Attitudes to immigrants over the decades

November 17, 2015 • 1:45 pm

by Matthew Cobb

I generally limit my posts here to pieces about science, and avoid political, philosophical and religious matters – this is Jerry’s site. However, my eye was caught by two separate tw**ts that highlight attitudes to immigrants.

The first relates to a cartoon in that delightful newspaper, the Daily Mail. It was tw**eted by the actor @NicholasPegg (who claims to have played Hamlet, a Dalek and an otter) along with the comment “In today’s Mail, unfunny cartoonist Mac sails beyond his customary racism into full-blown Nazi propaganda. Lovely.”

CUBjSh5WoAEg1O7.jpg_largeThere are almost as many rats in this picture as there are people, and at least one silhouette has a rifle. This is going far further than suggesting that there may be a handful of terrorists amongst the refugees. It clearly suggests that they should be stopped, as a whole.

Even if it seems that one of the Stade de France suicide bombers entered Europe hidden amongst refugees who risked their lives to get to Greece, the reality is that the hundreds of thousands of people who want to enter Europe are coming because they are fleeing the kind of horror that was inflicted on Paris last Friday. They know what it is like to have death on the streets of their cities.

The irony that the the ostensible topic of this cartoon – the free movement of people within Europe – has enabled many Mail readers to live comfortably outside the UK is lost on our cartoonist.

In the US, many state governors have responded to the migrant crisis and the wave of Islamic State-inspired killings by either refusing to take in any migrants. In a rather un-Christian approach, that intellectual titan Jeb Bush has suggested that preference should be given to Christian refugees. He’s been followed in this by other Republican politicians, and by that immigrant from Australia, Rupert Murdoch.

As someone tw**ted – if only there were a seasonal folk-tale about heartless people refusing refuge to people without anywhere to live.

These attitudes aren’t so new, of course, and seventy or so years ago, US attitudes to immigration were focused on another target: Germans and Austrians fleeing the Nazis, many of whom were Jews or political opponents. The Washington Post tw**ted this chilling poll from 1938:

Strictly speaking, the poll is about ‘Germans and Austrians’ not Jews, but it’s telling that in 1938 two-thirds of Americans did not want to do anything to allow those who were fleeing fascism to come into the country. As we all know, it took Pearl Harbor to shake the country out of its isolationism.

Even worse, a year later there was a poll specifically referring to Jews, and Americans didn’t want them coming in:

There’s a link among the three tw**ts which also explains why Pegg used the hyperbole of saying that the cartoon was ‘Nazi propaganda’: in the 1930s the Daily Mail published articles such as this one, written by the owner, Viscount Rothermere, about Oswald Moseley’s fascist group, the Blackshirts. We can be sure that the modern day equivalents of Moseley who can be found throughout Europe, currently presenting themselves as ‘moderate’ nationalists, will be seeking to profit from the current crisis, and to increase tensions between the peoples of Europe. They must not succeed.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ro698J4AWNE/UlA-hGQmfJI/AAAAAAAABnk/PaZ5i5EhsgQ/s1600/Hurrah4Blackshits.jpg

109 thoughts on “Attitudes to immigrants over the decades”

  2. Excellent, Matthew. The USA is a country of almost all immigrants or their descendants. This is true of France, also, only you have to go farther back in history.

    1. No more than 8-12 thousand years. Before then the glaciation rendered the place generally uninhabitable for large parts of each year.

    2. If you’re talking about the USA then surely the lesson would be

      “Oppose all immigration to America!
      Look what happened to the natives last time!”

    3. I fully agree and it applies to almost all countries on all continents perhaps excluding Africa if the origins of human ancestry & expansion is correct. North & South America was not “inhabited” by humans until some 13-15 thousand years ago.

  3. What’s with the square-striped suit image in the cartoon? I’m not sure what it refers to and I’m hoping someone can explain it to me.

    Right now, I’m assuming that this is intended to show that for every one ‘sheep’ let in, there are hundreds of ‘wolves,’ with the guy in the suit representing the sheep. But I could be totally wrong about that.

  4. According to the German Govt, about 750 Jihadis have left Germany and gone to Syria in the last year or so. The most serious crime associated with refugees at the moment is Neo-Nazis setting fire to buildings planned as refugee accommodation. Refugees themselves are statistically no more likely than comparable groups of committing crimes. Sex crimes are 1% of refugee crime. The most common is using public transport without a ticket.

    http://www.thelocal.de/20151116/what-we-know-about-extremism-in-germany

  5. It seems silly to have to remind the cartoonist that we are all Africans. And that diversity inevitably leads to creativity and very often innovation. I think, too, that mixing genes is good for intelligence (though I could be making that up).

    1. “It seems silly to have to remind the cartoonist that we are all Africans. And that diversity inevitably leads to creativity and very often innovation.”

      -Which is why Harvard lets in every applicant, to maximize diversity and creativity.

      1. In order to maximize probability of admission to Harvard (or Yale), tell them you want to be a philosophy major who is greatly concerned for the oppression of all people.

      1. Minimizing diversity is no solution to the tensions caused when unfamiliar groups begin to mix. Only continued interaction between these groups will ease those tensions.

