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The View from Austria, Part III
This is the third and final part of the extended email exchange between me and one of our members, Lilibellt, an Austrian native who now lives in Vienna. For those of you who missed it, in the first part we discussed why she recently voted for Norbert Hofer of Austria’s Freedom party (FPÖ), and what the obviously controversial party now stands for. In the second part, we discussed Europe’s migration crisis, which we continue to discuss today.
To put this in context: Last Tuesday, the European Commission presented its latest plan for stemming migration to Europe. The EU intends to seal agreements with African and Middle Eastern countries making development aid and trade ties with certain countries conditional on their cooperation to “persuade” refugees to stay home:
European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans told lawmakers that the new partnership agreements would combine funds to strengthen border control, accelerate asylum procedures and to enhance counter-smuggling capacities, in addition to promoting development, investment and trade.
“We propose to use a mix of positive and negative incentives to reward those third countries willing to cooperate effectively with us, and to ensure that there are consequences for those who do not. This includes using our development of trade policies to create leverage.”
The plan envisages spending $9 billion in development aid and other assistance over the next five years.
The EU Migration Commissioner has said project funding could eventually reach 62 billion Euros, or roughly $70 billion dollars.
As I’m sure you’ve heard, the EU made a similar deal with Turkey recently, offering a large aid package and the (vague) promise of visa-free travel for Turkish citizens in exchange for Turkey’s readmission of rejected migrants and its efforts to stop refugees and migrants, most of them from Syria, from sailing to Greece.
Part of the new plan sounds very reasonable. The EU says it will prioritize agreements with Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Mali and Ethiopia. Cutting deals like this with Sudan and Eritrea, however, doesn’t seem quite so common-sensical. The Eritrean regime stops people fleeing the country by means of a shoot-to-kill policy on its borders. (After Syrians, Afghans, and Iraqis, Eritreans are the largest group of people trying to reach Europe.) Sudan, of course, is led by Omar al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and genocide in Darfur. And the United States believes his regime sponsors terrorism. Nevertheless, Spiegel reports,
documents relating to the project indicate that Europe wants to send cameras, scanners and servers for registering refugees to the Sudanese regime in addition to training their border police and assisting with the construction of two camps with detention rooms for migrants. …
A general with Sudan’s Interior Ministry told SPIEGEL and ARD that technology would not just be used to register refugees, but also all Sudanese. The regime’s goal appears to be the absolute surveillance of its people.
A spat between Austria and Hungary is now growing because Hungary is refusing to take back any of the thousands of migrants that Austria says should be returned under EU rules. And the FPÖ has challenged “irregularities” in the recent Austrian election. So Austria remains at the center of things.
Claire: In our last discussion, I pointed out that the total number of asylum-seekers and migrants, so far, amounted to no more than a thousandth of Europe’s population. You replied, and the point is well-taken, that first, the refugees and migrants are disproportionately young and male; second, the EU plan for refugee quotas probably will never go into effect; and third, most of the refugees are either already in, or want to go, to Germany, Austria and Sweden, so it’s only realistic to assume that those countries will have to deal with the majority of asylum-seekers. But that could be construed as an argument in favor of keeping Europe’s internal borders open — because, as you point out, if they’re open, the idea of “quotas” and “migrants per country” is a nonsense. The problem is that they’re not a nonsense. Europe is now in a netherworld where no one is sure whether its borders are real.
Lillibellt: Exactly. Sadly, there is nothing more to add, except that the European mismanagement of this crisis doesn’t end there. If we look at Eurostat data, we see that in 2015, out of a total of 1,321,600 asylum seekers, there were only 366,785 females. And 652,279 were males between 14 and 34 years of age. Why?
Claire: For one thing, families send the males to make what’s obviously a highly perilous and difficult journey in the expectation that he can then send for his wife and kids, who can come in a safer way, for example, by plane. Also, many Syrian refugees are fleeing conscription into Assad’s army or being forced to fight for ISIS or another militia. It may be that women are in less immediate danger than the men because of that. I’d guess they’re probably also afraid to bring children along on such a dangerous trip. It makes much more sense to leave the mother behind if the children are small and send the strongest member of the family. But you’re right: Whatever the reason, having so many young men around without their wives to civilize them is a recipe for crime and antisocial behavior. To me, that suggests it’s urgent to allow any refugee given asylum to send at once for his wife.
