Refugee Crisis 2 - a warm welcome in Germany

[The guy from the Vale]

 

And then they voted for extremely restrictive immigration laws, without doubt because of all good experiences.

 

Well, in the meantime, they also had another million of immigrants.

 

Also, if anything, passing those laws has hurt the Swiss economy and social safety net quite a bit. 

 

On top of that, these laws were passed with the slimmest of majorities, on the back of the rural areas least affected by immigration, while all the urban centers who actually experience the effects of immigration voted decisively against those laws. So the people who actually made experiences instead of just reading the newspaper thought the experiences were actually good.

 

The main argument, by the way, was that Switzerland lacked the actual space to accommodate more immigrants. Which is arguable, but still at least not just about the foreigners themselves.

[Tywin Manderly]

Ads, the way to stop refugees..... [/sarcasm]

 

http://www.thelocal.dk/20150907/denmarks-anti-refugee-ads-published-in-foreign-papers

[baxus]

I expect that when the war in Syria eventually ends, if the current government gets turfed, many people will go back to re-build their country.

 

Based on my experience, it will not happen.

By the time the war in Syria ends, a vast majority of those refugees will make new lives for themselves in their new surroundings.

Choosing between that and going back to a war-torn country is a no-brainer really.

[Mithras]

Perhaps this might convince you that the crisis in Syria is artificial and US-made, which means US and her allies share a great responsibility for the suffering of those refugees. 

[Jacques the Japer]

Ive seen many Germans referring to the Yugoslav breakup as a example where they helped refugees who ultimately returned home, they forget conveniently that the Balkan states where right across Germanys' borders, Making post war  stabilization by the UN an relatively easy task, whatsmore the refugees simply had to travel back across the border after their homelands where declared safe and they could still remain EU citizens.

 

,The Shia Sunni war could likely drag on for decades, much like Europe's thirty years war did and by that time all the new immigrants will be so closely tied to their new countries that foring them back would be impossible unless countries where prepared to forcibly do so, a situation with such close connotations with Nazism that Germany would never resort to that.

[Ser Lepus]

It seems that all the eastern members of the EU adamantly refuse to accept refugees... this might bite them in the ass if Germany decides to pull out of Schengen. You would think that keeping the system that has boosted prosperity would be worth taking in a few thousand refugees.

[sToNED_CAT]

It seems that all the eastern members of the EU adamantly refuse to accept refugees... this might bite them in the ass if Germany decides to pull out of Schengen. You would think that keeping the system that has boosted prosperity would be worth taking in a few thousand refugees.

 

Few thousands - that's just the beginning. The same proposals to mandatory redistribute 160 000 refugees across EU countries also include permanent redistribution mechanism for all future refugees arriving into EU. Hell, few months ago they were talking just about 40 000. It's really carte blanche for EU, that will permanently abolish state sovereignty in all immigration matters. If it passes EU will be able to dictate every member state how many migrants to accept. You don't like it? Repealing such agreement will be almost impossible (you need 2/3 or unanimous decision in some cases to pass all important legislation on EU level), so if any country changes their mind after seeing the effects, they can't do shit, except leaving EU entirely.  Every one should oppose it, not just few countries.

[baxus]

Ive seen many Germans referring to the Yugoslav breakup as a example where they helped refugees who ultimately returned home, they forget conveniently that the Balkan states where right across Germanys' borders, Making post war  stabilization by the UN an relatively easy task, whatsmore the refugees simply had to travel back across the border after their homelands where declared safe and they could still remain EU citizens.

 

I was referring exactly to the Yugoslav breakup.

My experience may be limited and I don't have the overall data to back it up, but I know very few people who went back to their old homes after the war ended.

Most of those were older people who were very homesick, like my grandmother.

The village my father's from looks haunted now - about 10% of houses still have people living in them and those are mostly old people who couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

 

Everyone else fled, mostly to Serbia but some as far as Iceland and have no intention of ever coming back, except maybe for a visit to their parents and grandparents' graves.

[Enguerrand]

I expect that when the war in Syria eventually ends, if the current government gets turfed, many people will go back to re-build their country.

 

It continously mystify me why people talk about Syria as if the root of the problem is Assad's dicatorship, while it originally was what kept the country at peace.

