by Tom Kando
I just returned from Europe. I’ll tell you about my recent trip in the near future, but today, I want to address an issue that is timely, and which I could not avoid hearing about daily while over there: The refugee crisis. The topic dominated the news and daily conversations (See also Madeleine’s excellent recent article about this: Exodus: The Refugee Crisis in Europe).
The current crisis touches me in a very personal way, because of the prominent (and ugly) role recently played by my country of birth - Hungary.
This year, due to its geographic location, Hungary became for many refugees the hoped-for point of entry into Europe. Few of the thousands who are seeking refuge planned to stay in Hungary, with its limited economic opportunities. Their objective was to move on to Northern and Western Europe, Germany first and foremost. However, the Hungarian-Serbian border became the flashpoint where the influx met with European resistance. Hungary was the “front,” if you will. It was where the brunt of the pressure occurred, a pressure which did not (yet) affect the more distant countries of Northern and Western Europe.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban took it upon himself to do what he viewed as the “dirty work” relegated to Hungary by the rest of Europe: He built a razor wire fence; there were disturbances; chaos and disorder at Keleti central station; water cannons and pepper spray were used against the refugees; a news clipping showed a female Hungarian photographer deliberately trip up and cause a refugee father carrying his baby to fall.
Hungary’s response was truly ugly, as was that of the other Eastern European regimes. The Slovak government announced that it would accept Christian refugees but not Muslim refugees. Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic States all joined in the xenophobia.
Other European countries behaved better: Austria, Croatia and Slovenia agreed to let refugees pass through. Germany’s Angela Merkel was the most magnanimous, announcing that Germany would admit an astounding 800,000 refugees.
However, the disarray has continued. Even the countries with good intentions have had to change their tune at times, when overwhelmed by the chaos. The fundamental problem is that there is no such thing as a “Europe.” I’ll get back to this in a moment, but first I want to tell you why I am ashamed of the behavior of Hungary and the rest of Eastern Europe:
As a child, I was a refugee myself. I was a HUNGARIAN refugee, as were millions of others. In 1956 alone, a quarter million Hungarians fled the murderous Soviet invasion. So did hundreds of thousands more between the end of World War II and the fall of communism. So did millions of other Eastern Europeans while their half of the continent suffered under Soviet totalitarianism. Many of these millions (including myself and my family) were saved by the hospitality and the generosity of Western Europe.
Then, after the fall of communism in 1989, much of Eastern Europe (including Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and the Baltic States) was admitted to the European Union. Once again, it was Western Europe that came to the rescue, lavishing billions on the economic re-development of Eastern Europe.
Now when the going gets tough, the Eastern Europeans refuse to share the burden. They are being selfish and hypocritical. Like a marriage, the European Union is supposed to be for better OR WORSE. The new members forgot the second part of the deal.
To be sure, there is another aspect to all this:
It is also true that no country can admit an unlimited number of refugees/immigrants. One can empathize with Hungary and its apprehensions. It is ironic by the way, that the country was once before the “gate” where the Muslim East was knocking on Europe’s door: From the middle of the 16th century to the end of the 17th century, for a century and a half, Hungary was under Ottoman rule, an empire that reached all the way to the gates of Vienna. At some point the current scenario COULD vindicate the alarmists: There is a growing world of disorder outside of the West. Today, the Syrian bloodbath and ISIS are its chief manifestations, but the number of failed states is growing. Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Somalia, Eritrea, Mauritania, the two Congos, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, you name it. Half the states of Africa are on the verge of collapse, one day it’s Burkina Faso, the next day it’s Mali or the Central African Republic and the list goes on. In a couple of generations, Africa’s population will be FIVE times that of Europe. One can be forgiven for seeing analogies with the migrations which in the end led to the collapse of ancient Rome. Disorder finally triumphed over order.
It is somewhat facile and not entirely right to dismiss all such apprehensions as xenophobic racism, or to naively assume that all will be well in the end with such massive migrations (Germans use the apt word Völkerwanderung to refer to massive population shifts such as those in Europe from the 4th to the 8th centuries). The naive reasoning here is that the West NEEDS these millions of new arrivals, since its birthrate is now below replacement level. This overlooks the conflict, suffering, and destruction that often accompany Völkerwanderung, especially when the new arrivals are culturally extremely different. Many people wonder, how is this going to play out?
Be that as it may, we are, today, not at Armageddon. It is good to remember that for many years now, Europe has been absorbing about one million immigrants every year. This is, incidentally, the same number as the number of immigrants the US admits each year, which should put an end to finger pointing on EITHER side of the Atlantic.
Today, Europe’s main problem is that it is utterly incapable of coming up with a coherent and CONCERTED and BINDING plan. One doesn’t have to be a genius to see the outline of such a plan: Agree on a MANDATORY PROPORTIONAL distribution of all incoming refugees to the 28 member states.
Unfortunately, the so-called European “Union” is today as the United States of America were under the Articles of Confederation (1777-1788) - a confederation lacking unity and central authority. Had America not replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution (as Alexander Hamilton ceaselessly urged the country to do in the Federalist Papers), America would not have survived.
Currently, Europe requires unanimity of all its members for all major endeavors, giving the veto to each member. There is, in fact, no such thing as a “Europe.” There is no unity; there is paralysis. This empowers the obstructionists, in this case the Eastern Europeans. As a result, the facts on the ground may overtake whatever Merkel and others may come up with.
© Tom Kando 2015
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13 comments:
this is a difficult problem for the entire world--solving it will take new thinking
Hi Tom,
Very good analysis. Thank you for sharing it.
Thanks, Dave,
Your comments are always appreciated, knowing that I am not just whistling in the wind, but that there are some powerful intellectuals who take note. That's why I keep doing this. (The falling tree in the forest does make a sound, as long as there is someone to hear it, haha).
Thoughtful and informative, as always, Tom. It will probably take a generation to absorb and place all these desperate people.
Hi Tom, I liked your comment very much. I have met you a few years ago at Barnes and Nobles open mike. I have written my book 'My flight to freedom" my escape out of East Germany, out of Communism. What happens right now in Europe is not a good move. Germany is not prepared for this many escapees. It will come so far that Europe has no design country's any longer. I have seen videos of the refugees coming into these sleeping counties with such force and destruction, smashing in everything in their way. Germany suppose to get most of the refugees. The German people are angry at Angelika Merkel for "inviting" so many displaced people. I think they should stay in their country and fight for their freedom.
Thanks Gisela Butler
The folly of the European Union is demonstrated here. Why is proportional distribution of the refugees a good idea? Are there not significant differences between and among the nations in the union? Are some better able to deal with an infusion of new refugees and some less able? Why, should the nations of the Middle East not be primarily responsible for taking care of this problem? How many of these refugees have been taken in Saudi Arabia?
Ultimately, every nation has a character which makes it unique. Being mandated to take refugees could indeed change the nature of nations your beloved Hungary just as it is re-emerging from the awful tyranny of Soviet rule . When do quotas or mechanistic responses make sense.
Part of this problem has been created because the US and others have left a power vacuum in Syria and Iraq. Part of it has been caused by our unwillingness to admit that ISIS is truly evil. A better solution than the quota one you suggest would be to do two things. First, to send aid and assistance to where the refugees are now. Second the US and Europe needs to begin to think strategically about how to deal with tyrants like Assad who has used chemical and biological weapons against his own people and the forces of ISIS who have systematically destroyed a number of world heritage sites and have desecrated populations of Christians and Moslems who do not subscribe to their narrow view of the world. Simple formulas will not work here.
Tom, It is a very good overview of the situation. As a refugee yourself, you understand the plight of refugees. You also recognize that Western Europe is more magnanimous than Eastern, and I would attribute at least part of that to better developed economies that make compassion easier. You are also right that no country can accept an endless flow of refugees. We must focus on the cause of these refugees--failed states. The West can complain all it wants about human rights violations and corruption in other countries, but when it helps destabilize regimes and undermine general state security it makes the situation even worse. In failed states neither personal security, or the rights of property that make earning a living possible, are available to average people who become internal refugees at that point, with no possibility to count on a future. Both Putin and Iran made this point, and perhaps it is because they are perceived enemies of the West, that the Western nations can't accept this.
Regardless of the atrocities they committed, people under Sadaam Hussein's rule or Bashar al-Assad' rule had more basic security than they do today. It is idealistic to think that we can impose new democratic state institutions on people that have no history of living under them. This is what the U.S. tried and failed to do in Iraq. Some of the blame for these refugees has be laid at the feet of George W. Bush for Iraq, and also George Soros and U.S. President Obama for pushing for the collapse of regimes and institutions of governance in the Arab Spring rather than constructive transformation of those regimes into more humanitarian forms of governance. Now Russia feels it has to go into Syria to restore order, but it reminds me of when the went into Afghanistan the first time in 1979, initiating this whole cycle of great power violence and refugees. The globalization of the arms trade adds to this toxic soup because traditional warlords now have tanks, machine guns, and anti-aircraft weapons rather than swords and spears.
Tom:
The two pieces by you and Madeline have been excellent. Sally and I spent three weeks in Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary) in September. We were in Budapest when the refugees were at the train station. I think you are right that the refugees are challenging the very notion of the EU. One forgets just how ethnically and linguistically different some of the countries are, especially one like Hungary. I had no idea until we traveled there just how poor Hungary is. I'm willing to predict that it is the next Greece. Wish we could sit down and talk to one another at length about all the issues you raise, but that would require you to come and visit us in Montana.
Las je artikel over de vluchtelingen; Mijn idee is dat West Europa al te graag de midden Europese landen wilde “inlijven”, een soort strijd tegen Rusland’s hegemonie van na de oorlog. Dus zeker geen eenheid. Over de aantallen: 7,500 (voor Nederland)/ 17,000,000= 1 : 2266, dat valt dus wel mee, en de bevolkingsgroei stagneert .... hoe zal de toekomst er uitzien? we worden oud.
Dear Tom,
Ongelooflijk hoe jij een klare kijk hebt op de Europese (en de wereld) problematiek.