Lilibellt: I have to insert here that being called up for military service is no ground for asylum according to the Geneva Convention–
Claire: –that’s an exceedingly technical objection. The convention defines a refugee as, “A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” To be “called up for military service” in Syria is to assent to committing massive war crimes against your fellow citizens, including gassing them with chemical weapons. It’s fair to say that objection to this is a “political opinion,” and that refusing to be conscripted would result in a very well-founded fear of persecution. (See, e.g., Syrian men conscripted in Bashar Assad’s army choose escape over ‘Kill or be killed.”)–
Lilibellt: —I also assume that leaving your wife and children to take a long and perilous journey may not be very agreeable, but it suggests you’re in a reasonably secure place. I don’t want to sound cynical: Living in a refugee camp in Lebanon as a woman, alone with your children, and without the help and protection of your husband, is awful. And very likely dangerous. But it’s not life-threatening, and thus no ground for asylum–
Claire: –Almost certainly, among those who arrive are many people with no strong case for asylum. But to assume refugees are necessarily safe and in no danger of refoulement in countries like Turkey is ungrounded.
Lilibellt: Also, don’t forget that only 50 percent of the asylum seekers are Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans. The next largest group are Albanians, followed by people from Kosovo. If we conclude that broadly 30-40 percent are not actual refugees, but migrants trying to escape their poor living conditions at home and using the refugee crisis to enter the northern European countries, then a spike in male applicants makes even more sense.
Claire: I’d guess that figure is roughly correct.
Lilibellt: Of course, this is only theoretical and extrapolated from the data available, because I couldn’t find information about the ratio of males and females among the different ethnic groups of asylum-seekers–
Claire: I couldn’t either, but UN data on registered Syrian refugees shows an even ratio of men and women. (This doesn’t at all obviate your point that many may be safe enough to meet the Geneva Convention provisions in the camps where they were registered in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey; I just add the information in case anyone is curious.)
Lilibellt: Shouldn’t it be essential for politicians and opinion leaders to give at least some thought to the social stability within the receiving countries and, in this context, to the fact that last year’s refugee influx in Germany alone has lead to an five percent increase in the young (16-40) male population? For how many years can this go on?
Claire: Just to be clear, last year’s influx in Germany is unlikely to be repeated, because the routes to northern Europe have been sealed. It’s southern Europe, Greece and Italy in particular, that’s apt to end up bearing a vastly disproportionate burden. Those borders are maritime, and obviously not as easy to seal.
Lillibellt: Germany expects 500,000 requests for family reunification among asylum-seekers who registered last year, and we can safely assume that most of the women are married (because of the dangers of coming here unaccompanied). That leaves us with 50 percent of the males between the age of 18 and 40 unmarried. And we haven’t even touched the cultural problems with underaged wives or polygamy.
Claire: I think your demographic concerns are well-founded. It’s common sense: Young, single men are the most criminogenic cohort everywhere, even under the best of circumstances, and even when the gender ratio is equal. When you add “massively traumatized” and “from a culture where women are treated as second-class,” you have a recipe for — no, you will have, guaranteed — a new alienated and criminal underclass. And it’s one that could become more so, quickly, owing to a ratchet effect: If any member of the group commit crimes, people will develop a negative view of the whole group and will be less eager to invite them over, or help them, or hire them. So they’ll quickly encounter stares, insults, hostility in their daily lives, and become fearful of their host country. If they get a reputation for harassing or (God forbid) raping women, it’s very unlikely the local girls will want to date them or marry them. And even if this doesn’t turn them into criminals, they’ll be isolated, lonely, resentful, and sexually frustrated. To me, again, this suggests the urgency of family reunification and the importance of establishing a gender-based quota system.
Lillibellt: To the extent that quotas are feasible in reality, I am with you on your second point. But regarding family reunification, we disagree profoundly: Yes, there must be a realistic prospect of family reunification depending on the asylum-seeker’s efforts to integrate and economic success. But asylum is granted for period of time; it is not a relocation program–
Claire: –in reality, Syrian refugees will need to be relocated permanently. The war could easily last another hundred years. Syria has been destroyed, physically and socially; there is nothing for them to return to. Be practical: Is there a realistic prospect of them returning?
Lillibellt: Only if the asylum-seeker ceases to be dependant on the welfare system should he be eligible for family reunification. For these reasons:
- If he’s successful, there is no point in sending him back home when the cause for his asylum no longer exists. (In Europe, there is already talk about changing Geneva Convention. You will see, this point will be raised in the near future! – and I don’t like that);
- You would give up the best way there is to find out who is really a refugee and who’s not (without quotas, bureaucracy, or lawyers). If you’re a migrant who is not persecuted for your religion, sexual orientation, or political opinions, and the economic prospects in your home country are dire, you want – understandably — a better future for yourself and your children, one without the threat of violent unrest and war. But your work skills won’t be sufficient to find you work in Europe any time soon, so you should think twice and be aware that family reunification is unlikely. (This should apply as well to any possible future wife from his homeland.)
