A Picture Fells A Thousand Tories
What a difference a week makes. For a long time now, what used to be asylum-seekers before being rebranded migrants and then suddenly refugees have been dying at sea in appallingly high numbers, many fleeing war-torn Syria. It’s uncomfortably ironic that so many British citizens are eager to travel in the opposite direction at the moment; perhaps the governments of the two countries should establish an exchange scheme? Sorry for being flippant when dealing with such a grim subject, but it’s no less flippant than the dramatic U-turn that has taken place on the right side of Fleet Street this week.
It goes without saying the general tone of the response to Europe’s current migrant crisis in the British press over the past month or so has fallen into entirely predictable camps. It wouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to anyone that the liberal heart of The Grauniad was losing pints of blood or that The Mail was (probably) forecasting falling house prices should the British Government allow any of the hordes at the mouth of the Chunnel to reach the white cliffs. The PM, busy chillaxing and displaying his 3½-pack, was eager to maintain the policy advocated by Messer’s Murdoch & Dacre (why does that sound like a dodgy Dickensian law firm?) without cutting short his hols. Andrew ‘Pleb’ Mitchell was insistent Britain was doing its bit earlier this week on ‘Newsnight’ without committing the nation to opening its doors, even if only leaving them a little ajar.
And then that picture was published. The flotsam and jetsam washed-up on most beaches tend to comprise dead sea creatures, used condoms, and various plastic items. To see the body of a small child in that situation is undoubtedly shocking, but the ocean has been surrendering its grisly secrets to Mediterranean coastlines for months. However, just as swatting a fly is entered into without a second thought, yet few with any decency would kick a puppy, the sight of a drowned infant rather than a fully grown person stirs something much deeper and it appears to have stirred something in the British public. Yes, the same public whose ability to react to any scenario is increasingly dependent on being told how to react by both strains of the media has now been encouraged not to see every escapee from psychotic regimes or war-zones in Africa and the Middle East as a scrounging parasite, but as a human being. There’s no middle ground in tabloid-land.
I suppose hearing or reading of a high number of deaths, whether passengers crammed into a small fishing boat or even reclining in relative luxury on an aeroplane, is such an abstract concept that it’s often difficult to envisage. The difficulty in doing so makes it easier to avoid thinking about and the numbers merely stay numbers; one doesn’t see the actual deaths, so it’s almost as though they didn’t really happen. When I read that a historical battle had upwards of 80,000 fatalities, the way I usually try to picture that astronomical amount is to imagine a full football stadium in which the crowd form the body count of said battle. I appreciate this is a personal system and maybe wouldn’t work for everybody. Sometimes it takes a single image to do the trick, as has occurred this week.
Some of the scenes that have played out on television news broadcasts over the last seven days have been compared to the panicked Jewish exodus from Germany on the eve of World War II, but have for me evoked the chaos that accompanied the 1975 evacuation of Saigon. Authorities are confronted by the same conundrum. Who gets in and who doesn’t? Who selects the straws to be drawn? Those that weren’t helped over the fences erected by the Americans to safeguard their own escape in 1975 and who weren’t prepared to submit to the Communist North fled their homeland by sea and thus the nomadic community of Vietnamese Boat People was born.
There’s no definitive solution to this problem, but it could be alleviated if the European nations try to curtail a prolonged humanitarian crisis by giving a safe haven to as many refugees as is feasible. But that’s the easy part, really. Where do they go once they’re in? Camps? The response to that option was greeted by both terror and refusal in Hungary a couple of days ago. Even if homes are located, the likelihood of neighbourhoods descending into ghettos where the same lawless way of living that many of the refugees fled in the first place then becomes second nature is high. Yet, integration is also difficult; spreading them throughout a country could lessen the possibility of them being ghettoised, but the subtle demonisation that several European Governments have used in relation to migrants since this crisis began has put fear into the hearts of many natives, something that was expressed even this week in the comments of the Hungarian Prime Minister.
Events on the coast of Turkey have changed the climate overnight – at least for those distanced from it. British newspapers that have been painting refugees as barbarians at the gates for months have belatedly humanised them and their readership are now expected to respond accordingly. Of course, some had already come to that conclusion and their chosen paper has decided to mirror their concern just in case sales figures drop as a consequence of being perceived as out of touch with the consensus. Politicians were also threatened with a spell in the dock at the Court of Public Opinion, so David Cameron has changed tack, perhaps conscious he needs all the friends he can get in Europe at the moment.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. But things as they stand clearly can’t continue. Three-year-old Aylan Kurdi may have inadvertently instigated the beginning of the end, but it was still too high a price to pay.
Petunia Winegum
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September 5, 2015 at 9:18 am -
It seems that most of the media have been deliberately ignoring the horrors of the Syrian civil war, and particularly the relentless bombing of civilians by Assad’s forces. There have been many horrific photographs of dead and maimed children before this exceptionally bloodless one was issued. There are also pictures of children who have been decapitated by IS members.
On some days the BBC has given prominence to a lying “interview” with Assad and not reported the deaths of dozens from one of his bombing raids at all.
A no-fly zone, as used in Libya, would have greatly reduced the death rate.
In this particular case, the family was safe in Turkey, so I wonder why the father thought it right to try to take them across the ocean in a little boat.
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September 5, 2015 at 2:09 pm -
Hi Don
“It seems that most of the media have been deliberately ignoring the horrors of the Syrian civil war, ….”
The UK/western MSM express horror and numerous column inches + photos of the Isis destruction of ancient tombs & artifacts in Palmyra and elsewhere. Yet remain strangely silent regarding the regions internecine religious (Muslim on Muslim) atrocities.
