News Thread 2015: Page 83 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

News Thread 2015

jones

I think most have come to expect this kind of response from me by now but I really wouldn't hold my breath. All Merkel did is give a speech or two after criticism (even from the German compliant media) rained down on her for not saying anything for weeks. Token politics and little more, if she had any interest to help solve the crisis she could have acted and still could act in a much more convincing manner than giving nice speeches.

Just so I don't sound like I'm only moaning - the banners in the stadiums are a nice touch, good to see Dortmund fans especially doing it since they have quite the problem with Neo-Nazis in their ranks.

y va marquer

Perhaps, but I wouldn't underestimate the power of "nice" speeches from someone in her position.

jones

I think most people in power or 'snivelling grey men' as you put it will know pretty well how much her speeches are worth given Germany's role in the current refugee disaster, to name just a few leading Bundeswehr operations in Balkan states in the late 90s, economic warfare in the Middle east ie large scale sanctions and embargoes against Syria and Iraq and arms sales to virtually everyone who asks for them even on credit. But this is not really the thread for this discussion.

y va marquer

I was referring to the impact that her speech had on those who don't walk the corridors of power.

Klaus

I think all the European countries have blood on their hands to some degree, especially when it comes to provide arms to dictatures and absolute monarchies. In my opinion it doesn't detract from stuff like the recent changes in immigrant policy. Too many European countries just keep shuffling asylum-seeking refugees, around hoping that someone else would take responsibility for them.

... but yeah, you're right about this not being the right thread. Still nice to see those banners!

jones

Fair enough. I'm skeptical about the impact she will have on them but I sure enough hope you're right.

y va marquer

Due to an unprecedented outbreak of people being concerned about keeping threads on topic I've moved the posts above from the Bundesliga thread 🙂

jones

Klaus wrote:
I think all the European countries have blood on their hands to some degree, especially when it comes to provide arms to dictatures and absolute monarchies. In my opinion it doesn't detract from stuff like the recent changes in immigrant policy. Too many European countries just keep shuffling asylum-seeking refugees, around hoping that someone else would take responsibility for them.

The problem with asylum seekers goes a lot deeper than just the current malaise; as ridiculous as it sounds it is first and foremost a semantic problem. Of more than 130,000 asylum requests applications in Germany this year so far less than one percent were actual asylum seekers - that is, people who are fleeing political or religious persecution in their home countries. People who are fleeing because warlords or militias are murdering and pillaging through their homelands or because their homes were destroyed by NATO bombs aren't even considered refugees, which also only make up roughly 30% of the aforementioned asylum requests (people who themselves are persecuted for other reasons). So what we have is a system that allows you refuge if you are being specifically targeted by those who in most cases have killed your family, but not if you are collateral damage.

To top it off Germany pushed through the Safe Third States regulation in the EU, which allows the government to flat out refuse any asylum seeker that has not come directly from an unsafe country - given Germany's situation within central Europe that means everybody who does not arrive at a German airport can be sent to the country he came from, which effectively means the refugees are sent to the EU periphery. And as you have said looking at recent immigration changes those countries like Hungary or Slovenia are led by pieces of shit who are more concerned with building fences along their borders or inventing laws like not accepting any Muslim refugees for the reason of them not feeling comfortable in a predominantly (not even 100%) Christian country. I see little difference between those who build literal or legal fences to keep refugees out of their borders.

goon

Germany might not be doing enough, and it might have caused many of these issues, but any move in the right direction should be commended in my opinion. It's better than the 'under review' shit and complete inaction we're getting from Cameron.

The picture of the boy was absolutely horrifying by the way. Before I read the article or knew what it was about, I saw the picture of him with his brother laughing away. Straight away it reminded me of my eldest who's a few months younger, so reading the rest of the article and seeing the other images were very, very distressing.

Daz

Yep i properly cried when I saw that photo yesterday. Bloody tragic.

y va marquer

I haven't looked at the pictures, I can't.

Gurgen

We should take more refugees, but so should wealthy states in the Middle East. All they do is import de facto slave labour from Asia, leaving Europeans with colonial guilt to clean up the mess.

Kel Varnsen

One of the problems is that only a minority of the migrants are refugees. In 2014 only 1/4 of the 626.000 asylum applicants were granted protection in the EU. The best solution would be to establish asylum process centers on the Schengen border. Migrants who were granted protection, could then be distributed among safe countries around the world according to for instance gdp and population.

