RE: The European Migrant Crisis: A Tale Of Cause And Effect And An Engineered Clash Of Civilisations
Right now in my country (the US) it would be more the threat of Latin America overtaking the US culture (though there is plenty of fear of Muslims too), even though we're the ones who arm them, buy the drugs that keep their cartels in power, and maintain thugs in power if they simply do our bidding (or destabilize democratically elected governments who serve the interests of their people above US interests).
Here in the US we're supposed to hate and fear each other because someone is going to take our jobs, or change our language, or rob us.
Not long ago it was my people (African-Americans) the white americans were supposed to fear. That's why "white" was created as an idea. Before that there were landowners and those who worked for landowners. But then newly freed African slaves started working with European descendant indentured servants and sharecroppers too effectively, so "white" had to be created to separate the poor and increase the relative power of a much smaller group of wealthy landowners, all of who happened to be European descendants.
"You're more like us than like them," they told the poor "whites." "You should support our interests so that someday you can be like us, instead of becoming more like them. You don't want to become more like THEM do you? You see how much worse we treat them than the way we treat you. Things could get so much worse."
This has worked for a long time, and continues to work.
And yet it is also true that while a culture is strengthened by an influx of differing viewpoints, genetic stock, etc. it can only digest but so much at a time. It absolutely can create a cultural crisis and exacerbate existing economic and environmental issues if too many people from an "alien" culture swarm another culture in a short period of time.
I’m sure you can see the insanity of a foreign policy that revolves around bombing middle-eastern countries into the stone-age and then inviting everyone to live in Europe....
Yes, I do see the insanity of such a foreign policy, and many of the same people saying "don't criminalized being a refugee" are also saying "don't bomb them out of their homes, and we'd rather they stay where they are now." It's not so black and white in all minds. There is a great deal of complexity being considered from some mental frameworks.
That said, some "sides" of the issue are more wrong than others. That's real. Some are more dangerous than others. It's hard to avoid letting the perfect be the enemy of the good when both are so terrible. And yet, there is such a thing as worse.
And this is the difficult situation we're in. All the options are quite horrible, and yet we must act.
Thank you for stopping by @indigocean and sorry for the late reply but I've been away for a few days. Yes, I very much agree .. we're insidiously taught to hate and fear one another whilst at the same time being artificially pushed together, you can stand back and see the way they are manipulating these divisions and bringing it to a potential boiling point.
Yes I couldn't agree more and indeed I wrote something similar in one of my posts where I stated:
Whilst I’m fully aware that some people will not understand the point I’m making here, please know that whether white or black, religious or atheist, rich or poor we are all prisoners of a system that demands subservience and increasing control over every facet of our lives. We are all victims of the great game of divide and conquer, it’s just that (as countries) we have been handed different roles. We are pieces on a chessboard, some of us are pawns, some are knights whilst others live like kings; but outside of a human life it’s all transient.
The destruction of indigenous communities and the colonisation of the world is a relatively modern occurrence and it remains fresh within our collective memories. These memories are manipulated in order to obtain an attachment of guilt, but we were all indigenous once. The tribes of Europe were also removed from their lands and their way of life scattered to the four winds, the only difference is that it occurred so long ago that we have forgotten what was stolen, forgotten what it means to be truly free.
Yes, I very much agree that there are people whom are able to comprehend the multiple shades of grey at play here .. my problem is that I'm increasingly observing the collective being drawn (manipulated) into polarised positions and my fear is that over time this dynamic is being utilised to create ever greater division and ultimately could very easily give rise to civil unrest, from that perspective we will all be losers. Equally with the European crisis, the huge gulf in culture is also being used to ferment hatred.
There are no easy answers in all this my friend but I do know that I refuse to be drawn into collectivisation & generalisation .. hence my reason for writing this post was to show that by increasingly taking these polarised (black & white) perspectives our society is being led into a blind alley. Indeed the left is feeding the right and the right is feeding the left and if this continues we will all grow hungry :(
Thanks again @indigocean you've raised some great points.