Warning: Graphic
http://www.clarionproject.org/news/isis-burns-alive-four-prisoners-grisly-revenge-flick
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September 5, 2015 at 9:20 am -
I’m afraid I don’t share your position on this issue. It’s very easy to use one highly emotive image to sway public opinion. The fact of the matter is that we in the UK live on a relatively small island. The politicians have been lying for years now about the UK population figures, deliberately underestimating them. We are already very overcrowded. If other, larger EU countries want to take them, then let them. For example France has roughly twice the land area and half the population of the UK.
It’s all very well for the comfortably off to wring their hands and gnash their teeth. They are more unlikely to be directly affected by mass immigration. They can easily afford to move home if the neighbourhood suddenly takes a nose dive. We are being told that austerity measures must continue. Many important front line services are in crisis. Where is the money going to come from to absorb these immigrants? I suggest that those who say we should open our doors should fully fund and house those that come. Just how many is Dave willing to accommodate in his various properties? It’s a bit like the Arch Bishop of Canterbury at Christmas when he bangs on about the homeless, how many does he actually house at Lambeth Palace?
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September 5, 2015 at 1:20 pm -
It’s very easy to use one highly emotive image to sway public opinion
It’s also very easy to use one highly emotive word or phrase to sway public opinion…like say, oh, “mass immigration”. Does any one of the armchair xenophobes here really believe the Syrians are ‘immigrants’ ?
The difference between the British response and the German is telling, or rather the reasons for the difference. Despite what the German nightly news claims I’m betting most German think there are far too many migrants coming into Germany and the EU already. However a large chunk of Germans are themselves the children and grandchildren of refugees, survivors of the Ethnic Cleansing after WW2. So ‘refugees’ or better those perceived in the public eye as ‘refugees’, can count on a reasonably friendly welcome in the Fatherland (a few places in the Country formerly known as the ‘DDR’ and the current Muslim hysteria excepting).
And to answer your question (challenge?) if the Government wants to place a small syrian family (we have a 1 bedroom flat) with us for the duration then we’d be honoured to help. The Bestes Frau’s entire family were/are refugees and anyways our faith demands we help the stranger at our gate.
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September 5, 2015 at 4:54 pm -
Hope you like crowded living then because none that are allowed in will be going back again.
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September 6, 2015 at 6:27 pm -
I’m happy to take in a Christian or Alawite Syrian in my spare room. The only reason they wouldn’t be going back is that they would be killed. Syrians are pretty proud of what was their country and rightly so.
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September 5, 2015 at 1:27 pm -
Agree. It has been suggested to me by cynics here (S.E. Asian country) who are far from being conspiracy theorists, that an image like this can be used for a variety of agendas other than the immediately emotive one. Just what kind of immigrants will now be allowed in on this wave of emotionalism?
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September 5, 2015 at 2:42 pm -
“Does any one of the armchair xenophobes here really believe the Syrians are ‘immigrants’ ?”
What else do you call someone who was safe from war in Turkey for three years, then got on a leaky boat to get to Canada?
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September 5, 2015 at 3:05 pm -
What else do you call someone who was safe from war in Turkey for three years, then got on a leaky boat to get to Canada?
Oh I can think of several names for The Father Of Photogenic Corpse…but Anna gets upset if i use that kind of language. Don’t get me wrong, I share’s Budvar opinion of that particular refugee. Of course the line between ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ blurs in places but that is the sort of distinction we should only make long after the event and with much hindsight. Don’t think i would count being a Kurd in Turkey as a particularly ‘safe’ life style choice.
If Meneer Frank had applied to the UK for asylum from the safety of Holland…..?
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September 5, 2015 at 1:57 pm -
It’s very easy to use one highly emotive image to sway public opinion
“One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” Joseph Stalin
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September 5, 2015 at 2:34 pm -
Where is the money going to come from to absorb these immigrants?
well at a guess, from the very same place it came from to pay for the bombing and destabalisation of their countries. and from the same place as it comes from to pay for effective border controls, or to pay for “the war on terror”, or MP’s expenses, or public enquiries, or 1001 other publically funded white elephants
Funny isnt it, there’s never a shortage of money for the really important stuff.
You can point out all of the potential problems associated with helping these people, of which I admit, there are many, but lack of money isnt one of them. Remind me again, exactly how much were UK banks given after the financial crash ?
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September 5, 2015 at 7:10 pm -
If lack of money isn’t a problem, then why are people who have paid into the system all their working lives denied acces to housing and other essential services? My guess is because the money is being spent on people who haven’t contributed one iota to the pot in the first place. Why is the UK seen as the preffered destination for the majority of immigrants? The simple answer is that they know we will bend over backwards to help them at the expense of helping our own people first because we are stupid.
And I wish TBD well with his new lodgers, I would just like to point out that small Syrian families may be rather hard to find, being muslims, they tend to go for the extended family model.
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September 5, 2015 at 7:41 pm -
being muslims, they tend to go for the extended family model.
and thus totally unlike the anglo- catholic, german anabaptist or mormon models in my own family? The older posters here probably grew up in families of a size to rival that of your average muslim one. My old Man- CofE (Cockney Outreach Mission) had a handful of siblings and more Aunts than Lonely. Nana Dwarf -Very Bloody Norfolk NonConformist had at least 7 brothers…
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September 5, 2015 at 7:18 pm -
Money is a problem only if they are banned from working. I have never understood this very expensive policy, nor how working can ever be a crime.
It is worth remembering that Britain absorbed 150,000 Polish immigrants/refugees in 1947, at a time when there really was a housing shortage. But they were allowed to work.
