Remember during the Greek crisis when I said that one of the reasons why Brussels Eurocrats had a low opinion of national democracy was how the whole refugee debacle was unfolding…even back then? The “Brussels solution” to the refugee crisis, which hadn’t even taken on the dimensions and scale that it has now, was essentially that refugees arriving on the shores of Greece and Italy, at least 160K of them (now a laughable pittance), would be divided up among EU member countries by economic weight. This would mean that Germany and France and so on would still be taking the lion’s share of them, while Estonia very few of them, but everyone would be participating in the process without effectively putting the entire burden on peripheral countries.
Here, I will elaborate on the practical and ethical logic of this plan: Peripheral EU countries were, I might add, intended to be burdened with the bulk of refugee processing, by the Dublin treaty, which demands that refugees be returned to the first country in which they arrived, even if they manage to make it to countries with less capricious refugee processing. It was part of the generally awful “safe third country” trend that degenerated immediately into a purely political tool with often little relationship to the reality of migration and refuge. Dublin was signed in a time when refugee influxes were comparatively small. For peripheral countries, accepting the burden of shoreline refugee processing was a no-brainer compared to the benefits they thought they would get by being cooperative with EU-interior countries’ desire to be in control not only of immigration, but of arrival itself, a luxury that is physically, morally, and legally impossible for shoreline countries. However, when refugee arrivals are not so small, Dublin is unenforcible. It is the public acknowledgement of this that is blamed for the influx into Germany right now — what people are calling Merkel’s “invitation.” The alternative was not to acknowledge this and to attempt to deport migrants en masse back along the Balkan route, to countries not willing or able to process the full load. The Merkel administration’s act of acknowledgement (aka the “invitation” in many quarters) was both politically and morally the right thing, even if it has the character of one of Merkel’s time-buying tactics. It was the right time to buy time.
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Why is it impossible for peripheral countries to control their own borders, particularly those on the sea? It comes down to a matter of rescue. Dragging refugee boats back to the shorelines from whence they came requires the legal cooperation of the countries on those shores, some of which are producers of refugees themselves. One may indulge in a false European fantasy of omnipotence, but Europe does not have the ability to impose refoulement on many of the “origin” shoreline countries. So the question becomes: Do EU-peripheral countries have an obligation to rescue those who come, at least, by sea? The legal and moral answer is: Yes. Once they are rescued, the requirement to do something with them — meaning, of course, process their refugee claim — falls upon the rescuer.
But if the burden is too large for peripheral countries, of course they have an incentive to send refugees on towards the center. Not merely an incentive, but in some sense an obligation. Hence, as I said, the Dublin suspension. But why is the burden so large? It is large, particularly in this instance, because of the size of the migration from Turkey. Why is the size of the migration from Turkey large? It is large because the size of the migration from Syria and other war-torn countries is large. Turkey hosts many more refugees from this crisis than all of Europe. (I will leave aside for this post the extent to which Turkey contributed to creating these refugees.) So do many countries neighbouring Syria, particularly Jordan and Lebanon. They all, one way or another, must accommodate a refugee crisis far larger than what Europe has handled. They do so very imperfectly, with the expectation of foreign aid and the desire to prevent the situation from becoming permanent. (Lebanon cannot simply make a million people its permanent residents and future citizens, but the EU, as a whole, certainly can.) But the situation is such that it is entirely possible that many of the refugees will never even have the opportunity to safely go back to Syria.
Of course, many of the refugees are not actually Syrian. These are the dreaded “economic migrants.” The problem is, with no legal way created for Syrian refugees (or other refugees) to arrive in the EU without illegally crossing borders, but no ability to have a future, even for many of them in Turkey, Syrians must take clandestine approaches to moving westward. This effectively creates a massive flow of refugees, which creates an elaborate market and services which non-refugees can exploit. (The distinction between economic migrants and refugees is morally and functionally dubious, and we may have to rethink the entire basis of citizenship and sovereignty to de-couple it from territorial borders, but that is for another time.) In order to stop economic migration, one must either stop refugees entirely or one must provide another route for refugees in the hope that that will dry up some of the illegal transit market. To stop refugees entirely, one must either drown them or treat them so terribly on arrival that they act as living warnings against attempting to transit (this is the Australian “solution”) and view their present precarious situation as the same or superior to severe maltreatment. Needless to say, much of this could have been avoided by earlier action resettling Syrians — and others! — away from the Middle East.