Gurgen

Kel Varnsen wrote:
One of the problems is that only a minority of the migrants are refugees. In 2014 only 1/4 of the 626.000 asylum applicants were granted protection in the EU. The best solution would be to establish asylum process centers on the Schengen border. Migrants who were granted protection, could then be distributed among safe countries around the world according to for instance gdp and population.

I am an immigrant myself, and I think the real number of actual refugees (i.e. who truly qualify for political asylum) is much lower. If it's as high as 1/10, I would be very surprised.

Then again it shouldn't matter. It's incredibly stupid to grant asylum to 'refugees' only. A country should also take into account whether a migrant can make a meaningful contribution to society. The current system merely leads to people painting themselves as refugees in order to get in. An entire industry has sprung up around this madness, from human trafficking to the fabrication and sale of stories people can tell to immigration authorities. EU immigration policy is utterly moronic and self-destructive.

Just read that Erdogan 'condemns the West's approach', while his country is teeming with human traffickers and he has provided support to the very people that are driving these refugees from Syria. You couldn't make this stuff up 😆

Kel Varnsen

Gurgen wrote:
Kel Varnsen wrote:
One of the problems is that only a minority of the migrants are refugees. In 2014 only 1/4 of the 626.000 asylum applicants were granted protection in the EU. The best solution would be to establish asylum process centers on the Schengen border. Migrants who were granted protection, could then be distributed among safe countries around the world according to for instance gdp and population.

I am an immigrant myself, and I think the real number of actual refugees (i.e. who truly qualify for political asylum) is much lower. If it's as high as 1/10, I would be very surprised.

Then again it shouldn't matter. It's incredibly stupid to grant asylum to 'refugees' only. A country should also take into account whether a migrant can make a meaningful contribution to society. The current system merely leads to people painting themselves as refugees in order to get in. An entire industry has sprung up around this madness, from human trafficking to the fabrication and sale of stories people can tell to immigration authorities. EU immigration policy is utterly moronic and self-destructive.

Just read that Erdogan 'condemns the West's approach', while his country is teeming with human traffickers and he has provided support to the very people that are driving these refugees from Syria. You couldn't make this stuff up 😆

It's true that the refugee convention originally only applied to persecuted individuals. I think the interpretation of it was expanded in the 1990s.

A compromise could be to grant temporary protection to refugees, but only grant permanent residence to those who can make a meaningful contribution to society. The rest could go back home when it was safe.

Tam

To me that's too simplistic and just bottles up a problem to be opened in the future. When will it be safe? Who is judge of what is safe? What would they be going back to?

And if they can't make a meaningful contribution to society in their host country, how can they expect to be uprooted again and go back to their countries where they have no homes, no jobs and no support networks, with any degree of success that not only doesn't solve existing problems but might create new ones in some ways?

Not meaning to pick too much at your suggestion Kel but for me it raises more questions than it answers.

Kel Varnsen

Tam wrote:
To me that's too simplistic and just bottles up a problem to be opened in the future. When will it be safe? Who is judge of what is safe? What would they be going back to?

And if they can't make a meaningful contribution to society in their host country, how can they expect to be uprooted again and go back to their countries where they have no homes, no jobs and no support networks, with any degree of success that not only doesn't solve existing problems but might create new ones in some ways?

First of all, this is done all the time. In Norway we send people back to their country of origin even after they've spent 10-12 years here, if they are found not to be actual refugees. Second, the refugee convention is about providing protection, not be a de facto backdoor immigration process.

Meatwad

i wouldn't try to shame other countries based on germany willing take hundreds of thousands of refugees. germany is in population decline, projected to be about 66m in 2060 (down from 82m). if they can't increase the birth rate in the native population then they need immigrants. britain needs to do what works for them. america for example is projected to have a population of 420m in 2060 (up from 319m today) and immigrants will account for 82% of that growth.

Kel Varnsen

"If there is some public pledge from Germany that it will accept and not return Syrian refugees who are registered in some European country, we are ready to open a corridor if there is an agreement between Hungary and Germany," Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said after meeting his Slovak counterpart Robert Kalinak in Prague.

http://www.rt.com/news/314370-refugee-crisis-summit-prague/

So how long before Merkel panics?

Burnwinter

There's nothing to panic about in real terms.

However, fearmongers like Orban and Cameron, both of whom have profited from anti-migrant rhetoric for a long time, should be made to play their part in a joint scheme.

In terms of a resolution in Syria I wouldn't trust NATO to engineer anything. They're the ones who got us where we are, with the help of the CIA.

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