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September 5, 2015 at 7:37 pm -
We’re currently ‘absorbing’ a net 330,000 migrants a year, and have been for over a decade. It took a long time for a many media types to accept that most people in Britain felt that was too many, and the strain it was imposing on public services, not to mention the additional strain it imposed on the housing stock over and above other problems in that field, was excessive. Now all of a sudden, we’re told that public opinion has shifted and we’re suddenly happy to increase net migration by even more. I don’t buy that media line; I don’t think anybody has consulted the British people properly yet.
A large section of the media called public opinion wrongly over immigration before. I think it might well be again.
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September 5, 2015 at 7:48 pm
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September 5, 2015 at 9:40 am -
In many ways, the photo of Aylan Kurdi reminded me of that of Phan Thi Kim Phuc. They both highlight aspects of war we refuse to acknowledge when we are away from the front line. She was on fire from a bomb dropped by her own side – the tragedy of human collateral damage; he was a visualisation of the apathy and apparent ineffectiveness we feel about a war that is on our borders. His lifeless body makes me ask where does our responsibility lie?
I believe we should help more than we are, but I know we won’t help enough, not when this government and the media is busy at work demonising parts of the existing population. We’ll probably want to bomb more. That worked so well for us in Libya…
I’m not sure that the galvanisation of public feeling is as complete as I would hope either – have you read the comments BTL on ConHome, The Spectator, DT? Some of them are truly horrific. A child who had no say in the direction of his life drowned, and all these commenters can do is bitch about how it was his father’s fault, more Muslims would be too many Muslims, why isn’t Saudi Arabia doing more (yes, that bastion of liberty and hope)…. anything possible to justify the walking by on the other side. Although I can’t by any stretch of the imagination call myself Christian, I do accept many of Christ’s teachings as the decent and proper way to order a society. We like to think we are at root a Christian society, but responses to this situation make me think otherwise.
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September 5, 2015 at 9:45 am -
After WWII, it was considered appropriate, for salving the conscience of the civilised West, to ascribe an area of land to be donated to and settled by the Jewish people, in order to establish their own state where they would then be free from the horrific persecution which they had recently suffered.
Perhaps that approach should be considered again, setting aside a tract of land in the source area of the Middle East, where the displaced masses from that zone could create and manage their own free state, initially being given significant international support to develop their own institutions, economies, cultures etc. pretty much as the Israelies have done. After all, they don’t really want to move lock, stock and halal barrel to Europe, they just want to get on with their everyday family lives in their native area – well, that’s what they say anyway.
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September 5, 2015 at 9:49 am -
I’m surprised that hasn’t put forward as an official option, actually – unless it has and I haven’t been paying attention.
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September 7, 2015 at 7:54 am -
Dan Hannan suggested it somewhere last week, I believe. Not sure if that fits your definition of official…
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September 5, 2015 at 9:56 am -
And which of the existing middle east countries do you think would be willing to make space for this new state? They don’t even want Israel there and several, including Turkey, are doing their damnedest to make sure the Kurds don’t get one. Should we ask Russia if they have a spare bit of Siberia going? Do you think those refugees would want to go there?
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September 5, 2015 at 11:33 am -
“After WWII, it was considered appropriate, for salving the conscience of the civilised West, to ascribe an area of land to be donated to and settled by the Jewish people, …”
Perhaps a history refresher-course to include details & background of the infamous “Sykes–Picot Agreement” would be useful.
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September 5, 2015 at 10:23 am -
Karl Marx said there would never be a revolution in england, it would have to be imported, I see everything is going to plan!
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September 5, 2015 at 10:46 am -
I’m just going to give the ‘Post Title of the Week Award’ at my blog to you in perpetuity , m’kay?
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September 5, 2015 at 11:59 am -
Relieved somebody noticed it at last! To be fair, this piece is really trying to gauge the media response and how that one image altered it, which the title seemed apt for. I wouldn’t know where to begin with a wider analysis of how we got to this situation and I wouldn’t even try.
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September 5, 2015 at 2:12 pm -
A good start would be the “Sykes–Picot Agreement” as mentioned in my above reply to Mudplugger.
How Britain & France decided to shaft the arab ‘nations’ in the aftermath of WW1.
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September 5, 2015 at 7:27 pm -
Wasn’t it the Jews who were “shafted” ?
Palestine under the British Mandate was made as difficult as possible for Jews to enter, thus breaking the promise made in the Balfour Declaration. Meanwhile, there was a large immigration of Arabs into Palestine, in search of work.The problem was that the British establishment was sharply divided between pro-Arab and pro-Jewish factions. Or anti-Jewish and anti-Arab factions.
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September 5, 2015 at 8:06 pm -
Hi Don
The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence / exchange of letters (14 July 1915 to 30 January 1916) during World War I, between the Sharif of Mecca, Husayn bin Ali, and Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, concerning the political status of lands under the Ottoman Empire. The Arab side was already looking toward a large revolt against the Ottoman Empire; the British encouraged the Arabs to revolt and thus hamper the Ottoman Empire, which had become a German ally in the War after November 1914.
The letters declared that the Arabs would revolt in alliance with the United Kingdom, and in return the UK would recognize Arab independence. [My bold]
Later, the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement between France and UK was exposed showing that the two countries were planning to split and occupy parts of the promised Arab country. [My italics]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon–Hussein_Correspondence
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September 5, 2015 at 10:53 am -
I presume all the liberals on this blog have no investment in the future, ie Childless!
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September 5, 2015 at 11:17 am -
What does that mean? We childless “liberals” (I am not sure of how you define it, but I’m guessing it would include me) have no vision for the future in which mankind prospers, and we don’t work towards it? We don’t aspire for a better world or even travel to others? That we don’t have nephews and nieces with children of their own? That we don’t pay our taxes that go towards the education, health and care of other people’s children? That we do not participate in community on whose well-being we depend and to whose well-being we contribute?