Assad is part of minor shia sect, the Alawites and is further supported by Druze and Christians, all minorites while the majority of Syrians are sunnimuslims. His support is limited but hardcore because they know they will persecuted and most likely massacred in a Sunni dominated "democracy". By supporting and arming the sunnirebels whose most miltant faction are sunniextremists the USA and it's allies have enabled the creation of the Islamic state.

Should Assad's regime topple you will get another mass exodus of refugees, while ethnically and religiously cleanse Syria.

 

It's almost like the USA is trying to fight itself. but I guess as long as it's Europe that takes the refugees from the resulting anarchy and massacres it feels good to bomb away .

[Jo498]

Among Germans of a "national populist" bend, common among the rural and the elderly, the idea is seriously entertained that all that unrest in the near East is part of a US plot to keep Europe from flourishing economically...

[Gasp of Many Reeds]

It continously mystify me why people talk about Syria as if the root of the problem is Assad's dicatorship, while it originally was what kept the country at peace.

Assad is part of minor shia sect, the Alawites and is further supported by Druze and Christians, all minorites while the majority of Syrians are sunnimuslims. His support is limited but hardcore because they know they will persecuted and most likely massacred in a Sunni dominated "democracy". 

If you take the long view, the Assad dictatorship (father and son) has played a major role in these tensions developing and festering. Of course, a lot of it goes even further back - the reason the Alawites dominate the military goes back to when the French recruited them as colonial militia to keep order elsewhere in Syria. Yes, the Assad dynasty kept order until 2011, but they didn't do much to make ordinary Sunnis feel they had proper representation in government, and when dissident movements broke out they were dealt with harshly even when peaceful (see Hama 1982 for what happened when Islamists previously tried to violently oppose the Syrian state). Bashar did win some Sunni support through his governments neo-liberal reforms, which allowed some of the shopkeeping Sunni middle-classes to get rich. But in other ways this exacerbated divisions in Syrian by increasing the gap between rich and poor, which increased resentment among poorer Sunnis, especially as those gaining new wealth and position frequently did so through corrupt means.

 

Now I'm not saying that the Assad dictatorship has been the only player in this or denying that external influences have not played a significant role. However I do think the regime was largely responsible for the societal conditions and resentment which triggered the beginning of the crisis. Not least their responding to pro-Arab Spring sloganeering in Daraa in March 2011 by arresting and torturing those responsible, and then sending the troops in to quell the resulting civilian protests. The regime was also very early to employ sectarian language, which whilst intended to shore up its Alawite and other minority supporters was also very successful at alienated moderate Sunnis who might otherwise have stayed neutral. I think the complete militarisation of the crisis, e.g. the mass arming of the rebels, was heavily influenced by outside parties such as Saudi and the Gulf States (though I think they acted largely independently of American supervision). However, this is not to say that there weren't already guns in rebel hands early on in the crisis, the two main sources being army unit defections and from the Iraqi side of the border - recall that Assad was quite happy for Syrian jihadists to cross into Iraq to fight the Americans in the mid-2000s (he just didn't that traffic might end up going the other way one day; incidentally, Syria's facilitation of jihadis was one of the main reasons the Americans considered trying to overthrow the regime, as indicated in the e-mails intercepted by Wikileaks from the period; unlike Mithras, I do not think these plans were particularly 'current' in 2011, though anti-Syrian factions in the CIA did press for them to be put into action once Syria descended into civil war).

 

So, whilst I certainly think the situation is far too complicated to talk about it in black and white terms, I also do not think the actions of the Syrian regime over the years helped prevent the development of serious divisions in Syrian society. The initial revolt may not have been as widespread as Western media sources liked to present it, and the regime certainly still remains popular with its core Alawite/Christian/upper-class Sunni/other ethnic minority demographic, but there remains a large section of the Syrian population who have never had much love for the dictatorship and would only accept its continuation on a 'lesser of two evils' judgement (and for many Sunnis, IS, Al-Nusra, etc., are the lesser of two evils, much as Al-Qaeda in Iraq were considered preferable to the Shi'a death squads by many Sunni Iraqis during the height of the American war there). Bashar therefore remains far too divisive a figure and would almost certainly have to step down if there was to be any reconciliation, even if it were a merely cosmetic move. 

[Enguerrand]

Heh the Norwegian polling institue Sentio for september have the Swedish democrat now as the largest political party of Sweden in Sweden at 26.5%, which would break the Social democrats 80 years streak.

I guess that means that 73,5% of Swedes still aren't racists then. Well depending on how you count the large immigrant block of the population, It's probably still time for Löfven to bring in another millon muslim to save the nation from a nazi takeover.

