Refugee situation / EU response - rolling news

(I feel pretty shallow that it takes photographs to turn the sort-of academic anger I had before into this visceral outrage, but it is what it is

And I feel callous that the concentration by the media on the death of just one child is irritating me.

(24 hour news is on at my work all the time, by way of explanation)

It takes one child photo to generate empathy.

hey i've got an idea, why not let people LIVE WHERE THEY WANT TO?!?!?!!! CRAZY I KNOW, IT'LL NEVER WORK, THIS IS MUCH BETTER

Back in the day, they tried to dissuade people from moving to London from Bolton.

I don't know what to think about this. I'm a new European arrival working/struggling with immigration offices daily, but in the position of having a permanent state functionary job, social capital, privilege out the wazoo. My kids have spent two of the last five years in French schools in FLE (français langue étrangère) with immigrants mostly from Africa; so I see integration happening, or not happening, every day, with their classmates and their classmates' families.

So I guess I don't know what to do. Obviously stop the dying. But is the right thing to do to allow everyone in Syria, Libya, Eritrea, etc. to immigrate freely to the European country of their choice? I feel rage at the horrors these people are going through now; and at what they're going through in their home countries. But I don't know: is the right thing to think as a European trying to be moral in 2015 to open the borders? I really don't know! I'm not asking as a question of what's politically "possible", but as a question of: what is the right thing for European nations to do? Is having any limit moral?

Nothing about *that* question is obvious to me; the only thing that's obvious is that we have to stop the dying, stop the suffering. But where does this go after that?

It's always worth remembering that the vast majority of refugees from those countries stay in neighbouring countries. The increase in numbers from Syria to Europe started when the refugee shelters in Turkey (2m Syrian refugees, Lebanon 1.1m, Jordan 620k and Iraq 250k) either became too crowded to take any more or came under attack themselves. There's no expectation of open borders but you can't build a wall around the sea and do have moral and legal responsibilities to the people who are here now.

^yes. but alas there’s no end in sight to the horror, chaos, disaster engulfing syria, libya, iraq etc...

"There's no expectation of open borders but you can't build a wall around the sea and do have moral and legal responsibilities to the people who are here now."

Doesn't "you can't build a wall around the sea and do have moral and legal responsibilities to the people who are here now" entail open borders though? Unless you're maintaining also that:

1) legal responsibilities don't entail long-term residency in the European nation of the refugee's choice
2) the flow of refugees will not continue...indefinitely? for long? for much longer?

don't economists wring their hands that there will not be enough workers to support an aging population? hey guess what I FOUND SOME

There is no legal expectation of permanent residency. However long the flow of refugees lasts, it won't change the relevant UN conventions on not sending people back to war zones. xp

In Hungary: https://twitter.com/jamesmatesitv?lang=en-gb

(nothing graphic btw..but if you are having a tough time to deal then might be best not to look)

Wee boy picture made me cry at work today (in a pub). But, on a plus side we have a right wing customer group, and they've all been very pro helpin people. Surprisingly so - every time it came up I was bracing myself for nonsense.

UKIP twat:

Peter Bucklitsch
‏@bucklitsch

The little Syrian boy was well clothed & well fed. He died because his parents were greedy for the good life in Europe. Queue jumping costs.

Bucklitsch? That goes back to pre-Norman times, I assume?

Since removed:

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/11030543_10153688600104073_694587591403488514_n.jpg?oh=0498e7bf83dac90223f65d91fb6f18e9&oe=5664B508

ugh trying to figure out how to express my outrage at the Hungarian gov't about this without pissing off my Hungarian in-laws

If I were you I'd go right ahead and tell them their Prime Minister is a racist cunt.

i have a three year old of my own and even just the thought of that photo is a wormhole, i go into the whole history - who put those shoes on him, and what were they thinking when they did, and what was he thinking, and what hopes did they have, and how scared they must have been. i'm sorry. none of this needs repeating. i really am finding it hard to deal

There with you. "He died because his parents were greedy", I mean what the FUCK. I can't read about this any more.

Also just want to point out that that little drowned boy's family applied for refugee status to Canada earlier this year, and was rejected.

Good to see Cameron has been shamed into accepting more refugees, though hasn't specified how many.

Orban has been following the same line for years - trying to reintroduce the death penalty, putting Roma children in segregated schools, suggesting that immigrants to Hungary should be put in labour camps, etc. The only time he seems to get much push-back from the EU is when he suggests protectionist economic policies.

