A picture is worth a thousand tears. Thousands of pictures are worth millions of tears. As news photographers from all over the world descend on the troubled shores of Turkey, Greece, France and Italy, documenting the plight of millions of refugees from Syria, Africa and Iraq fleeing brutal civil wars, the face of the unfolding tragedy has become Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian Kurd from near the Turkish border where the Islamic State (IS) has unleashed bloody mayhem. The little corpse, lying on its face on the sandy surf of a Turkish beach in a red T-shirt, dark shorts and sneakers brought horror home to Europe.
Aylan and his family were seeking to reach Canada and apply for asylum. Canada’s immigration minister suspended his re-election campaign to investigate why their refugee application was reportedly rejected. But eyes, inured to such horror eventually run dry. As razor wire fences divide Europe, borders close and detention camps for refugees fill with escapees, the continent is facing what Greek Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos called “the worst refugee crisis since World War II”. Latest data from the International Organization for Migration reveals the number of refugees and asylum seekers who have crossed the sea to Europe so far in 2015 is around 250,000 and climbing at a rate of over 1,000 migrants a day in Italy and Greece.
The European Union’s (EU) border agency has recorded the arrival of over 500,000 migrants at the EU’s borders. Germany alone has become home to 800,000 to one million refugees, the largest in any EU state. Europe, which had silently sent over six million Jews to Adolf Hitler’s gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka and Riga between the 1930s and the 1940s, is experiencing a crisis of conscience. Islamists have targeted its cities, blowing up train stations and newspaper offices. But Antonio Guterres, head of UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, declared angrily, “In this battle of values, a Europe welcoming Syrians is something that helps to defeat the IS.” Meanwhile, a British newspaper quoted a Syrian IS leader saying more than 4,000 trained IS killers have infiltrated the refugee wave into Europe. As fears of terrorism, social welfare and more unemployment obsess Europe, its economy hasn’t overcome the Greece trauma despite the trillions of dollars pumped in by banks. Unemployment and debt are haunting countries like Greece and Spain as well as a catechism of national identity crisis.
Most of Europe may not be able to deal with the economic stress, the refugee influx will cause. Recession continues in Greece with over 25 per cent of its adults being jobless. In Spain, the unemployment rate is at 26 per cent. In the Eurozone as a whole, joblessness is at 12 per cent—its worst point since the euro was issued in 1999. Germany, which will absorb the most refugees, will have to dole out over 10 billion euros in 2015 for the immigrants’ upkeep.
“This is the most disastrous decision Germany has ever taken for Europe,” fumes a senior EU diplomat in Delhi. “It will cost around 2,000 euros per refugee in social benefits. If he gets a job, he will make around 1,500 euros. So why should he work?”
The ghettoisation of immigrants—especially of Muslims in Europe—has spurred a sense of isolation in them, and many turn to serious crimes and terrorism.
Says a senior Indian military intelligence officer, “During the 1971 war with Pakistan, India handled a massive inflow of refugees from East Pakistan, more than 40 lakh people. Despite the huge financial burden on us, and anti-immigrant unrest in some border states, the Indian establishment handled it well. Though there is always a possibility of security threat from a migrant population, a country should also know how to deal with it.”
Dealing with the fallout of immigration in EU will not be easy, going by the cultural reactions from refugees towards Western aid. A European diplomat recounts a story about how when a Red Cross van, laden with medicines and other supplies, approached a refugee camp in Spain, the asylum seekers turned it away in horror, seeing the red cross painted on the side. There is historical irony here: a red cross against a white flag was the insignia of the Knights Templars, who during the Crusades fought Muslim armies and conquered Jerusalem.
The immigration crisis has even prompted the gentle, liberal Pope Francis to warn EU leaders that IS terrorists could sneak into Europe and even attack the Vatican. “The truth is that just 250 miles from Sicily there is an incredibly cruel terrorist group. So there is a danger of infiltration, this is true,” he told the Portuguese Radio Renascenca.
Opinion Crisis Haunts EU
Disparate Standoffs
In spite of its generosity, Germany followed other EU nations and closed its borders late last week. Refugee relocation plans were blocked by EU interior ministers. Hungary, which is facing a disparate cultural invasion for the first time since the Soviet Union broke up, has built a 190-mile-long razor-wire fence along the Hungarian-Serbian border, which it plans to extend along its border with Romania. Eastern European countries are at the receiving end now: around 200,000 migrants have entered these nations so far in 2015. Hungary has declared a state of emergency, and police are arresting anyone wanting to cross over. Migrants are now diverting their route to Croatia to reach wealthier countries.
EU’s foreign policy boss Federica Mogherini criticised the way the crisis is being handled by many European countries, warning that it would lead to foreign policy setbacks. “Our lack of internal unity has an impact on our external actions and credibility,” she said. Mogherini said governments were ignoring the larger picture. “There is no illusion that this can be stopped with a fence or with a wall,” she said, referring to Hungary’s border fence with Serbia. There seems to be a clear division between Western and Eastern Europe on handling the escalating refugee situation.
Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s Vice Chancellor, attacked Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Romania who refused to toe the Western European line. “Everyone joins in when it comes to handing out money but nobody participates when there is a responsibility to bear.” The Czechs are blaming Germany’s “inconsistent policies” for the crisis.
Says a senior Indian diplomat at South Block, “With East European countries becoming richer and more vocal in the coming years, it will be interesting to see how Germany and France will cope with a challenge to their primacy of being at the centre of Europe.”