[Enguerrand]

 

 

I perfectly agree that Assad's regime is a brutal dictatorship and that it's suppresion of the Sunnimajority is bad thing, My point is there are a reason for why the political landscape looks like it does, and if you want to actually do more good then harm, you need more then a Bush  step 1-2 plan topple dictator and have free elections in a land cooking below by sectarian forces.

[Mithras]

If you are really going deep to find the root of all these problems, you should go back to WWI. The current borders in the Middle East were drawn by the British Empire without paying attention to religious and ethnic divisions. A country like Lebanon or Syria can not exist.

[Hayyoth]

If you take the long view, the Assad dictatorship (father and son) has played a major role in these tensions developing and festering. Of course, a lot of it goes even further back - the reason the Alawites dominate the military goes back to when the French recruited them as colonial militia to keep order elsewhere in Syria. Yes, the Assad dynasty kept order until 2011, but they didn't do much to make ordinary Sunnis feel they had proper representation in government, and when dissident movements broke out they were dealt with harshly even when peaceful (see Hama 1982 for what happened when Islamists previously tried to violently oppose the Syrian state). Bashar did win some Sunni support through his governments neo-liberal reforms, which allowed some of the shopkeeping Sunni middle-classes to get rich. But in other ways this exacerbated divisions in Syrian by increasing the gap between rich and poor, which increased resentment among poorer Sunnis, especially as those gaining new wealth and position frequently did so through corrupt means.

 

Now I'm not saying that the Assad dictatorship has been the only player in this or denying that external influences have not played a significant role. However I do think the regime was largely responsible for the societal conditions and resentment which triggered the beginning of the crisis. Not least their responding to pro-Arab Spring sloganeering in Daraa in March 2011 by arresting and torturing those responsible, and then sending the troops in to quell the resulting civilian protests. The regime was also very early to employ sectarian language, which whilst intended to shore up its Alawite and other minority supporters was also very successful at alienated moderate Sunnis who might otherwise have stayed neutral. I think the complete militarisation of the crisis, e.g. the mass arming of the rebels, was heavily influenced by outside parties such as Saudi and the Gulf States (though I think they acted largely independently of American supervision). However, this is not to say that there weren't already guns in rebel hands early on in the crisis, the two main sources being army unit defections and from the Iraqi side of the border - recall that Assad was quite happy for Syrian jihadists to cross into Iraq to fight the Americans in the mid-2000s (he just didn't that traffic might end up going the other way one day; incidentally, Syria's facilitation of jihadis was one of the main reasons the Americans considered trying to overthrow the regime, as indicated in the e-mails intercepted by Wikileaks from the period; unlike Mithras, I do not think these plans were particularly 'current' in 2011, though anti-Syrian factions in the CIA did press for them to be put into action once Syria descended into civil war).

 

So, whilst I certainly think the situation is far too complicated to talk about it in black and white terms, I also do not think the actions of the Syrian regime over the years helped prevent the development of serious divisions in Syrian society. The initial revolt may not have been as widespread as Western media sources liked to present it, and the regime certainly still remains popular with its core Alawite/Christian/upper-class Sunni/other ethnic minority demographic, but there remains a large section of the Syrian population who have never had much love for the dictatorship and would only accept its continuation on a 'lesser of two evils' judgement (and for many Sunnis, IS, Al-Nusra, etc., are the lesser of two evils, much as Al-Qaeda in Iraq were considered preferable to the Shi'a death squads by many Sunni Iraqis during the height of the American war there). Bashar therefore remains far too divisive a figure and would almost certainly have to step down if there was to be any reconciliation, even if it were a merely cosmetic move. 

The anti Assad rebel groups were set up and funded by outside players. The Turks, Saudis and Israelis with the cooperation of the US. It's no great secret as to why, most of the regimes troubles started when they refused to allow the building of a gas pipe from Qatar to supply Europe due to their alliance with Russia. This is not to say that the Assad regime was massively popular with ordinary Sunnis, but without the intervention of foreign nations there would have likely been no civil war in Syria. And with all such things once the tiger is out of it's cage there's no way of controlling it. Daesh have turned what was supposed to be a 'color revolution' into an out of control wild fire.

[Jacques the Japer]

I often wonder what would have occurred hat it not been for the US intervention in 2003, but somehow I cant see the region remaining stable indefinitely.

