European refugee crisis thread

[ray245]

For example, there are special classes already in place in Austria so that the refugee children could also start school along with all other kids this week, with emphasis on language class to get them proficient in German as quickly as possible, in order to move them over into normal classes.

Yeah, a friend of mine teaches such classes. The kids go to regular school but some of the refugees kids hours are specially dedicated to learning German and general German stuff. They also cooperate with businesses and try to get internships and stuff like that at a relatively early age. Or they just take them to cultural things like churches, museums or simply swimming in a lake or the beer garden.

What about the older generation? Those are the people that is going to be harder to integrate, simply because they won't have the experience of schooling under a German/Austrian system.

[K. A. Pital]

The older generation is less of a problem than youth who, by and large, don't have any prospects in life other than living in ghetto districts and cleaning toilets or hauling crates. I do not believe that there will be even remotely equal treatment of the refugees, not even in Germany. They will be discriminated against and the young generation will be shut out of opportunities in the name of providing jobs to citizens first and foremost. This is of course much better than dying in the sandy Hell also known as "Midde East", but hardly the best one can hope for.

There will be no good ending to this story because the government lacks a long-term plan and giving the migrants a crash course in German or some other EU language is not all that needs to be done if the immigrants are to be successfully integrated.

[salm]

For example, there are special classes already in place in Austria so that the refugee children could also start school along with all other kids this week, with emphasis on language class to get them proficient in German as quickly as possible, in order to move them over into normal classes.

Yeah, a friend of mine teaches such classes. The kids go to regular school but some of the refugees kids hours are specially dedicated to learning German and general German stuff. They also cooperate with businesses and try to get internships and stuff like that at a relatively early age. Or they just take them to cultural things like churches, museums or simply swimming in a lake or the beer garden.

What about the older generation? Those are the people that is going to be harder to integrate, simply because they won't have the experience of schooling under a German/Austrian system.

I´m not sure. A lot seems to be handled by volunteers at the moment. I personally know a couple of volunteers who tell me that their capacities are full and don´t need any more volunteers in their area.
Mind you this has been like this for months and has nothing to do with the recent enthusiasm. These volunteers teach German language and cultural differences and help with beurocracy and stuff like that.
Apparently some teachers near Augsburg noted a lack of German for foreigners book for refugees and wrote one themselves. It appears to be very good and is selling like crazy for the fair price of 6€.

Regarding discrimination i agree with K.A.Pital. It will be there and their lives are going to be more difficult than others. Hopefully the current wave of enthusiasms momentum can be used to create a better long term plan and the amount of discrimination can be muffled at least a bit.

[Thanas]

Don't fret everybody, the US has announced it will help....by taking in 10k refugees. No, there is no 0 missing.

Thanks, Obama. Really helping out here.

[Zaune]

Well, it's something.

[Thanas]

Well, it's something.

It barely covers arrivals from two days.

[K. A. Pital]

You mean it doesn't, as 17 000 arrived last weekend, no? Yeah, the US is classy.

[Thanas]

That high? Last numbers I had were citing 10k for an abnormal day and 5k for a standard day. Damn.

[LaCroix]

10k more expected, just tonight. The news that they are let through has spread, and as expected, the dam finally broke.

Austria had to shut down railroads, already, for they fear overcrowding on the stations, which they say would be impossible to properly supply.
Also, they are errecting tent camps, and are not letting the people pass on to Vienna and Germany, right away, anymore.

Strange, only a few days ago, Hungary was demonized for doing exactly the same. The moment Austria had to deal with more than the trickle that Hungary sent their way, but the full stream, they suddenly have to enact the same measures.

[Thanas]

Yeah well unlike Orban the Austrian head of state doesn't invoke the wars against the Ottomans or talks about the threat to Christian Europe.

[NoXion]

How long would it take for the Middle East to run out of refugees? Since there aren't an infinite amount of people living there it stands to reason that such throughput can't be sustained indefinitely.

[Iroscato]

Syria apparently has approx. 22-23 million people. There were what, 4 million Syrians fleeing to Europe? That's almost a fifth of the entire population on the move. Jesus...

[The Romulan Republic]

Good God.

Well, I can't blame them. If I was their, I imagine I'd be trying to leave too.

I wonder if this is going to end with that part of the world largely depopulated, though, since I've been hearing that the current crisis is expected to get worse, and that four million presumably doesn't count all the refugees who aren't going to Europe (i.e. ones elsewhere in the Middle East).

[Broomstick]

That high? Last numbers I had were citing 10k for an abnormal day and 5k for a standard day. Damn.

The tide is rising and the pace of migration accelerating.

At that, 10k is 9,780 more than last year. There is some serious pushback on admitting Syrians to the US for some reason. I've been a bit busy this last year and haven't kept up with the details on it.

[LaCroix]

Situation in Hungary is close to collapsing - the camps are getting flooded, people are getting agitated. Food distribution is already getting overrun.

