Post by Teddy Bear on Nov 13, 2014 18:16:41 GMT
Should Britain take in more refugees from Syria? The BBC appears to think so, or certainly that was the impression given by Wednesday's Today programme on Radio Four. Broadcast as part of a two-day BBC special on the Syrian crisis, it featured their presenter Mishal Husain in a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon, where she pointed out that Britain has so far taken just 50 refugees from the crisis: the same number, we learned, as fitted into just a single row of the huts in the camp she was at. She then asked a local representative of UN High Commission on Refugees, Ninette Kelly: "Do we need to find homes in the west for some of these people?"
Perhaps not surprisingly, the answer was an enthusiastic yes.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the answer was an enthusiastic yes.
If the BBC were doing their job properly we wouldn't know that they favoured bringing these refugees in. They would have provided a balanced view where arguments for and against in light of experience were provided, leaving it up to the viewer to decide for themselves.
But as we know - this is not the BBC way.
The cancer in our society
BBC = Brainwashing British Citizens
Should we expect Syrian asylum seekers to be grateful?
As Britain comes under pressure to take more refugees from Syria, Sweden's experience suggests that not all new arrivals will be thankful
By Colin Freeman
Should Britain take in more refugees from Syria? The BBC appears to think so, or certainly that was the impression given by Wednesday's Today programme on Radio Four. Broadcast as part of a two-day BBC special on the Syrian crisis, it featured their presenter Mishal Husain in a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon, where she pointed out that Britain has so far taken just 50 refugees from the crisis: the same number, we learned, as fitted into just a single row of the huts in the camp she was at. She then asked a local representative of UN High Commission on Refugees, Ninette Kelly: "Do we need to find homes in the west for some of these people?"
Perhaps not surprisingly, the answer was an enthusiastic yes. While Ms Kelly praised both Britain and America for the "wonderful" financial donations they have given to the Syrian crisis, she added that what would really help would be if they "opened space for more refugees."
Some listeners, I suspect, might have found this exchange a little too consensual, given the heated nature of the immigration and asylum debate back in Britain. But it's not the first time that the West has stood accused of shutting its doors on the needy recently. Last month, there was a similar row over whether to curb programs to rescue people-trafficking vessels in the Mediterranean.
Then, as now, the argument of those in favour of hosting more asylum seekers is that as a compassionate nation that cares about its image in the world, Britain has a duty to admit more. Another implicit assumption is that in doing so, we will, of course, also earn the lasting gratitude of those we admit.
But will we? A good nation to ask on this are the Swedes, which, by the criteria above, ought to be basking in arguably more gratitude than nearly any other nation. The Swedish government has pursued one of the most generous asylum policies of any European country in the last 30 years, born not out of any colonial hangover but rather a very Scandinavian sense of humanitarian obligation. Nearly half of all Iraqis fleeing the 2006-7 civil war came here, for example, and it is the only European nation right now to be opening its doors fully to Syrian asylum seekers, with some 80,000 to arrive this year.
Yet despite its hospitality – which includes access to one of the world's best welfare states – not everyone has appreciated the generosity. Instead, the country has seen a number of race riots in recent years, mostly in the immigrant ghettos around the cities of Stockholm and Malmo. The flare-ups are about the usual stuff – unemployment, perceived racism and so on – some of which may be legitimate grievances.
But they test the patience of many ordinary Swedes, who feel that even if the riots are the activity of a small minority, their largesse is not exactly being repaid. It was one of the reasons why the far-Right Swedish Democrats doubled their vote to become the country's third largest party in elections two months ago.
Then again, as I found out when reporting last year from Husby, one of the riot-hit estates in Stockholm, the notion that all immigrants feel a debt of gratitude to the host country is something of a myth. Among those I met in Husby was Rami al Khamisi, an articulate young youth worker, whose family escaped to Sweden from Saddam Hussein's Iraq back in 1994, travelling to Sweden via Turkey and Russia and then in a people-smuggling boat across the Baltic. He said that while his parents were perennially grateful to the country that had taken them in, second-generation immigrants like himself had little recollection of the hardships they'd escaped, and therefore no great reason to be thankful.
"They (my parents) compare it to Baghdad or Somalia," he said. "But we younger immigrants only really know Sweden, and we just compare our situation to the one around us." Which, in Rami's case, meant living in Husby – where conditions might well have been better than Iraq, but which still ranked pretty near the bottom of the heap in Swedish terms.
