Sweden before the impossible choice
Sweden could tighten procedures for entry into the country, leaving millions of people at the mercy of fanatics.
By Mark LeVine
It was half past midnight, and the main train station in Malmo more than 150 refugees. Through Malmo, which is only 40 minutes away by train from Copenhagen and the south entrance to the city, passed tens of thousands of refugees since the beginning of the summer in large numbers arriving in Europe.
More than 2,000 refugees a day arriving at this relatively small cell when the crisis was at its peak, which is almost again in early November, when for 24 hours received 1,700 refugees.
Despite the pressure that is caused by a large influx, Sweden has managed to handle the requirements of a large number of refugees per capita than any other country in Europe - over the two-week period than the United Kingdom agreed to receive in the next five years.
But beneath the relative efficiency of a large reception of refugees in Sweden lies a series of political, social and moral inconsistency which reveals the limits of tolerance and acceptance in one of perhaps najgostoljubivijih companies in the world, and in Europe for sure.
The danger of persecution
Since World War II in international law a distinction is made between people fleeing from persecution (which originally meant the term "refugee" in the Convention on the Status of Refugees of 1951) and / or death associated with the war in their home country (which was merged with the legal definition Refugees, starting with the Convention of the Organization of African Unity in 1969) and those who leave their homeland due to obvious economic reasons.
Those who flee war and / or prosecution is guaranteed "right to prohibit expulsion" - that is, the right not to be repatriated until there is a danger. Based on this principle, Sweden has given almost automatically to every Syrian asylum to set foot today on its soil.
But this narrow and legalistic understanding of obligations towards refugees creates significant problems, as demonstrated by an informal survey among the refugees who were sitting along the glass walls of the main train station in Malmo.
Firstly, although Sweden has adopted a policy of open borders during the peak of the crisis, a large number of people coming to this country will ultimately be returned to their home countries or as close to home location.
Because refugees from Iraq who are not from Mosul and Anbar province mainly receive rejection in their requests for asylum. The same happens most Eritreans and those who came from sub-Saharan Africa, and most Afghans, which actually might have the most among the newly arrived.
Afghanistan, of course, still an active war zone, no matter how you Swedish Agency for Migration defined. The large number of asylum seekers from Afghanistan in terms of ethnic origin are Hazare and the target of the extremists, who want to exterminate. Eritreans who have undergone intense political persecution also regularly refuse requests for asylum.
The immediate danger
Not all Syrians fled from the imminent danger. One volunteer at the train station explained that he went from one of the "safe cities" under the control of the government, not because he feared for his life but because the economic situation has left little room for the future in the city.
Would you like him, who was already a productive member of the new society (working knowledge of Swedish and has a decent job) should be returned to Syria? Any different he wondered, since many members of other nations and ethnic groups among the newcomers who tries to help every night?
Thousands of other Africans from Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as their neighbors from North Africa, who (like him) came by boat, for years referred to as "economic migrants".
But the reality is that their villages, regions and even countries are unsuitable for life because of colonialism, war, systematic economic exploitation and destruction of the environment, it takes decades or even centuries, and for which the main responsibility lies with the policy of the West.
The most striking example of the problems of discrimination among refugees "who deserve that status" and "merely" economic migrants is an example of thousands of Roma who came to Sweden in the last century.
Roma lived in Sweden for 500 years, and almost all other countries in Europe that have "traveled", have been met with discrimination or even worse - to forced sterilization, deprivation of children and, most recently, the police list - all the time since they had here . For all these reasons they are still "the last ethnic group against ... that is acceptable to discriminate" and "almost completely excluded from society as a whole".
Although the entire Swedish government and civil society at the disposal and help the Syrian refugees, a few blocks away from the main train station Roma camp "of migrants in the EU", mainly from Romania and Bulgaria, forcibly emptied and destroyed, and most of those who were there lived forced to sleep on the streets. Some of them, in protest, set up camp in front of the city hall in the style of the Occupy movement that reminds us of a global framework within which their struggle must be set.
Lethal poverty
Nader al-Attar, exiled Egyptian activist and co-founder of the Center for solidarity with refugees in Malmo, it's nice explained: "Poverty can be just as deadly as the civil war. There is a certain embarrassment in making the distinction, and war and poverty are structural issues and Both can kill. We must make these links more clear, way of treatment of refugees is a global issue, as well as the problem of the Roma. "
Swedes are no less guilty of intense violence and marginalization that Roma face in Eastern Europe than in the violence in Syria or Iraq.
But they, like all of us, living in the wider world - and indeed are among those who have most of it is used - which systematic violence and inequality are now becoming apparent. The consequences of mass terrorism to genocidal wars and the polar ice caps to melt rapidly, cross borders much more easily than people who arrive in Malmo.
The day before the attack in Paris, the government has established border controls at the first stop in Sweden, just two stations south of this, in Hyllieu.
Those refugees who say they intend to claim asylum are now being taken to the nearest center for processing refugee claims, the ones that say they do not intend to, returned to Denmark following a train. Once in the system, they can not continue their journey to the other Nordic countries, while their classification, monitoring and possible return becomes easier.
The borders are closed across Europe as planned and realized ISIL these terrorist attacks are becoming apparent. However, a number of European countries that bombard larger areas in the Middle East and Africa will certainly lead to an increase in the number of refugees fleeing violence.
Since countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, which are in the front line of refugees, already full, who will receive these refugees? Will the whole Middle East will become the Gaza Strip?
At the entrance to the train station in Malmo, and still bears the inscription "The refugees, welcome" in different languages, but today at the station of refugees there does not exist.
If he wants to ISIS, Sweden and other European countries will further tighten procedures for entry into the country, leaving millions of people at the mercy of religious fanatics, brutal and murderous governments, racist societies and the international system in which literally no place for them. Anyone who thinks that this scenario do that he or she be safer not really paying attention.
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- 2 Dec, 2015
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