- One of the biggest mistakes Europe made in the past was failing to make a concerted effort to prevent the establishment of “parallel societies.” This situation is the worst now in countries where obtaining family reunification was the easiest. If your family’s future depends on integrating, your chances are much better if you’re in the workforce and have to deal with Austrians, Germans, French, and so forth on a daily basis. It also would lead to the discussion we most need to have, about opening the labor market to refugees. (It can’t be the new normal for refugees to work for a Euro an hour; this is a disgrace and robs companies of their contracts; this is a social time bomb.)
Claire: This is anecdotal, but might provide a clue about why the asylum-seekers are predominantly male:
Lillibellt: This is my point. It’s hard to distinguish between asylum-seekers and migrants (sometimes they are both), but you have to do it. Otherwise, I say it again, you are creating a social time bomb.
Claire: I agree. But as you can see from that video, this will require Europe to coordinate its policies.
Lilibellt: You also have to consider the incentives of the European welfare systems (especially in Austria, Germany, and Sweden). In Austria, everybody, including recognised refugees, who has “no sufficient financial protection by other means” is eligible for the guaranteed minimum income (800 Euros a month for a single man or woman; each child, another 210 Euros.) Recently, the media reported the case of an Afghan family who receives 5,600 Euros a month.
Claire: That “minimum income” in conjunction with Austria not being a deadly war zone is going to continue to attract people — how could it not? Hell, reading that makes me want to move to Austria, I’d quite like a guaranteed minimum income that high! Speaking of economic incentives, this is a natural place to introduce the problem of the economic incentives to human trafficking, which are massive. And busting the traffickers is an incredibly complex transnational problem, about as apt to be successful as the war on drugs. I’ve heard rumors — ones that would obviously be very significant if true — that Russian organized crime has been acting as human traffickers, at least in Greece. Have you seen or heard anything to suggest this is a rumor worth my pursuing?
Lilibellt: No, sorry, I am not even aware of the rumors you mentioned. If, as you said and I agree, this conflict will go on for ten years or longer, there is no way European population will accept peacefully an influx of millions of migrants on their welfare rolls each year, no way. At this point — it is hard to convince the public, but I feel it is still do-able — the only peaceful solution is for Europe to accept only real refugees (women, children, Christians, members of Muslim sects, politically-persecuted people, etc.) and to offer family reunification, in the case of relatives who aren’t persecuted, only after the refugee qualifies for a resident permit and fulfills the economic requirements. Austria took in people after the Yugoslavian war, the Prague spring, and the Hungarian uprising without much complaining (at least, nothing like we are seeing today). I still think that most Europeans are more than willing to help. But if politicians, media outlets, and NGOs keep playing fast and loose with what’s left of Europe’s compassion, I don’t want to imagine what will happen.
Claire: Here’s another situation you don’t want to imagine: There are 4,843,344 Syrian refugees — not economic migrants — in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and North Africa. A whole generation has been brutalized, is going without any education that would allow them to function in a modern economy, and many are living in squalid camps with absolutely no hope for the future. What happens to children who grow up under these circumstances? Will there even be governments with which the EU can make deals? By the way, did you see that Sebastian Kurz (Austria’s foreign minister) argued for the “Australian model” in dealing with migration?
Lillibellt: I was just translating this interview for you, so it saves me the trouble that you found it too. Yes, really — well — interesting times, when I have to agree with a 29-year old rookie politician instead of the 61-year old “pro” who’s experienced in world politics and head of the leading European nation. I feel uneasy about it. Maybe my take on the refugee crisis is completely wrong after all. I surely hope so.
Claire: The obvious practical objection is that Australia can do this because it’s a single country (and an island). No country in Europe will be willing to commit its sovereign territory to this project, I guarantee it. If you look at this discussion thread, for example where people of different European nationalities are talking about this proposal, you can see immediately what every country’s reaction will be: Use someone else’s island. So even if the case can be made that this is the only way to prevent migrants from drowning, it’s not going to happen.
Lillibellt: That’s a question of leverage. What about a temporary solution where Greece agrees to “rent out” an island for a period of time without losing any territory permanently, and renegotiations are scheduled in advance? Could you see this happening? I honestly don’t see any other way. If anyone has a better idea, be my guest: I’ll listen to it. But it pains me to say, you must stop the refugees and migrants from entering European soil to save them from drowning or putting their lives in danger, and to preserve an EU with open borders. Without free trade and free movement of persons, without open borders, the idea of the EU is soon to be a memory of the past.
Claire: I think if I were Greek, I’d be enraged with what seem to me de facto plans to turn Greece into the EU’s massive refugee camp.
