80% of these refugees should be accepted by the US, after all, if you give weaponry to various "free" syrian armies to cause havoc in the region, you should take responsibility to take care of the humanitarian disaster that results. The other 20% - UK, France and Germany, whoever dumped weapons on that region. Unpopular as it is - the middle east was doing much better under strong dictators. They had civilization going for thousands of years, and an attempt to change the regional order from the outside was a fatal mistake. Do the right thing and accept them, also don't forget build a couple of mosques near your house. At least in theory.
Interesting idea. But the "U.S." isn't giving these countries weapons. Various people from the U.S. may be doing that, I know that U.S. citizens (those of which any refugees would suddenly be living next to) didn't vote to give weapons to Syrian armies. But if you have proof of it (and I'm not saying you don't) you've then got to find out how the deal was made. Also you want to blame the gun sellers and not the gun shooters.
I get what you're trying to do. In your mind, before Europe and the U.S. (before white people) the middle east was paradise blah blah. And Western countries are intent to simply destabilize everything right, to some end.
What I don't understand is the millions of refugees are somehow not able to form their own country. What army in the world now has as many as these of age male refugees? If we are to welcome these refugees, we'd be assuming that they can melt into the shared values of the culture, follow the rules, etc. And if we assume that, then we can assume they can cooperate amongst themselves. So why are they not doing so and forming a peaceful country? Hmm, well maybe we have been BUT it hasn't worked out well.
I would like to see the US step up its process to accept refugees.
Currently it takes 18 to 24 months for refuges to be able to get on a plane the US. The US has agreed to accept up to 70k refugees yet at this rate it will take for ever while Germany has hundreds of new refuges per day.
As a country of 80M people (Germany), they can probably handle quite a few but there's a point when the demographic shift is going to be.. unpleasant. Most immigrants don't leave their old practices behind and in most cases, that's not a big deal. This group of immigrant isn't Christian or areligious (most of Europe is one of the two) and doesn't hold similar views of [choose: women, society, gays, religion, etc, etc], so there already are and will continue to be clashes.
Hopefully those groups assimilate into the common German belief/societal structures but history says that with big enough numbers, they won't have to..
70k per year is hundreds per day. And then there's all the asylum seekers on top of that as well as the massive undocumented migrations across the southern border.
If Germany were an island it would do the same kind of processing.
There's nothing wrong with examining a person for a year before letting them settle in your country. The system has worked well thus far, why bust it up?
I would like all the g8 countries including Russia China and Japan to accept their proportion of refugees. And also work deliberately to resolve the issues affecting the home countries. You can't just standby and hope the violence just miraculously disappears one day. It's going to take military confrontation and there will be casualties but waiting and standing by will result in greater casualties.
We have our own continent to deal with. We already have hundreds of thousands of refugees coming to the US from central/south America every year. How many refugees are we supposed to accept anyway?
I would like to see the US step up its process to accept refugees.
Why, do you want to see a lot of dead refugees? Because that's where all of this is heading. It'll happen in Europe first, since they have a stronger sense of national identity than most Americans, so we get a preview of what will happen here. Germans have started attacking refugee centers. Anti-immigration political parties are rising in popularity with shocking speed throughout Europe. The Greek and Italian coast guards have quietly started to sink refugee boats coming from Africa. It'll take the US a little longer to get there, but when small town America starts to feel unsafe in their own communities, their reaction will not be peaceful.
Your comment annoyed me enough that I looked through your history to find
> That is what it was for me when I moved to the US from Switzerland.
> Only then I realized that the way people live in Switzerland is not something you can take for granted and in the end made me move back.
Since you don't live in the US anymore, please stick to trying to influence Swiss policy. Since you aren't going to have to deal with the consequences of a widely expanded US refugee policy.
Sincerely. I'm European, I'm from Euro zone. I walk in the streets in my country's capital at night and a see dozens of homeless hungry people just by walking a couple of Km.
I just can't put my head around on why we should help the refugees before we help our own people. It just doesn't make any sense to me. We are giving millions to find houses for these refugees/migrants but we let our own live and die on the streets...
This seems potentially dangerous to me. As someone with experience dealing with refugees, they often go through untold horrors in their journey. They often need counselling, friendship, purpose (often in the form of employment). It's good that they have this "refugee buddy" concept but it's not clear to me from their website if there is adequate support for the volunteer if they have to deal with these needs.
Each volunteer should consider carefully if they are able to meet these needs and fill these roles (triply so if you have children).
If everything works out, this could be very rewarding for everyone. If not, it could be catastrophic.
It "amazes" me why these "refugees" flock to Germany or Great Britain and not to their very wealthy brethren in countries such as Kuwaii, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Arab Emirates, etc... Same culture, same religion and they are much closer!
