Tuesday 8 September 2015

Europe's Tight-Rope Act: Security vs Compassion

Yvette Cooper in dopey mode
Following on from the preceding post in which Douthat says "prudence has to temper idealism" on the current migrant/refugee crisis, is this balanced take from the Clarion Project:
Concern for refugees cannot be allowed to translate into ignoring the security and cultural risks of admitting thousands of unknown people. Neither can fear for ourselves and our societies be allowed to overrule basic compassion.
What one does not do is hold up signs saying "Refugees Welcome" without a thought to what that does to the "pull" factor -- with social media, that's immediately translated to all the Middle East and the human traffickers lick their lips at the bonanza to their business.
Note the link in the Clarion article to an observation by president Obama:
U.S. President Barack Obama identified lack of integration among European Muslims as “possibly the greatest danger Europe faces.”
If Obama is saying that lack of integration by European Muslims is "the greatest danger" it faces, then you know you've really  got a problem.  It's not just we "Islamophobes" saying it.  It's someone with a record of downplaying the threat of Islam, to the point of prohibiting the use of "Islamic" or even "Islamist" to describe extremism or terrorism.  His previous head of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano went so far as to say that Islamic terrorism should be called "man-made disasters".  (Happily this never caught on, as the public knows rather better: they can see with their own "lying eyes").
Migrant vs Refugee: from what I gather, without deep research, is that countries have an obligation to accept "refugees" if they fear persecution or fear for their lives.  "Migrants" on the other hand, are those that in general are seeking a better life. Fair enough.  But if the EU blurs these boundaries as they're doing now -- as in the "refugees welcome" brigade (just how many are genuine refugees vs "migrants"?) -- this is most certainly a slippery slope and no amount of gainsaying it will change the fact.
There are plenty -- not just hundreds of thousands, but hundreds of millions -- in Africa, India and China, who would love to take the chance to come to Europe to better their lives, as "migrants" treated as "refugees".
Problem is, of course, is that the Europe they want to migrate to will cease to be. Even Angela Merkel has said that "Germany will certainly change". Whether for the better or worse she does not say.
When we see crowds of refugees shouting "Allahu Akbar", it's uh-oh time. I cannot see how the inevitable change can be to the good.  The next generation of jihadis are being brewed here.