Refugee Crisis: Victims of War or Trojan Horses?

Disclaimer: The strong opinions herein are those of the author and not The Beacon. Should any of the below strike a nerve, please contribute your thoughts by submitting a comment in the “reply” space provided. 

650,000 migrants have entered the European Union as of mid-October according to the International Organisation for Migration, further polarising a divided continent and exacerbating whatever ethnic and religious strife has existed in Europe ever since the continent threw her borders open for mass immigration from third-world countries. The E.U., with Germany at its head, has imposed upon all member nations mandatory refugee quotas—quotas that various European nations deem outright tyranny, taking into account the fact that Europe is still recovering from the recent economic recession and is currently undergoing a period of political discord, wherein both the right and the left have turned further away from the centre towards more extreme forms of their various ideologies.

Support for right-wing populist Eurosceptic parties such as the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in Britain, Front National in France, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the Swedish Democrats in Sweden, Jobbik in Hungary and the Danish People’s Party in Denmark has increased exponentially since the beginning of the decade, with the main concern of voters shifting from issues of an economic nature to social issues, particularly the presence and refusal to assimilate of ethnic minorities in their country. Eurosceptic parties like the aforementioned wish to end all forms of illegal immigration to their countries and cut down on legal immigration, citing an increasing amount of ethnic inharmoniousness (including extreme rates of immigrant crime and religious sectarianism) along with an inability to cope with and house such large numbers of asylum seekers as their main reasons—therefore, because the European Union forces its member countries to accept a set quota of migrants merely on the basis that these countries are members, several parties in states across Europe are urging their countries to leave the E.U., an organisation which they feel disregards the national sovereignty of its member nations and seeks to even transcend it in domestic issues such as immigration. UKIP has also stated the importance of dealing with poverty and unemployment within one’s own country instead of taking in more migrants.

Termed by the left-wing as “racism” and “cruelty” and referred to by some members of the right-wing as “national suicide”, the 2015 European refugee crisis has only pushed the nations of the European Union apart even further, with nations such as Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic along with the United Kingdom lodging protests against being forced to accept any migrants at all, with the former three raising concerns about religious extremism and the possible language and cultural barrier that may arise and the latter citing economic concerns and a violation of national sovereignty. The apprehensions and qualms that the nations of Europe hold, however, are not without basis, and are in fact backed up by an overwhelming amount of facts and statistics that show that if Europe takes in more migrants from countries in the Middle East, the very future of the continent will be at stake. With the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, worldwide trepidation of terrorism and Islamic extremism has only intensified— that, coupled with cases of Islamic terrorism, crime statistics that clearly are not in favour of the migrants, and the fact that several of the Islamic State’s members hold European passports, is more than enough reason for European nations to express concern regarding the immigration crisis or even seal off their borders entirely.

Opposition to immigration is not new to Europe either. As early as the 1950s, the British public polled in at 80% in favour of not opening the nation’s borders to its former colonies—another scare took place in the 1960s when a Nigerian immigrant murdered an elderly Scottish woman in her own home. As compared to its near-homogenous population and linguistic composition during the 1950s, at least 11.91% of the population of the United Kingdom in 2014 have recently immigrated from other countries, with the capital city of London being only 60% native, contrasted with a 40% immigrant population. According to the Telegraph, 16% of primary school students in England do not speak English fluently, and at least £20 million is spent on catering to students who do not speak English yearly. Concerns regarding immigrant groups actually come from mainstream Conservatives, contrary to what most believe to originate from “fringe-tier Neo-Nazi organisations”— in November 2014, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, commented that “the character of Britain’s schools is being altered by the influx of migrant children who do not speak English” and that an “emergency brake” had to be applied to immigration as soon as possible. Reverse racism has also reared its ugly head in British organisations such as the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills or Ofsted, wherein a primary school in Britain was refused the “outstanding” grade for being “too British” and not “multicultural” enough—essentially political correctness gone mad, to which several Britons reacted with outrage, claiming that it was now “a crime to be of the majority in one’s own country”.

Have similar situations transpired before in Europe?  Many compare the situation of the Holocaust during the early 1940s to the current refugee crisis, wherein Jews fled Nazi-occupied Europe for Allied Europe and settled in those countries either temporarily or permanently. However, Jews, as compared to these Middle Eastern migrants, are without a doubt culturally far closer to and definitely linguistically adapted to Europe. There was, of course, no Jewish equivalent of ISIS, nor were there already Jews in other countries that took part in terrorism. Much more similar and recent situations include the migrants who camped out at the city of Calais which was en route to the United Kingdom— these migrants, who were all young men originating from Middle Eastern countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, rioted and destroyed public property in Calais while throwing stones and attacking policemen who were trying to restore order, along with cutting through fence wires so as to cross the Eurotunnel to reach Britain. Some of the migrants who were interviewed were known to have stated in Arabic that they in fact desired to go to the U.K. because of the British welfare system, wherein migrants are granted benefits.