Lillibellt: Yes, if I was Greek I would resent Germany more by the day. I wonder if Merkel is even aware what she has created with the illegal bailout of Greece and now this illegal refugee-welcome party. If the European Union falls apart or slides into an even deeper crisis, she’s to blame.
Claire: What if no one’s to blame? Or no one in Europe, anyway.
Lillibellt: What I do know is that the underlying cause of so many unresolved problems today, not only the refugee crisis, is false compassion. Europe, at least the leader of its most influential country, in concert with EU officials and the media, seems to have decided that compassionate policy, not efficient Realpolitik, is the right way to go. Someone should commend to them the words of Stefan Zweig:
There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart’s impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another’s unhappiness … ; and the other, the only kind that counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond.
Claire: I don’t know what an unsentimental but creative policy would look like, in the case of the EU. Sending surveillance equipment to al-Bashir is, I suppose, unsentimental.
Lillibellt: I think the main problem is that the present generation of politicians inherited a fairly good, organised Europe (from Mitterrand, Chirac, and Kohl), with clear objectives and rules (like the Maastricht treaty, which anticipated exactly the problems we are having now). But they lack the competence and gravitas of their predecessors. They have the mentality of bureaucrats, and perhaps it isn’t even their fault, because — as Kafka perfectly described it – bureaucracy is a beast of its own. Merkel even looks like some character out of his books (I know, I know you’re not supposed to make fun of people’s looks, but I couldn’t resist). Why is it that Putin, Orban, or even Erdoğan for that matter — he is not shy about declaring his objectives, you must give him that — can formulate their political goals and philosophies so much more coherently than European politicians, or worse, EU officials? (I am not talking about their actual policies.)
Claire: The beauty of authoritarianism. It’s easy to be clear when you’ve crushed your domestic opposition and you don’t mind alienating the rest of the world.
Lillibellt: Then again, maybe you’re right and the bureaucracy is only a symptom of history repeating itself. Before the First World War, the Habsburg empire was known for having the best civil service administration in the world (like the EU bureaucracy). At the same time, Franz Josef II is said to have had little interest in the military and matters of national defense (like all the EU members, with maybe the exception of the former Eastern bloc countries). And nationalism arose everywhere in the Empire (like everywhere in the EU). You yourself drew comparisons to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the comment section of our first exchange. Perhaps we have to take another look at nationalism and learn how to make it a force for good (more in the spirit of Dvorak and Liszt) rather than suppressing it. I don’t know.
Claire: I’m not sure how even the healthiest of nationalisms would solve, practically, the problems at hand. That reminds me: Russia. Are you concerned about the alleged links between the FPÖ (the party for which she recently voted) and Putin?
Lilibellt: Yes, I am, or at a minimum I don’t feel too comfortable about it. Admittedly, I haven’t paid much attention to the FPÖ’s connection to Russia or Serbia in the past. If I remember correctly, a former FPÖ party member and now an FPÖ arch-enemy, Ewald Stadler, was an election observer in Ukraine and ruled that everything was okay. The name the most associated with Russia among the FPÖ’s ranks is the party’s vice-leader, Johann Gudenus, who spent time in Russia during his legal studies and is thus fluent in Russian. He was an election observer during the Crimean “independence” referendum, after which the FPÖ supported Russia. Remember you asked my opinion about Hofer’s statement that Kosovo is part of Serbia? Neither the FPÖ nor Hofer released further comment, and there was no follow-up in the press, just that one headline. I still doubt it has much to do with pandering to potential voters, but it does make sense in light of the FPÖ’s engagement with Russia. Overall, I’m not really sure what to make of this apparent alliance between the right parties of Europe (the National Front in France, the AfD in Germany, the FPÖ in Austria) with Russia.
Claire: Is there resentment of Russia in Austria, generally [for worsening the Syrian crisis and generating more refugees], or is Russia seen to be playing a useful role?
Lillibellt: I’m not aware of it. Generally I don’t think, too many people are familiar with the details of the Syrian war and the political players involved.
Claire: What about the US? Is there resentment that the US hasn’t played a more active role or accepted more refugees?
Lillibellt: There is no resentment towards the US because of its lack of activity; far more often Austrians blame America for destabilizing the Middle East in the first place, starting with Bush.
Claire I’m honestly feeling hopeless. I look in every direction and see no rational solution that would be widely accepted in Europe. It’s a classic tragedy of the commons.
…..
Meanwhile in Syria, mere hours after the first food rations in four years were delivered to Daraya, which has been under siege by Assad and starving, Assad began pounding the city with barrel bombs.
Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s foreign minister, said he was “outraged beyond words.”
Thank you for any help you can give me toward defraying the costs of writing this book.