    3. that we are all Africans

      MAC would find that claim deeply puzzling. Because he has been an offensive idiot for so long that he still thinks Alf Garnett was a real person in an early “fly on the wall” documentary, and a dashed fine riposte to those horrible lefty BBC pinko pooftah luvvies too!
      (Incidentally, vale to Warren Mitchell, who died a few days ago. A staunch left winger, great actor, and wonderful choice to play the bigoted, ridiculous, ignorant and hateful Garnett.
      Fundamentally, it’s the Daily Flail, and in order to avoid having one’s house price negatively affected by contact with it, it is probably best handled with a coating od soiled toilet tissue on each page. This will improve the odour of the filthy rag and keep your hands relatively clean. It’s almost as bad as the Scum.

  6. I feel for these migrants, and understand their plight. If I were in their situation, I would very likely be doing exactly the same thing.

    However, I also understand the trepidation some people have towards allowing large numbers of people who don’t share our culture to setting in Europe.

    Here in the UK, for example, there are parts of certain towns and cities that are like miniature sections of the Middle East – with many of the attendant problems.

    It’s also worrying just how many Muslims in the UK seems to actively hate the country that has given them a home, access to free medical care, and free education. The more than a quarter of British Muslims that sympathised with the terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo for example:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11433776/Quarter-of-British-Muslims-sympathise-with-Charlie-Hebdo-terrorists.html

    …and the 100% (by this poll) that have a zero-tolerance attitude for homosexuality:

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/may/07/muslims-britain-france-germany-homosexuality

    It’s a difficult situation. What to do?

    1. Oh yes, it is a *huge* problem for Sweden when compared to 2 million worker immigrants we have accepted 100 000 refugees. Those 1 % putative antisemitists and homophobes will really make a difference. [/snark]

      At the same time the banks here project a 0.5 % uptick in the GDP and a slew of new jobs to care for all the refugees that will cut the unemployment to 2/3. I’m going to worry all the way to the bank.

    2. I’m not European but reports of problems like those you mention have been prominent in international news the past few years. It does seem to me that the Islamic wave of refugees is creating more unrest and divisiveness than other large influxes have.

      It’s trite to say that the US is a nation of refugees, but for the most part those immigrants have been eager to assimilate, which doesn’t seem to be the case for large numbers of Muslims today. Aayan Hirsi Ali has had first-hand experience with such problems and is among those who are sounding the alarms.

      2. Second thoughts after posting that…there is a difference between war refugees, today’s subject, and the “economic” immigrants I was thinking about. Certainly compassion requires us to admit the endangered.

    3. We have many international students, a number of them coming from Britain (predominantly Muslims), Turkey and Arab countries. My impression is that British Muslims are more likely than Turkish, Mideast and North African Muslims to wear the visible signs of their Islamic affiliation (headscarves, beards) and to ask for accommodations, such as no classes on Friday noon and prayer rooms. Indeed, the two students who have so far asked for a prayer room were both British. Our reaction was to look with surprise and disbelief and to stress that the University is for studying, not for praying. My conclusion is that students coming from Muslim countries realize that they are in a foreign country and “when in Rome…”, while British Muslims are used to ultra-tolerance, that is, being in the privileged position to receive every single thing they ever ask for in the name of “tolerance”.

      1. I wonder if there’s a difference because of religiosity in the different countries; that British Muslims will be generally more “pious” because they’re trying to assert their cultural identity amongst others, whereas those from, e.g., Turkey are more relaxed about it because it’s the norm.

        /@

  7. Well, considering 3/4 of me wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for turn of the century immigration, I am all for it. I think people who are willing to risk it all, and give up what they know, deserve a chance. Criminals excepted, of course.

    Regarding Jewish immigration before and during the opening of WWII, I recall reading that immigration quotas were very tight, but that the State Department didn’t even allow in all they could under those quotas.

    1. One of the shameful things about FDR but he was no friend of immigration – Jewish or otherwise.

  8. This sounds like Godwin’s law: questioning the very poorly vetted immigration process = Nazi

    (BTW there have been quite a few issues in and around the camps,including rape. Hand waving that away does not help.

  9. Sorry, but no. I don’t care if people call me a racist, a Nazi or anything else. After all that’s happened since Islam came to public attention in the UK during the Rushdie affair in 1989, I’ve just had enough. I want no more muslims admitted to the country, either as refugees, economic migrants or anything else. I want the doors closed and the borders secured, and I’ll vote for any political party that will promise to do this. I hope similar attitudes prevail in France, Germany, Sweden and throughout Europe.

    Just because something’s written in the Daily Mail doesn’t make it false, and neither do irrelevant 70-year old headlines or sugar-coated wishful thinking that mass immigration must be OK because we all came from Africa 100,000 years ago.

    Maybe this issue looks different from across the Atlantic, in the comfort of the wide open spaces of the USA, but it’s a matter of life and death for the nations of Europe.

      1. I agree with Dave. The argument that “most refugees are nice people who have no interest in terrorism” doesn’t really obtain when all it takes is one. Even if there is one terrorist per every 10000 refugees, how many innocent people is he capable of killing in a crowded theater?

        Moreover, if I were a terrorist looking to get into France, or any other western country, I can’t find an easier way to do it than to pose as a refugee. This fact by itself should give every liberal pause.

        1. But the fact and evidence shows most of the terrorist in France were home grown or people that had been there for years.

          Since most all terrorist are guys between the ages of 18 and 28, how about we just export everyone of that age. Eliminate those odds. So as far as refugees – babies and adults over the age of 40 should be okay….yes?

          1. I’m not saying there aren’t ways to finesse the selection process. Of course babies and their mothers should be ok, as well as most octogenarians. My point is, after recent events, it would be pretty naive of any country to indiscriminately let in every self-proclaimed refugee.

