💾 Archived View for splint.rs › lineup.gmi captured on 2023-07-22 at 16:44:02. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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The Daily Mail et al. have convinced some percentage of people that refugees from Afghanistan have to to Europe to live of European good-will, getting benefits from the government, before they sleep with all the white women, and send their spare cash back home.
I spoke with some Afghanis, Syrians, and a load of others during the 2016 refugee flood which passed through Serbia. I might reply to the opening sentence with a contemptuous snort, but I'd rather a more detailed answer.
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One man thought of himself as a medic. He vaccinated children against polio. The Taliban - I've come to think of them as something like a decentralized Mafia group - had told him he should stop, because this is "Western medicine", and it would be better to pray, then accept the will of their god. He refused, kept vaccinating, and eventually a letter arrived at his home stating that he must leave or the Taliban would kill him.
He planned to go somewhere in Europe and get an official medical education, becoming a doctor or a nurse.
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One man worked as a builder in England (maybe Manchester?), and ended up copying their thick accent, and returned home with some savings. His reputation for knowing English, and having worked abroad marked him as a foreigner, perhaps a spy, so a letter came to his door, telling him he must leave or the Taliban would kill him.
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'Magic', wanted to go to Germany. He told me, over a beer, that the colonialist history of the UK, in particular in his home-country, had left him with too many bitter feelings to live there. His brother had gone to Dubai (or was it the UAE?), to labour under wealthy Arabs. His parents encouraged him to do the same, but he knew this was a scam, and that his brother worked in slave-like conditions.
I never asked why he left, but I always assumed his reasons stemmed from his excellent education. Last I heard, he lived in some German refugee camp. I've not heard from him since.
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One man drank and smoked with the European travellers, then got in an argument with one once he said he was in the Taliban.
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One man was defrauded by another of the refugees of €500 (long story - I was partly to blame). He asked everyone present to phone the police.
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One man, staying legally in the same hostel I was, came from Syria. He explained to me that people in Europe really misunderstood the situation in Syria, because they lump Syria in with the other countries where refugees come from, whereas Syria is a modern nation, where people expect internet, and generally have a good education. The problems arise from the government, but culturally the Syrians share more in common with European countries than Afghanistan or Pakistan.
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I've been left with a number of impressions from these encounters.
Firstly, Syria's very different from Afghanistan, and for various reasons I didn't see any Syrians in the camps.
Secondly, Afghanis (and the other countries I'm going to lump them in with) often display a kind of naïveté, or at least lack of familiarity with Europe. I can't imagine that the young man who once gave out polio vaccines ever received any education from a European country.
I believe the persistent stories about death-threat letters from the Taliban are true, partly because I don't think these people have a sufficiently cynical world-view to agree on a story to tell others, partly because they can't coordinate their speech (they're not from the same countries, and many can't speak with each other), and partly because it's clearly an economical strategy for the Taliban. Letters cost less than hit-men.
Imagine a line of refugees, ordered from 'legitimate refugee who needs help', through 'nice guy who thinks he would do well abroad', all the way to 'dangerous cunt'. Now we have the imaginary line, I have a few things to say about it: