Tee_Bickle Here is another opinion from the Netherlands.
Suppose I was a 22 year old refugee, living in a camp in Turkey for more than two years. As long as the war continues there is no future for me. I want to live, work, marry, have kids and make fun. That is not gonna happen if I stay in the refugee camp. I will probably risk my life and leave for Europe.
I am not a refugee living in a camp but a well payed civil servant living in the Netherlands. It seems fair to me that the Netherlands host some of the refugees that are staying in Turkey, Hungary and Greece, It does nog mean that they can stay forever, but as long as the war goes on it is inhumane and probably not feasable to send them back to Turkey.
Should we offer (some of) them a future in the Netherlands? It is ease for me to say yes, as my job will not be in danger. My less payed fellow countrymen cannot be that certain, some of them will probably loose there job to a young healty hard working Sirian. I find this a difficult moral dilemma.
The american philosopher John Rawkes suggested a thought experiment (called origional position) for moral dilemma's of society. In that thought experiment, one must decide which principles are right in the society we live in from behind a “veil of ignorance”, which means one does not know one's own position in society (gender, class, religion etc.) For example, in a society with 50% free people and 50% slaves one should ask oneself if slavery is justified. If my position is unknown, that means there is a 50% chance that I am a slave. I am not prepared to take that chance so I will vote against slavery.
In the refugee dilemma there is a small chance that I will be a refugee (50k refugees in a country of 16M people). There is even a smaller chance that I will be a Dutch citizen that will loose his job to a refugee. But there is a bigger chance that I will be one of the many that feels threatened by the influx of refugees. All in all, I still find it inhumane to host refugees for maybe five years and send them back to Syria in 2020.
It has nothing to do with jobs or salaries,...it's about numbers. Small numbers of refugees and non-western migrants can be integrated into a modern, western, liberal and democratic society. Millions and millions, won't have the need to assimilate, and will soon start making demands and trying to change their host country. I know my job won't be threatened by unskilled refugees from the middle-east and africa,....But I don't want my children or my grandchildren to live in a country where they would feel foreign, out-of-place and maybe unsafe. Because Holland without ethnic Dutch people, would no longer be Holland. If the majority are still western, it may keep being a western country but not Holland (the lesser of two evils). If the majority are muslims, it won't be neither Holland nor a Western country,....it will be Syria or Lebanon.
The difference between my view and yours, is the range of vision. You have a short-term vision: good job, good living, guaranteed pension,...and fuck the world after you die. Mine is a long-term vision: I want the same as you,....but I also think about my children and grand-children.
Anyway, I think it'd be better to stay out of politics here, because some of us may have very strong and opposing views,...and it may lead to heated debates (and even flame wars). |