          3. Unfortunately, most of the present-day refugees are also expected to remain in the Western host countries for years to come – that is, for good. It became clear after the wars in Yugoslavia that, once accepted to an affluent country as legitimate refugees, people do not wish to return to their poor country of origin, even if it has become safe. And, let’s face it, Syria is not going to become safe in our lifetime, especially now after Russia became actively involved. Most Syrians flee not Islamic State but the regime of Assad, for which I don’t blame them. Russia will cement this regime, and it will only happy to weaken the West by flooding it with even more refugees.
            I don’t see anything wrong with preferring Christian and Yazidi refugees – they are expected to make better immigrants, and they suffer most from the war. And I’d prefer helping the Kurds defend their land against both IS and Assad to accepting many of them as refugees. I don’t understand why the West gives so much sympathy and help to those who flee and practivally nothing to the heroes who resist. Maybe “far from sight, far from heart”.

          4. Melissa Chen on Facebook: « None of the September 11 hijackers were refugees; they were all on visas – tourist, student and business visas. « If anyone wanted to plan a terrorist attack on US soil, he could do it by legally securing a visa and entering as a tourist or illegally through the porous Mexican border. Surely we’re not going to ban all tourists and international students? « Point is, any rhetoric about “banning all refugees” right now is not only morally bankrupt but intellectually too. It’s a red herring, because there are countless other frankly easier ways to enter the US if one was hell bent on committing a Paris-style atrocity here. »

            /@

          2. And what is the probability that a refugee will actually be a terrorist?

            Note that the French authorities now believe all the Paris attackers were EU citizens.

            /@

          5. You mean, what is the true positive rate? Compared to the false positive rate and the false negative rate?

          7. But these domestic citizens, with the exceptions of a few converts, are all descendants of immigrants from Muslim nations, of people very similar to the current refugees.
            Should the West think so short-term? I am frustrated by the habit of democratic politicians to plan everything for 4 or 5 years (the standard term) and then – to hell with the country.

          9. I know little about the rationale behind allowing immigration of non-European Muslims to Europe. I have the impression that the driving force was the wish of some politicians to supply someone to do menial jobs for below-market wages. If so, this policy doesn’t seem very sound.
            Anyway, I wouldn’t blame anyone too much for allowing some Muslim immigrants. There were also Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and other immigrants and, as far as I know, they generally got along well.
            However, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie was a clear signal that there is a huge problem, and not just with a few nutjobs and fanatics but with an entire culture.
            Nevertheless, Muslim immigration continued after the fatwa, after Sept. 11, Theo van Gogh’s murder, Ilan Halimi’s murder, the Madrid and London bombings, the Danish cartoon crisis, and is continuing now.

            I won’t say that Muslims are to blame for everything. As a Libyan friend said when we were commenting some riots in France, cities in Arab countries have no suburbs full of people living on welfare and crime. Apparently, Europe is doing “great” jobs in integrating Muslims. So great that now thousands of Europeans go to fight for ISIS, and Syrians can legitimately accuse EU in exporting Islamist terror to their country. Why don’t policymakers of Europe (and USA and Canada and Australia) learn from mistakes?

          10. “I won’t say that Muslims are to blame for everything.” — That’s very good of you.

            That European countries haven’t done a “great” job of integrating Muslims is an argument for finding better ways of creating a truly plural society not an argument for barring Muslim (or any other) immigrants.

            So what if “thousands” of Europeans go to fight for ISIS/Daesh? That still leaves more than 44 million that *aren’t*. What other groups would you bar based on the misbehaviour of ¹/₁₀₀% of their number?

            /@

        3. Isaac, your argument is not about probabilties as you claim below. It is about absolutes. You think it is worth stopping immigration of all able-bodied refugees, just because ONE of them might do something bad. That’s an argument which leads to all kinds of absurd conclusions besides the one you want.

          Once I spent a week in the jungle with Nixon’s Watergate mastermind, HR Haldemann. A topic that came up at dinner one night was the WWII internment of American citizens of Japanese descent. We imprisoned thousands of them for much of the war without charges. Haldemann was all in favor of this. He said exactly what you said–even if it prevents just one spy from doing damage, it was justified, no matter how many innocent people had to be locked up. This kind of thinking, rampant in the Nixon administration, will lead to no end of horrors, and dehumanizes those of a different race, who deserve justice just as much as a white American does.

          2. I’m replying here to your questions because I don’t see a Reply button there. (I’m not good with the damn computer technology, sorry.)
            My own group has frequently met barriers because of the behavior of a small percentage, or because of having little income, or for no apparent reason. I haven’t liked it, but this is life. Have you ever filled a visa form? It has on top, “Permission to enter ……. is a privilege, not a right.” Why should it be a right for Muslims?

            You say that, to control and combat Islamic extremism, we need a truly plural society. Paraphrase: let Muslim societies be Muslim, and all other societies be plural, until they become Muslim as well. I’d object that no, we don’t need this. At least, I don’t. I want a Western society where I can be free without constantly looking over my shoulder. I don’t want to hear from mosques the cry “Allahu akbar” to remind me of suicide bombings. Indeed, terror is likely to stop if you give potential terrorists everything they want; but I don’t like the idea.

          3. It’s hard to address your first para. without your being more specific. But just because things /have/ been hard for one group doesn’t mean that things /should/ be completely obstructed for another. And being extended a refuge is very much a privilege, not a right.