Published in General
What is happening in Satriano, Italy is interesting, but we should note a few things:
1) The Italians remaining in that town are mostly elderly folks who are essentially abandoned to their fate (not uncommon in small, southern towns in very poor Calabria). Having more bodies of any kind in that town will force the government to keep services (including health services) open. Without those, residents face a dire future, indeed.
2) These towns are all but ghost towns; everyone knows this, including the migrants (note: many are not refugees). They’ll stay a while, and when they have exhausted what Satriano can offer, they’ll move to richer towns up north. The idea of “repopulation” is a sad, futile hope.
3) So far, there are only 20 or so migrants. These bodies help keep services, and thus citizens, alive. If that number climbs and Italians begin to feel that they no longer have religious, cultural, and social dominance, attitudes will be very different. It is hard to see Italians having the last laugh if, for the sake of survival, they sacrifice their way of life.
To me? Or to Europeans? First, most are fleeing Assad. ISIS is much better at publicizing its atrocities, but they’re pikers as murderers compared to Assad. So it doesn’t seem a contradiction to me. The Syrians I’ve spoken to have been at pains to stress that they’re secular and have no connection to the Ikhwan, but I’ve hardly spoken to enough to constitute a wide-ranging sample, and what people say to journalists has to be viewed with a bit of skepticism: Syrians have become immensely media-savvy and they know very well what Americans want to hear. That said, it seems to me fully plausible that most Syrians are closer to the secular side of things that the Ikhwani side; Syria after all was secularized under the French mandate and the Ba’ath party was nominally socialist; the Ikhwan was so mercilessly persecuted that reportedly they had very little presence left before the uprising began. But I’m speculating; I don’t have reliable data.
I don’t know how it’s perceived in other European countries, but the French are pretty well-informed about Syria, as they tend to be about their former colonial possessions. (Much more so about the Middle East than Indochina, though, for reasons I don’t really understand — perhaps because it’s further away.) So I think most French people understand very well that most of the Syrian refugees are fleeing Assad. The news from Syria is reported in more detail here than in the US, and occupies a much bigger percentage of the news hole. That’s natural; the US is a global power, so it has less attention to give to any one region. That said, after the attack in November, Hollande very specifically declared France to be at war with ISIS, not Assad. But almost certainly that’s because he knew the US wouldn’t support him in a larger effort against Assad: Remember that French warplanes were on the runway after Ghouta and ready to take off when Obama called off plans for the strike. The French foreign and defense establishment was said to be furious about this. But I don’t have any inside line to what they were really thinking, that’s just what they seem to want people to think now.
I doubt they or anyone in Europe think Europe’s peace and prosperity is a function of Christianity. Some Turks I spoke to as the Middle East descended into hell after the failure of the Arab Spring wondered out loud, and this was obviously a new and very frightening thought for them, whether the Islamic world was simply hopeless. I don’t know if they were connecting that in their minds specifically to elements of the theology or whether they saw it as a multicausal curse. (I certainly do.) I’d be very surprised anyone in the region hasn’t wondered that, at least privately.
Most Muslims seem to think Assad’s just a murderer (and Assad is considered some kind of weird apostate by most Sunnis, anyway); likewise ISIS.
I think one difference might be that in France, at least, most people know many people who’ve immigrated from majority-Muslim countries, socialize with them, work with them, marry them, don’t see them as quite so foreign — and thus don’t see “Muslim” as a necessarily monolithic category. But I’d be wary of extrapolating to the rest of Europe; France has a very particular history as a colonial power.
This is very typical French news coverage. France24 is solidly mainstream for France.
It’s not the ones fleeing that will present the problem, for the most part. It will be their children: raised in a secular atmosphere where they don’t feel they belong, offered membership — told it is their birthright, really — in the society their parents fled.
Rebellion against parents, rebellion against society, rebellion against the cute girls that wouldn’t give them the time of day — all that and becoming the shadowy, sinister other. That can feed all sorts of adolescent fantasies . It’s not unexpected that there are terrorists. It is a wonder there aren’t more. Throw in the odd jihadist and perhaps there soon will be.
I think that things are going to get very, very bad and that current levels of immigration will have little to do with it.
From the news I see in the WSJ and elsewhere, their every action is greater homogenization, consolidation, centralization and repression.
Interestingly, soon after posting my comment I read this review of The Hapsburg Empire by Pieter M. Judson in the weekend review section of the WSJ. The reviewer engages Judson’s view of nationalism, saying:
Interesting that he then brought up music, given that Lilibellt had mentioned a good nationalism “in the spirit of Dvorak and Liszt.”
Claire: The beauty of authoritarianism. It’s easy to be clear when you’ve crushed your domestic opposition and you don’t mind alienating the rest of the world.