If one is not willing to let refugees drown or to torment them, and one is not willing to let an EU country become a “warehouse of souls,” then one must permit refugees and potentially non-deportable economic migrants to proceed. This is essentially the route that Angela Merkel chose by suspending the Dublin Treaty. She and her government treated Greece very poorly in the financial crisis, but, in this, she effectively attempted to both rescue Greece and the dignity (i.e., appearance of unity) of the Union, and bought time to find a more permanent and less haphazard solution. While I dislike many of her policy choices, and I don’t believe the bandied-about (and probably sexist) claim that she suddenly became “soft-hearted,” or something. Give credit where credit is due: I do believe that she did the right thing for the European Union and for the refugees simultaneously.
The problem is that the only country that is willing to take refugees is Germany, and it will eventually be politically unsupportable for Germany to be the sole player in this game. While proportionately falling far short in terms of actual numbers, compared to some Middle Eastern countries, Germany has still taken on a million refugees (and/or economic migrants) and has, under stressful conditions, started to organize the terms of their integration. Even then, Germany has done what its alleged EU ‘partners’ have been unwilling to do. If there must be refugee transit within Europe, the only fair way to implement it is by the very redistribution proposal I mention above.
Unfortunately, a large number of EU states, particularly the so-called Visegrad states of Eastern European countries, are simply unwilling to share any burden at all, even a couple of dozen. That is due to naked racism (and yes, you can be racist against Muslims, even though Islam is not a ‘race’; you don’t need a ‘race’ for racism to occur, quite the contrary). The expansion eastward was ill-advised; these countries suffer in part from a post-communist nationalist ‘adolescence’ that is not really compatible with European convergence, and from that, an effective requirement to be a participant in dealing with refugees from on-going conflicts in the very much neighbouring Muslim world. Unfortunately, and further, even countries that were considered core European countries, such as France, are not willing to be part of a common solution to the refugee crisis.
Europe has so far flailed around attempting to come to a resolution of this impasse. While I gave credit to Merkel above for doing the right thing by suspending the Dublin treaty, unfortunately, her solution, possibly a matter of necessity, has been to attempt to bribe Turkey to accept deportations. The political situation in Turkey is not pleasant, to put it mildly. Ankara is in the strange situation of being both partly at fault for the refugee crisis, and yet for a power that is partly at fault, it is still not possible to force it to handle the entire burden. Consequently, one either deals with Turkey, or one doesn’t deal with Turkey, at which point, the choice between letting boats sink or rescuing them and taking on the refugees once again presents itself. Dealing with Turkey involves paying it money, giving it better access to the EU economy, and directly shouldering some of the refugee burden. For both good and bad reasons, the deal with Turkey is not universally popular in the EU, and there have been a number of false starts in which the deal has been claimed to have taken effect, when it has not.
This whole situation has now come to a head with Austria conspiring with other EU and non-EU states to cut off Greece, unless Greece gets “control” over its borders. Make no mistake; the “control” in question is a weasel-word. Greece has an indefinite sea border with Turkey, and no ability on its own to force Turkey to take back anyone who leaves from the Turkish coast. Greece was receiving tens of thousands of migrants before Germany suspended the Dublin deportation process. So what “control” could they possibly mean? That question is certainly rhetorical.
No, the only solution that has a modicum of humanity involves European countries sharing the burden, which is what was proposed for months in Brussels and is the principal position of Germany, Greece, and Italy. But if this doesn’t happen, it amounts to additional evidence in favour of Brussels’ contempt for national democracy. Make no mistake: I think that this contempt, given the conditions under which the EU has been constructed, is a mistake. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a grain of truth to it. Unless the European Union countries can come up with a joint solution to the problem, the whole thing will fall apart. And if the joint solution is boat pushback in the Aegean, then the whole thing isn’t worth keeping together.
Daize
Quick corrections:
First sentence: remove the “the” in front of how.
“Even more unfortunately” rather then “Unfortunately yet further”.
Regarding the substance:
The Eastern Euro countries are VERY far from being the only racist countries. I live in France and can tell you that a large majority of the French are either closet or full-blown racists, period. France is refusing refugees for the EXACT same reason that Lithuania is.
Russ
I like that this piece implicitly acknowledges that the generation of mass statelessness and forced migration is an intrinsic and therefore intentional* result of such globalization projects as the EU, and that the only question is the technical one to be solved by modern versions of the Race and Resettlement Agency.