I think your comment is defined by the word “fatuous”
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September 5, 2015 at 1:46 pm -
Indeed, Windsock, Henry should try a little liberal thinking from time to time. It might help him to avoid making of himself something that is defined by the word ‘tit’.
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September 5, 2015 at 2:06 pm -
I presume all the liberals on this blog have no investment in the future, ie Childless!
I wish!
I read this comment whilst burping Granddaughter2. Seriously Dude, what does having kids (or in my case too many bloody Kids) have to do with whether or not I’m a ‘liberal’ on this issue? I take it you mean ‘liberal’ in the sense of ‘humanity compels us to do unto refugees as we would hope they would do unto us if the tables were turned ?I took The Bestes Frau for our midday walk around the town-well i walked around the town…not sure what planet she was currently walking on…just about every house I passed on my way was inhabited by , at most, one family. In most other european countries those old victorian villas/terrraces would have been converted into at least 2 , if not 3, flats….yet some people talk of ‘overcrowding’? An awful lot of our fellow Europeans brought up their 2.5 kids in a two bedroom flat.
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September 5, 2015 at 10:55 am -
Knee-jerk reactions will not slow down the numbers fleeing war in their own countries. A homeland for the dispossessed sounds great, but where, if it is not to end up like Israel, resented by its neighbours? (An Egyptian billionaire has proposed buying an uninhabited Greek island for them, but it would swiftly become inundated, as word got back about.)
Stating the obvious, these are real people, not statistics. It’s almost impossible to imagine the horrors and hardships endured by a family leaving their home to travel into the unknown, carrying the few possessions they can manage, guarding their children, and finding food, water & shelter on the way, whilst being preyed upon by unscrupulous swine with their empty promises of visas and lies about resettlement.
Politicians, with at least one eye on their own futures, will never solve this – they have re-election in mind and so avoid vote-losing solutions. But any robust and long-term solution will be unpopular with voters.
The huge amounts now being spent on border fences could provide safe shelter nearer home for so many, but for the bloody politicians. And the even huger amounts wasted on munitions could build each and every refugee a fine house.
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September 5, 2015 at 11:26 am -
Windsock: ‘…and all these commenters can do is bitch about how it was his father’s fault…’
It was. You might want to ignore the facts along with Petunia, but I don’t.
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September 5, 2015 at 11:41 am -
If you mean it was the father’s fault in that he put his son in the boat, directly or indirectly, I can’t argue with that. By why wouldn’t a Kurdish man, having escaped ISIL to a Turkey generally recognised as being hostile to Kurds, want to give his wife and children a better life?
And then Henry upthread says: “I presume all the liberals on this blog have no investment in the future, ie Childless!” So should we say that it those selfish people with children who want a better future for them who are the ones causing the problems?
No, I thought not.
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September 5, 2015 at 2:15 pm -
Also, the family weren’t planning to stay in Europe. In Turkey, they had applied to emigrate to Canada, where they had family who were willing and able to put up all kinds of bonds and guarantees for them; they application stalled for some reason, the conditions in the Turkish camp were deteriorating, so the parents reckoned that a temporary stay in some European country while they argued with the Canadian authorities would be safer.
As for “why aren’t all these ME countries taking in refugees?”, the answer is that most of them are. You may notice that the UAE is absent from that list but rest assured, they are pouring millions into charities to help other countries to shelter refugees (their own charities, naturally). And they do have the little matter of a war in Yemen to get on with, so you can’t expect them to think about setting up refugee camps as well!-
September 5, 2015 at 4:24 pm -
@ Mrs Grimble
“Also, the family weren’t planning to stay in Europe. In Turkey, they had applied to emigrate to Canada, where they had family who were willing and able to put up all kinds of bonds and guarantees for them; they (sic) application stalled for some reason, ..” NOT SO!
Aunt of Alan Kurdi, drowned Syrian boy, did not apply to sponsor family in Canada
The aunt of the Syrian boy whose body washed up on a Turkish beach says that while she had desperately tried to bring his family to Canada, no formal application to sponsor them as refugees was made on their behalf as had been previously reported.
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September 5, 2015 at 2:43 pm -
I have no children. Not sure why that’s even relevant.
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September 6, 2015 at 6:01 pm -
Actually, the father wanted to take his family to Europe because he thought he could get dental implants provided to him for free.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojcn13DTXpQ
Interesting that while it was Sky news that did this interview, the truth about his reckless behaviour hasn’t been properly reported since.
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September 7, 2015 at 8:07 am -
I haven’t re-watched the interview carefully, but I believe another possible interpretation was that it was so he could get the implants FASTER. The aunt seems to be explaining that transferring the necessary money (14000 dollars) would take too long because Western Union limits how much one can send at a time. That this interview didn’t get more airtime worries me, because it feels like the media had at last got the picture they wanted, and deliberately clouded the backstory where it didn’t fit.
Over the past few days the thought has been increasingly growing on me that we just can’t project our own thought processes onto these people. Yes, we are all human, yes we are all equal in value. But the thought “what would I have to be exposed to to risk my life in a dinghy?” doesn’t necessarily transpose. There was an article on the BBC a while ago (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33986899) talking about young men just doing it out of boredom. I think these are radically different cultures, and they don’t have the same attitude to risk, to death, to many things. That doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t learn to understand them, but that we must do a bit more research instead of taking things at face value. Otherwise we are no different to Bush-style: first we kill Saddam Hussein, then they will embrace democracy.
