The hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern refugees
streaming into Europe over the past few weeks raise some difficult questions
about just how much responsibility nations have to take in refugees.
One might think that simple human kindness would dictate
that any refugee ought to be accepted by any nation. And for relatively small numbers of refugees
that is a reasonable course. But what
about situations where the number of refugees severely disrupt a nation, and
severely strain its resources?
America is a nation of immigrants, so we manage to adapt to
imported new cultures relatively well.
But many European nations are quite homogeneous in their makeup and
culture, and the importation of hundreds of thousands of people from an
entirely different culture will be massively disruptive, and will no doubt
cause considerable cultural and political difficulties and taxpayer expense in future
years, and perhaps produce massive ghettos of un-assimilated people who will
resent their inferior job opportunities, and who have a tradition (among some,
at least) of reacting with religiously-driven extremism. This is already what has happened in
many European nations with the relatively few Middle Easterners who have
emigrated – how much worse will it be with hundreds of thousands or even
millions more?
Fortunately we are separated by a wide ocean from this
refugee wave, so we can pick and choose who we take. Europe is not so lucky.
I’m sure it is politically incorrect to mention this
(especially in the current “victim-centered” culture in America) , but don’t
refugees themselves bear some responsibility for their own condition? In some
cases they actually elected the very people who have made their life so miserable. In other cases they at least didn’t resist the
ascent of the forces that are now driving them out of their own country. No doubt their current condition is piteous,
but do other nations have a responsibility to rescue them from their own political
fecklessness or unwillingness to fight for their own rights and freedom?
Certainly there are many things other nations should have
done to prevent this tragedy. Neither
the US nor Europe took the Syrian uprising seriously enough, nor the rise of
ISIS. Our military adventures in
Afghanistan and Iraq only succeeded in thoroughly destabilizing the Middle
East, not in solving any of its problems.
And I notice that other wealthy Muslim nations aren’t rushing to help their Muslim brothers and sisters much.
This issue needs some rational, clear-headed discussion
about just what responsibilities nations have for people dispossessed in their
own country. It will be hard to have such a discussion while small toddlers are
washing up drowned on beaches, but we need the discussion anyway.
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