            Your second para. is /in no way/ a paraphrase of what I said.

            /@

          4. I don’t think the internment of people with Japanese descent is analogous to limiting entrance to potential terrorists. Imagine the position of François Hollande if he were to let everyone who called himself a refugee into France’s borders, and a week later one of those “refugees” slaughtered 45 people at a movie theater. He would rightly be seen as the stupidest person in the world.

          5. You will be happy to know that nobody is in favor of letting potential terrorists into their countries. Of course by “potential terrorists” you just mean Muslims. And you don’t even seem to notice the problem with that. Hey, maybe we shouldn’t let Jews into the U.S., because look what happened with Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. And Swedes, because Breivik. Why, it’s even possible one or two Japanese-Americans might have been potential saboteurs.

          6. “…By “potential terrorists” you just mean Muslims. And you don’t even seem to notice the problem with that.”

            I do notice the problem, but I don’t have a solution. We have the frightening example of Lebanon, which was turned from a nice country into, mildly said, a problematic one – how? By the higher birth rate of indigenous Muslims and by accepting a large number of Palestinian refugees. See how much the situation in Western Europe has already deteriorated because of Muslim immigration. If someone had told me 30 years ago that a Dutch filmmaker would be stabbed dead because of a movie and French cartoonists would be shot dead because of cartoons, I’d consider him crazy.

      2. I thought that a visa was required for immigration to the US? Certainly I get spam about it on a regular basis.
        Nonetheless, have him. You’re welcome to him.

      1. Now that’s a silly response. No one here is talking about limiting entrance to people who speak a certain language, or even belong a specific race -.-

      2. “Stock”? What’s that? Something you make gravy with?

        Accusation of racism: the knee-jerk reaction of the outraged leftist with no better arguments to offer. If you read my first post you’ll see that I made no mention whatsoever of race, or anything to do with “stock”. Nor did I call for anyone to be expelled from the country.

        This is about beliefs and ideology, not race. If the entire population of Iceland converted en masse to Islam and started agitating for move to mainland Europe, I’d find them just as undesirable as the current influx from the Middle East.

        1. The thing is, we are talking about refugees here, regardless of color or religion. These folks are dying by the thousands in Syria and in their attempts to leave. So what I am looking for here is some common sense. Therefore my smart ass remark about republicans because in America that is exactly what they say today. Close those boarders and to hell with all of them. The only thing that scares me are those republicans. And remember, these people (republicans) are armed and dangerous. Much more so than a bunch of refugees.

          1. These folks are dying by the thousands in Syria and in their attempts to leave.

            If I recall correctly, since the start of the year the death rate for non-combatants in Syria has been about one “Paris” every 3-4 hours.

          2. However, given the fact that the Syrian population (current and displaced) is more than 20 million, I’d definitely prefer a military solution in Syria to relocating all of its population somewhere else.
            The problem is, leftist propaganda has repeated for years – not without some support by facts, I admit – that Western military interventions can only make things worse. Where does this leave us? With the dilema, whenever a country turns into a hellhole, to accept all of its residents wishing to escape, or to leave them to die.

        2. But I thought you didn’t care if people called you a racist, Dave?

          Many Anglo-Saxons likely still worshiped different gods from the native Britons at the time of that mass immigration. (With some percentage of people on both sides ostensibly Christian, I guess.) And the later Viking immigrants worshiped essentially the same gods as the Anglo-Saxons but under different names and in different ways (sound familiar?). “The British” have for a long time been comprised of many different peoples of many different religions, whether invaders, economic migrants (like my maternal grandparents), refugees, or whatever. Calls to shut our doors to any group betrays a “little Englander” mentality that is ironically at odds with our history.

          Denying a refuge to people of one particular religion — oh! just Sunni or Shi’a as well? – might not be racist but it’s certainly not humanitarian.

          /@

        1. Well, it still seems as British to me as it did when I first visited it as a teenager. It’s as British, and as cosmopolitan, as the Empire it once ruled. I think Cleese is being unrealistically wistful.

          /@

          1. With eyes on the bigger picture, I’d remark that London has become cosmopolitan while the Muslim-majority parts of the Empire have not, and while London may have many mosques now, I don’t think that Islamabad has a single Hyde Park of any sort. Everybody wants to live on the territory of Western civilization, but it seems to be collapsing rather than growing.

      4. [Voice from the Celtic Fringe] “Get out of our country, you Angles, Saxons and Jutes. And take the family of Saxe-Coborg Gotha with you.”

  10. “They know what it is like to have death on the streets of their cities.”

    -Not an encouraging sign. Remember Boston!

    “Strictly speaking, the poll is about ‘Germans and Austrians’ not Jews, but it’s telling that in 1938 two-thirds of Americans did not want to do anything to allow those who were fleeing fascism to come into the country.”

    -That, too, was due to a legitimate fear of the threat of terror. Back in the 1920s, immigrant anarchist (by definition, anti-fascist) terrorism killed 30 people on Wall Street in a bombing.

    “We can be sure that the modern day equivalents of Moseley who can be found throughout Europe, currently presenting themselves as ‘moderate’ nationalists, will be seeking to profit from the current crisis, and to increase tensions between the peoples of Europe. They must not succeed.”

    -The only major party against greater scrutiny of migrants is the Queen of Europe herself, as well as her allies.

    1. Some of us remember being searched on entry to public buildings and know the drill. It’s back to the 1970s. At least my Irish name won’t draw as much attention as it did then.

