Some stories have a moral at the end. One particular story involves the Human Rights Act and the moral of the story is that Britain respects your human rights even if you violate other people’s.
Picture the scene — you wish to flee from the country you live in. A simple drive down the road can result in kidnap, torture and death. Your country’s economy relies on the illegal harvest of a crop that is one of only a very few that will grow. Finally, your government adheres to a perverted and strict legal system that punishes the sin of creating a visual depiction of a human being in the most severe way.
So you’re desperate — you would be. And you hijack a plane and fly it to the West.
When you arrive in the country of choice you discover that their inflexible legal system actually rewards illegal acts and allows you to remain in their country as a refugee. You tell your friends and the media helps by spreading this great news around the world.
But the real crime, what really sticks in the throat is not the abuse of people in a far away land — there’s no solution to that save sending ships to the coast of China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Iran, etc and inviting people to come and live in our country; at the moment our asylum system rewards people who manage to sneak through our borders — no, the real crime is that we accept refugees not because we want to help them but because once they’re under our noses we feel too guilty to send them back.
So let’s get some back-bone.
Either we:
a) Attack horrific regimes and make them safe places to live (often not practicable, but don’t tell Blair);
b) Impose diplomatic pressure on horrific regimes in the hope of making them a safe place to live;
c) Provide free and genuine transport to all would-be asylum seekers so that they can enjoy our hospitality and list countries that routinely violate human rights so that application are unnecessary for residents of those countries; or
d) Let them stay in their horrific regimes, remain members of the EU which blocks free trade with the poorest nations, provide safe harbour to those who break the law (and only them), and support despotic regimes that are ‘on our side’.
Of course none of these options (except the last) is available to the voters as all major parties support option ‘d’. And who could win an election on the basis of ‘c’ anyway?
I don’t know what the answer is but I do know that the Human Rights Act (as Labour were warned) is a free ticket to insane-ville and provides tangible rewards for questionable or illegal behaviour.
August 4th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
I guess a soft hearted person could get trapped in sympathy over stories like this…. it’s only natural, but can an equal annalogy be - a man with serious financial troubles robs a bank and is allowed to keep the money and go free ?
There are two families I have come to know over the years who are here as asylum seeks, one from Liberia the other bosnia.
When listening to them talk about their lives before what ever happened - happened…they were very happy and other wise would not have left, and still love their former countries.
Plus my own family came from Italy after WWII.
I have often questioned if people who immagrate due to hardships actually abandon their country and affect it’s future.
If the people who “get out” are ones who had both the resources, will and intellegance to do so who is left?
How will a country rebuild itself or fight oppression if the people who would desire to live in freedom leave?
I don’t know if that makes sense?
Short of taking over the world and forceing everyone to behave
( which seems to be what the U.S. is being accused of )
well…. I guess you covered that idea ….. can’t think of any you didn’t.
August 4th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
I think that’s the trouble with emmigration generally — those in England who emmigrate are generally the ones who have made enough money to buy abroad and who can afford to return to visit loved ones at whim. Those are the very people we want to be voting as they care enough about the world around them to want to change it.
At the same time though a large number of immigrants are those who have succeeded in a lower-wage country to such an extent that they can afford to buy a home in the West.
So maybe it balances out!
On refugees, you’re right, they’re the people who could right the wrong, but sometimes, like in the case of the Taliban, no-one could change what’s going on without brute force.
August 4th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
What you seem to fail to accept (or perhaps just fail to mention) some of these people who need asylum were the authors of their own destruction. For example the starving people in Zimbabwe who supported ‘land reform’ for a generation.
The Islamists fleeing from Lebanon.
The Tamil Tigers from Sri Lanka.
And yes TALIBAN! from Afghanistan who have succeeded in claiming asylum in Britain, WTF!!!!
What responsibility should we have to help people who have murdered, raped, stolen, and destroyed their own countries?
Far from bringing them here I think we need to keep them the hell out.
Should we have given Nazis asylum during WW2 to escape allied bombs?