That was not my point. The point is that European officials and politicians who are in favor of taking in more refugees don’t present their case in a similarly coherent and persuasive way. True, in a democracy facing dissenting opinions, this is a more difficult task, so what? Only stating that there is no alternative (even if it were true) – as Merkel did – won’t be winning over the minds and hearts of Europeans. You have to explain the alternativeness in a way that people can understand and relate to, just as you are doing.
Claire: I’m not sure how even the healthiest of nationalisms would solve, practically, the problems at hand.
Where am I talking about solving the refugee crisis or any crisis for that matter by nationalism? Claire, either you are putting words into my mouth or I am really bad in getting my point of view across (but the fact that I discuss with you a highly complex matter in English and not in my native language, should grant me at least a little bit of good faith on your part?). So I try to rephrase what I meant to ask (because I don’t know): Many – and I guess, that you are one of them – fear that the revival of nationalism in Europe will turn out to be an even bigger problem than the crises at hand, so, should the political approach/solution be to suppress it or is there a conceivable way, to make it a force for good? Good, in a more cultural than political sense (that’s why I referred to Dvorak), in order to avoid disastrous outcomes like WWI.
Claire: I don’t know what an unsentimental but creative policy would look like, in the case of the EU. Sending surveillance equipment to al-Bashir is, I suppose, unsentimental.
Your reply is intellectually dishonest, because what you are describing above, is a cynical policy, as cynical as realpolitik can get (I hope you are not implying, that I am in favor of helping al-Bashir). Just to be clear, in referring to Stefan Zweig’s quote, I used the words “unsentimental” and “creative” to describe compassionate policies not policies as such.
It is true, that cynicism sometimes comes disguised as altruistic utilitarianism: You are well aware, I guess, that not just a few people/politicians think for example, that not helping shipwrecked refugees, in fact, letting them drown in the Mediterranean is more humanitarian (!) than creating false incentives and thus more future casualties. By contrast, the EU did the right and compassionate thing in sending ships to help saving lives at sea. But what were/are the consequences?
According to Ms. Reitano (about who we talked in one of our emails about human trafficking), “Because of Mare Nostrum the logistical entry costs into the human trafficking market fell significantly. The only goal by then was to bring the refugees to international waters – only 12 instead of 160 nautical miles, after that the Italian coast guard conveniently took over.
cont.
… The human trafficker himself needn’t to go on board anymore, they put immigrants on cheap boats, gave them a phone and said: “After four hours, you call this number.” The financial and technical entry barrier has ceased to exist, as well as the personal risk of smuggling. One doesn’t need boats at $ 200,000 anymore. Pretty much everyone with a seaworthy vessel could get into the human trafficking business. Despite the transition from “Mare Nostrum” to “Triton” mission of the European Union, many smugglers continue to rely on unsafe boats. Accordingly, the prices have fallen”.
This could have been avoided first and foremost by being unsentimental about human nature (the outcome was easy to foresee for anyone with common sense) and second by saving as many lives as possible, bringing the survivors anywhere except to Europe, thus not creating a false incentive for human traffickers, processing them and sending only actual refugees on to EU countries. If the EU official’s or politician’s claim of being compassionate and serious about helping refugees was true, that would have been the right approach. But what they really wanted, were the headlines and ugly pictures to go away. They acted on the grounds of exactly the kind of pity, Stefan Zweig was talking about (“the heart’s impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another’s unhappiness”).
cont.
… So now the result of this “compassionate” EU policy is, that Mare Nostrum is suspended and people are still drowning in the Mediterranean, although not in one-time headline-making numbers, but “discreetly”, one by one, on little vessels.
I have to say that I am really puzzled by your reaction or perhaps I’m getting you wrong. It seems to me that you are calling exactly for a kind of compassionate policy, that “knows what it is about and is determined to hold out” instead of falling back into realpolitik as usual.
“For the Muslim Brotherhood, as it is for ISIS, the final objective is not Paris or New York, but the city of Rome, center of the only religion, which Islam, since its very birth, has wanted to annihilate.” — Roberto de Mattei
That’s not a very good description of what the Abenaki were doing. More warlike than current societies? Probably. War just for the purpose of killing and devouring? That doesn’t match what we know from history or of the nature of indigenous societies in North America, whether Abenaki, any of the Algonquin-speaking groups, or any of the others.
People tend to go to ridiculous extremes in discussing these societies. Either they’re portrayed as religion-of-peace noble savages living in harmony with everything, or dangerous, ignoble savages. This is one of of the more ridiculous extremes in the one direction that I’ve ever heard.
Do go on. The 8 North American Jesuit Martyrs discussed the Algonquins and Hurons extensively.
Yeah, I have some of the Jesuit Relations on my bookshelf, as well as tons of other stuff on the subject. One recommendation I’ve made before on Ricochet: Never read one book on a subject and think you know what you need to know about it.