  11. “The irony that the the ostensible topic of this cartoon – the free movement of people within Europe – has enabled many Mail readers to live comfortably outside the UK is lost on our cartoonist”

    To enjoy this privilege, the british had to become members of the EU. The Schengen convention does not allow anybody from anywhere in the world to take up residence in the EU with no formalities whatever.

    1. On the other hand, the Schengen convention (presumably) did contribute to the delightful absence of bureaucratic bullshit arriving in France and driving across borders a year ago. This may be a temporary casualty of this latest outrage, but I hope for not too long.

      cr

      1. Depends on whether there’s a brexit or not.

        I’ll also note that contrary to Matthew’s statement this topic is not about the free movement of people within Europe.

  12. It seems extremely disproportionate to target immigrants en masse – who must number in the thousands at least – when terrorist actions are organized and perpetrated by a minority. It seems this sort of collateral damage is never excusable unless it’s done to “them”.

    Let’s concede all the points above: a high percentage of Muslim immigrants are wilfully disrespectful of many European laws and customs, from condoning terrorist actions to admitting strong homophobia. Is this sufficient to then turn said individuals around and send them to a country they fled from for their own safety and well-being? Surely, if a native citizen behaved or thought this way, we wouldn’t consider it justified to expose them to such life-threatening risk. It also rides roughshod over the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”, as there must be at least some members who do not share these views or behave in this way.

    This is all in response to what is essentially the work of organized crime. If we decide it’s wrong to profile black people on the grounds that most criminals are blacks, or on the grounds that said criminals live in or come from a culture that biases them towards crime, there’s no consistent principle that would make immigrant Muslims an exception.

    Making it even more disproportionate is that the crime such an anti-immigration measure is supposed to prevent – terrorism in the European Union – is, compared with the deaths from other causes, relatively small. The whole point of terrorism is to draw more fear than a rational consideration of the crime warrants, simply because of psychological principles like vividness, shock tactics, etc. Those panicking over immigrants are basically falling for it lock, stock, and barrel.

    Terrorism is a crime and needs to be stopped, but that’s a feeble excuse for turning on immigrants.

    1. I agree with you. Despite the problems I commented on above, these people are fleeing a war zone, and the only humane thing to do is to offer them refuge.

      However, the problems I outlined above still exist. Maybe this new wave of immigrants will be different and will integrate more successfully into European society.

      However, it’s not nice to think that it’s possible that a significant proportion of these people that we are giving a home to could end up hating us, and could end up importing the all-too common misogyny, homophobia, and sectarian violence from their homeland into Europe.

      1. Of course it’s not nice to play host to homophobes, but it’s immoral to put them back into life-threatening danger simply because they’re homophobes. We don’t throw native homophobes out of the country; we shame, mock, and ignore them to varying degrees.

        As for violence, the response doesn’t require anything more than the usual tools to weed out threats from non-threats, which we have to do for native citizens too. And that is the problem with this hand-wringing over the dangers of Muslim immigrants and immigrants in general; there’s little reason to focus on them so much when it’s obvious our response to native equivalents will bear no resemblance to our response to the “other”.

        Bear in mind that one major reason we have a problem with “them coming over here” is because we usually ignore, downplay, or belittle the same crimes that go on in “their” countries. As pointed out by Randy Schenck and gravelinspector-Aidan above at:

        https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/attitudes-to-immigrants-over-the-decades/#comment-1264394

        …the horrifying Paris attacks pale in comparison to the crimes perpetrated in places like Syria. Yet, our sense of urgency only seems to kick in when it’s happening to “us”. Anyone who was genuinely morally motivated to prevent such atrocities should be just as vociferously calling for an end to hostilities in places like Syria, but the inconsistency of the response – presuming the guilt of many refugees and keeping them out – suggests a strong moral myopia; it’s OK or tolerable when it’s happening to “them”.

        In short, the problems you outline neither warrant exclusive interest in immigration nor tip the balance anywhere near mass refusal of refugees. I fail to see what’s so “difficult” about the alleged dilemma.

        1. Well, it’s not OK to me when it’s happening to “them”, but when I talk about military solution, people tell me that this didn’t work well last time (something that could also be said about militarily opposing Hitler in 1941) and that it would mean death of our soldiers, so I have no right to propose such a thing without being a soldier. The West can easily level the ground with Syria by becoming as unsafe as she, but such “justice” won’t do a favor to anyone (except to Putin, who would be delighted and so far is getting his way). It also seems to me that the idea to “solve” the problem of Syrians by accepting them tacitly leaves out a huge number of them, namely, those who cannot pay a smuggler.

          1. but when I talk about military solution, people tell me that this didn’t work well last time

            US foreign policy has been mostly disaster in recent years. Where it does manage to remove some problems (Saddam is the obvious pick), it meets it by creating more problems itself (civilian casualties by drone strikes). Most American foreign military policy looks suspiciously strategic rather than philanthropic. Combined with the fact that war solves the problem of suffering and death with more suffering and death, albeit with the presumed stated goal of ending said suffering and death, and I’m not surprised people are wary of it as a solution, especially with the US military involved.

            (something that could also be said about militarily opposing Hitler in 1941)

            Which itself was the result of three things: a previous pointless war, a humiliation and economic bullying of at least one loser nation, and the subsequent turning of a blind eye to the warmongering and murderous activities of someone trying – in part – to strike back for said humiliation. So war causing war, war leading to humiliation and ruin, and people turning a blind eye to someone else’s atrocities and rallying for war – which to be frank is why Hitler got into power to begin with. None of those things speaks well for a point about resorting to military opposition, even allowing that it may be necessary to euthanize a group of people for the safety of others.

            and that it would mean death of our soldiers, so I have no right to propose such a thing without being a soldier.

