tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post4212457447415547465..comments2024-03-29T07:14:55.029+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Dithering Dave and the RefugeesPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-31477504465874829032015-09-08T08:00:21.387+01:002015-09-08T08:00:21.387+01:00Yes, I noticed how Cooper was trotted out by the m...Yes, I noticed how Cooper was trotted out by the media to look all stateswoman like. I wonder what could be behind that!<br /><br />Of course Corbyn has been speaking out for the refugees/migrants for years while Cooper was busy formulating something that appealed to what the tabloid press were spewing out. As is her want.<br /><br />Obviously the entire right wing, are using the refugee/migrant crisis to further their war aims in Syria. You have to admire the lengths they have gone to to bring public opinion around to attacking Syria! Only Corbyn stands in their way, Cooper will be a willing accomplice.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-18551294246595514712015-09-08T08:00:06.327+01:002015-09-08T08:00:06.327+01:00Yes, I noticed how Cooper was trotted out by the m...Yes, I noticed how Cooper was trotted out by the media to look all stateswoman like. I wonder what could be behind that!<br /><br />Of course Corbyn has been speaking out for the refugees/migrants for years while Cooper was busy formulating something that appealed to what the tabloid press were spewing out. As is her want.<br /><br />Obviously the entire right wing, are using the refugee/migrant crisis to further their war aims in Syria. You have to admire the lengths they have gone to to bring public opinion around to attacking Syria! Only Corbyn stands in their way, Cooper will be a willing accomplice.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-9502769313311575852015-09-08T07:08:58.392+01:002015-09-08T07:08:58.392+01:00Your criticism of Cameron is spot on, but I wonder...Your criticism of Cameron is spot on, but I wonder if you have a blind spot about this issue. Perhaps it is the a-historical sociological perspective, combined with your utopian/ idealism? In short - what do you think will be the consequences of Germany offering refugee status to the world's poor? Because that is the real question. The Africans and Afghanistanis currently making their way to the Promised Land will not differentiate between themselves and Syrians - after all, most of them are genuine refugees in one form or another, perhaps more so than the family of the child that died, who had been living in a Turkish town for three years, their father working on a construction site, but who chose to move because they could not make ends meet. Many people literally live in mud huts in Africa (is it racist to have seen them?). <br /><br />Can Europe, should Europe, take them all? Again, as a universalist and matirialist, presumably culture-blind, your answer must be yes. Right Phil? How many millions is too many? Europe is wealthy and technically support them, so why not take them all? I am not trying to reduce the argument to ad-absurdum or hysteria, I'm just interested. What do you think?<br /><br />Sociologically, Europe must be a one-off. Immensely wealthy, even the poor by Third World standards. With a particular.set of values that differentiate it from, say, America or Saudi Arabia. Compassionate, guilty (for colonialism, the holocaust), secular, and suffering from a strange kind of ennui. It is anyone's guess what will happen next, but I think it's worth remembering that the rest of the world is not like that. Because underlying these European values is a profound arrogance, a deep-seated complacency, that clings on to its sense of superiority just as much as a Victorian colonialist. The trouble is, everyone is like that - these people are coming not because they love or respect our culture but because they want what we've got. If they are Islamic they will not bow to the superiority of our culture, on the contrary they will be quite happy with their own. And what, in the long run (in which we will be dead, but our successors will not) will this mean for a democratic, plural Europe of "human rights". What will it mean for a gay man or a short-skirted woman in 2100? Or simply a Muslim woman who wishes to marry outside her religion? What can we learn about the experience of other multi-confessional societies - only the Lebanon, Nigeria and India spring to mind. Is our society truly superior, as we seem to believe? Can it absorb these people and change them? Should it? And if, as history appears to suggest, it will not - what will be the consequences? And what do so few on the Left seem to care? <br /><br /><br /><br />Speedynoreply@blogger.com