When hospitality is not displayed in the media…
Nikolaos Gryspolakis, September 21, 2015
Translation by Pavlos Stravopoulos
Reprinted with permission
“War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength” and … war crimes and crimes against humanity are generous humanitarian aid.
Several thousand refugees arrived in Germany (a country of 81 million inhabitants with a GDP of $40,000 per capita and a trade surplus of 90 billion dollars), and the media sing the praises of the generosity of the German government, social networks are filled with acclaiming comments and the economic colonizers strut with pride.
At the same time, many European countries (among them Germany) terminate the free movement within their borders, putting a tombstone on one of the central pillars of propaganda in favor of the EU – that of free movement within the Union.
Greece (with a population of just 10 million and well known huge financial problems) and Italy, two countries with 40% and 60% the per capita income of Germany, deal with the arrival of over 2,000 refugees every day, for many months now, and hundreds of thousands of others over the last six years.
No substantial assistance has been given to these countries by the EU (one of the largest amounts given to Greece was to build the wall in Evros [land border with Turkey] to prevent the influx of refugees to Europe.
At the same time Turkey hosts more than 2 million refugees without almost any international assistance.
Half the population of Jordan (a country of 6.6 million people) is comprised of Palestinian refugees, and it now hosts an additional 1 million Iraqi and Syrian refugees in centers (many of which are operated and funded by the United Arab Emirates).
Lebanon, with 5 million inhabitants, is home to more than half a million Palestinians and Iraqis refugees and since 2012 over 1.1 million Syrian refugees.
Pakistan is home to 1.5 million fefugees from Afghanistan, while Chad has 500,000 refugees from Sudan.
Iran is home to nearly 1 million refugees, mainly from Afghanistan and Iraq.
In Nauru and Djibouti over 5% of the population consists of refugees.
At the same time, we must not forget that Syria itself, until the war started on its territory, had hosted millions of refugees into its territory from Lebanon, Iraq, Kurds from Turkey, and Palestinians, as well as hundreds of thousands of Assyrians, Armenians and Greek refugees in previous times.
86% of all the world’s refugees are housed, fed and maintained by poor Third World countries.
Although this creates enormous difficulties for the economies and social conditions of these countries, no one sees the xenophobic, racist and hysterical attacks to the degree that they are taking place in North America and Europe, when they are reached by desperate people struggling to escape mainly wars created and maintained by the West and its allies, with weapon exporting countries and NATO in the first positions of responsibility.
Once again it is proven how the powerful, who are driven by a superiority complex, can turn their reality around 180 degrees to meet the … sheep among their populations and make them proud and happy for the crimes committed by ‘democratically’ elected governments, based on “democratic, liberal and philanthropic” cultural traditions.
The two main reasons why this time the issue has gained prominence in the international news after being ignored for many years, is, first, that the aforementioned countries have now flooded, and therefore any additional refugees are trying to find a way towards the rich colonial countries in Europe, and second (and keep this in your mind the next time you feel a tendency to support yet another “humanitarian” intervention of the West in ‘troubled’ Middle East) that one more war is getting prepped right now by Western powers which will be called ‘humanitarian intervention against the “Islamic state” “, which they themselves have created in tandem with the local tyrants, such as Saudi Arabia, regimes that they have also installed and maintained.
Thus, “public opinion” must be won using the innocent sentiment of selective compassion.
As long as people continue to be objects of exploitation by others through profit structures, hierarchy and oppression, these phenomena are not going to stop.
People will continue to flee from their ancestral territories as colonial powers continue to produce suffering and destruction to humanity.
Meanwhile, our unconditional solidarity with each refugee and every victim of these structures and wars must be non-negotiable.