            I agree with you that this is a shameless ad hominem (“you’re not a soldier, so you can’t say anything about just wars”). I don’t sympathize with the sentiment.

            The West can easily level the ground with Syria by becoming as unsafe as she

            I’m not sure what you mean here, but I’d guess it’s saying that, if we let in immigrants from Muslim countries, our own countries will in turn become unsafe, and no one will have gotten anywhere.

            If so, then at least on observational grounds, I disagree with you. Firstly, we are nowhere near as unsafe as Syria – heck, terrorist attacks barely manage to even stand out of the noise of daily death rates or murder rates in, say, Europe or France – so the comparison doesn’t hold.

            Secondly, there are home-grown radical Muslim terrorists just as much as there are terrorists being smuggled across borders. On what grounds can we expect them to stop if some country elsewhere is “neutralized”? A religious group isn’t necessarily tied to sociopolitical issues, so even the pacification of the Caliphate lands isn’t going to put a damper on their efforts.

            Thirdly, what on earth makes you so confident a military strike in another country is the best solution to domestic terrorism? Not only can they – and do they – operate independently to a degree, at least part of the motivation for terrorism is a feeling of being under attack, and organizing a military strike on “home turf” is pretty much the attack they’d take as an example, and then later as an excuse.

            Lastly, Jerry has plenty of graphs on this site showing that even Muslims in south-western Europe and central Asia are less fundamentalist than their equivalents in the Middle East and South Asia. They’re not nearly as non-fundamentalist as Christian equivalents, to be sure, but it does suggest exposure to secular sources – if only to a slight degree – can counteract the strong attachment to their religion. Putting religious people under Western laws may well be a great thing to do to them, if not to remove the religion then to at least reduce its influence. This is also buoyed up by the fact that we’ve been accepting immigrants for years, and the overall national and international statistics still favour the European nations on grounds of safety, lack of religiosity, etc.

            Examples of poll results: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/pew-report-on-muslim-world-paints-a-distressing-picture/

            https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/12/10/fundamentalism-ii-islam/

            It also seems to me that the idea to “solve” the problem of Syrians by accepting them tacitly leaves out a huge number of them, namely, those who cannot pay a smuggler.

            I’m definitely not sure what this means, or what smugglers have to do with anything we’re discussing. I’m not even sure what you’re trying to imply here. Not everyone who wants to leave can actually do so, so forget the whole thing?

            Besides, I’d be surprised if someone genuinely thought accepting refugees was a “solution” to the problems of Syria rather than a side-measure. But we can discuss the admittedly thorny issue of how to solve it without dragging in the time-dishonoured idea of targeting refugees as though they were all lower-class criminals and should be abandoned.

          2. You understand my points well, though I as non-native English speaker may not express them clearly enough. Thank you for replying thoughtfully and politely.
            I admit you are right in many respects. Particularly that is it is a humanitarian crime not to shelter refugees. I have never before advocated this, and I am not feeling good about myself now.
            After bashing the Muslims a lot, let me now bash my own people.

            Of course war brings immense suffering and death, mostly of innocents. And most conflicts that are solved by war possibly could have been solved peacefully at an earlier stage. Nevertheless, don’t give an ear to those who criticize US military too much. Many of the critics are ungrateful folks not realizing that they owe their freedom and prosperity largely to that same military. EU is a joke, we don’t even have an army! We think we are entitled to be protected by the USA for free and to badmouth it in return.
            US successes are forgotten. Does anyone remember that the USA carried most of the burden to save the Balkans and Europe from war-mongering Milosevic? Canada came second, and EU countries made a symbolic contribution, though the problem was in Europe. Libya was also a success, until it was abandoned to the whim of extremists. I fear what the world will look like if the USA decides to be isolationist. Syria is actually a good example.

            “I’d be surprised if someone genuinely thought accepting refugees was a “solution” to the problems of Syria rather than a side-measure.”
            I think this is exactly the case! The average Western politician and voter doesn’t consider anything else to do about Syria, except the eventual acceptance of those refugees who have made their way to the shores of Europe. Nobody is ever thinking of the Syrians that are locked inside Syria, or of those who are in camps in Turkey and Lebanon. Only Putin is thinking globally and long-term, which is understandable because he expects to be in power for 25 years to come. But in our age of narrow specialization, he is specialized of creating humanitarian problems, not in solving them.

            As for the “absurdity” of considering military intervention in the Mideast as a solution to domestic Islamist terror – I may be wrong, but my thought is: fundamentallist Muslims are strenghtened in their beliefs by seeing the victorious onslaught of Islam. You cannot convince them that God doesn’t exist or isn’t what they consider him to be, as long as they “see” him working for the global domination of Islam. But if the Islamic State is crushed by military means, some Muslims in the West could think that God is either not so great or doesn’t want Islam to rule the world.

          3. I forgot to give credit for my last paragraph to Fareed Zakaria’s 2001 essay “How to save the Arab world”. Briefly, he puts Nazism and Islamism under the common umbrella of “armed doctrines” that can be discredited only after being defeated by force. He reminds that in the late 1930s and early 1940s, people as far as Argentina admired the strength of Nazi Germany and named their sons after Hitler. Annihilating Hitler in Europe had the side-effect of issuing new names to these boys in Argentina.