Here is a fascinating take on things, ostensibly from an Iranian immigrant/refugee/wotsit: http://gatesofvienna.net/2015/08/in-the-middle-east-there-are-only-lose-lose-options/
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September 5, 2015 at 11:58 am -
Will the Kurds ever have there way?
I’ll get my coat.-
September 5, 2015 at 1:26 pm -
Oy Whey! That pun inchurd my pedantic wrath.
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September 5, 2015 at 3:45 pm -
Typical for our tame Dwarf, just milking it.
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September 5, 2015 at 4:52 pm -
Whereas you just provide the cream I assume?
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September 5, 2015 at 12:22 pm -
Well, someone’s trying to find humour in this bleak situation:
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September 5, 2015 at 1:09 pm -
I wouldn’t want poor Katie to endure that journey on her own. I’m sure we could all think of a few fellow passengers to accompany her, clutching their single tickets to Syria.
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September 5, 2015 at 5:07 pm -
I hope it’s in a dinghy.
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September 5, 2015 at 1:47 pm -
According to the Mail’s report, this family fled Kobane for Turkey last year. Having safely lived in Turkey for several months I would like to know why – having ‘escaped ISIL’ – the father chose to return to Kobane to bury his family and why the family had made the dinghy trip at all given that his wife had said only a week before that she didn’t want to go because she was afraid of the water.
I’d also like to know if the two contradictory accounts the father gives about his part immediately after the dinghy capsized were of any significance or merely slipshod reporting/editing by the Mail.
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September 5, 2015 at 3:58 pm -
… and why pay a ransom to some conman for a dinghy when Turkey has been happily shovelling Syrians on to Greek-bound ferries at minimal cost for much of this year?
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September 5, 2015 at 7:59 pm -
I wondered about that too
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September 5, 2015 at 1:58 pm -
So let’s put this into perspective shall we? If I were to turn up at Hayling Island with the wife and 2 kids, blow up my poundland dinghy shout out “All Aboard!!” and promptly set sail for the Isle of Wight without lifejackets, and the inevitable happens, with the wife and kids bodies washing up on Bournemouth beach, in what way is this not a result of my own weapons grade cunting stupidity?
In what way is the above scenario any different from the actions that lead to all the photos on the front page of the world press?
That’s the thing these days, no one is ever responsible for their actions, no matter how fucking idiotic, but there’s always some handwringing do gooder who will enable them by saying it’s all societies fault or those bastard uncaring Tories..
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September 5, 2015 at 2:23 pm -
in what way is this not a result of my own weapons grade cunting stupidity?
I find it hard to disagree.
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September 5, 2015 at 2:38 pm -
“Uncaring Tory bastards.” Not all Tories are uncaring bastards, some of them actually have proof of their paternity!
I’ll call a cab…
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September 5, 2015 at 1:59 pm -
Australia solved the problem of the boat people years ago with a simple NO. You arrive as an economic migrant/displaced person uninvited you get sent back to where you came from.
The EU should have the same policy. There could be a clearing station setup in somewhere like Morocco and those that pass the screening will know which country accepts them – those that don’t pass get a free lift back home. Anyone trying to get in by boat also get a free lift back home and forfeit any chance of ever being allowed in.
The problem would be solved in a couple of months.
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September 5, 2015 at 2:44 pm -
+1
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September 5, 2015 at 6:06 pm -
+2. Europe is going down the pan due to their gutless PC politicians.
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September 5, 2015 at 7:15 pm -
+3 Well said!
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September 5, 2015 at 2:44 pm -
I have been wrestling with this all week. Nobody in their right minds wants to see a 3 year old child drowned, or probably anybody drowned, with possible notable exceptions of the so called Preachers of Hate who seem to spend so much of their bile riddled days leeching off the State they would seek to destroy. I can have significant personal sympathy with many Syrians, often educated people, fleeing s civil war. I find it interesting, curious, and somehow significant however, that the favoured destinations for those on the move is not stable middle eastern countries? Why should that be? And what are countries like Saudi Arabia and Quarter, bloated on oil, doing about it – if anything? And if not, why not?
I can understand the charitable motives of many. I can share their concerns too. But my view, and I have probably expressed on here before, is that the lesson of history when it comes to mass migration of peoples – and that is actually what we are talking about here – will bring, not may bring, the collapse of the Romano-Christian-Jewish heritage of Europe, civil disorder and eventually civil war. You pays your money, you makes your choice.-
September 5, 2015 at 2:57 pm -
I couldn’t agree more..
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September 5, 2015 at 3:14 pm -
will bring, not may bring, the collapse of the Romano-Christian-Jewish heritage of Europe, civil disorder and eventually civil war.
That’s where I part company with you, I see it causing iconoclastic change and not ushering in those 4 jolly geezers on white, red, black and green gee-gees respectively.
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September 5, 2015 at 3:16 pm -
The last time that European culture/civilisation faced such a threat as this it was only saved from destruction outside the Gates of Vienna on September 11th 1683. This time, I fear that, they will actually hold the gates open for them and I don’t see any Winged Hussars riding to our rescue anytime soon.
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September 5, 2015 at 3:50 pm -
The west struggled for centuries to free itself from the dogma of an imported middle eastern religion which exercised great temporal power. In a generation the appalling mainstream political class massively import a worse form of religion again. Dwarf is right – it will be iconoclastic change alright. Back to what we had centuries ago – only far worse.
When it all kicks off the wealthy, posturing, sanctimonious politicians and righteous, virtue signalling luvvies will have their safe havens to go to – leaving the rest to fester in the conflict torn, divided, third world style hell holes they have created from what were once peaceful, homogeneous liberal democracies.
