Dying to be Safe, The Refugee Crisis

Since I wrote this piece the migrant/ refugee story has escalated into a serious crisis. Thousands of refugees are taking a risky journey on overcrowded boats which are not designed for this purpose.  They fled their homes due to the wars, death and destruction to unsafe, overcrowded and badly funded refugee camps. So flee again in search of stable safe and secure life. They have paid their life savings to smugglers  to get them to safety. The tragedies of hundreds of deaths, in the sea and on the European soil, including babies, children, men women and the infirm are piling up. However, this doesn’t deter desperate people as what they left behind is worse than perceived peaceful existence ahead. Instead what they are finding is razor wired fences, army/ police patrols, helicopters, baton charges and tear gas, etc. Thousands are being held in inhumane conditions in camps reminiscent of camps in the early 20^th century. Thousands are sleeping in the fields after Hungry closed her border. 

While the European leaders were concentrating on the hazardous sea journeys between Libya and Italy and the British were preoccupied by the migrants living in the “Jungle”, humanitarian crisis were developing in Greece. War wary refugees were landing in their thousands at the shores of Greece islands. Recession hit Greece but no one came to their help, they hired Ferries to move these people to land. These people then walked hundreds of miles on foot with their children, pregnant women, old and the infirm. However, one European country decided took upon itself to be the Guardian of the European Law and the Christian culture of Europe and decided to block their passage.

Only European leader who kept her head and showed compassion is the German Leader Angela Merkel. It is not the first time Merkel has shown leadership as she is the only European leader who has spoken out against neo Nazi hate groups such as Pagida and other anti immigrant and anti Muslim hate groups. On Wednesday 2^nd September came the news of drowning of a young Kurdish Syrian family including 2 year old Aylan Kurdi hit our TV screens and front pages. However, If there wasn’t a striking picture of the two year old Aylan’s body washing up on shore, this incident would have remained another one of those non important drowning of migrants. How insensitive it might seem to be but the image awakened the humanity which has been lacking for years. The problem has been the brainwashing of our population by our media which has been portraying migrants as spongers and benefit and health tourists. This propaganda continued unabated, despite clear evidence that the migration, recent and historic, has been good for the economy and helped UK and other European economies.

The treatment of refugees in Hungry and other Eastern European countries shows a clear divide between old EU and the new EU countries. In their desire to expand the European and US influence in these countries and to expand their influence in countries bordering Russia, they were fast tracked into the European Union and the NATO. No one considered that these countries, which had been separated from the European civilisation by not only walls of the cold war era but also the development of civilised society. And that they were clinging onto the old historic events with deep held prejudices.

Our politicians and journalists, who lecture their minority communities about integration and values of Europe, failed to educate new comer nations about the values of humanity, human rights and other European values. While old European Union allowed new Europeans to travel freely and showered them with Billions of dollars of aid, it took eye of the important issues and let the scourge of far right develop and spread through partnerships throughout Europe. These partnerships not only developed previous rhetoric of anti-Semitism and racism, it added Islamophobic  rhetoric to their hate programme.

It is this failure, to integrate and educate new members about European values, which is undermining the European unity, culture, and values, resulting in the human rights abuses. While Hungry, currently ruled by a far right party, is taking the lead in demonising Syrian refugees, other Eastern European countries like Poland, Check republic, etc are also refusing to settle some of these refugees in their countries. UK is also refusing to help these refugees, already on the European soil. Europe is clearly going backwards not forward. Only Angela Merkel is upholding the European values but her decision to accommodated hundreds of thousands refugees may also prove to be the most pragmatic.

The same people, who often complain about the economic power of Germans, are attacking her decision to give refuge to these often young, educated and ambitious people. They question her statements about Germany’s ability to absorb Hundreds of thousands refugees and to say Syrian refugees were welcome. Journalists ask Germans silly questions, such as are you welcoming migrants because of the guilt of what happened in the past. They can not comprehend the genuine humanity and compassion.  

The open racism of the Hungarian government, which Nigel Farage described as moderate, shouldn’t be a surprise as 64% of Hungarians hold anti-Semitic views. Now it has become clear that they also hold serious Islamophobic views too. Nigel Farage and Hungarian Ministers say that these refugees aren’t destitute and are from the middle classes, as though only poor classes are affected by wars. Yes these people seems to have the means to pay the people smugglers to reach place of safety but that shouldn’t detract us from the fact that they are fleeing war and struggles they are enduring to reach place of safety. Because these refugees are educated, middle class, UKIP is unable to use the rhetoric of spongers and attraction of the Benefit systems, so they resort to attacking them for being middle class and false claims that it would dilute Christian culture. The reality is that even if 250,000 are accepted in Europe it will only add 0.05% to the existing 3.5% Muslim population of Europe.

