What do you think of refugees?

Hello,
I wanted to make a thread for discussion about refugees, I live in Greece, so I see many things here about this.
To tell you the truth, my opinion are not so friendly about this.
But I want to see opinions of other people too, What do you think? Have you saw something that you want to share?
Do it here.

If a government/governments want to create war in an area so they can take the oil in it for dirt cheap, the least they can do is harbor the people they have forced out of their homes.

I've been to one of the Middle Eastern countries where terrorists are rampant, and to tell you it's messed up would only scratch the surface. People who live there basically act as if anyone and everyone is out to get them. You can't even trust your local taxi driver to not kidnap you. Not to mention all the "gangs" who start forming as the security structure of society breaks down. First time my cousin came across one of them, he almost got shot in the face because he tried to help a lady they were kidnapping (for God knows what reason). The currency is also so broken that people's life savings are basically meaningless. Men are stealing trees from other people's crops for firewood to keep their family alive during winter, because they can't afford government oil or 'cheaper' terrorist oil (basically oil that terrorists have stolen and are selling to people, but this oil isn't refined; sitting in the same room as a device running on this oil feels like you're inhaling smoke from an exhaust pipe).

Not trying to go on a rant or start an argument about this topic, but can you imagine living a life like this? Any first-world detention centre or prison is paradise in comparison. That's why I think that we should help these refugees. The media just portrays them in a bad way so people don't pressure our government to do something about the real problem.

I don't know where Pebbles lives, but it seems to be becoming quite a common problem. Here in The Netherlands, it applies as well. Refugees coming here literally get a home and money if they move on later, or something. I'm not 100% aware of it, but I do know they get treated a bit too well.

I don't judge a foreigner for being foreign, but it's always sort of a sticky situation. It's sort of standard to, like, keep an extra eye open when you're around foreign people. I suppose this comes from The Netherlands being pretty multi-cultural, although lately there's been a lot of impact on our own dutch culture by foreign cultures. For example, we recently had one of our typical dutch culture festive days (Sinterklaas/Saint Nicholas) altered pretty badly. Originally it involves 'Saint Nicholas', with his red cloak and white horse, and 'Black Petes' delivering presents. Now, the point is, people started to see the Black Petes being black people that are being forced to work for Saint Nicholas. So, you've guessed it, people started to link it to slavery and now the Black Pete is called Rainbow Pete.

Lize said:

now the Black Pete is called Rainbow Pete.

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This made me giggle a little bit {XD}

I didn't realise refugees actually took priority over citizens in other countries. I live in Australia, and this is the first time I hear of it. The only news we get about refugees here is how there's so many boats and the corruption in a very popular detention centre (pretty sure it's on an Australian island called Christmas Island, which is somewhat ironic). However, people quickly forgot about the report on corruption and focused on the boats; that's kinda why I'm defending refugees here, because they get treated pretty badly. Australia does have a lot of immigrants though, and some of them could've been refugees (but say they're immigrants so people don't give them shit). I just hope to live to see the day when everyone can live in peace.

Edit: -
(Sorry but I feel I should have never shared my opinions on something like that, sorry again.)

This thread makes me so sad.

Kwstaspaokara said:

Most of the "refugees" coming here are not refugees.
They just find a door open to Europe and they are coming here for some reasons...

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Wrong.

Some other "refugees" are doing horrible things and riots Like here in Samos, an island of Greece.
I'm sorry but they are very ingratitude, Not only we are having open borders, but we are offering them a place to live while homeless people dying every day here.

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Except, well, the EU isn't exactly having "open borders". With the treaty with Turkey signed a few weeks ago, most of those migrants arriving into Greece are being kicked back the way they came.

Also, I'm not pretty sure the (just now closed) Idomeni refugee camp is a place any Greek homeless would really wish to live in.

Kwstaspaokara said:

They have drugs, Iphones and some others have weapons... Some stuff real refugees can't get...

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Actually, most of the Syrian refugees were educated people who used to have jobs and money (and smartphones) until a civil war destroyed their country. If a ciil war broke in Greece right now and you were forced to emigrate to, say, Italy, I'm pretty certain you'd pack all the money you could, plus any small, really useful gadgets such as a phone.

Pebbles said:

simply because they are given things that we citizens have to wait for , in cases, years and years which is really unfair.... if it can be given to refugees so easily then why let your citizens wait for it god knows how long
and often enough , so i have heard on tv, people get kicked out of their own home so the refugees have a place to stay

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That is absolute bullshit. That is simply not real. That is mere xenophobic propaganda. Where are you from, exactly?

A fun fact is that in most EU countries, refugees are not allowed to work or must wait at least one year before being allowed to try and earn some money themselves- in other words, your- our- own laws are forcing refugees to live from Governments' handouts. If refugees were allowed to look for work, they probably wouldn't need to be maintained "at the citizens' expense".

I am honestly disgusted and disappointed by the disastrous management of the crisis by the EU. As we can see in the thread, it is only causing normal people to grow hatred at people whose homes and lives have been destroyed by war and who aren't really responsible for anything. The result, of course, is that the Nazis have 10% of the vote in Greece, that a far-right candidate won 49% of the Presidential vote in Austria, that far-right parties are leading the polls in Sweden and France, and that the UK is going to vote whether to isolate itself from the rest of the continent in a couple of weeks. This is an utter nightmare.

I think Firebolt123 is the only one in this thread who seems to be getting it. And it's not everybody else's fault- it's the fault of the people -media, politicians, xenophobes- spreading lies, fear and hatred for their own personal gains. It's disgusting.

It's pretty simple: They are humans, living on this planet.
They need help; We mostly live in first world countries where we are safe from wars and whatnot.