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September 6, 2015 at 8:40 am -
I think that puts it rather well
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September 5, 2015 at 4:51 pm -
Whilst i personally rejoice that the Turkish Forces Of Darkness were repelled and Christian Vienna saved- where would we be, as Europeans, without Croissants and coffee, the two bedrocks of European culture? Was not the Army attacking Vienna heavily NON-muslim?
And by the same token, wasn’t it the very defeat of the Turks that led to the rise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and some bloke named “Ferdi” needing to be in Sarajevo by noon? (to quote an old joke: A man finds a magic lamp, asks the genie to make him insanely rich, powerful and to let him wake up next to the most beautiful woman in the world. The man awakens next morning to someone shaking his shoulder saying ‘Wake up Ferdi, we need to be in Sarajevo by noon’).
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September 5, 2015 at 7:34 pm -
The Jewish heritage was largely destroyed in the Holocaust.
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September 5, 2015 at 7:40 pm -
It is rather ironic that the migrants to Europe, if there are too many of them, might destroy the very thing they come to seek.
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September 5, 2015 at 2:55 pm -
“Three-year-old Aylan Kurdi may have inadvertently instigated the beginning of the end, but it was still too high a price to pay.”
Yes – but why and what were his family fleeing? They had been living in a flat in Turkey for the previous three years, before deciding to “flee” to Greece.
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September 5, 2015 at 3:39 pm -
He got his invitation from Mrs Merkel.
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September 5, 2015 at 3:57 pm -
It would appear apart from his sheer stupidity in trying to make the journey in that plastic kids boat, only the men had life jackets and the real purpose of his trip was revealed by the family member in Canada.
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September 5, 2015 at 4:21 pm -
So the father put his lack of molars before the safety of his family. It seems that he lacked both molars and morals and now he lacks a family. So there is a moral to this sad tale, but no molars!
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September 5, 2015 at 7:40 pm -
Do you get free tooth implants anywhere in Europe? You certainly don’t get them free in Britain — I had to spend all my savings to get them fitted by a private dentist.
National Health dentistry just supplies traditional loose false teeth.
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September 5, 2015 at 4:17 pm -
So this is just a refugee crisis of people fleeing a civil war in Syria is it? I think it’s infinitely more complex than that.
When the Royal Navy was deployed to the Mediterranian to pick up people being trafficked out of Libya in dodgy boats, they expected to find desperate, poor, starving people of all ages and types fleeing war-torn countries. However, what they mainly found was a high proportion of young, fit men, well-dressed and clearly not starving, with mobile phones and credit cards they intended to use in Italy. Looking at the media coverage of Calais, and you can see virtually the same yourself. Listen to the media reports of where these people come from, and among other places Afghanistan is mentioned. Now that’s a country that has had it’s problems, but isn’t it broadly stable these days? What are Afghans fleeing? Not the imminent threat of death as colateral damage in a civil war.
This movement of people is more complicated than just refugees fleeing war, looking for temporary sanctuary until the fighting stops and they can go home (though there is a significant number of those). There are also plenty of young men with some education, some money and access to the world wide web giving them all the information the want, who see a comfortable existence in European countries (peace, rule of law, prosperity and welfare – what more could you want?) and they want some of it. Can’t altogether say I blame them, either. But – once they’re here, they won’t be going back. Once a few thousand are allowed to stay, there will be hundreds of thousands more wanting the same, then millions.
Therein lies the problem. Sanctuary to genuine refugees is one thing, but opening the doors to countless economic migrants is quite another. We have a problem, and I’m damned if I know what the answer is. It’s no good looking to the UN, they’re about as much use as a chocolate teapot in these situations. The EU is too preoccupied with administrative matters to bother about solving big problems; it can’t even deal with the Greek crisis without reducing Greek citizens to penuary. I do think our own government has been doing reasonably well under the circumstances, with measures little reported in some sections of the media, giving more support to those ME countries on the front line of the migrant crisis (Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan) than the rest of the EU put together.
There is no easy answer to this crisis. The sort of media wankfest over the drowned boy won’t help in the end either – most thinking people had worked out that all those leaky boats out of Libya, and now Turkey, held human beings; a human being trapped in a sinking people smuggler’s boat off Libya is no less a human being than a three-year old boy drowned and washed up on the Med coastline. The left-leaning media took a long time to work out that a quite sizable chunk of the British people were not happy about the consequences of net migration reaching the figure of about a million every three years. Now it suddenly expects that same swathe of people to willingly have net migration figures vastly increased. I’m not so sure they are.
The problem now is how to persuade people from North African and Middle Eastern countries not wracked by war to stay put, and not migrate to Europe. If Europe really does offer them a better chance of a prosperous life than home, who can blame them for trying? How do we spread peace, security and prosperity so that the migration does not need to happen? We’ve been pissing ‘Overseas Aid’ into places like these for years, but it doesn’t seeem to have done much good in some cases.
Bigger problem than I’ve got answers for, I’m afraid.
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September 5, 2015 at 7:51 pm -
Engineer, There is an answer – the one Australia uses (see my comment further up).
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September 5, 2015 at 8:18 pm -
I agree that’s a measure to hold the line, but how do we solve the problem of people wanting to migrate in the first place? How do we ensure that there’s something worth staying for in the countries they’re migrating from? We’ve tipped billions in foreign aid into ‘developing countries’, with very little to show for it in some cases; what should we be doing differently?
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September 5, 2015 at 9:30 pm -
For a start don’t use the left leaning green NGOs. For some reason they think theit HQ buildings are more important than the work they should be doing.
In Africa the first thing that is needed is a plentiful reliable source of cheep power (coal fired power stations). Then there is a need for agricultural machinery to allow those in the rural areas to farm the land and not literally scratch a living from it. We hear, and see pictures, of a village getting a stand pipe for well water that forces people to lug pots and pans to get water when we should be seeing that water being piped to every house (the first is the green way the second is the real way that the greens don’t like).
