Earlier this week I was asked as a guest on Cross Talk, one of RT TV flagship programs with the very wonderful, Peter Lavelle, to comment on the ongoing refugee crisis Europe has had to grapple with. The show intended to delve into those questions most media have dodged for fear of being politically incorrect.
I'd like to personally hand my hat to RT TV for flying journalism's colours high - few outlets these days have dared open themselves up the way Russia has done, offering both a space, and a platform for ideas to be debated, and pluralism to be respected.
Europe's refugee crisis is set to be the challenge of the decade! I would personally argue that our ability to face up to this new crisis will very much determine our global socio-political future in that it will define communities, nations, and continents' abilities to relate to one another, and more importantly view each other.
Allow me to elaborate.
We live in a binary world - from America's bi-partisan set-up to Europe's infamous political right and left wings, we have learned to move, breath and think black or white, capitalism versus communism, liberal or conservative, good and evil .... We cannot for the life of us consider anything outside this neat little box - this pre-packaged rationale we have been conditioned to accept as our reality.
News flash - the world is multi-coloured and there are many realities!
How does this tie in to the refugee crisis you may ask? Bear with me for a second ... I'm just about to crack that nut.
War refugees have come to Europe in their tens of thousands ... War refugees will continue to come to Europe in their tens of thousands since it is war they all are running away from.
In the face of this modern day exodus many questions have arisen: some ugly, some logical, some rooted in political manoeuvring and some anchored in cold pragmatism.
Now, if we are completely honest the main issues around refugees have been ethnicity and religion.
Full of their own ethno-centrism and well thinking Judeo-Christian morality, Western capitals saw in the influx of Syrian refugees an existential threat - a negation of their European whiteness. Please understand that my comment here is a mere observation, and should not be taken as a criticism.
While I loathe racism and fascism with a passion, I am fully aware of the conditioning Europe has been put under by its elite. Most people's blind hatred of the "other" aka the Muslim Arab type, comes from a well-organized and well-orchestrated propaganda campaign - which campaign has been played by media ad nauseam since 2001.
The Western world has been taught to hate ... guess what, it does it very well indeed!
So war migrants have literally crashed into Europe and many people are not exactly thrilled at the idea. Can we in all honesty blame EU communities for their wariness? Can we please not give in to the demon of demagoguery for a second, and actually approach the crisis rationally?
However one chooses to look at mass migration, and beyond any talks about ethnicities and religious correctness, any grand influx of people into one area will absolutely cause friction in that it will drain and pull at society's fabric. Stating such a fact is not giving into racism ... it is a reality of life.
Regardless of who they are, where they come from, and how they got here people will need homes, schools for their children, work and medical services.
But here is where it gets tricky. Politicians, media and commentators - you know exactly who you are - have exploited this economic reality to better wield a political weapon, and thus forward their own fascist narrative of control and division.
As Peter Lavelle pointed out, why have refugees come to Europe? Indeed .... Why have they?!! Hear me ... I am NOT, I repeat I am NOT arguing that refugees should not come to Europe - anyone running from war should in fact be offered safe refuge! What I am alluding to is that EU officials have made sure that ALL refugees be made to come to Europe as part of a grand exercise of destabilization.
Comment: It is likely that this strategy was enacted by EU officials at the behest of their American bosses.
Of course issues were going to arise from such an influx of migrants into Europe ...of course crimes were going to be committed ... of course lives and communities were going to be disrupted.
Anyone arguing the contrary must be either deluded or a complete nutcase - yes Mr Sukant Chandan I am talking to you and the argument you made that migrants can never be blamed for social disruption.
Actually let me rephrase that: it is not so much migrants, but mass migration in itself which is a factor of destabilization ... not individuals but the collective. Of course this has nothing to do with one's ethnicity, skin colour or faith. Those are the arguments fascists have played into so that Europe would learn to hate all foreigners, and associate their sight with violent criminality.
Another point to make is that while the West bears responsibility in the hardships which befell the MENA: Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Arab countries should share in this burden of war by opening their borders to refugees. Why haven't we seen the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Egypt step up to the plate? Why haven't we collectively called for those "allies" to shoulder their share of responsibility?
How fast can you say engineered chaos?
This leads me to the argument of the month - Are refugees dangerous and nefarious?
Let me make myself crystal clear here - I tried to make this point during the show but I was unfortunately cut off by one opinionated commentator in love with the sound of his own psychosis! Refugees are not inherently dangerous BUT elements within the refugee population have been planted to generate chaos in view of forwarding certain powers' neo-fascist agenda.
Let's deal with facts here. Crimes have been committed, violent despicable crimes have been carried out on European soil by "so-called refugees" to better portray the whole under a light of mistrust and disgust.
Those are the realities we have to deal with.
Does this mean that Muslims are all predatory psychopaths? No of course not! This argument is so beyond the pale I refuse to address it ... I will not entertain Donal Trump's lunacy on the matter by attempting to reason with hard racist fascism.
Generalization is a dangerous habit ... it goes both ways.
Arguing that refugees never commit crimes and should always and forever be blanketed by the powers that be, on account they suffered great injustices is ludicrous. People should be held accountable - this should be the norm.
White-washing or blame-pointing are two faces of the same despicable coin.
During the show (Cross Talk) Mr Chandan argued that because "brown people" suffered under colonialism they should be given a free pass on all future crimes ... not even that, but they should be allowed to rise tyrants over all white people. What??!!!
Can I remind everyone that such logic has been exploited by Zionists for several decades against Palestinians. A people's suffering should not be used to legitimize the oppression of another!
Comment: That's not quite analogous; Palestinians didn't put Jews in camps. But the author's point still stands: ordinary Europeans don't necessarily 'deserve' to have their lives upended because of their leaders' colonial practices.
Can we stop playing the racial card for a second here! Can we please understand that one violence cannot be answered by another? I will refer here to a passage of the Quran which states that an evil cannot be answered by another but instead be met by which is better. Muslims are not the problem! Refugees are not the problem per se either - only the way their arrival has been handled ... or rather mis-handled.
Now this is the crucial part.
While we argue race, faiths, colours and other ridiculous differences in between communities, we are all collectively failing to recognise the shackles being built around all of our ankles.
Europe does not have a refugee problem; it has a democratic problem ... Europe does not suffer from a clash of civilizations but a thinning of civil liberties.
By giving in to the racist narrative - whichever way it plays, we have failed to address the failures of our officials, which failures have created the mess we see today.
What about some good old-fashioned accountability? What about good old-fashioned reasoning?
Finally we get some sanity regarding the refugee situation!!! Hear, hear!!!!