(I also like the touch of demonizing the “exploitative non-refugees” and then immediately adding parenthetically, “of course ~I~ don’t like seeing it that way, but everyone else does.”)
*I’d say that by now the only meaningful definition of “intent” is to look at the consistent major results of a sustained pattern of action and declare those to be the intended results. Thus the generation of mass economic (and often legal) statelessness and the incarceration of the refugees in every kind of shantytown and ghetto is certainly one of the primary intended goals of globalization and imperialism. These latest results of Western imperialism in the Middle East are just the latest confirmation.
Mandos
Thanks. I gave it to Ian to post, so he’ll have to decide to correct it. I can’t imagine how I missed that stray “the”. My eyes just skipped over it as I was editing.
Lithuania is actually not refusing refugees, even if they are opposing mandatory quotas. However, most refugees don’t know much about Lithuania and don’t go there voluntarily. The “technical” solution is to tie benefits and support to a designated receiving country for a period of time as well as to take into account the family situations of some refugees, etc, but that can only be implemented by a common European refugee system, and that requires…quotas.
There is racism in Europe, but French opinion is somewhat less united on the topic than, it seems, the Visegrad states, by all the reports I’ve read. Nevertheless, the failures of the French political elite on the economic front (by capitulating to German-driven austerity) have left them vulnerable to the far right, a familiar syndrome.
Mandos
War, statelessness, and mass migration long predate modern globalization exercises.
In other words, I report on the political and legal consequences of present policies (which are to require a distinction between refugees and so-called economic migrants) and then provide my (negative) opinion of such. I’m getting the feeling that I’m being accused of ideological impurity here…
War generates mass displacement, statelessness, and resettlement, in the best scenario, and torture and genocide in the worst, and usually some of each. Globalization can be blamed for many things, particular wars included, but war as such is not its fault.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
I would disagree with our faux Vala on his definition of racism; I think the sentiment against Muslims as such should be called bigotry. Racism is a specific kind of bigotry, based on myths of genetic inferiority. Religion is not a genetically transmitted characteristic.
Mandos
“Bigotry” applies to a large family of intolerances. Racism specifically pertains to a bigoted attitude towards a racially-essentialized identity group. That essentialization need have little to do with a consistent fact about biology, although, of course, it can. The thing about racism is that “race” is not really a thing-in-itself.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
“You say to-MAY-to; I say to-MAH-to…”
EmilianoZ
How about working with Russia to end the war in Syria?
Mandos
As someone who is much less Putinophilic than many of the “regulars” around here, I would say that that depends on what you mean by “working with Russia”. The interests of other parties will make themselves very much known if Europe attempts to tilt the scale in favour of Russia’s preferred outcomes. Among other problems. For one thing, even if they privately despise Turkey, even without the refugee situation Turkish interests would nevertheless play a large role in European political calculations. This is one case in which geography is destiny.
sdf
And the straw goes flying.
An attempted “regime change” in pursuit of favorable economic policies was the proximate cause of the wars in Syria and Libya. That’s the sort of war that Russ was referring to, not the Mongol-Jurchen War or the War of Spanish Sucession.
(That said, the conflating the 20th-century EU’s quasi-democratic approach with the Dullesian crap that’s going on in the middle east now was disingenuous on Russ’s part.)
Mandos
But that conflation, the way Russ worded it, seemed to be the central idea of his post. He could have just said that a regime change attempt is one of the proximate causes of this particular conflict, and he would have been correct. But he didn’t: he instead said explicitly that it was one of the expected outcomes of EU-style transnational political projects.
No straw flown. It’s what he said.
sdf
Oof. I only just noticed that the OP was by Mandos and not Ian…I think I need to get more sleep.
A lot hinges on the frought word “globalization”, which like “the Cloud”, seems to have been coined with the intention of blurring important distinctions.
In the late 90’s the E.U. and “globalization” tended to be seen as representing contrary philosophies of international relations, now it’s much more ambiguous what the E.U. stands for.
Russ
“War, statelessness, and mass migration long predate modern globalization exercises.”
I said nowhere that they were unique to globalization. I said that globalization intrinsically produces them, everyone knows it does, and therefore those who persist in those policies intend this result. I’m sure they’re intrinsic to other kinds of aggression as well, but globalization is the phenomenon at hand.
And you’re the one who used the term “non-refugees” who “exploit”. No one forced you to do that. But it kind of leaped out at me, so I mentioned it.
Mandos
But I am still confused by your reference to the “EU” in your first comment. How is a (now somewhat flailing) attempt at European political unification directly to be blamed for a regime change event in Syria?