Het was beklemmend om dit artikel te lezen.
It’s gratifying to get a lot of response - positive as well as enlightening:
I thank Ann and Karen for their praise. (Here is what Karen wrote: Amazing how clear your perspective is on Europe’s (and the world’s) problems. Reading this article was captivating)
Gisela Butler looks at things pessimistically. I can see why, but I hope that the situation will not degenerate as much as she fears.
It is good to hear from Scott and others who actually witnesses some of the turmoil first-hand.
Jonathan, as always, requires a more elaborate reaction:
He dismisses “proportional distribution of refugees” because European countries differ in their abilities to absorb refugees. Of course, any distribution will have to take that into account. I didn’t say a “simple formula.” I spoke of an “outline of a plan.” Of course this needs to be tweaked, allowing for recipient countries’ differing conditions. This is already happening anyway, see Germany’s vastly greater effort than others, because it CAN, and because of its demographics.
Of course, I agree that Saudi Arabia et. al. should help out. Every Joe Blow has already said this.
But as it often happens, Jon changes topics: he pontificates about the need to solve the Syria/ISIS and related problem, about the need to deal with the problem at the ROOT. I agree with Jon that we contributed heavily to the current chaos in the Middle East, but I’m sure that he would blame Obama for this, whereas it’s utterly clear that it was George W. Bush’s totally unjustified intervention in Iraq that triggered the collapse. And we can also go back further and blame the Europeans (UK, France, etc.) For what they did before and after World War Two, colonization, drawing meaningless borders, etc.
Of course Assad is a horrible mass murderer. Of course he will eventually have to go. But meanwhile, we may have to work with Putin. We managed to work with Stalin, for crying out loud!
But the immediate issue is: what to do with the hundreds of thousands of current and imminent refugees? The “root problem” isn’t likely to be solved in the near future. Europe HAS to deal with the refugee flow. Some form of distribution is inevitable. Solving this immediate problem as best as possible is called governing.
As to every nation having a character which makes it unique? I suppose so. But nations also change over time. France is not what Gaul used to be. The Franks came, as did the Normans, and France changed. In the not too distant future, the USA will be a largely Latin country.
Gordon also focuses on the “root cause” of the refugee crisis - the Middle Eastern turmoil. He also allocates blame for this, fairly even-handedly. His analysis is good. He mentions the growth of failed states, and America’s misguided view that we can replace dictators with democracy. However this, again, is not the topic of my article: My question is: How will Europe deal with the several million refugees/immigrants coming in?
In this regard, I certainly like Frank’s calm reaction, which I translate below:
I read your article about the refugees: In my opinion, Western Europe was all too eager to absorb the middle european countries, sort of a move against Russian hegemony after World War Two. So there is certainly no unity. About the numbers: 7,500 for the Netherlands. Divided by 17 million equals one refugee for every 2,266 Dutchmen, so that’s not too bad, plus our population is stagnating anyway...What the future will look like? We are getting old...
(From an 1819 letter, written by John Quincy Adams, at the time U.S. Secretary of state, to Moritz von Furstenwarther, a German citizen who was considering moving to the U.S. and asked Adams for a job:)
Neither the general government of the union, nor those of the individual states, are ignorant or unobservant of the additional strength and wealth, which accrues to the nation, by the accession of a mass of healthy, industrious, and frugal laborers, nor are they in any manner insensible to the great benefits which this country has derived, and continues to derive, from the influx of such adoptive children from Germany.
But there is one principle which pervades all the institutions of this country, and which must always operate as an obstacle to the granting of favors to new comers. This is a land, not of privileges, but of equal rights. Privileges are granted by European sovereigns to particular classes of individuals, for purposes of general policy; but the general impression here is that privileges granted to one denomination of people, can very seldom be discriminated from erosions of the rights of others.
Emigrants from Germany, therefore, or from elsewhere, coming here, are not to expect favors from the governments. They are to expect, if they choose to become citizens, equal rights with those of the natives of the country. They are to expect, if affluent, to possess the means of making their property productive, with moderation, and with safety;- if indigent, but industrious, honest and frugal, the means of obtaining easy and comfortable subsistence for themselves and their families....
To one thing they must make up their minds, or, they will be disappointed in every expectation of happiness as Americans. They must cast off the European skin, never to resume it. They must look forward to their posterity, rather than backward to their ancestors; they must be sure that whatever their own feelings may be, those of their children will cling to the prejudices of this country, and will partake of that proud spirit.
The bigger problem than the rising number of refugees (and few bad apples among them) is the whole reason why they had been running away from the Middle East (mainly due ISIS and other affiliated terrorist organizations). The world powers and partners (US + Canada + EU + Russian + China + local Kurdish and other Sunni & Shia forces) need to unite in some type of a coalition format and hit the “daesh” with bigger, deadlier force + ground troops to recapture the key cities in Syria and Iraq and then drive them out from the remainder. ISIS is a cancer it needs to be eliminated. Until the ISIS won’t be eliminated in Syria and Iraq the number of refugees won’t decrease and the problems associated with it will only intensify on the Western societies, economies and social welfare system.
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