Re:
a) In some situations this may be possible if the leadership is so far removed from the population that intervention would be welcomed, but in most cases at least some of the people will fight for the government.
b) Has never worked yet, these bad regimes don’t care…
c) You have lost your mind if think Britain has either the resources to do that or the desire, it would be the easiest way to get a BNP election victory, and justifibly so if you sold out our peoples country for some kind egalitarian fantasy that would result in the collapse of Britain (and England) as a unifed country.
d) zzz, I am no fan of the EU but Africa was in poverty long before the EU existed and will be long after the EU is forgotten. Same with other parts of the world. And yes let them stay in horrific regimes if they are part of the people who created and support those regimes!
There are more options. The problem in the world is this crazy idea of stability. A country is not a geographical entity, it is about biology and culture, the people who live there. If two (or more) sets of people deside they can’t live together then the country should be redefined.
As in Iraq, it should be redraw along Sunni, Shiite and Kurd regions. Sunnis will then probably join Syrian, Shiites Iran, and Kurds will be invaded by Turkey.
We could support such divisions and support the most humanitarian sides.
Frank Field:
Link
August 4th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Obviously we shouldn’t be giving asylum to those who perpetrate hatred, that’s why I linked to that ridiculous court judgement (which is the government’s fault, not the court’s).
And it is heartless to say that those who live under despotic regimes should suffer the consequences… People have tolerated Labour now for long enough to know that they are against genuine democracy not least in banning peaceful protest, retaining membership of the EU and etc. People have the right to vote, but that doesn’t mean that a foreign government should be able to say of all Brits — they reap what they sow. I don’t like my government but there’s not a whole lot more I can do about it.
Now if you think back to what Hussein did — he cut the ears off of men who dared oppose his dictate, the Taliban destroyed the lives of 50% of Afghans (all the women) and still they were not overthrown. 86% of Iraqis voted at the last elections, but still the insurgency goes on… Asylum is the generous hand of free nations and I do think there’s a place for it.
And for those who do support despots, I cannot believe they expect to benefit from the regime in the long term unless they are uneducated. Let’s remember, of course, that many will be — the Zimbabwe land grab is false economy on a grand scale and has resulted in massive starvation etc. But you’re right, if we invaded I am quite sure many, many people would stand up with arms against their former colonial rulers no matter what their good intention.
Your last point is about creating borders where once there were none — this is proven not to work and the cultural attitudes of locals is often the cause of that. Ethnicity/cultures do not respect handy boundaries — the mass movement of people after Pakistan left secular India shows that. A carved up Iraq would vehemently not have instant peace the next day — it is often not a solution.
The EU is the cause of Africa’s current poor state as much as despotic leaders — free trade, not fair trade, that’s the solution to African starvation. The EU closes borders to poorer countries so that rich French farmers can continue to make our food more expensive that it needs to be.
As my conversation with Leanne implied, we don’t have the answers — I wish we did. What we mustn’t do, though, is ignore the problem and let people accuse right-wingers of not caring.
Finally, I absolutely agree with Frank Field.
August 4th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Yes it is heartless to say those who live under despotic regimes should suffer. But it is also heartless and immoral to expect the British people to give up their homeland to house hundreds of millions of people in need of asylum, and then ask no actually ‘force’ them to pay for it as well!
If we were only talking about a hand full of refugees I would agree we should do everything to help, but there is too many, we can’t. The only solution is to help them in their own lands not invite them all here.
We live in a world of massive hypocrisy a few hundred people die in Israel vs Hizbollah conflict, but in Sudan thousands of people are being killed in ethnic cleansing and what does the world say about that? virtually nothing, and that is the point immigration/asylum is not about genuine help for the most needy its a tool used against traditionalists, conservatives, any kind of nationalist by the internationalist liberal elite.
You talk as if Saddam Hussein or the Taliban did their evil alone, but they were supported by a huge amount of people. Why should we give asylum to people who supported this barbarity?
Same with Mugabe they supported a monster and now he has turned on them.
Iraq is already a nation defined on borders that were not there previously.
How do you explain Africas poverty before the EU existed?
And yes, I think foreign governments can blame Britain for the actions of the Labour party even though only a few people voted for him overall. There was a huge number of people who didn’t vote who could have, they are to blame.
A huge number of people who cooperate with whats going on, and a huge amount of people who accept the unfair changes such as devolution they are making to this country.
I wish the people would be more pro-active at stopping this crazy government, but I don’t think we could just put our hands over our eyes, fingers in ears and say ‘nothing to do with me I never voted for them’. Especially not after he won 3 times!