How do these migrants feel about the Islamic State along with Islamic extremism?  According to a survey conducted by ORB International, 22 per cent of the Syrian refugees believe that ISIS has had a positive influence on their country. The Lebanese Minister for Education, Elias Bousaab, has warned David Cameron, the incumbent Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, that two in every 100 Syrian migrants are ISIS fighters, and that these jihadists were being sent “under cover”. Migrants have also been shown making “ISIS-inspired beheading gestures” during various TV broadcasts around Europe. ISIS themselves have sent threats through social media such as Twitter, wherein they state that they have snuck ISIS fighters into Europe, taking advantage of the refugee crisis. A Breitbart survey states that 51% of European Muslims want Sharia Law and that 25% of European Muslims are fine with violence against infidels or non-Muslims.

How many of these migrants are actually fleeing war?  The Daily Mail claims that only 20% of the migrants entering Europe during the Syrian refugee crisis are from Syria, which also complains that “rather than claiming asylum in the first safe EU country they reach, most head on toward wealthy northern states”. Instead of Syria, most of these “refugees” are actually young men in their 20s from nations such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and even faraway Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria, none of which are affected by the Syrian Civil War or ISIS. 70% of all “refugees” entering Europe are young men—where are all the women and children if this is actually a refugee crisis and not a migrant crisis? Refugees flee war, persecution and disaster; migrants move merely for economic reasons. Migrants have been known to actually pay exorbitant amounts just for fake Syrian passports so that their applications would be accepted by stricter nations such as Great Britain.

What are some facts on migrant crime in Europe?  In early January 2015, the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, declared that “Mass immigration has led to the growth of Muslim ‘ghettos’ in Britain which are run under Sharia law” and that “the imposition of Sharia law meant there had been no prosecutions for the ‘tens of thousands’ of female genital mutilations carried out in Britain.” The Gatestone Institute, an international policy council, states that in 2014, a “record-breaking” 38,000 asylum seekers were accused of committing crimes in Germany, and Die Welt, a German newspaper, published a leaked report which states that “the behaviour of these highly delinquent youths towards police officers can be characterized as aggressive, disrespectful and condescending. … When they are arrested, they resist and assault [police officers]. The youths have no respect for state institutions.” A prominent example of migrants committing an unnaturally high number of heinous crimes is the nation of Sweden—Gatestone Institute claims that “Forty years after the Swedish parliament unanimously decided to change the formerly homogenous Sweden into a multicultural country, violent crime has increased by 300% and rapes by 1,472%. Sweden is now number two on the list of rape countries, surpassed only by Lesotho in Southern Africa.”

That being said, are the migrants resorting to violence when crossing Europe?  Migrants rioted and destroyed property on the Greek island of Lesbos in early September, the perpetrators of which were all young Afghan men. A state of emergency was declared on the island and stones were thrown at policemen along with houses set aflame, according to the Telegraph. Violence has also broken out between the migrants and policemen in the North-West Balkans.

Why Europe and not the other Gulf states?  More specifically, why Germany and Sweden in particular when the migrants choose which nation to move to? Nations such as Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are far closer to Syria along with being Muslim and culturally Arabic at the same time, and yet the migrants refuse to move to nations which are more similar to how they had lived in Syria. The nation of Turkey, especially, is known for being democratically free and safe, while still being a Muslim nation—surely the migrants have some ulterior motives when they refuse to move to countries where they would fit in better and, more importantly, are closer? Why do they bother crossing into Europe? The answer to that is that these migrants are given benefits and free housing when they enter nations like Germany and Sweden. If the European states did not offer such benefits, most migrants would very likely have made an exodus to other Muslim countries instead.

In conclusion, albeit how compassion should be exercised in all cases, especially during such a crisis wherein a loss of human life is very common (such as the picture of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi), so should restraint on leniency when taking into account who really is a refugee or not. A good solution would be to reject anyone who clearly is not from Syria and tighten all screening procedures for extremists and potential ISIS fighters while also deporting anyone who breaks the law—Europe may take in refugees, but certainly not illegal immigrants who break the law and do naught but spread destruction in an already fragile continent.