Yet not knowing how to 'sort out this mess' doesn't restrain you from propagating prejudice and parroting Trumpian immoral and unethical indifference to the impossible situations in which vast numbers of people in the Middle East are forced to flee violence and persecution in their home lands. Maybe we need to take some time here to recall which world powers have colluded in colonializing the oil-rich Middle East since before WWII, exploiting the resources of these countries, manipulating their local economies for our profit and the profit of their princes and land owners, and seeding the inevitable revolutions that have led in our time to terrorist ideologies and activities directed against us by a group of people there who remember their history and have nothing left to lose. We created the conditions under which the mass of ordinary, nonviolent, people in the ME have had to live for nearly a century, and the conditions that they have to flee today. Do you really think we have no obligations to provide them with refuge in our own safer parts of the world? I don't understand how you can think this way.
You are thinking with your heart not your head.
The number of refugees, asylum-seekers and other displaced persons exceeded 60 million globally last year. More than half of the refugees have been uprooted not for months, but for years upon years.
It's clear that the international legal framework for responding to such crises — the 1951 Refugees Convention — is insufficiently comprehensive to deal with a situation of this magnitude and complexity. Created to respond to the 1 million Europeans still displaced years after World War II ended
(Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan is chairman and founder of the West Asia-North Africa Institute.)
60 million refugees: a crisis that has outgrown its 65-year-old solution
The number of refugees in the world is at the highest level it's ever been
They way we think about refugees is outdated, the 1951 refugee convention was to deal with a million. That same solution cannot work with 65.3 million. Helping them all is like taking 2 dozen homeless into your house and feeding them on one wage. It just cant be done. Your solution "provide them refuge here at home" cannot work. Its no solution at all and is just as cruel in that it fixes nothing. It leaves millions suffering while you get a warm fuzzy glow about helping a few thousand.
I had this conversation with a pro refugee friend the other day.
"How many should we take here in Australia?"
Her reply "All of them"
"You realise there are 65 million of them ?"
Reply "So ?"
"We have 24 million here as is, the welfare and public health system is already strained, the Aust Bureau of Stats shows 75 percent of recent refugees are still on welfare after 5 years of settling with no prospect of employment in the near future", "How do we pay for this plan", How do 24 million taxpayers pay for the welfare payments of an extra 65 million ?" (forget housing, health and infrastructure like water,roads, sanitation, Police etc etc)
Her response like yours, "You racist hateful arse".
Among the benefits that can be made available to those granted protection visas, and those granted refugee status, is a one-off household formation package of up to $9850. Families can be eligible for education assistance of up to $9220. People granted refugee status become eligible for welfare payments immediately without having to wait the two-year period set for immigrants. Single applicants are eligible for a Newstart Allowance. Parents are eligible for Centrelink's parenting payment. Refugees, and some on bridging visas, also receive Medicare assistance for medical, hospital, dental, medicine and optical costs. Mobile phones are provided to those who arrive as unaccompanied minors.
This is the honeypot that has combined with civil strife to cause entire villages to empty in Sri Lanka and thousands of young men to travel from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan to get on illegal boats to Australia.
The truth on refugees is worse than fiction
Yeah lets multiply this by 65 million......................... As an idea its lovely. Let them stay, Help them. As a practical solution...... Its impossible
But you know Constance, go to your local CBD, there will be dozens of homeless there. Take 2 dozen into your home on your wages and feed them and see how long that works for you. Our heads know that on this scale its unworkable. But somehow the bleeding hearts can use cognitive dissonance to avoid the logic when it comes to 65.3 million refugees.
Nor is whats happening new.
In 1882 all Chinese were banned from immigrating to the US even though they only made up .002 of the then population
In 1924 all Asians were banned and a strict quota placed on all nations of origin.
When Vietnamese boat people started arriving in the 80's .62 percent of Americans said don't let them in.
In world war II boatloads of Jewish refugees were turned back by the US including one boat of Jewish German children.
This crisis has outgrown our old solutions, "letting them stay here" wont fix a damn thing, what it will do is turn your/our country into the very shitholes they are fleeing.
