25 February 2016

This racist backlash against refugees is the real crisis in Europe

A coalition of the inhumane is rising in Europe. A group of political leaders have been meeting this week in Vienna to coordinate how to seal the western Balkan refugee passage. The countries involved, including Macedonia, Croatia and Serbia, don’t want to risk hosting thousands of stranded people in their poor societies. They expect that by intentionally causing a humanitarian disaster in Greece they are going to stop the misery of the world getting in their backyard. Only this week Greece pleaded with Macedonia to reopen its border as 4,000 refugees became stranded.

Meanwhile the four Visegrád countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) who have not been not invited to join these discussions, are also at the forefront of this ideological campaign to seal the Balkan route. Their motivation is based on an Islamophobic narrative, as advocated by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, a self-declared enemy of liberal democracy and consolidator of a Christian front against the Islamisation of Europe. [1636 comments]

[TOP RATED COMMENT 492 votes] I think the backlash is mainly against economic imigrants rather than real refugees.

I don't think it is racist either. Most people don't care what race they are, they just don't want them here

[2ND 392] Relocate them all to Saudi,Qatar, The Emirates, Kuwait, Dubai.... Plenty of room, plenty of money and a shared culture. Europe isn't the place for swarms of Islamic, economic migrants.

[3RD 350] It's also a matter of scale, the sheer number of people, potentially millions and millions (and the culture they bring with them)

[4TH 346] How about all the people who don't want them but are not racist?

[5TH 304] Take in one million and there will be another two million behind them. Europe must take the hard decision now and close off it's borders.

[6TH 284] We have seen the first signs of disaster associated with this wave of migration

Increased crime
Pressure on public services
Pressure on housing
Pressure on the NHS

We need to close the borders now if we want to be able to take the truly deserving

It's NOT RACIST to be concerned about migration

[7TH 254] The author appears to have a limited knowledge of geography. Why else does he concentrate on the flow of migrants towards Europe. There is plenty of space (and there are plenty of jobs) in the Middle East. [Guardian Cif] Read more