Tuesday 17 February 2015

so goes the neighbourhood

Though some may posit that the refugees that come in hopes of settlement in better lands represent those whom did not make the cut in their homelands, and while that might have been a true characterisation of the pilgrims that landed on Plymouth Rock and the penal colony that was Australia, I think that it’s a rather placating racist thing to believe, allowing one to believe that he is refraining judgment on a whole people and culture while excusing the xenophobia one harbours for the neighbours.

Of course, hope and perception fosters the rarefied notions of ethnicity plus the attendant traffickers that promise to facilitate the transfer. Taking a stance that somewhat inverts the surge of, as reported, of South American immigrants on the southern border of the US, lured, some cry, by the guarantees of amnesty and a better life, the interior minister of Kosovo is demanding that western Europe repatriate the thousands of asylum-seekers, among the country’s most destitute, as quickly as possible. I am only cognisant really of this story, stuck in a traffic-snarl behind a tour bus whose advertised route shuttled between Pristina, the capital, and Dรผsseldorf, and I suspect the rush and crush is due to the responsible EU body proclaiming Kosovo to be a proper country and no longer meeting its criteria for granting sanctuary. The unlucky souls in the immigration lottery should be dealt with in an expedient matter and most importantly, perhaps, to defang the traffickers’ wiles by dispelling the bewitchment of the West. What do you think? Per capita, I’d venture that this statement is shielding people from disappointment and from harm while acknowledging that such routes are driven with allures of welfare as well.