Not a Pretty Message

Not refugees

Not a responsibility but a threat

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun

Almost all the media commentary on the invasion of Europe so far overlooks a critical point. The illegal immigrants in no way are “refugees”. Even those fleeing, say, Syria, were in relative safety once they’d crossed the border into Turkey, which, incidentally, is a country sharing the Muslim faith of most Syrians.

But since then, the immigrants have moved to Greece, then Macedonia and then Serbia to reach Hungary. Even then the vast majority want to move on - through Austria or the Czech Republic to their ultimate goal, Germany, the richest of all the countries on this trek.

I don’t blame them, of course, but nor do I blame Germany for saying it does not have a responsibility to accept these hundreds of thousands of people crossing its borders. Nor should journalists here keep talking about some particular responsibility of the West to accept Syrians, given the West has done nothing to create the Syrian civil war, and has recently intervened (ineffectually) to stop the Islamic State terrorists causing many of the Syrians to flee.

There is no easy way for Europe to respond, but ultimately it must involve maintaining strong borders, stopping the boats to Greece and Italy, and sending armed forces to stop Third World war, and some advice and aid to end poverty. Oddly enough, this is exactly the policy of Tony Abbott [PM of Australia]. It is that, or Europe will admit new tribes of people who will inevitably clash with Europe’s own.

Hungary’s Prime Minister puts the matter with a bluntness shocking to the secular media, but in a way which I suspect will prove prophetic:

“Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims,” Mr. Orban wrote… “This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity."… At a separate news conference in which he faced reporters alone, he reiterated the theme of his article, that Europe was at risk of being “overrun” and had to shut its borders. The Hungarian prime minister argued that European countries had no obligation to accept most of the migrants, as “the overwhelming majority of people are not refugees because they are not coming from a war-stricken area."…

Mr. Orban went on to invoke Hungary’s historical experience as part of the Ottoman Empire, which ended more than three centuries ago, as an explanation for its current opposition to Muslim immigrants… “I have to say that when it comes to living together with Muslim communities, we are the only ones who have experience because we had the possibility to go through that experience for 150 years…

“We don’t want to criticize France, Belgium, any other country,” he said, but “we think all countries have a right to decide whether they want to have a large number of Muslims in their countries. If they want to live together with them, they can. We don’t want to and I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country. We do not like the consequences of having a large number of Muslim communities that we see in other countries, and I do not see any reason for anyone else to force us to create ways of living together in Hungary that we do not want to see.” 

It is not a pretty message. The consequences of ignoring it could be far uglier.