I fear that”globalization”, once narrowly referring to particular forms of trade liberalization and capital mobility, became this big boogeyman word that presently lacks specific content. Technology makes large-scale interactions possible, and therefore inevitable. Blaming displacement on it as an inevitable consequence is certainly true, but not very meaningful in itself, given that many things also produce displacement, without or without one another.
Well, take it that I used the word in order to report conventional thinking on the matter, and then parenthetically distanced myself from that thinking. Not everyone turns immediately to a bilious manifesto of demands and denunciations. I try as much as possible to see the world through the eyes of people who do things I don’t agree with, precisely because I don’t agree with them.
Hugh
The EU and EZ could not resolve their internal contradictions, most notably with regard to Greece but really the PIIGS, East Europe, and it looks like even the UK. European unity was predicated upon European prosperity. What we are seeing now is its slow motion fracturing along dozens of faultlines, now that prosperity done in by European-style kleptocracy is gone.
Most immigrants want to go to Germany so Merkel’s “invitation” was, as indicated, really about Germany offloading immigrants on to the rest of Europe. They declined.
Meanwhile American policy has done much to destabilize the Middle East and create the current wave of immigrants, but the Middle East was not that stable to begin with and overpopulation and climate change will create numerous failed and failing states in the coming decades sparking what will amount to a permanent immigrant crisis involving 1-3 million a year, unless the doors are closed. And what we are already seeing is the doors closing.
Ian Welsh
Corrected the error. Thank you to Mandos for writing this.
Mandos
The problem is that even as the route through Idomeni in Greece has been shut, refugees still continue to build up there — and now the majority are actually women and children, not the young men that were used to frighten some European publics. This is the problem I have with the “invitation” interpretation of events.
sdf
I seem to recall writing something very similar, yet somehow very different, just two posts earlier…
…and I seem to recall that it was in that same post that I said something about using the term “globalization” to blur important distinctions…
Mandos
And I don’t disagree. 🙂 But I wanted to respond directly to Russ.
sdf
I seem to recall American-style kleptocracy being involved in the matter somehow…
EmilianoZ
Marine Le Pen will work with Putin. Apparently her party borrowed a bunch of money from Russky banks. So, she might already be on his payroll.
If Trump wins the presidency, it’ll be a huge boost for her next year. It will be seen as acceptable. If the greatest democracy on earth does it surely it must be OK.
Mandos
Well, you’d better hope that Trump doesn’t win then — because, as my French friends tell me, if MLP or any FN leader ever leads the government in France, civil war will shortly ensue. Much lurks below the surface other than the relationship to Putin or the economic policy.
markfromireland
@ EmilianoZ March 7, 2016
And your evidence for this is? Crystal ball? Tarot cards? Or did you go high-tech and slaughter a chicken so you could examine its guts?
Evidence for this assertion please. The said evidence from a reputable source and no voltaire.net is not a reputable source.
I love the way when you’ve adduced no evidence whatsoever you try to cover your accusatorial ass with “might”. Have you considered a career with one of the Red Top Tabloids or better yet Gannet or best of all Fox?
Yeah right because the French just love and admire the American political system and take their political cues from Americans. Well, it’s a novel and entertaining notion I’ll grant you that.
What will be seen as acceptable and by whom? Be specific.
“Greatest democracy on earth” Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Mandos
The European Council-Turkey “agreement-but-sort-of” is a bag of hollow laughs. It’s basically a trivial variant of what was already agreed to. And not actually implemented. Turkey will never really *do* anything for Europe unless Europe gives its leadership something that they can present to the population as a material victory in exchange. What can be presented to Turkey by European governments is very limited.
Hugh
sdf, it is a form of American exceptionalism to see the US behind everything bad going on in the world. As I have said about kleptocracy, it is the dominant politico-economic model in the world. It has local flavors although the end result is much the same.
Russ
“I fear that”globalization”, once narrowly referring to particular forms of trade liberalization and capital mobility, became this big boogeyman word that presently lacks specific content.”
The specific content is perfectly clear, it’s the fully rationalized and systematic expansion of supply-driven productionism and the use of military and economic muscle (i.e. racketeering) to the whole world. It has almost nothing to do with legitimate demand-based trade. Via the WTO and the even more aggressive ISDS-based pacts it enshrines the ever more direct political rule of corporations. It’s done on a basis which tries to maintain political stability among the main powers (exactly like the way Cosa Nostra was supposed to maintain peace among rival Mafia gangs). For example, what the EU was set up to do, the same EU which currently is trying to enact the CETA and TTIP. Ergo my comment.