Yes, there are drawbacks.. for example, my situation: I'm looking for a house for myself. But the refugees that are accepted to become a Dutch citizen have priority, since they are homeless. I'm not going to lie, it sometimes feels unfair. But then again, I have a roof over my head, I can take care of myself. Okay, it's in my Dad's house and I'd prefer to live on my own. But those refugees have nothing more than they could pack. (A smartphone won't keep you warm at night..)

So yeah, what will we teach our future generations? That we were sending them all back solely to provide to Dutch people only that already have a safe home, or do you want to teach them that we were open to people in their time of need? At the cost of having a bit more trouble to progress to more luxury in a first world country?

I saw a documentary about refugees that came here decades ago, and they were all so happy and grateful, they did/do their best to do something back for being given a chance here. So I'd say: Stay open-minded. Why would you be "worth" more simply because you were lucky enough to be born in a safe first world country, be grateful for being born here, share the freedom, the safeness and luxury there is here. The majority of refugees will do their best to add to it too. Yes, I'm aware that there are refugees that simply want to leech the system, but don't forget how much native people also leech the system.

Edit: -
(Sorry but I feel I should have never shared my opinions on something like that, sorry again.)

Kwstaspaokara said:

But yeah, all people who love their countries are called nazis and racists.

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No. If you say "I love my country", then you are called "nationalist". Racist and "nazis" are when you add "...and those from outside should rot for all I care. Specially if they don't look/act like us". Which, sadly, is being heard more and more often.

And yes, Golden Dawn is a Nazi party.

I don't know where do you live... But your country probably doesn't have a refugees problem.

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I live in Spain, who used to be the EU country taking in the highest number of African/Latin American immigrants prior to the refugee crisis. Exactly 4.4 million in 10 years, about 10% of our population. So thank you for your concern.

You DONT KNOW, everyone's family is afraid.
Airforce and millitary now MUST help them either they want it or not.
or else they will lose their job.
This is democracy, huh?

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No, actually it is called The 1951 Refugee Convention which forces all signataries to take care of refugees from wars. It was signed back when WE were the ones sending refugees all over the place back when our countries were the ones ravaged by the war. Guess you weren't alive back then.

Also, you must learn that if someone has a different opinion than your's it is NOT wrong.

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Actually, that's... wrong. I mean, yeah, you are entitled to have your own opinions and must be allowed to express them. But that doesn't mean anybody's opinions are "right" by default. Especially if they are borne out of misinformation and fear.

Not to mention all the rapes and stuff.

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Which I'm pretty sure no native-born European citizen has ever, ever commited. Also how many "rapes" have been recorded, other than that handful in Germany last year?

Kwstaspaokara said:

also if you have time watch this.

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Xenophobic propaganda.

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

Edit: -
(Sorry but I feel I should have never shared my opinions on something like that, sorry again.)

If refugees (I'm assuming we're mostly talking about those from Syria and similar places) don't get help then some of them are going to turn to fighting and terrorism out of a lack of other options. And when you hear about how civilians are being shot trying to flee places controlled by terrorists (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36455650) then you can imagine that they're going to go anywhere they can as fast as they can to get away from this.

Greece should not be shouldering the greatest burden though. There are lots of countries (America) that could take in many more refugees and aren't doing it. War like we're seeing in the Middle East is akin to slavery and genocide in how it degrades the dignity of human lives and the least we can do is put aside some funding and time and effort to help relieve the suffering.

Kwstaspaokara said:

But yeah, all people who love their countries are called nazis and racists.

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That's because nationalism has become politically incorrect.

Ivysaur said:

I am honestly disgusted and disappointed by the disastrous management of the crisis by the EU.

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Me too, EU is taking a way too much refugees which makes integrating them to european society impossible due to lack of resources. I must respect east european countries, they have guts to say no to EU's disastrous refugee policy, Poland even went so far that it decided not to take refugees at all for safety reasons.

Mewtwolover said:

Me too, EU is taking a way too much refugees which makes integrating them to european society impossible due to lack of resources. I must respect east european countries, they have guts to say no to EU's disastrous refugee policy, Poland even went so far that it decided not to take refugees at all for safety reasons.

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Actually, I'm disappointed by the fact that we are taking too few refugees, forcing innocent victims of a bloody war to die in the sea or in poor countries while we have way too many idle or wasted resources we could well use to help those poor people. And I'm extremely disgusted at Poland, Hungary and other Eastern countries that refused to take any refugees on flimsy and paranoid "safety reasons" that barely manage to hide what is actually racism and nationalism.

I understand Germany or Sweden are in fact taking their fair share of people, and hats off to them. But look at the other Western countries! Spain? France? Italy? Netherlands? It's laughable. We are taking handfuls of people while Germany takes a million and poor Greece has to handle neverending waves of people who end up trapped there when they are clearly the ones with the worst economic situation in all of the EU. That is what I'm so angry about.

I don't know enough about the European refugee crisis to comment specifically about that, I would however like to share some of my general thoughts on immigration.

Firstly, I am completely for stringent immigration control, holding illegal immigrants in detention and I definitely for thorough background checks. What bothers me though, is that instead of arming asylum seekers to be productive and useful members of our societies we dehumanise them and treat them like criminals. We should definitely detain immigrants until we know more about them, but during their detainment they should be provided with at least the bare-minimum level of comfort, they should be taught the predominant language of the country if they don't know it already and if they have no skills they should have the opportunity to study and/or learn a trade.

As for the EU situation right now and similar situations that have and will occur, honestly I think the problem is that people are trying to shunt asylum seeker to other countries instead of just splitting them as fairly as possible proportionate to the size and economic ability of the receiving countries. As I said though, I am not very knowledgable about the situation.