European refugee crisis [split]

[Saim]

I go out of my way to read about politics from a critical leftist perspective (and Loqu and Meidei are coming from the same kind of ideological sphere), so you're right that what I've been reading isn't necessarily representative of the general mood on these things and the way most media is reporting this stuff. In that case I agree it's unfair to single out Hungary.

[md0]

At least, that's the impression I got by watching mainstream news.

Yeah, what Saim said. It shouldn't come as a surprise that your local antifa collective or antinationalist initiative is not invited as a regular political commentator on national radio.

Pardon the reference to Chomsky, but:

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

And mustering as much good faith as I can tonight, I advice you to look for counter-information outlets in your area, like 'newspapers of the road', zines, go to protests and ask those people why the hell are they protesting (trust me this is how we measure the success of a protest: how many by-standards were interested to find out what's going on and approached us to discuss it.).

[Marah]

Why should it it ever be pardoned? "political" Chomsky is very interesting in my opinion. I'll be sad the day he passes away. He's 86. Random complaint of the day huh.

And mustering as much good faith as I can tonight, I advice you to look for counter-information outlets in your area, like 'newspapers of the road', zines, go to protests and ask those people why the hell are they protesting (trust me this is how we measure the success of a protest: how many by-standards were interested to find out what's going on and approached us to discuss it.).

I think I gave the wrong impression! I don't actually rely on mainstream news to get information on what's going on. It's just that during family meals we watch mainstream news on TV, which I think is interesting nonetheless, if you want to understand the way people think.

[md0]

Why should it it ever be pardoned?

Chomsky is to libertarian socialism as Žižek is to marxism. This is, while both of them certainly say a lot of interesting things, their theoretical tools lead them to bad political decisions, like Žižek supporting SYRIZA, or Chomsky supporting Chávez (ie a marxist supporting a weak-willed reformist party, and a lib-socialist supporting an authoritarian socialist).

Obviously the quote I used is, I believe, accurate, and the tactic has been identified by many other thinkers as well. But it's not a blanked endorsement of everything lib-socialist Chomsky supports.

[IpseDixit]

I'd like to congratulate you for building your own big sturdy strawman, since I (and lots of other people, but you were quoting and addressing me) have always opposed those policies, as meidei pointed out.

Honestly I might've quoted you but wasn't critizing or adressing you personally. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. And I wasn't insinuating that nobody protested for those things, I was just expressing my opinion on the different ways the media is protraying Hungary in comporason with the way it's portraying other countries over the same issue.

[linguoboy]

200,000 people in a population of half a billion honestly sounds like nothing to me. That's less than one twenty-fifth of the number of natural births in the EU each year, and y'all have no trouble dealing with those.

But keep in mind that immigrants tend to live in clusters. It is likely that some neighborhoods will be transformed by this immigration wave. And the people already living there won't have much of a say about it.

That points to a larger issue with our dominant systems of municipal governance, don't you think? Very few residents have any real say in transformational issues affecting their neighbourhoods. In theory, for instance, my interests are represented by an elected alderman, but he might as well be a feudal ruler, given how beholden he is to the mayor and the party machine which keeps both of them in power. That's not to say I'm not sympathetic to these woes, but how we as a society have chosen to respond to them is, "Suck it up or move." And I'm part of the privileged class which is comparatively mobile, so I'm not strongly motivated to change that dynamic.

Given that immigrants tend to settle in neighbourhoods transformed by previous waves of immigrants, it's the latter who will bear the brunt of any changes anyway. (It's not the assimilated White people in Chicago I see being displaced by newly-arrived Asians and Hispanics; it's chiefly African-Americans [most of whose ancestors arrived during the Great Migrations from the Southern States] and "White ethnics".) Are they up in arms about this? Has anyone bothered to ask them what they think?

[md0]

It's just that during family meals we watch mainstream news on TV

I was just expressing my opinion on the different ways the media is protraying Hungary in comporason with the way it's portraying other countries over the same issue.

So the question basically is, why the dominant media do not broadcast criticism of the policies they endorse? Not a very meaningful question.
From that, to saying that the people react differently to Calais than to Hungary, is a very big strawman indeed.

[md0]

The APOEL FC posted that photo last night.

Those kids probably grown up hearing "Eat your food before the refugee steals it", back when refugee for them meant "Greek Cypriot displaced by the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus".

Just in case anyone deludes themselves that religion or ethnicity matters. Greeks of Minor Asia were thrown in ghettos in Greece after 1923, and so where Greek Cypriots displaced from north to south Cyprus in 1974 (like my family was).

[vijayjohn]

Greeks of Minor Asia were thrown in ghettos in Greece after 1923, and so where Greek Cypriots displaced from north to south Cyprus in 1974 (like my family was).