 

One must recall that the Bathits where immensely unpopular by the early 1990;sn, and that by the time Saddam invaded Kuwait he was facing a full scale insurgency from Shias in the southern marches and the Kurds to the north. (Anyone recall Hallabjah?) 

 

Everyone in the region was against his regime by the early 2000''s The Iranians, the Saudis, The Russians, he had become a loose cannon that had outlived his usefulness, , I cant see him surviving past the Arab spring of 2011. Political repression is a pressure cooker,  you can only keep a lid on a  repressed populace for so long until things blow up. The problem with the middle east is that , unlike the west, it has never in its history developed a system anything similar to liberal secular democracy, so the only alternative to secular nationalistic dictatorship is either Royalty (As both Iran and Iraq had) or Islamic fundamentalism (Which has been gaining traction since the 1970's and is now reaching its Zenith)

[Gorn]

If you are really going deep to find the root of all these problems, you should go back to WWI. The current borders in the Middle East were drawn by the British Empire without paying attention to religious and ethnic divisions. A country like Lebanon or Syria can not exist.

Um, what? Syria has continuously existed as a province/region with more or less fixed borders since the antique times.

[Gasp of Many Reeds]

Um, what? Syria has continuously existed as a province/region with more or less fixed borders since the antique times.

Syria has existed as a vague and poorly defined idea of a geographic region and identity since antique times. The Arab 'Al-Sham' is actually a much larger area that encompasses parts of southern Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel/Palestine. But the Ottoman vilayet of Syria which preceded the formation of the Syrian mandate was smaller than today's state, and more homogeneous - it did not contain the Alawite coastal lands for one thing.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_Vilayet

 

Mind you, the French did try and break Syria up into multiple smaller states, but were forced to rethink after the Great Syria Revolt (which was partially led by Al-Sham nationalists who favoured a larger unified Syria but was in the main a rebellion only unified by anti-colonial sentiment).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Syrian_Revolt

[Horza]

Yeah, the issue isn't so much borders and peoples but the politics of colonial divide-and-rule concentrating power and wealth in the hands of sectarian and ethnic cliques. Also things like the collapse of secular modernism in all its various flavours (pan-Arab, Baathist, Communist) and the rise of salafist politics in its place; it's almost like this is a complex historical phenomenon or something.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I often wonder what would have occurred hat it not been for the US intervention in 2003, but somehow I cant see the region remaining stable indefinitely.

 

One must recall that the Bathits where immensely unpopular by the early 1990;sn, and that by the time Saddam invaded Kuwait he was facing a full scale insurgency from Shias in the southern marches and the Kurds to the north. (Anyone recall Hallabjah?) 

 

Everyone in the region was against his regime by the early 2000''s The Iranians, the Saudis, The Russians, he had become a loose cannon that had outlived his usefulness, , I cant see him surviving past the Arab spring of 2011. Political repression is a pressure cooker,  you can only keep a lid on a  repressed populace for so long until things blow up. The problem with the middle east is that , unlike the west, it has never in its history developed a system anything similar to liberal secular democracy, so the only alternative to secular nationalistic dictatorship is either Royalty (As both Iran and Iraq had) or Islamic fundamentalism (Which has been gaining traction since the 1970's and is now reaching its Zenith)

 

Maybe, maybe not. Hussein had a pretty tight grip on Iraq with a very well functioning secret service, military intelligence was particularly well organized. So any bigger internal uprising, he would've snuffed that out pretty ruthlessly and effectively. And where would any rioters have gotten enough arms to overthrow Hussein? 

Iran simply did not have any allies whatsoever to launch a big scale invasion on Iraq. The risk would be, that the entire rest of the Arab world would have a go at them if they tried, and it would most certainly have invited America to the party. Almost all of the middle East countries are Sunnites, so Iran really is a minority. So really them waging a big war on Iraq was just not likely to happen. The Kurds were from a practical point of view really a minor nuisance for Hussein. Afterall Turkey is/has been attacking the Kurds on a regular basis, the PKK is on European and US terror lists, so it's kinda hard for them to get their hands on big cash or a big pile of modern weapons. And it's all because the Turks are shitting themselves over the idea of a Kurdish state. But that's an entirely different topic.

 

So I can see how Iraq could've/would've been stable for at least the duration of Hussein's natural life. What would've happened after that? No, idea. It would have depended on the abilities of his sucessor/heir to keep things under control.