Of course terms like “trade liberalization” have always been used to try to obfuscate this. And “capital mobility” is quite the euphemism.
“Technology makes large-scale interactions possible, and therefore inevitable.”
That’s a Big Lie. Technology is politically chosen by elites to further pre-existing political/economic goals. The mass deployment of suburbia and the personal car required a monumental centrally-planned social engineering project. Why was solar energy never rationally built out? Ask any agronomist why hybridization was chosen (it sure wasn’t because it inherently yields more, and agricultural “yield” itself is a phony, politically-chosen emphasis anyway). Technological determinism is simply a myth used to justify political and economic arrangements.
Anyone who ever expresses any version of “There Is No Alternative” is automatically shilling for the status quo, nothing more or less. And since the subject at hand is globalization, the bit about what’s allegedly “inevitable” was used to justify existing globalization.
To recap why I commented in the first place, it was because I think the right response to a pattern of action which consistently creates horrific results is to end the pattern of action, not to endlessly improvise ad hoc band-aids in the most ramshackle fashion. Of course this latest wave of refugees needs the best solution Europe can come up with, but it’s just as important to stop forcing so many people into these effective conditions of statelessness/homelessness. But as the OP and comments imply, Mandos wants to stay the course and just try to deal with the ever worse crises as they “come along” in some allegedly unpredictable, accidental way.
Hugh
Mandos, I agree about Turkey. A good rule of thumb is never trust or believe anything Erdogan says or promises. Another is: with friends like him who needs enemies? He could stop the transit of immigrants across Turkey to the coast, seize the boats and close down the smugglers in a heartbeat. When you look at problems from a logistical point of view, like the immigrant crisis, transit of fighters and supplies into ISIS controlled territory and the export, principally oil, out of it, i.e. all the trucks, buses, boats, and maintenance of access corridors into ISIS areas involved, you can see right away what a major undertaking all these are. Not only is the Turkish government aware of all this. It simply could not happen without its active participation.
I think Erdogan has learned from the Saudi Arabian and Pakistani experience with the US on how to string the suckers along. Both of these countries have for years been described as our biggest allies in the war on terror while also being its biggest sources and supporters. Erdogan has zero interest in a resolution in Syria. With ISIS and a Syrian civil war ongoing, he gets money and attention, blackmailing both the US and EU, can prosecute a war, not against ISIS, but against the Kurds, and can profit from smuggling everything in all directions. This would stop if the war does. So, much like Pakistan’s support of the Taliban throughout the US occupation of Afghanistan, he will try to keep a war in Syria going as long as he can.
Mandos
No it isn’t. That is your definition (and that of a particular sectarian circle, maybe), that you biliously demand everyone adopt on pain of…excommunication from something?
That there are choices is clear. That elites have made bad choices is also clear. That technology has unintended consequences, like the genie that cannot be put back in the bottle, is also patently obvious. Total determinism is a myth, yes, but total non-determinism is also a dangerous fantasy that leaves one blind.
I regret to some extent engaging you in this discussion, as you impute the worst intention to anyone who doesn’t adopt your very specific ideological commitments. The power of TINA is that on occasion, it is true, or at least there is a grain of truth in that elites are materially capable of completely foreclosing large branches of the tree of possibility. But I suppose I am “shilling” because I make this observation.
That first requires achieving the power to do so, something which left-wingers, at least, are really, really terrible at in this generation.
I’m glad we at least agree that the specific instance before us also might just possibly be worth discussing. At some point.
No.
Peter
Very well-reasoned, very humane, but I can’t help but feel the looming fundamental question was avoided. Is it defensible to take forceful measures to halt or limit the migration to prevent the success of the far right?
Mandos
But the experience is precisely that pandering to far-right memes in Europe strengthens their hand. I mean, that’s exactly what happened in Slovakia — a social-democratic establishment leader ran in an election where he loudly endorsed far-right ideologies. Guess what happened…
Peter
Fair enough, it’s not linear. But I still see it as politically suicidal to tell the public they must accept any number of migrants because it is legally and/or morally unacceptable to resist them.
A1
Actually Peter, Mandos is simply wrong about the requirement to accept economic refugees. Mandos is simply playing superior white man assuming that Germany owes an economic migrant something and say the home country of Pakistan owes them nothing.