I could go on but until the foreign aid is spent on the people and not just given to governments that somehow manage to move it to Swiss bank accounts in individual names we won’t see any change (see Agenda 21).
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September 5, 2015 at 10:32 pm -
Very fair points, Ivan – and I commend the clarity of your thinking.
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September 6, 2015 at 9:37 am -
Even before important infrastructure items like power-supplies, what most of those countries need as the very first step is a strong land title system. Only if someone can prove ownership of an asset, like land, can they raise capital to develop it. If they can raise the capital, they can then buy machinery, build commercial units, start making things, start employing people, start taxes flowing, start institutions such as roads, power, water, telecoms, drainage, schools and hospitals etc – that’s the virtuous circle of development.
None of that needs aid-money, it just needs a stable system of legal title to assets, against which funding can then be raised – that worked in the West, so why not for the rest ?
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September 6, 2015 at 8:45 am -
Well observed and well written, Engineer
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September 7, 2015 at 8:59 am -
“peace, rule of law, prosperity and welfare – what more could you want?”
All of which would be destroyed by the advent of millions of people with no such habits.
Europe is peaceful and prosperous largely because it’s full of Europeans – for the time being.
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September 5, 2015 at 4:37 pm -
So this is just a refugee crisis of people fleeing a civil war in Syria is it? I think it’s infinitely more complex than that.
I pointed out weeks ago that the pictures of the rescued-from-the-Med refugees wrapped in Bacofoil seemed to show a high proportion of, what one might politely call, “non -arabs” or , as the German News calls them, “refugees fleeing economic hardship und civil ‘unrest’ in Africa”. Don’t think anyone would claim that the current crisis was solely refugees fleeing Syria..infact if it were only genuine refugees (however one might define that) I doubt there would be such a hoo-hah …except, of course, for us Britishers on our oh-so-small Island *insert Dailymailreader whinge* who have never emotionally recovered from the fall in house prices after the Huguenots swarmed over here with their funny foreign ways…and town planning abilities.
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September 5, 2015 at 5:39 pm -
I have only just got back – so dog tired that I can barely speak – but happy to see the blog in such excellent hands. A cracking post Petunia, in the finest Raccoon tradition of pointing out the hypocrisy and looping the loop performed by our media when they sense their buying public moving away from their chosen agenda. Congratulations Sir.
(Haven’t read back further than that, and there is the small matter of some 372 e-mails, one of which might even be important).And the strap-line is a corker!
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September 5, 2015 at 5:48 pm -
September 5, 2015 at 6:06 pm -
Glad you’re back safe
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September 5, 2015 at 7:59 pm -
Yes indeed.
Welcome back, and we look forward to your essay on “What I Did in My Holidays”.
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September 5, 2015 at 7:54 pm -
Very convenient that the ship is in Yarmouth harbour, just a quick toddle home.
I trust you enjoyed yourself and Mr. G wasn’t too worried.
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September 5, 2015 at 6:04 pm -
Just been listening to “PM” , apparently a train load of refugees arrived in Germany today, to applause and photogenically blond locked and blue eyed children handing over their toys to the poor little refugee children (awww BLESS!). Of course the reporter had to find some Germanic Talking head to ‘explain’ why Germans are seemingly so refugee-friendly….and of course the Teutonic Head had to cock waffle (if a lady can?) about “the historical guilt and debt to Europe that Germans feel.”
Which is bollocks. I doubt very much that any German born much after 1960 feels an historic sense of guilt over what their Great Grandparents did or didn’t do. The reason most of (West) Germany is refugee friendly is because their parents and Grandparents are prone to reminisce about the summers in Sudetenland/Prussia/Schlesien …about how even the water tasted better ,the apples crispier, the girls arses perter and the cows gave better milk too.
Over the years since I married into just such a refugee family I have heard (endured) any numbers of hours of Eulogies about the lands eastward what veritably flowed with milk and honey. The Sun may or may not always shine on TV but it bloody well seems to have in 1930s Bohemia! Last year I met up with some friends of The Bestes Frau and despite their having been born in Germany, having lived there their entire lives and speaking both High German and the local Hessian dialect , not the Sudetendeutsch of their parents , they still admitted to feeling/identifying themselves as Sudeten Germans….or “Driven Outs” as they say.
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September 5, 2015 at 7:15 pm -
September 7, 2015 at 8:18 am -
Here’s a potential ‘why’, from the Guardian no less (and pre-dating ‘the photo’):
“No other industrial land is as starkly affected – and this is despite a strong influx of young migrant labourers.
In order to offset this shortage, Germany needs to welcome an average of 533,000 immigrants every year, which perhaps gives context to the estimate that 800,000 refugees are due to come to Germany this year.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/23/baby-crisis-europe-brink-depopulation-disaster
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September 5, 2015 at 7:09 pm -
Bush and Blair are responsible for this. Blair has a property empire of 20 to 30 dwellings we could start by filling those and making him pay to keep the inhabitants.
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September 5, 2015 at 8:05 pm -
Bush and Blair may be dodgy characters, but they are in no way responsible for the current situation in the Middle East. If you want to blame people, you could start with Al-Wahhab and Qutb.
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September 5, 2015 at 10:02 pm -
Just been watching the German TV News, and the reporter at Munich Main Train Station reported that Munich’s Burgomaster was, today, almost “bursting with pride” (when interviewed earlier) at how his city had received and processed the thousands of refugees. Yet Munich has been taking hundreds a day already this year. Comes to something when Bavaria (which is Conservative with a kapital ‘Heil’) puts the rest of Europe to shame with simple humanity. I can’t help wondering how Boris & the Londoners would react to trains with hundreds of Syrians arriving at St Pancras….would those cheeky rosy-cheeked cockney cherubs be handing out their teddy bears and Game Boiz to them ?