So was your family thrown into a ghetto, too?

[md0]

My grandparents and parents spent several years in refugee camps out in the fields. My mum and uncles went to separate schools than southern GC children. Having lost all their property when displaced, they were encouraged to start working in factories when they were as young as 14 (my mum has been working since that age). There's a sudden dip in education levels of Cyprus around that time because of the displacement of children in 1974.

When housing options were finally given by the government, they were in the form of building new suburbs outside other towns (because granted, Cyprus has a very strong home-ownership tradition; people own their houses and they do not see them as investments to speculate upon). As a result, children of refugees would initially socialise only with other refugees even 30 years after the war, until they are out of primary school. Nothing compared to the first years after 1974, but it can be seen in small ways like accents (I do not have the accent native to my village, I have a mix of various northern elements), and voting patterns (since for most elections refugees vote in different polling stations, it's easy to see).

[vijayjohn]

That sounds fucked up but very interesting, meidei. Thanks for sharing!

[Car]

There aren't 200,000 refugees only. Germany alone had more than that last year, last month, we had 100,000. The past weekend, we had 20,000, for this, 40,000 are expected. I think there were 10,000 on Monday. I'm not sure if there's any data on the rest of the days; there are so many that many aren't even registered. Originally, 450,000 were expected for this year (IIRC), they updated that to 800,000 and with the recent influx, even that number is too low. Again, that's all for Germany alone. The numbers skyrocketed and people are coming from more and more countries, often enough with fake Syrian passports nowadays.

[md0]

And this happened last night, protesting both the policies of the Cypriot state and EU's frontex.

12003987_896991683726596_4097376937710613927_n.jpg

12004097_896994927059605_1565435451924205770_n.jpg

This is the "meh ok" reaction some users claimed.

Same "meh ok" in the UK yesterday.

11990392_898044360288070_3335354012724169826_n.jpg

Obviously Hungary is being singled out. No way it's selective media coverage.

[Varislintu]

There aren't 200,000 refugees only. Germany alone had more than that last year, last month, we had 100,000. The past weekend, we had 20,000, for this, 40,000 are expected. I think there were 10,000 on Monday. I'm not sure if there's any data on the rest of the days; there are so many that many aren't even registered. Originally, 450,000 were expected for this year (IIRC), they updated that to 800,000 and with the recent influx, even that number is too low. Again, that's all for Germany alone. The numbers skyrocketed and people are coming from more and more countries, often enough with fake Syrian passports nowadays.

I guess you mean althogether, not just from Syria? Because then, yeah, there are a lot more. I was talking about Syrians specifically with the 200 000. I based it on the estimate on this page, but seems that that was old info as well since this page counts the asylum-seekers from Syria in Europe since 2011 at 350 000 so far.

[Car]

I guess you mean althogether, not just from Syria? Because then, yeah, there are a lot more. I was talking about Syrians specifically with the 200 000. I based it on the estimate on this page, but seems that that was old info as well since this page counts the asylum-seekers from Syria in Europe since 2011 at 350 000 so far.

Yes, sorry, I wasn't sure what you were talking about. I read that until July 2015, 137,000 came to Germany. Interestingly enough, I stumbled upon an article from 1 April which only mentioned 105,000... But the number increased a lot, since last weekend, there's the problem of fake Syrian passports as well, in addition to Iraqis and even Algerian, Moroccans and Egyptians without passports claiming to be Syrians. So not only is it impossible right now to say how many claim to be Syrians, we can't even say how many actually are Syrians.

[Levike]

Romania's president Klaus Johannis announced that Romania isn't accepting the nr. of refugees it is supposed to.

So while our prime-minister seems more "kind-hearted", at least the president represents the majority's view.

There was a proposal to host refugees in university dorms, but that hasn't been accepted by any university until now, mostly due to reasons like "we would lose money" and "a place given to a refugee is a place taken from a student".

It seems that Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia and more or less Poland are the ones who are opposed to redistributing the immigrants across the EU.

Meanwhile 19.100 refugees arrived at Munich this weekend.

[Ludwig Whitby]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNEJXw9_iQ

[Ludwig Whitby]

And something that bugged me from day 1: propaganda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=330&v=ZV315xqbRK8

[Levike]

The fence between Hungary and Serbia seems to take some effect.
There's a possibility it might be elongated to the point where the Hungarian-Serbian-Romanian border meets.

Although the Croats are "very happy" since the refugees are now seeking a new route throught their country.

[Saim]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNEJXw9_iQ

Do you actually want refugees to apply for asylum in countries like Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia (and Serbia)?