[The Romulan Republic]

What I'm dreading is mass riots by refugees being met by lethal force by the Hungarian police/military. I hope that fear is excessively alarmist.

[ray245]

That high? Last numbers I had were citing 10k for an abnormal day and 5k for a standard day. Damn.

The tide is rising and the pace of migration accelerating.

At that, 10k is 9,780 more than last year. There is some serious pushback on admitting Syrians to the US for some reason. I've been a bit busy this last year and haven't kept up with the details on it.

The US refuse to grant asylum status to refugees that are involved with any faction in the Syrian civil War.

[Broomstick]

What I'm dreading is mass riots by refugees being met by lethal force by the Hungarian police/military. I hope that fear is excessively alarmist.

You aren't the only one, that has been a concern of mine for some time. There is certainly precedent for that sort of thing, let's hope we don't see it this time around.

[Broomstick]

The US refuse to grant asylum status to refugees that are involved with any faction in the Syrian civil War.

The problem with that is how strictly the word "involvement" is defined, and that in a Civil War some interaction might be a matter of life or death. I strongly suspect there is some unnecessary bias at work.

[ray245]

The US refuse to grant asylum status to refugees that are involved with any faction in the Syrian civil War.

The problem with that is how strictly the word "involvement" is defined, and that in a Civil War some interaction might be a matter of life or death. I strongly suspect there is some unnecessary bias at work.

US is revising their policy, but the question is whether would that be enough? Given that there are always bound to be refugees that flee from either Assad or ISIS, and people from regions that initially welcomed or even supported any of the major factions early on in the war, I can see why the US was initially wary about letting refugees in.

I feel that there's one major issue that hasn't really be tackled by the left, and that's mostly letting the far-right frame this entire debate. Many of those refugees are from regions that are generally more socially conservative than the west, and there's no point denying it. That has been the constant argument made by the right in opposition to allowing refugees in. A significant number of them are likely to be people who would not approve of the Charlie Hedbo's cartoons, even if they condemn the killings. Those are legit points raised by the right, even if I do disagree with them about letting refugees in.

Those are easy grounds to make the wider society fear refugees from Syria, even if some of them are socially liberal on many fronts. Muslims are still seen as being extremely socially conservative, and backwards in their belief in regards to gender, homosexuality and freedom of speech. Of course many of them conveniently failed to point out that there are many Christians that share similar views.

It's clear that there are a significant number of people feels that simply learning the language isn't enough to socially integrate someone into a European society. And even for countries that do, there's rarely been any policy that can deal with such a massive scale of migration in recent history. As long as the left isn't able to propose any major policy on how to address these kind of concerns, it will make it easy for people to demonise the refugees as "backwards, anti-liberal, sexists, racists, homophobic, economic migrants".

[Purple]

As long as the left isn't able to propose any major policy on how to address these kind of concerns, it will make it easy for people to demonise the refugees as "backwards, anti-liberal, sexists, racists, homophobic, economic migrants".

For the sake of argument though let us assume that this is exactly what they are. That is to say without the economic part. Say that for what ever reason your country suddenly receives an influx of several million "backwards, anti-liberal, sexists, racists, homophobic" migrants. What measures would you propose to integrate them?

[Zaune]

The same thing we do with the "backwards, anti-liberal, sexist, racist, homophobic" people who were born here. Make them send their kids to school and throw them in jail if they break the law.

[Purple]

The same thing we do with the "backwards, anti-liberal, sexist, racist, homophobic" people who were born here. Make them send their kids to school and throw them in jail if they break the law.

Well, yes. But in the hypothetical I posted they are all like that. So you'll end up overflowing your jails within weeks. And it would likely lead to riots as well as they feel their culture is being oppressed. (again, hypothetical is that the migrants are all, to the last man the strawman Muslim proposed by right wingers)

[Zaune]

If that hypothetical had even the most notional relationship with reality then the refugee crisis would be a non-issue because we would be living in the fucking Drakaverse.

[ray245]

The same thing we do with the "backwards, anti-liberal, sexist, racist, homophobic" people who were born here. Make them send their kids to school and throw them in jail if they break the law.

I doubt that punishing people is the best way to let people learn and more importantly change how they view society. Learning not to act it out in public, or not to cause active harm because of your beliefs does not mean they agree that their beliefs are wrong. The law does not punish people from holding those views, but segments of the host population in Europe do feel that such people with such views are not welcomed.

If that hypothetical had even the most notional relationship with reality then the refugee crisis would be a non-issue because we would be living in the fucking Drakaverse.

It certainly does, in a manner of speaking. The reason people are able to make such blanket generalisation in the first place and have so much pulling power to so many people meant we cannot ignore this line of thinking in society.

Well, yes. But in the hypothetical I posted they are all like that. So you'll end up overflowing your jails within weeks. And it would likely lead to riots as well as they feel their culture is being oppressed. (again, hypothetical is that the migrants are all, to the last man the strawman Muslim proposed by right wingers)

Let's not forget that a number of them would be legitimately distrustful of all government and anyone throwing them into jail after the experience they had.