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September 5, 2015 at 10:36 pm -
A wee point of order, Mr BD – you’d be hard pressed to find many “cheeky rosy-cheeked cockney cherubs” anywhere near St Pancras; they’ve all been ethnically cleansed to the outer suburbs – by immigrants. London, let us not forget, is ‘one of the world’s foremost cultural melting-pots’.
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September 5, 2015 at 11:21 pm -
+1
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September 6, 2015 at 3:35 am -
+ fucking 2..
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September 6, 2015 at 7:43 am -
Yup, London’s enrichment is picking up pace nicely:
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September 5, 2015 at 10:51 pm -
How many people from Africa, the Middle and Far East want to come here? Add up the numbers and they spell extinction for the native European populace and dystopia for this continent, for sure as eggs are eggs they will carry on their primitive religions, hatreds and tribal ways here. I wonder where they will all find another place to flee once Europe is reduced to yet another hellhole of failed states? Australia has shown us the way to do it but our leaders are weak and more concerned with being politically correct to even begin to address the problem other by chucking away ever more money to the lands these people are running away from. If Frau Merkel and M. Holland keep inviting them in I can see civil unrest occurring through most of our continent. Can anyone seriously believe that if we let in 5 million ‘refugees and asylum seekers’ now there won’t be twice as many next year, or successive years after that? We have more than enough home grown criminals and welfare cases thank you very much, and we neither need or want countless more.
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September 6, 2015 at 3:44 am -
A+TA, I’ve had several conversations over the last few months regarding this very thing with our “Commonwealth Friends”. Seems the consensus is once the free money stops and the shooting starts, they’re all fucking off back to the homeland, and waiting it out until it all dies down and slide back in and take over.
I on a personal note don’t think that things will go the way they’ve planned somehow..
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September 6, 2015 at 12:11 am -
September 6, 2015 at 9:17 am -
I know this immediate issue does not relate to Libya, but I googled ‘libya gaddafi immigrants’. The results were interesting.
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September 6, 2015 at 3:38 pm -
An excellent article about this by Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times today (paywall) where he paraphrases Sir Paul Collier:
“Europe….[should be] should be fostering a Syria-in Exile economy located in neighbouring countries…… Providing a skilled minority of Syrians with Dream lives in Europe is not the answer…. It would gut Syria of the very people it would most need. It is an intellectually lazy feel-good policy for the bien-pensant.”Collier points out that the approach pioneered by the Germans “is not just foolish, it is deeply immoral. Europe has a duty to fish refugees out of the sea because it is morally responsible for tempting them into the sea. So whatever else Europe does, it must stop this policy of temptation. Paying a crook thousands of pounds for a place on a boat should not entitle a Syrian refugee to a more privileged entry to Europe. It is profoundly unfair to other suffering refugees.”
As the government proposes, we should be taking the most needy from Zaatari.
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September 6, 2015 at 4:00 pm -
A very interesting article, and also the comments. This is my tuppence-worth.
UK cannot afford it:
What about the millions squandered on government IT systems that over-run budget, do not work, and eventually get ditched? Or the money spent on a burgeoning House of Lords, where many clock in just to get the per diem and never contribute to debates? What about the HS2 vanity project, with costs so out-of-control that the government does not intend to publish the assessments from 2013 onwards? Or the wholesale outsourcing of statal responsibilities, at huge expense and with such dismal results? There is much more that could be added to that list of wanton waste of taxpayers’ money.ISIS:
The only faction that had shown any success against ISIS wasn’t any of the goverment military forces, it was Kurdish militias. But that didn’t sit well with Turkey. So a dirty, underhand, deal was made: if Turkey joined the bombing of ISIS, a blind eye would be turned to their also bombing the Kurds … again. However, an alliance of the inept will make no headway against ISIS. It will only result in yet more innocents suffering death and destruction, some ready-made PR for ISIS, and yet more refugees.Syria:
I’ve seen mention made that many of the Syrian refugees entering Europe seem to be “middle class” — as though that made them somehow bogus! The dreadful carnage that all sides in the Syrian civil conflict have been wreaking on each other for nearly 5 years is no respecter of persons. There comes a point when moving elsewhere in the country is no longer an option. And the adjacent countries, although they have taken in so many, are far from being havens. If you really want to know more, do read:
http://www.unhcr.org/55016fff6.htmlIslamic states as refuges:
To the people who ask why moslems fleeing Syria/Afghanistan/Iraq do not go to, for example, Saudi Arabia: firstly, Saudi Arabia would not accept them. Secondly, even if they could go there, it would be out of the frying pan and into the fire: the refugees are not “fundamentalists”. They are being forced from their homeland by the extremists, on both sides, who are trying to bomb each other into submission, and Sod the collateral damage. (Saudi Arabia is already engaged in its own indiscrimate war on neighbouring Yemen.)Childless Liberals:
I’m one of those! (Both are from choice.) And yes, during my lifetime, I have housed and assisted refugees. I now count two of them amongst my closest friends. Perhaps my expatriate lifestyle afforded a different perspective? Because, were it not for the generosity and friendship of locals in some of the countries I lived in, life could’ve been miserable — indeed, occasionally dangerous.P.S. Welcome home Anna!
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September 8, 2015 at 5:03 pm -
It is failing house prices that the DM usually ominously forecasts in connection with any catastrophic event not rising ones (Petunia is clearly not in the Mail’s target homeowning demographic).
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