The main problem facing the EU is the distribution of the refugees. A summit to create a quota system is slated for October, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel says it will be too late. “Germany, Austria and Sweden cannot solve the problem on their own,” she lamented. Taking the lead, she has asked Italy and Greece to set up processing “hotspots” to separate economic migrants from refugees. With Greece still reeling under debt, plans to redistribute 40,000 refugees from Italy and Greece to other EU countries will create resentment among the host population.
A senior Ministry of External Affairs official says that a lasting legacy of the refugee crisis would likely be political fracture in the EU. “The sharp differences between the east and west is worrisome. Even during the Greek crisis, there was never this level of confrontationist statements between both sides,” he said.
The melting pot of nationalities is as diverse as the crises Europe has to resolve. North African and Middle Eastern Arabs, Afro-Caribbeans, Indians, Pakistanis, Berbers, Kurds, Chinese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Iranians, Somali and Afghans are most of the nationalities that move to Europe to seek a better life. Many of them are war refugees; 62 per cent of those who reached Europe by boat this year were from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Darfur, and Somalia, according to the UN.
The Distrust of Faiths
Looming Confrontation
“It’s strange that they do not want to migrate to wealthy Muslim countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia,” says a senior member of an Indian think-tank. “This is because they are not welcome there. The Palestinians are treated like second-class citizens there.”
Says a R&AW officer, who was once posted in London at the height of its immigration crisis, “Look at other Muslim countries. Are they even willing to take in the immigrants? Forget about inviting them, the immigrants are not willing to go there.”
Europe’s declining population rate, the slow ruination of its churches and flock, and the cultural onslaught by Muslim settlers who brought in their conservative mores which do not dovetail with Europe’s liberal values have also stretched the social fabric to a breaking point. Saudi Arabia has refused to take in Syrian refugees, but has offered to build 200 mosques for them in Germany. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in Europe with over five million Muslims in France, the largest Muslim population in Europe, and four million in Germany. Though Islam is not the only religion Europeans are hostile to, it is perceived as one that destabilises their national cultures more than other faiths, according to a 2013 poll by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a German non-profit organisation.
French Intelligence reports have warned that Europeans recruited by the IS were trained and sent back to Europe to carry out terror strikes. A 26-year-old Moroccan named Ayoub El-Khazzani who attempted to spray travellers on a high-speed train from Brussels to Paris last month with automatic gunfire was captured; he had returned to Europe in June on a flight from a Turkish town near the Syrian border known as a resting point for foreign fighters travelling to Syria. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said 1,880 French citizens are part of Islamist extremist networks, and 441 of them are fighting in Syria. The R&AW officer says, “The Lone Wolf formula that IS and Al Qaeda are promoting is an immigration fallout. Though some of them are second-generation immigrants, you can’t rule out highly radicalised fighters moving around disguised as refugees.”
The radicalisation of Europe reared its ugly face when the case of Danish teenager Lisa Borch—who stabbed her own mother to death after watching IS videos of the beheadings of David Haines and Alan Henning with her 39-year-old Islamist boyfriend Iraqi Bakhtiar Mohammed Abdulla—sent shockwaves through the continent. Actions always get reactions, though they may be in bad taste. A war of cultures is on—one inflicting violence through indoctrination or directly and the other hitting back with Western tools like savage satire. The murderous attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine prompted the lampooning of Aylan’s death. One cartoon showed Jesus walking on water and a partially drowning child which says: “Proof that Christians walk on water, Muslim children drown.”
In the Grip of an Invasion
Subversive Threat
The perception division on Islam versus Western society in Europe and the UK is startlingly sharp. Surveys have shown that 58 per cent of French Muslims “very strongly” or “extremely strongly” identify with their religion, while only 23 per cent of the French do. In the UK, it is 75 per cent versus 23 per cent. Seventy-nine per cent of French Muslims blamed the 2005 Danish cartoon controversy on Western “disrespect for Islam”, while 67 per cent of the Europeans blamed “Muslims’ for intolerance.” Another survey found that the French are worried about immigrants and 74 per cent believe Islam is incompatible with French society.
Jihad Through Migrationhe
Clash Of Civilisations
Hence, Western European governments are trying to find ways to handle the refugee crisis without losing popular support, which is largely anti-Islamic while remaining morally responsible on the global scene. Author Robert Spencer calls the refugee crisis a “hijrah”—the Islamic doctrine of migration. “To emigrate in the cause of Allah—that is, to move to a new land in order to bring Islam there, is considered in Islam to be a highly meritorious act,” Spencer paraphrased the Koran. The R&AW officer, who has closely watched the UK’s immigration woes, says the current crisis will destabilise Europe in another 10-15 years. He feels Germany can still absorb some of the migrants fleeing war-torn Syria but the French and Hungarians will not be able to do so. He cited examples in France and Denmark where governments are finding it hard to tackle growing radicalisation.
The spymaster quotes Chanakya, “To remove poverty, send our people to neighbouring country. You will have less population and over a period of time, they will be able to destabilise the country at your behest.”
History is a domino effect of causes. The US invasion of Iraq created instability in the region. It then gave the Holy Grail of democracy to the Middle East, which led to the failed Arab Spring and left anarchy and terror behind. The EU was an economic challenge to US market supremacy. Now, with the refugee invasion, it is waiting and watching how the geopolitical equations change to its benefit.