In ancient Rome one thing stands out is that different people from all across the empire lived cheek by jowl(as did various classes). There were little or no ghettos, or enclaves of cultures, like we get today. The later monotheistic stuff gets rid of that and goes to "my god is better than your false one/my culture is better than yours". This draws lines between people. Add in that if you wanted to be Roman, you were expected to act Roman. It was a broad enough church, but they brooked little in the way of dissent on that score. Cultural relativists they were not and it worked, for a very long time.

PropJoe10 wrote: »

I don't understand Cameron's attitude towards this. This is a matter of helping fellow human beings that are in dire, dire trouble. Surely a no-brainer for developed countries like Britain.

I think Cameron's tune has changed somewhat. GB are now going straight to camps within Syria and take refugees from there. To be fair, its a forward thinking plan. At least then they know they will get genuine Syrian refugees and bypass a potentially long drawn out (and costly) asylum process in the UK trying to decide who is genuine and who is not. Also, if that was adopted by more European nations it may act as a deterrent to people thinking of making the dangerous boat journey in the future. Angela Merkel has done the opposite, more people are going to die trying to reach Germany now.

Wibbs wrote: »

That's some joined up thinking there. Can't see it happening mind you.

Germany is very wary of being seen as right leaning and they have an economic reason behind the "let em all in" too. They have a rapidly ageing population and one of the lowest replacement rate in the western world. An economy can't outrun its demographics. It looks like a great way to bring in youth for their labour market. Now this being the EU, what Germany thinks and needs is usually put above what the rest think and need. Compare them to Spain. The Spanish have a much younger population, half of whom are out of work(and quite the number are going to Germany). An influx of competing workers from outside will do them no favours at all. Plus you can't conjure jobs from nada so they'd have to support these new citizens. Greece is in an even worse situation, they're essentially fooked. Italy and Portugal ain't looking too sweet either. None of them need more mouths to feed, if anything they'd benefit of more of their own left. Germany does see benefits and so will try to get what it wants. They pulled this same kinda thing with Turks back in the day(and then treated them like shít). Ireland? We're doing better than we were, or at least there are signs of that, but IMHO we've gone from Celtic tiger economy, through a reset to Paper tiger economy today. Never mind that our own children will be paying back the debts of the tiger years. In short if Germany or any other EU nation needs new workers then work away lads, but those economies who don't should say no thanks very much.

That's above and beyond the potential future social disaster that "multiculturalism" can bring in its wake. Oh it's a great idea, but in practice history has shown it doesn't always go so well*. An influx of people from cultures that have low levels of diversity of thought into ones that have a high level will not go well.




*In ancient Rome it worked well enough. IMH and mad theory ahoy, that was somewhat down to religion. They had a polytheist system of many gods. This meant that diversity of belief was built in on a spiritual and social low level. In ancient Rome one thing stands out is that different people from all across the empire lived cheek by jowl(as did various classes). There were little or no ghettos, or enclaves of cultures, like we get today. The later monotheistic stuff gets rid of that and goes to "my god is better than your false one/my culture is better than yours". This draws lines between people. Add in that if you wanted to be Roman, you were expected to act Roman. It was a broad enough church, but they brooked little in the way of dissent on that score. Cultural relativists they were not and it worked, for a very long time.

One wonders would Germany be so generous if this was not the case? Merkel is getting her plaudits as being the mother of Syrians (according to the press), but in truth this decision is more an economic as opposed to humanitarian.

Neyite wrote: »

I don't know. There might have been, but I was a kid then and current affairs and political endeavours to help were beyond my comprehension.



Are they helping, or are they profiteering from desperate people though. The boat that carried Aylan and his family charged €2000 per head in a flimsy boat that capsized, and provided no lifejackets for passenger safety. There were 23 on board. As far as I can recall, its a short boat journey, under 20 miles. The captain, who survived made €46,000 from it, and since a lot of the passengers didnt survive, wont be demanding a refund either. Seems like extortion and exploitation to me rather than a genuine compulsion to help desperate people.

Now, if he was to face a stiff jail sentence plus have his vessel siezed, that easy €46,000 might not be so attractive to him. Similarly, knowing that their was a high chance of capture and return to port of origin, minus whatever savings you had to your name, might deter those. But you'd also need to expedite the processing process. This is where the EU could put their money, and not have refugees languishing for years in a camp. Make it months of a wait, instead of years, and then provide safe passage when processed.

Then we might find that people will be less likely to hand over everything they own to a chancer with a dodgy dinghy, when the alternative is a stay in sanitary safe conditions for a few months while their visas get processed.

Agree totally. The guys operating these boat crossings are nothing but criminals out to make a profit. Apparantly the North African crossings go for €8000 and according to some reports the Turkish crossings are closer to €2000. So if Europe is expecting half a million or more in the next while, you have there a billion euro industry thats going to attract some ruthless mafioso types. You will most likely have a case where trafficking gangs start their own turf wars, ala drug gangs, over it.