People like Nick Cohen and other Eutsonites, Maajid Nawaz, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and other so called Liberal Left, should be pleased that their Islamophobic rhetoric has much in common with the Far right Anti-Semitic Hungary and other Eastern Europeans. They also have a commonality with the hate spreading messages of Douglas Murray of the Henry Jackson Society and the Gatestone institute. It seems that these champions of Human Rights, Freedoms including Freedom of Speech, Secularism, etc agree that 0.05% addition to the population of Europe threaten European culture and values. I must add that these people, from time to time write about the misery faced by the refugees/ migrants but then go on to support the Government line on this issue. The media including BBC uses suspect surveys to show that majority of the public is against helping the refugees/migrants

Another “liberal left” journalist David Aaronovitch has written about the plight of the Syrian refugees but then he uses this crisis/ tragedy to make a case for intervention. One thing for sure that he is a consistent in his warmongering agenda. He talks about 200,000 deaths in Syria conflict but fails to admit that half of them are caused by the forces opposed to the Assad regime. Furthermore, further military intervention will not only increase the death toll, refugee crisis, it will turn Syria into Libya like lawless country. The only solution is a negotiated settlement but these warmongers don’t want any role by Turkey, Iran and Russia. They previously opposed and undermined UN’s efforts to find a negotiated settlement through Ban Ki Moon’s envoys, Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi.

The right wing media and people like Nick Cohen, Maajid Nawaz, etc use red herrings such as why aren’t Gulf states taking in the refugees. The same rhetoric was repeated by the English Democrats leader, who was given platform by the BBC’s Andrew Neil, on the daily politics show. These are the same people who constantly attack these states for alleged human rights abuses but, because these refugees happen to be Muslim, it is ok for them to go there. In any case majority of Syrian, Afghan and other Muslim refugees are being hosted by the neighbouring Muslim countries. In any case these refugees have spent years in warzones and refugee camps where lives have been stood still. Their children’s education has stalled and often these children are forced to work to earn to put food on table.

Soon headlines and breaking news about refugees will disappear from the front pages and our screens. It is paramount that we keep telling our main stream politicians and governments to show humanity and to put in practice the values they like to talk about. They should show leadership and, as Jeremy Corbyn said, stand up to the menace of far right, hidden right in the cloak of Liberalism and racism and find a European solution to these humanitarian crises on the European land. They should also work to find a peaceful negotiated settlement of the conflicts and they will find many of these refugees will return to rebuild their country.              

Don't Talk About It, Its Not the Right Time

The appalling murders in France have rightly started the debate about the freedom of speech. However, at the same time people are being told that it is not the time to talk about the issues which are absolute relevant to the unity of the communities and are vital to stop such incidents happening again. This happens everytime such incidents happen and it is never discussed and addressed. Instead narratives are developed to create divisions, stereo types and prejudices, which can only lead to discrimination and feelings of not belonging. These feelings are then exploited and cause some people to act in a manner which is not conducive to a cohesive society.

The solidarity march in Paris today was to promote unity and inclusiveness for all. The impressive and historic attendance was a spectacle to hold with people of all faiths, colours and nationalities attending in large numbers. There were lot of moments to remember, like a Muslim Mayor of a Town who had come with his Jewish Businessman friend. Both were wearing placards, the Mayor’s placard said I am a Muslim and I love Jews and the Jewish friend was wearing placard saying I am a Jew and I love Muslims. The Jewish businessman spoke better English and said that the Muslim mayor had started a programme for teenage children from different races faiths and backgrounds to meet and learn about each other. Then there there was a Muslim man who gave white roses of peace to passer bys Jews and others. There was a Jewish woman who had moved from Israel to France, 20 years ago, and she was there with her Muslim friend but both also expressed their fears for the future. People were there with their children and elderly relatives with messages of peace and desire to live in peace and harmony. There were lot of young people whose parents / grandparents had moved to the country. Its this unity of young generation of descents of migrants and young white French that gives hope for a more tolerant future. 

The march was also attended by some leaders and high officials of the world. Some leaders tried to make political capital out of it and others were grateful to be invited. British Prime Minister was talking about security and measures to limit our freedoms further. Despite being told to stay away Netanyahu turned up, he used the well rehersed rhetoric of fighting Muslim extremists (Palestinians) and rise of anti-Semitism. He offered safe sanctuary to Jews in Israel, not surprising as more than 30% of Israelis want to leave the country for better careers and futures. One of the considred views of humanity and unity of all races, colours and beliefs and non belief came from an Italian Prince. Unfortunately he doesn’t have any power to bring about changes he was talking about. One Sky commentator and his guest agreed that this kind of unity procession was a better way to create cohesion, integration and unity than the proposed legislations limiting our freedoms.