August 5th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
I think your last point is the one I was trying to make — you cannot blame Afghans for the Taliban any more than you can blame the English for Blair.
I agree that we cannot (literally) solve the world’s ills by granting asylum and my argument is that by providing asylum we are rewarding those who have managed to breach Britain’s international borders.
As I say, I don’t know the solution but I do know that we cannot house all China, all Zimbabwe etc.
On pre-EU African poverty we were in a less globalised world with asset-stripping empires. I am not an empire apologist (I have some quite radical thoughts on what should have been done at dissolution) but we cannot pretend that Africa is not our fault either now or in the past. Yes the colonised countries were developing later than us, but it is us conquerors who mixed that pre-developed state with post-developed weapons.
August 5th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
‘For whom the gods destroy they first make mad.’
Which asylums are you posting from?
August 5th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Well Africa was in poverty before colonialism as well, and slavery was in Africa before colonialism.
The only reason there was ‘less poverty’ then is because #1 more people died at child birth or very young so the population sizes were a lot smaller than now, #2 there wasn’t a mass media to tell everyone about the poverty.
The biggest damage Europe did to Africa was to define the borders of many of the countries along unnatural lines splitting tribes and combining incompatible tribes who have spent ever since attacking each other. But hey its ok because Europe is now commiting the same stupidity in its own lands, mixing incompatible ethnicities/cultures together that will result in balkanisation of many European countries.
We will become like Africa if we continue down this road.
Ofcourse the other problem with Africa is that Western medicine has caused the population to grow out of control and they can’t cope with it, but no one could advocate denying that medicine.
I really don’t understand your comments about the English not being responsible for Blair…
We are democracy, the government represents the people. We should be held responsible for the actions of our government. Yes not everyone voted for him, but that doesn’t matter because more did than didn’t, he’s what we got, he won 3 fkin times we can’t claim this was some kind of accident.
A Western democratic government couldn’t function if enough people rejected it.
Yes I blame Afghans for the Taliban, no doubt, they are Muslims and the Taliban basically want to live according to Sharia law.
It would be like saying you supported the EU but didn’t like regulations, one thing kind of leads to another! They go hand in hand.
“Implementing Islamic law: Muslims widely agree that the Sharia (Islamic law) should reign in Britain. Forty percent approve of the Sharia being applied in predominantly Muslim areas.”
Link
Bring the Taliban to Britain, and Britain becomes Taliban.
Ofcourse I feel sorry for anyone geninuely getting screwed by their government or leadership etc, but it seems as if you believe most citizens are victims of crazy regimes, whereas I think a lot more people (not all) are complicit in what happens.
Was Slobodan Milosevic a hated leader? no I saw (on TV) crowds cheering him and women offering to have his babies!
Look at Iraq, they were victims of Saddam Hussein but now he is gone, they haven’t just accepted the change gone back to their families and live happily ever after, no they have created militia and are preaching death to America and Israel!
If you have a poor country of roughly the same population size as Britain. What would happen if you brought all those poor people to Britain and all British people went to live where they had come from? Do you think the ‘new brits’ would suddenly become democracy and wealthy? and the old British suddenly start wallowing in poverty?
I don’t. Change the people, you change the nation.
August 5th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
sry my link didn’t work.
Link
I have seen pretty much the same artical in British papers also but I couldn’t find the link without spending more time
August 6th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
9.What an objective source!
August 6th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
fine, here’s another:
Link
August 6th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
11.Another objective source!(No xenophobia there eh?)
August 6th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Vehemently a majority of Iraqis welcome the toppling of Hussein.
On the introduction of Sharia law to Britain, Tony, you’re wrong, there’s no xenophobia (though the fear would be justified). All countries that have sizeable Islamic minority populations have heard calls for the introduction of Sharia law. There are plenty of articles from Canada on the topic.
The fundamental truth is that religious extremism is not compatible with Western freedoms.
But those freedoms are not as clear-cut as Dave suggests when he says that Britons should be blamed for their government. We do not have pure democracy — we have representative democracy. We don’t get to vote on each issue, only on the government as a whole. So, if your number one priority is the economy and you believe (wrongly) that Labour haven’t damaged it then you will probably overlook the right to peaceful protest, ID cards and the increasing bureaucracy in favour of your number one priority.