True, Rami was only one voice among many. Other migrants I met who had no sympathy for the rioters whatsoever. But he did make what I thought was a salient point: that it is not just Far Right parties who take the view that immigrants may owe no particular obligation to their host country; immigrants themselves may feel this way too.
And in a debate that is very tied up with notions of compassion, duty and obligation, that is an awkward truth that is perhaps not often spoken. Those who argue that we should open our doors up like Sweden may well have a point: but they should equally concede that we may not be thanked for ever.
As Britain comes under pressure to take more refugees from Syria, Sweden's experience suggests that not all new arrivals will be thankful
By Colin Freeman
Should Britain take in more refugees from Syria? The BBC appears to think so, or certainly that was the impression given by Wednesday's Today programme on Radio Four. Broadcast as part of a two-day BBC special on the Syrian crisis, it featured their presenter Mishal Husain in a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon, where she pointed out that Britain has so far taken just 50 refugees from the crisis: the same number, we learned, as fitted into just a single row of the huts in the camp she was at. She then asked a local representative of UN High Commission on Refugees, Ninette Kelly: "Do we need to find homes in the west for some of these people?"
Perhaps not surprisingly, the answer was an enthusiastic yes. While Ms Kelly praised both Britain and America for the "wonderful" financial donations they have given to the Syrian crisis, she added that what would really help would be if they "opened space for more refugees."
Some listeners, I suspect, might have found this exchange a little too consensual, given the heated nature of the immigration and asylum debate back in Britain. But it's not the first time that the West has stood accused of shutting its doors on the needy recently. Last month, there was a similar row over whether to curb programs to rescue people-trafficking vessels in the Mediterranean.
Then, as now, the argument of those in favour of hosting more asylum seekers is that as a compassionate nation that cares about its image in the world, Britain has a duty to admit more. Another implicit assumption is that in doing so, we will, of course, also earn the lasting gratitude of those we admit.
But will we? A good nation to ask on this are the Swedes, which, by the criteria above, ought to be basking in arguably more gratitude than nearly any other nation. The Swedish government has pursued one of the most generous asylum policies of any European country in the last 30 years, born not out of any colonial hangover but rather a very Scandinavian sense of humanitarian obligation. Nearly half of all Iraqis fleeing the 2006-7 civil war came here, for example, and it is the only European nation right now to be opening its doors fully to Syrian asylum seekers, with some 80,000 to arrive this year.
Yet despite its hospitality – which includes access to one of the world's best welfare states – not everyone has appreciated the generosity. Instead, the country has seen a number of race riots in recent years, mostly in the immigrant ghettos around the cities of Stockholm and Malmo. The flare-ups are about the usual stuff – unemployment, perceived racism and so on – some of which may be legitimate grievances.
But they test the patience of many ordinary Swedes, who feel that even if the riots are the activity of a small minority, their largesse is not exactly being repaid. It was one of the reasons why the far-Right Swedish Democrats doubled their vote to become the country's third largest party in elections two months ago.
Then again, as I found out when reporting last year from Husby, one of the riot-hit estates in Stockholm, the notion that all immigrants feel a debt of gratitude to the host country is something of a myth. Among those I met in Husby was Rami al Khamisi, an articulate young youth worker, whose family escaped to Sweden from Saddam Hussein's Iraq back in 1994, travelling to Sweden via Turkey and Russia and then in a people-smuggling boat across the Baltic. He said that while his parents were perennially grateful to the country that had taken them in, second-generation immigrants like himself had little recollection of the hardships they'd escaped, and therefore no great reason to be thankful.
"They (my parents) compare it to Baghdad or Somalia," he said. "But we younger immigrants only really know Sweden, and we just compare our situation to the one around us." Which, in Rami's case, meant living in Husby – where conditions might well have been better than Iraq, but which still ranked pretty near the bottom of the heap in Swedish terms.
True, Rami was only one voice among many. Other migrants I met who had no sympathy for the rioters whatsoever. But he did make what I thought was a salient point: that it is not just Far Right parties who take the view that immigrants may owe no particular obligation to their host country; immigrants themselves may feel this way too.
And in a debate that is very tied up with notions of compassion, duty and obligation, that is an awkward truth that is perhaps not often spoken. Those who argue that we should open our doors up like Sweden may well have a point: but they should equally concede that we may not be thanked for ever.