You can say and do what you like as long as Germany agrees with your economic policies.

ok i know it's fun to hate germany but their government has pledged to take 800,000 refugees this YEAR so everybody else had better respekognize

tracer your post upthread re drowned child is killing me. this is too big to bear tbh.

Yes, I had an overwhelming hyperventilating + sobbing moment earlier. I was on the verge a few times earlier but the dams broke :(

I dunno if I was just a more callous bastard before I became a parent but yeah I can't read/see that stuff and not have a really uncontrollable visceral emotional reaction

i found it devastating and i haven't spent significant time around a little kid since i was a little kid. im sure many will share this but there was something about his little shoes that produced the beginnings of a large sob that i choked back.

then was even more upset and also deeply angry when i found out that a relative of the little boy lives locally to me (metro vancouver) and that his family's refugee claim had been rejected. by coincidence an org here had just released a multimedia detailing how awful canada's immigration policy has been under the tories which i had just perused earlier in the day.

Good to see Cameron has been shamed into accepting more refugees, though hasn't specified how many.

Its really pathetic - a mere few thousand and no more, just enough so that the new cycle can churn around to something else. The exact figure "being thrashed out in Whitehall" according to Newsnight last night.

4000. Fucking hell.

Big Hearted Britain

Was this posted upthread? It's a pretty amazing piece: http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2015/jun/09/a-migrants-journey-from-syria-to-sweden-interactive

Yesterday's ceasefire failed today, so I had a couple of people in the pub telling me how we have to take care of our own first, we don't have room etc. Disappointing.

"we have to take care of our own first"

Some of the same people I have heard parroting this are also members of the "tough decisions have to be made" brigade, they obviously aren't referring to people when they say "our own".

I missed this, where are "our own" drowning at sea, lads?

"we have to take care of our own first"
Some of the same people I have heard parroting this are also members of the "tough decisions have to be made" brigade, they obviously aren't referring to people when they say "our own".

They would have to mean their immediate family because they sure as hell don't care about anyone else.

Wow, almost came to blows about it. Really sucks.

There is virtually nothing in politics right now that can't be summarised as "having to help you lot is holding us back, tough shit guys".

Reports of thousands of people WALKING along the motorway from Budapest to Vienna right now. That's about 150 miles.

http://i62.tinypic.com/1zlcb28.jpg

turns out my in-laws hate Orban too, problem solved!

many xxp

Have been trying not to just mash the retweet button today, but there's loads going on.

• Train in Hungary with refugees refusing to leave. Lots of women/children on board, has now been surrounded by riot police: https://twitter.com/griffwitte/status/639819841893990400
• The thousands walking to Vienna like Matt says. http://t.co/aETwE23mfJ James Mates from ITV is also with them: https://twitter.com/jamesmatesitv/status/639799561733709824 (lots in his tl)
• MSF says up to 50 are missing off coast of Libya https://twitter.com/MSF_Sea/status/639779855886884864 but have delivered two boatloads to Italy https://twitter.com/MSF_Sea/status/639731978284191744 and https://twitter.com/MSF_Sea/status/639778529773776896

And to cheer me up, kids in Budapest watching Tom & Jerry a couple of nights ago https://twitter.com/KaptainKulk/status/639821906506567680

Its really pathetic - a mere few thousand and no more, just enough so that the new cycle can churn around to something else.

it's not going to be churning around to something else any time soon.

yeah i think cameron is not smart enough to win this one.

Is the UK going to take more than 50K or something?

interesting but maybe a pipe dream?

http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-billionare-offers-buy-med-island-refugees-154413262.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory&soc_trk=fb

yeah i think cameron is not smart enough to win this one.

I agree but that's not exactly what I meant, more that what we've seen so far is the tip of the iceberg - this is going to go on for a long time, sadly.

yeah, that's also true.

It will flip between Syria (which governments will sympathise with, because they have been forced to) and then economic migrants from Calais and the like where you can't build fences that are high enough.

if the Cleves-Jülich crisis of 1609 taught us anything it’s that refugees streaming into your territory boost the economy, this is basic stuff

Mass deaths at sea are to the EU what mass shootings are to the US.

- It keeps happening.

- And every time, politicians pretend to be concerned.

- And every time, politicians keep in place the government policies at the root of the problem.

- And it keeps happening.

— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) June 15, 2023

https://jacobin.com/2023/09/europe-migration-tunisia-humanitarian-disaster-italy-asylum-seekers/