Post 75--Refugees: The Same Message Without the Scream

I appreciate Ezra Levant. He says it as it is without regard to the politically correct.  I would probably cite him much more frequently if I did not fear losing you, my readers, who may be more gentle in your preferences. I encourage you to tell me what you think of him.

However, today I turn to someone who is more gentle in his expression and who is found in mainstream press of the Vancouver Sun, but who tells the same story. I refer to Matthew Fisher. I see his name and column quite often in that paper but have not read him all that much. But his write up of September 12, 2015 is worth noting. 

Of course, many things happened since, especially the Paris debacle of a couple of weeks ago, but also in other countries with other races to which main stream folks don’t pay as much attention—Nigeria’s Boko Haram continues its onslaughts of bombing attacks in various cities and states, killing innocent people by the dozens at a time, often mostly Muslims; Lebanon just had its turn as did Baghdad. ISIS, of course, doesn’t let up on its tradition of extreme violence, cruelty and chaos.

So, what does Fisher have to tell us?  His title says it all: “Refugees a mix of the persecuted and the opportunistic.”  He begins by reminding us of the siege of Vienna back in 1683, the last time Muslims tried to enter Europe in such great numbers. That time they came as war mongers; this time they come to escape war, most of them anyway. In the 1970s and 80s they came to Western Europe as temporary guest workers, mostly people with little education and few needed skills.  We know how bumpy the ride has been and still is for them as well as their hosts one or two generations later.

Today they come as a mix, many of them highly skilled professionals who can afford the $5,000 or more for the ride. Many of that crowd are taking advantage of the refugee phenomenon; they pretend to be refugees, even though they come from places that do not generate refugees so much as economic migrants. They are economic immigrants no different from myself and my parental family in the early 1950s, except that today’s economic migrants are often better educated and more wealthy. 

The West can use these people, no doubt about it. But I am not so sure that the West should accept them so readily. Their move to the West represents a terrible brain drain on their home countries who have paid for their training. Accepting them in the West implies reversing the results of whatever "foreign aid" the West has poured into these countries--a plain contradiction. But what's a contradiction when it's in your favour? Remember that earlier post in which I described the human race as contradictory by nature?  That's just the way we are.  We just paper it over with lofty oratory.

Then, of course, there are the genuine refugees, the ones who rightly receive all our attention and compassion. Fisher met them in person during his visits to Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan near the Syrian border. He describes the place as a “cauldron of trauma, despair and opportunism.” Those he met there were “genuine refugees,” who “had horrific tales about barbarities they had seen…and awful news stories about life in the camp, where rape and other crimes were rife and many teenage girls had been kidnapped for sold into marriage. They were largely from hardscrabble, war-wrecked cities such as Daraa and Aleppo.”  I am very happy with the reports I read of many Canadian organizations, both religious and secular, including my own church, who are scrambling to find ways and money to adopt families or an individual or two.  That is true compassion that I—and, I hope, you, my readers—share and participate in.

But then, at the end of his column, Fisher gently turns to the politically incorrect. I quote: “Westerners should remember that an unintended consequence of this unprecedented migration might be a step toward Osama bin Laden’s dream that Islam will get its revenge against the West through immigration and birthrate.”  Osama shared this dream with other Muslim strategists, including Ghadaffi, who thundered it out, “We shall overcome you via immigration and birth” (not exact quote). Or that Baghdad sheikh over a century ago who warned the West that one day they will have good cause to rue their haughty, oppressive and secular imperialistic policies in the so-called Middle East.  

Western Europe especially may be near that time with this impossible influx, though I still see little signs of Western regret, recognition, understanding or agreement.  As far as most Westerners are concerned, it’s still all those stupid Muslims who create all this chaos, while we have benignly sought to liberate them from their oppressive stupidities.  Can you imagine such blindness and, yes, stupidity?  It’s beyond my comprehension. I am dumbfounded and highly embarrassed!  May God forgive us and turn this all around.