And how far down the priority list are more high-profile matters? The war in Iraq? If you had to choose a party based on that alone you could not choose Labour or the Tories… You’d then have a decent proportion of the population upset with other legislation introduced by our government as they do not reflect the majority’s views on those matters.
As I have heard a lot recently, people in Britain are becoming increasingly individualistic. If a law does not effect them, they are unlikely to be motivated to do anything about it. As I said to a friend this evening, there were two members of the public at a recent Council meeting about an apparently contentious issue, but there are many, many more at Planning meetings. They’re at the Planning meetings because the extension is theirs or the house to be built near their back yard will effect them.
So if a law allowing the imprisonment without trial of suspected terrorists may make me safer while not infringing on my rights, who cares?
Democracy is not perfect, but it is wrong to blame a country’s people, even in a democracy, for the actions of its leaders. How much more unjust is it to blame a country’s people if its leaders do not expose themselves to elections at regular intervals?
Coming, as I do, from a Western culture, I do not understand the xenophobia associated with so-called ethnic tensions. Why should a Serb feel different from a Bosnian to the extent that he wishes to kill him? But I do accept that it happens, and I do see the danger of immigration without assimilation.
This is to confuse the issue, though. Asylum is not about immigration, it is about allowing people safe harbour from persecution. What I am trying to ask, with this post, is what the solution is to persecution of people by their governments.
August 7th, 2006 at 1:06 am
Sharia law is NOT going to be introduced in Britain either now or in the foreseeable future.Neither is it going to be introduced in any other western country.
Saddam Hussein received a lot of western support during the 1980s as did a lot of other third world countries,which were dictatorships, during the cold war era.
Have you ever been to China?
August 7th, 2006 at 3:30 am
Asylum and immigration are very much connected though Gav, if you were to give asylum to all the people in the world who were persecuted for various reasons like political views, sexuality, etc, thats not just a few thousand, its millions upon millions of people.
Plus that and the fact many people use asylum seeking to cheat the system, or at least used to before Blair let them in anyway.
Yes I know the people of Iraq are glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein but ‘but’ what do they want to replace him with? thats the question.
And the unfortunate answer is a lot of them want an Islamic state in the image of Iran, is that going to be an improvement over Saddam Hussein?
Certainly not for women, if anyone else.
Tony, for the foreseeable future? how long do you mean by that?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2300423,00.html
August 7th, 2006 at 7:48 am
I have met a few British people who have become Muslims.Some as a result of working in the Middle East, others because they married a Muslim.Incidentally, they are not regarded as true Muslims by the Arabs. At this rate of conversion, it would take maybe 2000 years for Britain to become a “Muslim” country.
I also have known some from ethnic minorities in the UK who being beer drinking Muslims are not particularly devout.
Of course there maybe a new religion in the future but Britain won’t be adopting Wa’habism or Sh’ia Islam for that matter.
August 7th, 2006 at 9:39 am
It’s not the beer-swilling, infidel marrying Muslims that we need worry about — it’s the bomb wearing, women hating Muslims that we should be afraid of.
I sincerely hope you’re right, Tony, but the statistics show you’re utopian future is not likely to be borne out — Sharia law will come as soon as the demographic predictions come true.
August 7th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
Tony, 2000 years thats totally ridiculous.
The average ‘white’ British woman has 1.5-1.8 children, and I’d say the figure is actually a lot lower if you considered only the younger generations.
It will take only a few generations on current trends to totally change the demographics in this country.
They don’t need to convert anyone.
Already in France 1 in 3 births are North-African / Arab, which is not to say I am against North-Africans or Arabs I simply mention it as evidence your predications on the rate of change are totally wrong.
Gav, if you agree that sharia would be a bad thing, and you think the demographics are leading us in that directions why do you seem to want to help the process along? by importing millions of ‘asylum seekers’ many of which come from the most illiberal places in the world. Now I feel sorry for them but not to the extent that I want to sacrifice my own country….
Look at this its so fkin ridiculous:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5251346.stm
It is basically saying young Muslims become radical because the Police try to stop terrorism.
We didn’t get this rubbish from the Irish when the IRA was attacking, maybe from fringes but not the wider community.
September 10th, 2006 at 3:09 am
well i think nobody cares about anything other than their own kobs and that you cant blow the whistle so to speak w/out ruining your own life.