Human Migration: A Crisis of Our Time

[deluxestogie]

I'm not sure why I'm posting this here. Some of our European FTT members confront the migration crisis on a daily basis. Those of us living in the US and elsewhere are just casual onlookers. It's just daily, perplexing news reports.

This link is to a lengthy article in theGuardian.com entitled Winter is Coming: the New Crisis for Refugees in Europe: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/02/winter-is-coming-the-new-crisis-for-refugees-in-europe

As the article progresses from southern Europe northward, stopping point by stopping point, a series of temperature graphs highlight what the migrants who have reached that point will face in the coming months. I found myself weeping. Sorry.

It's not a political thing. It's countries large and small, already struggling to sustain their economies, being actually overwhelmed by the massive influx of men, women, children--families--who are driven to desperation. These people are desperate enough to face death, rather than to subject their families to more of the chaos in their homelands. Volunteer organizations are overwhelmed. UN agencies are overwhelmed. Transportation infrastructures are overwhelmed.

This is a numbers problem. Simple math at its most intimidating. In the US, it's not uncommon for an entire community to join hands in supporting a single child dying of cancer. But what happens when the number of those afflicted begins to approach the size of the unaffected community itself? And the duration. Relief organizations and spontaneous volunteers are not prepared to provide food, lodging, clothing, sanitation, education and hope for masses of people for months on end--perhaps for years.

I have no suggestions or solutions. But the magnitude of the problem has not penetrated the ethereal world of most journalists. Here in the US, over 80% of all news programming is consumed by elections that are more than a year away.

Bob

 

[jojjas]

Yes , here in sweden they estimate that over 100 000 refugees coming this year , and more next year
Most of this refugees want to go sweden and germany , so the effort on this 2 nations is substansial and the refugees comming in a time of year when it´s dark and cold when they must have roof over their heads ,
not to mention that what they have to do to, going all the way up here , the pictures i seen is horrified
Mikael

 

[Knucklehead]

700,000 refugees in a year is a lot of people into a small area. That's about 50% more people than illegally cross our southern border each year (year after year), but we're a big country. Right now America is supporting around 11 million illegals all on her own.

But I'm conflicted by what I'm seeing in this European refugee situation. Of course I feel terrible for the women and children. What human being wouldn't? Maybe the media should show more pictures of women and children, but the vast majority of the refugees I see in photos or video on television are adult men of fighting age. While these cowards are deserting their country and running from a fight, men and women of other countries and nationalities, alongside the brave souls who chose to stay and make a stand, are fighting and dying everyday to defend the rights and homes of the very people who are leaving right now. They'll come back after the bloodletting like yankee carpet baggers and start making their claims on the spoils like a pack of hyenas after a lion kill.

Britain kicked up a ruckus or two with the Colonies in late 18th and early 19th century. We could have packed up our tents and moved to Brazil, conceding the territory. Another monumental great migration. We didn't. We chose to stand and fight for what was ours and America was born.

Gather these rascals up and put them in uniform in the front lines, or shoot them as deserters. Feed the children, but the women can grow vegetables or carry artillery ammunition or load stripper clips. We have women in uniform that have families. War ain't no picnic.

I know I sound cold and hard and maybe I am. But what we're seeing now is nothing new. It's been going on for centuries. What's new is the willingness to quit and hide from a fight and that makes me mad. I hate bullies and these people should stand up and knock the bully on his arrogant ass and then kick him in the ribs a few times. With boots on.

My apologies to all offended parties. (Except the French, they set a bad example)

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

With all due respect, Knucky, you do sound cold and hard. I don't think it's because you really are as a person. I just don't think it's as simple as "desertion". Unarmed, un-commanded, untrained, unorganized people, especially parents, are not suited to fight an organized and armed military force which has infiltrated not just borders, but also your community. Furthermore, it's not necessarily about fleeing conflict either. It may be fleeing poverty, disease and starvation caused by the conflicts. It may be fleeing the prospect that whoever wins, (nobody wins), there will be nothing left to stay around for afterwards, anyways.

Canada has a 20% immigrant population with fewer social problems than Germany with 12% (8% born in non-EU country). We also have a new government willing do help the Syrian refugees. There's plenty more room here.

 

[istanbulin]

Being a refugee is not a choice, it only happens under force majeure. Being a refugee is too tough, it's not something regular people can imagine. The primary aim of these people is to remain alive wherever they can.