Then you’ll be happy to discuss what differences they observed between the Algonquins and the Hurons.
Yes I would be. But you were the person who made the wacko, evidence-free assertion in the first place, and you need to go first, providing more evidence than a book title. Then I’ll do the same.
By the way, I meant to say Algonquian, not Algonquin. Algonquian is the language family. I think Algonquin refers to just one language group. Not the first time I’ve mixed up those two words.
I’m sorry, I’ve got several wacky threads on the go, could you quote me the “wacko, evidence-free assertion” I made? Right now, I’m not sure if you’re referring to something I made or something Steyn made.
I could do that, but I already did it once, and only once. I did not respond to anything Steyn said.
It may not have been your point, but I do think it’s one reason why the leaders you note are capable of stating their objectives in such a comparatively clear way: They don’t have to deal with the nuisance of placating multiple constituencies either domestically or within the European alliance. Erdoğan is capable of declaring one day that there will be a deal with Europe involving terms a, b, and c, and declaring the next day that there will be no deal because “Europe wants to hand Turkey over to terrorists,” and no one in Turkey will have the nerve to challenge him — neither the media nor what remains of the opposition parties and courts. You said, “Say what you like, at least he’s clear about it,” but he isn’t: He’ll say the sky is blue one day and green the next, and the fact that he’s shouting both times doesn’t make it any more consistent. Merkel is constrained politically from articulating anything like a vision because there’s nothing she can say that will keep every member of a near-fractured European alliance together — she can offer platitudes like “We can do it,” and do a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiating, but if she says outright what she plans or hopes the plan will be — no matter what it is — the backlash could easily be uncontainable.
If you think I’ve succeeded, I’m glad, but I don’t think it’s so easy for a politician to say, “Our choices are accepting that a very large number of these refugees are here to stay, tearing up the Geneva Convention, or making deals with people like Erdoğan — with consequences that will be terrible for human rights in those countries and quite possibly in ours as well (cf. Jan Böhmermann).” I think you’re right that failing to lay out the alternatives starkly represents a failure of leadership, but to some extent, leaders can only lead if people are willing to confront awful truths, and much like Americans, Europeans generally don’t want to hear these truths and punish politicians for honesty by voting them out. This is a problem of modern popular democracy that I don’t know how to solve.
That’s a bit harsh. Intellectually dishonest? I didn’t copy it here, but my remark was a shorthand for the point we seemed both to agree upon completely in our e-mails — that the cynicism of European policy, as well as of that of actors like Erdoğan, was now off the scale.
I don’t know if you’re in favor of helping al-Bashir; I’m myself uncertain whether it’s possible to aid his people without aiding him: I do agree with the basic principle of the larger plan, which is to try to stop the refugee exodus by resolving the crises that are producing them, to create at least some hope that life might improve in those regions, and to assist those governments that can be assisted with controlling their borders. I’d have to know more about the plan in the case of Sudan, but I do suspect it’s impossible to have any positive effect so long as that regime is in place, and that any aid will only go toward lining his pockets and repressing his people.
We agree that policies motivated by passing “We must do something!” sentiment, absent a grasp on reality, are apt to lead to disaster. The problem is that even a very firm grasp on reality doesn’t suggest to me practical solutions with a real hope of working. That’s why I feel hopeless looking at the situation: I can’t see a solution that could be practical, widely accepted as legitimate, and compassionate.
Yes, and in some sense they’re right.
Yes. I hope people take the time to look at that link, because it suggests the complexity of the task of shutting down traffickers, and how much international cooperation it would require — exactly the kind of cooperation less likely to happen as all of the states affected become more estranged from each other. These programs need to be funded, and right now Europe’s mood is so anti-EU that I can easily imagine no country authorizing that part of the budget.
I think you are, because I was agreeing with you. Maybe you mistook my rolling my eyes (with you) at European policy with rolling my eyes at you?
I am. Or would, in principle. But the policies that seem to me the least awful of options just doesn’t seem to be within Europe’s ability, because there’s no central, legitimate authority, and this is by design.
I agree with you that Europe must triage — it can’t accept people who don’t have a strong case for asylum, and those who don’t must be returned as quickly as possible to a safe first country. But I see no sign of willingness, as you’ve also noticed, to process the claims expeditiously and to deport those without an adequate claim, and I think you’re right that this isn’t apt to happen. Sadly, also, I don’t know how many can be returned to a safe first country; we seem to agree that probably 30-40 percent of the new arrivals don’t have a legitimate legal claim, but that leaves 60-70 percent who do, and surely many more will arrive so long as these conflicts go on … and I don’t think Greece and Italy will cooperate fully with plans for refugees to be returned to them as “safe first countries,” for reasons we can all understand.