    2. Let’s concede all the points above: a high percentage of Muslim immigrants are wilfully disrespectful of many European laws and customs,

      No, let’s not concede the points, because that one at least is wrong. There is an appreciable problem with (particularly) Muslim people disrespecting British culture within the country (I’m talking about Britain here, but I don’t think the situation in France is much different. However, these people are not in any way, shape or form immigrants ; they are native-born Britons living in the country of their birth. Many of them are second or third generation descendents of immigrants of 50 or 60 years ago. Which would make them somewhat comparable to the Italo-American mobsters of the 1970s, descended themselves from immigrants from Sicily in the 1910s.

      1. Fair enough. I did have in mind all those charts and graphs Jerry has about Muslim attitudes in different countries to particular propositions, but I admit I have no idea how many of them are natives and how many are immigrants. Either way, my point is overwhelmingly that the correct response to the terrorist attacks is to apply anti-terrorist measures to natives and immigrants alike, not to tar all or even the majority of immigrants with the same brush.

  13. it’s stuff like this that makes me know that the ‘greatest generation’ bullshit is just nonsense. They were no better than anyone else and in some cases much worse.

  14. FWIW, I take the man with the rifle and military cap to be an unconcerned border guard with his back turned to the immigrants.

  16. I don’t see why it has to be either/or. Perhaps some smart people can come up with a way to discern who is likely to assimilate and who is not, and let in the ones who will likely assimilate.

    Or, let in all refugees but warn them that they must assimilate within X years or they will be sent back. And then check up on them.

    I’m not saying this is the thing to do, but it doesn’t have to be “let them all in” vs. “keep them all out”. We can demand that immigrants to the UK adopt British culture, eat bad food, spend at least three nights per week at a pub, and eschew dental work. Etc.

      1. I hope it was clear that I was half-joking. I’m just saying the conversation doesn’t have to be “let them all in” vs. “keep them all out”, which is what I keep hearing. If there are specific concerns about risks from refugees, those specific concerns can be addressed without abandoning the whole idea.

    2. On a comment thread elsewhere, someone said that the average person was being presented with a “Sophie’s Choice.” On the one hand, we have the left that supports open borders, and not just within Europe it seems, and pooh-poohs concerns about security. On the other hand, we have the right that does seem xenophobic and pro-Christian/anti-Muslim. Is there nothing in between? I’m all for taking in refugees, provided they are, in fact, refugees. (This is in addition to any other immigration. I’m discussing it as a separate subject. I have not been anti-immigration generally, but people on this thread appear to be from different countries so we really can’t discuss that subject.)

      Kevin Drum in Mother Jones had an interesting article. I’m in the U.S., but I think some of these comments could apply elsewhere with an appropriate change of political parties:

      Mocking Republicans over this—as liberals spent much of yesterday doing on my Twitter stream—seems absurdly out of touch to a lot of people. Not just wingnut tea partiers, either, but plenty of ordinary centrists too. It makes them wonder if Democrats seriously see no problem here. Do they care at all about national security? Are they really that detached from reality?

      The liberal response to this should be far more measured. We should support tight screening. Never mind that screening is already pretty tight. We should highlight the fact that we’re accepting a pretty modest number of refugees. In general, we should act like this is a legitimate thing to be concerned about and then work from there.

      I’m in the U.S. and I can’t agree with your comments about assimilation. I don’t really care what immigrants eat or how they dress, as long as they accept democracy and a secular society.

      1. About dressing, the problem is not in the Islamic dress code per se but with the mindset that is strongly correlated with voluntarily putting on this attire (see e.g. Catherine Russell). About eating, nobody cares what immigrants eat, as long as they don’t hunt endangered species. The problem is in the supremacist attitude of some leading them to try and impose their choices on everyone else. Anecdote: at my children’s school, a mother is campaigning against giving pork at lunch “too often”. Her argument is that it is unhealthy, but the truth is that she is a convert married to a Syrian immigrant. She could give her kids lunch boxes. She could also, being stay at home mom, take them home immediately after school and serve them whatever warm lunch she wants. Instead, she is trying to force her beliefs on the majority.

  17. I think that it is bit unfair compare Jewish refugees and Muslim refugees. I agree that most of both groups are victims of oppression and should be helped if that is possible.
    Why unfair? We are aware, that Jews were almost never a source of second thoughts in terms of violence. They were true refugees from genocide. Muslims, however, as we know harbor beliefs that are in essence quite opposite to what modern societies value. As we also know, vast majority of terrorists (not all) are Muslims, which does not help in this situation. Being cautious is just reasonable thing to do.

    Now the question how to help should be a subject of discussion, and indiscriminate absorbing of thousands of people may not be the only option on the table.

  19. I think that if all of these refugees were Scientologists or Moonies, there would be a lot of reluctance to let them resettle in the West.

  20. Its the Daily Shite after all, what do you expect ?, disseminating Right Wing Propaganda for over a Hundred Years.

  21. Genetically I’m half Scots and half Irish, just fortunate enough to be born in the north of England in 1946. I’ve experienced the problems between Protestants and Catholics (Huddersfield has had a high % of Catholics for 200years), the immigration inflow from the Caribbean and also from Pakistan and other Muslim countries and they have had their issues as well. So I consider that I have a right to express an eyewitness opinion, also taking into account that I spent 30 years as a Police officer working across Yorkshire. I have been told to my face by Muslims, that there are too many in the country for us, the native people, to do anything about it. And, by a Muslim businessman that they are here to take over. And, they actually believe it.