In my lifetime I experienced many refugee streams to Turkey, mainly from Balkans (Bulgaria, Former Yugoslav Countries etc.), some of them were just deported or forced to migrate. In 1989, more than 300 thousand people arrived from Bulgaria just in three months but after few years when political conditions recovered in Bulgaria half of them went back even they have really strong cultural bonds here.

As of today, there're around 2 million registered Syrian refugees in Turkey, population of Slovenia is barely higher than this number. According to President of European Council, 100 thousand refugees could be approved by some European countries. Before the last refugee crisis this number was 40 thousand. This sounds really unfair to me.

Approving refugees is not an easy task but most of them always go back when their country becomes livable. So, target should not be desperate people but different.

 

[FmGrowit]

I'm not sure why I'm posting this here.

Everyone is allowed to have their own opinion on anything in existence. This is a loaded topic and I'm really surprised to see it here.

 

[ProfessorPangloss]

If we're prognosticating here...

I wonder if the long plan is to see ISIS overextend itself and collapse. It's one thing to burn a bunch of stuff down (look at anyone who runs for office as a contrarian) but it's quite another thing to actually run a civilization. I wonder if the Western powers that be are essentially guessing that their respective countries don't have the appetite for another Middle Eastern war, but neither do we have the appetite for unlimited arming of rebel groups, and so the answer is to let it burn and help pick up the pieces later on - kind of a gruesome follow-up to the 2011 Arab Spring. This is, of course, totally ignoring the actual human beings affected, but the big-picture calculus seems sounder than everyone just dog-piling into an invasion against that kind of enemy. To the planners, the people are a statistic, and if they wind up with secular democracies (or let's face it, any kind of capitalism) after the fact, so much the better.

(NB: I realize that this is totally talking around the human beings of Syria, who are so desperate that they're willing to *run* into Eastern Europe. The whole thing is just so hideous and shameful).

 

[webmost]

Knuck has a point. Cold and hard does not make anything less true.

So often, in human affairs, truth is a cold, hard truth.

Of course it's a choice. Granted, no easy choice.

But...

If not them, who?
If not now, when?

Who, in the Levant, will be first to step up and get their act together? When? Where? Is it something that will happen all by itself? Are they waiting for Putin to do it for them? Are they waiting for Obama to draw a red line in their sand? Or are they running away?

Eight thousand years of history. What have they got to show for it?

A thorn in all our sides.

 

[FmGrowit]

I'd love to participate in this discussion, but I'm afraid my view on the matter would represent the majority...and we all know, we (the majority) are the cause of all the world's problems.

So, I'll just leave you with these words of wisdom from none other than Homer Simpson

Meanwhile in Sweden

 

[LordPipestoke]

I can't lay claim to having any solution. If I had, I suppose that would be an instant Nobel Peace Prize.

I find it difficult however, to accept the idea that 'men of fighting age' should stay and fight because they are of physical capacity to do so. Who would you fight for and who would you fight against? IS holds the most atrocious views and are committing the most awful crimes against humanity, but the Assad-led regime is only nominally better and is responsible for more civilian deaths than are IS. Moreover, Assad's regime has been at it for many years by now.

If I were in Syria with a wife and children right now, I'd get them and myself out of there pronto. I'm of fighting age but who would I fight? a mad dictator about whom the best can be said is, that we still don't know for certain that he's as bad as Saddam Hussein was in Iraq? Or would I fight against IS, about which I can think of nothing good to say at all. With whom would I form 'my army'? Who would lead it and what would ensure that 'my faction' wouldn't end up being just one more unruly rabble with which no-one else gets along. What's to stop other factions of the same type forming and just creating an even greater confusion with even more death following?

It's hugely simplistic to say that if you do not stay and fight, you are a deserter. The people who are leaving are not cowards. They are realists. Comparing the American war of Independence to the situation in Syria does nothing other than muddle the picture even further, causing simplistic solutions to be masqueraded as viable, simply because they worked 240 years ago under completely different conditions (as they would have to be, being 240 years ago) and with a completely different set of military realities. Aside from field cannons, muskets and sabres were the thing back then. Hardly comparable to the current crop of military materiel.

I have no solutions to Syria, of course. But whatever the solution ends up being, whatever the outcome will be, branding civilians cowards for fleeing war with their families, does no-one any favours and ultimately serves only to demonise people who are in desperate need of help, sympathy and the facilitation of human dignity.

Bob, I share your sentiments entirely. I wept, too.