I believe, as I’ve said, that unless Syrian refugees in particular are resettled, probably permanently, Europe will be confronting an even bigger threat in years to come: the collapse of the states around Syria under the weight of the refugee burden and the sociological effect of the coming-of-age of Syria’s lost generation will pose a worse direct threat to Europe than migration. I can even imagine under those circumstances that Europe really could face an army of “invaders,” rather than refugees and migrants.
But I don’t think Europe and other wealthier countries will be able to cooperate efficiently to share the burden. Absent that, some countries will be inundated and unable to cope. And I see no sign of a Europe united enough and capable of intervening to establish stability in so many crisis spots simultaneously. That’s a huge task on the order of ending the Second World War in Europe and rebuilding it afterward. And Europe is right now falling apart under these pressures, not drawing closer together.
I do fully agree that it’s dangerous to admit a large cohort of young men into any society without an equal number of women; even more so men from patriarchal societies like these; although I accept your argument that using family unification as an incentive to integration could be a wise idea. But I don’t see anything like pan-European willingness to cooperate to ensure that no single country suffers a disproportionate burden — and I don’t even see a hint that any country in Europe is asking itself whether its welfare policies need to be radically revised to change the incentives for migrants to favor some countries over others.
So I think we agree about quite a bit — but where we don’t agree is about what policy, if any, has any hope of really working. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It just means I haven’t yet heard one that sounds plausible. Like you, I’m willing to hear out any idea, and hope that behind the scenes, at least, someone is trying to come up with better ones.
Yes, it is, sorry for that.
I apologize, I misunderstood you completely. To me it seemed you were saying, that sending surveillance equipment to al-Bashir is an example for unsentimental compassionate policy, when on the contrary it is an example for realpolitik.
I don’t know much about Erdogan’s policies over all, but when it comes to “his” people, that’s how he addresses Austrians with Turkish background and Turkish people living in Austria/Germany alike, he is consistent. He doesn’t want them to integrate and they should stay true to their “Turkishness”. Orban may be a better example. I’ve read all of his recent speeches if there was a translation available, they are both eloquent and consistent, if you agree with him or not.
I disagree. Go back and look at the poll numbers last summer among Germans and Austrians in favor of helping refugees, there was overwhelming support.
cont.
…
This support was jeopardized by Merkel’s actions or lack thereof. If some of the measures that we two have discussed were put in place or at least there had been a sincere discussion about those issues (distinction between refugees/migrants, criminal asylum seekers, quotas for a healthy male/female ratio, long term prospects, etc.), the support wouldn’t have dropped so drastically. In fact, the backlash is already here, or what would you call Brexit, rising tensions between Germany and the VISEGRAD countries (in particular the historically charged relationship between Germany and Poland), tensions between Austria and Italy (also a conflict that supposed to be a thing of the past), burning asylum shelters, ….
What I am taking away from this is, that you can easily govern against your people, but not against the press/media, at least that’s what most of the politicians seem to think, especially Merkel, who has a history of only following the published (not public) opinion without showing any sign of political beliefs. The problem are not the constraints that a democratic system puts on politicians (that’s the whole point of a democracy, isn’t it?), but rather the distrust that the political class and especially the “Fourth Estate” has for the “unwashed masses”. So in contrast to their authoritarian counterparts they don’t even bother to communicate their philosophical, political and strategical thinking. If that’s not the road to authoritarianism, what is?
Considering from where we started, it is amaizing on how many issues we agree. I really don’t want to give in to fatalism, though. We are not doomed yet, we are only burdened by an awful leadership, this goes for Merkel in Europe and for Obama in America.
That’s a Steyn quote, in case you’re wondering. Hold my place on this thread. I’ve got a busy day and may not be back to this for a day or two.
See Comment #60. I’m still not sure who you’re responding to.
That whole thing is a Steyn quote? Or just the bold part?
The whole thing is a Steyn quote, including the Bold Part. Don’t make me invoke the dreaded Double Bold font.
Lili & Claire,
I have been offline due to Shavuot. My reaction to this is rather simple. It is absolutely absurd to suggest that a young married man would leave his family in a dangerous place, look for work, and when he finds it send for them.
This is the description of a migrant. Any suggestion of this behavior being associated with a refugee is just foolish. Their family is in relative safety with an adequate supply of food & shelter. That is why they are confident enough to leave them and search for the best economic resultant they can get.
Confusing migrants with refugees is surely what Zweig’s bad pity is about.
This confusion wastes resources needed for refugees and will surely set up a conflict with the local population. It will also probably get fatuous politicians unelected.
Regards,
Jim