Despite the positives of the march, one must ask questions whether the crowd represented all of the French communities. Was it just a gathering of the great and the good and middle classes and what efforts were made to include the marginalised and deprived communities where these murderers had come from. The neighbours of the culprits had nothing to say about these men except good things like they held doors, they helped people to carry shopping, they helped the disabled, they were quite and polite, etc. Even the person at the print warehouse, where they were finally killed spoke about their humanity. We now know that the brothers who carried out the Charlie Ebdo massacre were orphans, one of them was homeless the other had committed string of petty offences. They were born and bred in France and didn’t have any particular roots abroad. Yet they felt the need to travel abroad and make contacts with people with extreme views.

One person interviewed on the BBC said that there was abject poverty in the ghettos of Paris. Children were literally starving and young girls were prostituting themselves to survive. Another person who owned a restaurant said there was wide spread discrimination against the  descendants of the migrants from North African and Arab countries. He said while he had employees from various racial backgrounds such as Mali, Ethiopia, etc, there were no go areas for these young people and majority of restaurants will not employ young people from minorities like Arabs and Africans. One Muslim said that there are restrictions on the liberties of people with regard to expression of religion, clothing and even food. There is also the problem of increasing attacks on Muslims and their places of worship both before and after the murders at the Charlie Ebdo. There is no legal protection against Islamophobia anywhere in Europe.

Slowly it is becoming clear that the Charlie Ebdo wasn’t just a satirist magazine, it allegedly also promoted xenophobia, racial and religious hatred. It has also emerged that the Magazine had sacked one of its employees for anti-Semitic activity, but not for racial hatred or Islamophobic. It is clear that Charlie Ebdo wasn’t a popular magazine in any sense with only 60,000 copy print. The magazine mainly catered for the high society, which influence the opinions and policies of the government. It would be interesting to see if the proposed government funded million copies will contain similar material as alleged above.

While the France was preparing for the solidarity march, a debate was being held at the BBC studios for the programme the Big Question, with main topic of incident in Paris. The host of the programme is well known for his prejudice and collaboration with the Islamophobic community. This was reflected with the choice of guests disproportionally in favour of his views.  It was like having a match where the referee was in cahoots with one team. He failed to give enough time for reply to Raza Nadim of MPAC. It is becoming a norm for the BBC to give platform to people like Douglas Murray of the Henry Jackson Society and the Gatestone Institute and Quilliam’s front man Maajid Nawaz, to spread the narrative of division, fear and hate while gradually dropping the voices of reason. Douglas Murray said that it wasn’t the time to discuss the alleged inflammatory material and editorial of the Magazine. He made the laughable claims that Muslims were trying to enforce Sharia on the mainstream community and that the Islam was to blame for the actions of the perpetrators. Maajid Nawaz’s rhetoric is well known and is not  worth repeating. Nabila Ramdani a French Algerian Journalist puts it better in her Guardian artcle why French Muslims shouldnt be blamed. For that matter we need to get away from blaming whole of the Muslim communities for the crimes of the few and start confronting those who are creating mischief of this kind for own goals.    

To say it is not the time to discuss these issues is to ignore the real causes of disconnect, frustration and helplessness, which are leading to people acting out of character and committing acts of violence. The solidarity message need to be filtered through to the above mentioned deprived communities which exist in all of our societies. In reality they exist in all countries accross the world developed, developing, Western, Eastern, Muslim and Non Muslim. The lazy rhetoric to ask Muslims to do more, blaming the religion and rhetoric of back door sharia and the harsh language by politicians has been tried, tested and has failed. These people who carried out atrocities were born and bred in France. They were the product of French society. Therefore, to blame any other society, culture or religion is farcical and we are all to blame for our failings not just the one community.

Its time pay attention to the above mentioned deprived and discriminated communities. They include people of all races religion and colour. We need to provide comfort, assurance and support to these communities before someone else does and exploit them for their own agenda. Don’t just blame the religion and ask communities to do more as it reinforces the idea of separation not cohesion. We all have a responsibility to our young; don’t treat them as foreigners as their roots are here, treat them as citizens. Dont let people with extreme dark agendas of creating divisions and hatered talk and listen to the voices of reason in all communities.