One Dead Boy

Seventy migrants suffocate in the back of a lorry and everyone metaphorically shrugs their shoulders. One photograph of dead child on a beach and the whole of the EU changes its policy towards migrants.

This video from Nigel Farage is worth watching

The dead boy's family were quite safe in Turkey, a Muslim country, indeed one might even conclude that they were safe in Syria as they went back to bury their son. This shows me that they were economic migrants, nothing else, not refugees, as apparently they were not in danger in Syria.

Ask yourself, would a refugee, fleeing from Nazi Germany with his family return there to have buried a member of the family who got killed during the escape? That is the reality of real refugees from war or oppression, not someone who goes back, apparently quite freely,  to have a burial service.

It is also of interest that Breitbart is the only media outlet that I am aware of which refers to them as Kurds. The Kurdish controlled area of Syria is now relatively stable (if anything in the Middle East is stable), so one might ask why didn't they join their fellow countrymen and assist with the fight against ISIS?  Or were they from the Kurdish area which meant that they could return at will, but decided that it wasn't good enough for them?

However you look at it they were economic migrants, not asylum seekers fleeing for their lives. Even then, Turkey wasn't good enough for them so they decided to try to get to the Germany or, as they speak English, more likely to the UK.

If we are to take any Syrian refugees, they should be genuine refugees who are living in poor conditions in Lebanon or Jordan, not ones who are effectively trying to jump the queue by forcing themselves upon some unwilling country.

In any event, I take the view that it is wrong to rehouse large numbers away from their home country; hopefully ISIS will be beaten and in due course they will be able to return home. The right approach is what this country was doing, providing humanitarian aid to the adjoining countries which are housing them, Lebanon, Jordan and to a lesser extent Turkey. There they are with people of their own culture, speaking their own language, not having to try to live, in what to them, must be an alien environment.

We have accepted refugees in the past, but they were in relatively small numbers compared with the overall population, they were generally of our culture and were assimilated within a couple of generations. With their different outlook on life, I cannot see Muslims ever being assimilated into the native population.

So I would ask our politicians, don't make major decisions on the basis of one dead boy lying on a beach, but on the basis of common sense and rational logic.