Second, Mandos makes the case it is racist to expect the new arrivals to make attempts to fit in, learn the language, not marry their cousins etc.. This is also plain wrong. Maybe some of these migrants should change religions?
Fascinating article but more TINA.
Mandos
Uh, you don’t know *what* I am, other than someone who hangs around Ian’s bloggy neighbourhood. It’s interesting, however, that I get both variety of critic: the ones who think that even *discussing* the distinction is between refugee and economic migrant is a betrayal, and the ones who don’t think there is *any* obligation to them but who are unwilling to specify how they’re going to *make* Pakistan (or wherever, why Pakistan?) do anything about it, or for that matter, Mexico build that wall…
Mandos
And where did language learning and changing religions even come into this?
bruce wilder
I do not think democracy means what Mandos wants it to mean.
Also, the world is overpopulated. We could spin a lot of gold into straw arguing about what precise senses of overpopulation apply, but the problem of resource limitations would remain. We hide from that unpleasantness at peril of our sanity.
Mandos
Be more specific. Tell me what I should mean by “democracy”.
markfromireland
@ Mandos March 8, 2016
Yes we do you’re a Canadian dilettante of Indian extraction who doesn’t much care what he writes as long as it’s contrarian.
And btw A1 is correct there is NO legal or moral obligation to admit illegal economic migrants.
Peter
you’re a Canadian dilettante of Indian extraction
Despite those handicaps, he’s brilliant nonetheless.
Mandos
Moving beyond personal attacks, presumptions, etc…
There is no legal obligation, given present definitions. The moral obligation is debatable. The problem is that keeping them out almost certainly involves measures that will keep out legally-defined refugees also. There are also many refugees who fit in a grey area where they cannot be sent back, but do not meet the criteria of the “classical” definitions of refugee. These are among the things that make a theoretical legal commitment to preventing economic migration morally very fraught.
Peter
Mand0s, as you know, I’m not from the left and I ‘m not going to troll. So let me exit with a question. It is now widely accepted (even by the panicked, Johnny-come-lately, right in the States) that the bottom half of the socio-economic ladder is paying for dogmatic neo-liberalism/free trade/ free movement of labor and capita, etc.. This explains both Trump’s and Sander’s popularity. Similarly in Europe after Greece. But immigration and migration have social costs too, and what is being alleged is that it is being paid for by the bottom half. Do you have a response?
Mandos
Most of the evidence I’ve read on the subject seems to shows that even if you believe that illegal economic immigration reduces the price of labour and hits low-income workers harder (very plausible), the measures typically taken to prevent illegal immigration don’t significantly reverse the effect, at least in the USA — at least when they’re punitively directed against migrants. The best protection for workers is enforcement of labour law against employers.
markfromireland
@ Peter March 9, 2016
No, he’s a barrack room lawyer with a certain sophomoric glibness – not the same thing at all. He’s also a dilettante or as our host puts it “a gadfly” who doesn’t have any principles as such, just a set of attitudes and a delight in contrarianism.
A bit thinskinned too quoting what somebody themselves have said is neither a presumption nor an ad hominem.
I don’t actually mind any of this. When I write here I’m not looking to engage in dialogue with North American “liberals” whether it’s the Canadian variant such as Mandos or the various American exemplars. Doing so is a waste of time because a defining characteristic of the breed as I’ve remarked frequently is that they don’t have any principles as such just attitudes. This is why their protests and “opposition” are very carefully calibrated not to rock the boat let alone impose a change of course. To change the metaphor somewhat, they have several structural functions one which is to provide a diversionary channel in which people – in particular young people who might be interested in trying to change things for the better can fritter away their energies without actually accomplishing anything. The other is to provide a fig leaf of political diversity to the arrangements put in place to serve a remarkably exxploitative and homogenous ruling class. A certain mental flexibility helps them fulfill both functions admirably.
John Poynton
“Unfortunately, a large number of EU states, particularly the so-called Visegrad states of Eastern European countries, are simply unwilling to share any burden at all, even a couple of dozen. That is due to naked racism ”
Oh dear. You let yourself down Ian by playing the race card. It’s got nothing to do with racism. Are you a racist if you refuse shelter in your own home, through your own front door, for thousands of homeless people? Of course not. It is a question of practicalities.
The problem must of course be addressed for humanitarian reasons. This requires a community based solution. That is where the EU has failed. I have elsewhere suggested solutions, but to do so here would detract from the main point.