    With regard to the present diaspora, reports from the various news agencies, from the BBC, Sky, CBC, NBS etc put the level of genuine refugees at between 5% and 15%, the remainder are economic migrants. I have every sympathy for genuine refugees, however that fact that someone may be a refugee does not entitle them to walk across national boundaries carrying a map of Europe demanding the right to roam where ever they will because the fancy chooses them. How many of this flood of humanity are Jihadis? I haven’t a clue, but I for one do not want a single one in the UK. How many were active in France? 8 that were involved last Friday. How many are there?

      1. How amusing you are.

        The Muslims have a saying: you might have the watches but we have the time.

        This is not about what there is now, not many years ago there were less than 1%. This is about attitudes. The attitudes of those who fervently believe that any country that has, in the past, been under Muslim control will always be Muslim, and that includes a large percentage of Europe. I suggest that instead of taking cheap shots because you’re not as intelligent as you think you are, you should begin by reading the Koran, as I have done, and trying to understand the mindset of those Muslims who actually believe that Mohammed flew on his horse and left hoof prints in the side of the Al-Aqsa mosque and back in the same night.

        The mindset of those who believe that ‘the gates to paradise lie in the shadow of the sword’. This is what drives the terrorists, they do not care how many they have to kill, and no I’m not paranoid.

        It was evident many weeks ago that the capillary action triggered by the initial wave of migrants across the Mediterranean and the Aegean would draw in more and more migrants and amongst those the jihadis that they promised.

        Try reading something useful, or of course you can remain ignorant. Nothing personal you understand but if you insist in parroting snide political comments …..

        1. Why, thank you!

          What “large percentage of Europe” has been under Muslim control?

          And how many of that 5% of Mulsims in the UK have that mindset? (According to a BBC poll earlier this year, rather more that 90% of British Muslims feel a loyalty to the country and respect its laws.)

          Try citing data rather than bigoted political opinion!

          /@

  22. Under Muslim control? Most of Spain, much of the area north of Greece and it was only by pure chance, that the siege of Vienna failed and the Ottoman army was thrashed (see below)that’s where the croissant originated. a baker preparing bread heard noises very early one morning and notified the Commander of the Viennese garrison. As a reward he was allowed to devise a particular bread. This was taken to France by Marie Antoinette where it was renamed the ‘croissant’. so every time you eat a croissant, the crescent, you are eating the symbol of Islam – history is good. you should try reading some!

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1510866/Poll-reveals-40pc-of-Muslims-want-sharia-law-in-UK.html

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vienna

    I don’t want to tax you, so that’s enough for now. Enjoy.

    1. The Caliphate of Córdoba and the Ottoman Empire (which included Greece itself, not just an area north of Greece), even taken together, encompassed only a minority of Europe. I guess it depends on what percentage you think is “large” … (The reasons for the failure of the siege of Vienna are completely immaterial.)

      Re your first link: What does “want Sharia law in the UK” mean? That it’s in place for certain kinds of disputes amongst practicing Muslims (which is now the case; wrongly I think; I support the “One Law for All” campaign) or that it be given total precedence over UK statute and common law for everyone? Those are quite different things with different political and societal implications. Support for the former is hardly troubling for non-Muslims (except insofar as we care about the equal treatment of all British citizens under the law; see above).

      It’s notable that a slightly higher number were opposed altogether.

      You really do seem to be striving to find bogeymen here.

      /@

      1. Certainly not. You are, I suspect, deliberately missing the point. We’re talking about attitudes nothing else. As far as the sharia is concerned, this is why you have to read the Koran, it’s not a buffet. Islam means submission, the sharia is a package – nothing more nothing less. You cannot decide which bits you like and which bits to ignore.

        1. I refer you again to the 41% of British Muslims surveyed who did not want Sharia law in the UK. Clearly they have decided that there are bits that can be ignored!

          You’re really starting to sound like the straw-man New Atheist that thinks that all Christians are Biblical literalists.

          /@

  23. Incidentally it was after the siege of Vienna was lifted that they discovered strange bean-like things which they thought were food for the camels. These were the first coffee beans to be found in Europe.

    History is great and if you do not learn from history then it is destined to repeat itself.

    1. “These were the first coffee beans to be found in Europe.”

      Are you referring to the popular legend about Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki who opened the first café in Vienna using coffee beans left by the retreating Ottoman Turks after the 1683 siege?

      Pope Clement VIII declared coffee a suitable beverage for Christians (not just for Muslims) in 1600, having tasted it, so presumably coffee beans had made it as far as the Vatican by that year. Venice traded in coffee from 1615. The first European coffee house opened in Rome in 1645. Coffee was introduced to England in 1637 and to France in 1657.

      All well before 1683 …

      /@

      Sources: http://www.turkishcoffeeworld.com/History-of-Coffee-s/60.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee

      1. I don’t know whereabouts you live but there has recently been a lot of comment in West Yorkshire regarding a Muslim man who converted to Christianity and was afraid of being attacked. Today he was. That is the way things are.

        1. That’s regrettable. But it’s hardly an indicator that British Muslims, as a whole, are or even want to be, taking over… The fact that that man converted to Christianity knowing what might ensue might just as well be seen as evidence to the contrary.

          /@

      2. possibly only one but they got the paint and defaced a national monument. It’s all about attitude.

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