 

[squeezyjohn]

I thought that there was a ban on political discussion in the rules of this forum, maybe I was mistaken ... but I cannot think of a more heated political subject than this one - especially on our side of the pond! We're not just viewing this news on TV from the comfort of our armchairs ... we're seeing these people in our daily lives and it's heartbreaking ... and an impossible situation.

 

[mrthing2000]

I'm all for locking the borders down, sending 11 million people packing, confiscating their property, and so on. Its not nice, but if we are a nation of laws, then lets enforce them and not be a magnet. A sovereign nation gets to make its own rules--like it or not. Hungary said 'enough already' and the refugees kept going. But I'm not looking to debate things--but rather point out some facts.

I could bemoan the economic/employment side of things on the issue, but its pretty obvious so I won't.

But why do refugees go where they do? Because they go for a better deal. Better to be poor in Europe than poor in Libya, and watch mob rule take over. Nothing wrong there, just self-interest. But what is our nation's self-interest, other than being 'nice'? More cheap labor?

But these refugees aren't all fleeing ISIL, and they aren't all Syrian. North Africans are also jumping into boats and heading for Sicily and wherever they can go. Haitians do the same here.

As for our interests, it should be noted that Malawi grows a lot of tobacco, probably not helping US farmers. If we help them, then it almost necessarily goes against our own interests at some point. And if we don't, we could see a radical type takeover and threaten us long-term. Same for the mess in Zimbabwe.

No win for anyone. But I still say maintain the rule of law and at least encourage what we can through sanctions.

 

[Lakota]

Its a very slippery slope this thread is on, maybe before it goes out of control the thread should be closed. I can not see any good coming out of this thread.

 

[Chicken]

I feel like knucklehed does..but my thinking is a lot colder and more cruel than his..you cant help people who refuse to help themselves...20 people with pitchforks will over power a guy with a gun...

Id turn them back and tell them to fight or be slain like sheep..is it the job of the west to fight thier battles for them? We seen what happened in iraq..our service men dying to take cities that right now isis is in control of..if i was a parent of a soldier that died there id be mad as hell..

My son is 14 and i will try to tell him not to waste his time by joining the military...for what? Being court--marshelled for shooting at the enemy..when deserters are.rewarded...

I have no pity on these refugees..i do have pity on the europen citizens whos leaders are.allowing thier country to be over-run .or invaded.2 different words with the same outcome.

 

[Knucklehead]

I thought that there was a ban on political discussion in the rules of this forum

Its a very slippery slope this thread is on, maybe before it goes out of control the thread should be closed. I can not see any good coming out of this thread.

I agree that political discussions have turned ugly in the past on the forum and should be banned. But I'm not seeing this as political, it's more a world events discussion. The nightly news. As long as it stays civil and nobody tries to start blaming a particular political party as the cause of all this, we should give it a while longer. We do have members right now who's countries are right in the path of this migration. How is this affecting their lives? Are they on food rations yet? What is this doing to their economies, food shortages, space shortages. Is this the largest displacement of people since WWII? The news is all about the refugees, but the lives of the people who's countries are being overrun will be effected also. Are their vegetable gardens being robbed at night? Are they scared too?

For the record, I love to debate. I can argue either side of any argument with equal enthusiasm. Had Bob led off with my post, I would have immediately followed with a post very similar to his first one. A discussion requires two sides and had I not posted a contrary opinion, I was afraid this thread would have consisted of Bob's post and three others along the lines of "Yeah, saw that on the news, awful". etc.

I agree with everything Bob said and about 70% of what I said. However, out of 700,000 people there aren't 100-200,000 men? That's a sizeable addition to any army and it can't all be about modern warfare. Sun Tzu can teach us as much today as he could 2500 years ago. The Battle of Cannae is still held forth as a triumph of tactics over strategy. The Second Punic War as a whole of strategy overcoming tactics. If there's a will, there's a way.

I would like to hear from the guys that are seeing the influx first hand. And what effect it is having on normal lives.

 

[FmGrowit]

I am completely perplexed as to why this subject was introduced in a tobacco forum. I suggest everyone follow their hearts and do what they believe is best. There are many charities who are trying to help immigrants and other less fortunate people all over the world. I also suggest doing your due diligence in researching any charity you might give to. All charities are not created equal.

While this topic deserves attention, it is political in nature and will be terminated as of now. If you read this thread and want to interact with one or more of the members who might share your position on the matter, please feel free to contact them directly to further this discussion.