It also amazes me why the EU leaders insist for other European countries to accept these "refugees" when the majority of EU countries is not responsible for this situation at all.
Luckily there are some leaders out there that are not afraid of this stupid political correctness and they build fences on their borders because they know what this might lead to.
Awesome idea! It would be great if airbnb did something like this... They already have the infrastructure in place, they could support NGOs etc and probably get a tax break!
Your strange scrolling webpage makes it hard to read the actual content without scrolling past. Why do people insist on using this broken scrolling behaviour.
I'm sure they did a lot of user testing and decided that their Javascript-powered scrolling mechanism was a better user experience than the default browser behavior of just moving up and down proportionally to your mouse wheel.
And just for the record: I submitted this story under the title "Airbnb for refugees", with the quotes -- which I think might have yielded a more insightful discussion than the question of "Refugees welcome" (or not), to which the title was changed after an hour or so.
I really can't imagine anyone singing up for this except a few people.
The recent waves or unchecked immigration has produced nothing but negative effects to the population, to such an extent that even recent immigrants themselves want the doors shut.
'Does this project make money with putting refugees in touch with flats?'
'No, “Refugees Welcome“ is a non-profit organisation.
However, you can support our work with a donation to the association Mensch Mensch Mensch which carries this project. Our bank details are:
Mensch Mensch Mensch e.V.
IBAN: DE88430609671167120500
BIC: GENODEM1GLS
We can provide donation receipts.'
It's easy to hate the concept of immigration and, by extension, the thought of millions of immigrants pouring into your home country. In fact, we're hardwired to have an aversion to this idea. Humans have always formed small units such as families or tribes in order to compete with other humans for limited resources. Immigrants are easily lumped together into a menacing tribe of competitors.
But when you host someone, they stop being "just another immigrant" and you can start to see them for what they were the whole time: a real person with a voice, a smile, sorrow, joy, tastes, quirks, humor, goals, and dreams. Empathy is crucial.
It's not going to solve the larger problem of the millions of immigrants displaced by war or corrupt governance, but it probably will have a positive impact on thousands of lives, which is an awesome outcome for a small group of people looking to make a change through technology.
If humans are hardwired to be averse to "millions of immigrants pouring into your home country," why is that? Presumably you're referring to that aversion being chosen by natural selection. That suggests that we're less likely to have been descended from those who were more open to displacement by outside populations, and more likely to come from those who guarded their borders. Societies that don't keep barriers are less likely to pass on their genes or memes to the future.
I'm assuming that the main difference between then and now is that an increase in resources means we can share freely with more "outsiders." Presumably resources aren't infinite, so what's the upper bound? How would we know?
This is cool! Another interesting project I came across is workeer.de, which is a job board for refugees. It's interesting because refugees in Germany do not have a work permit. Great way to help people with technology.
According to § 96 AufenthG it is illegal to aid people, who have no permit of residence and whose application for asylum has been denied. However, this is not as clear as it sounds, since emergency relief and humanitarian support is encouraged in general.
However, as I read § 96 (I am no lawyer), it is slightly biased toward trafficking and the commercial aspect of the facilitation of illegal entry.
I wish there was something like this for migrant workers, who often get treated as bad or even worse than refugees by their employers (yes, even in Germany)...
Maybe if the great powers weren't so busy playing geo-political chess by proxy there wouldn't be so many refugees. Syria was fairly stable before the west decided Assad should go. Syria was fairly stable before the west destabilized Iraq. This is the problem.
Syria was fairly stable until its people made demands and their leader responded with gun fire. Not sure where you see the role of "the West" in that escalation. Do you think the problem was that the West sneakily infected Syrian people with the absurd idea that they could have the same rights as people elsewhere? Or maybe that the West failed to support Syrian rebels when they begged for it, allowing Assad to go on fighting his people for years and IS and other jihadist groups to gain ground in the country?
[+] [-] theworstshill|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logingone|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jahewson|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelbuddy|10 years ago|reply
I get what you're trying to do. In your mind, before Europe and the U.S. (before white people) the middle east was paradise blah blah. And Western countries are intent to simply destabilize everything right, to some end.
What I don't understand is the millions of refugees are somehow not able to form their own country. What army in the world now has as many as these of age male refugees? If we are to welcome these refugees, we'd be assuming that they can melt into the shared values of the culture, follow the rules, etc. And if we assume that, then we can assume they can cooperate amongst themselves. So why are they not doing so and forming a peaceful country? Hmm, well maybe we have been BUT it hasn't worked out well.
[+] [-] sschueller|10 years ago|reply
Currently it takes 18 to 24 months for refuges to be able to get on a plane the US. The US has agreed to accept up to 70k refugees yet at this rate it will take for ever while Germany has hundreds of new refuges per day.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/us-accept-thous...
[+] [-] caseysoftware|10 years ago|reply
As a country of 80M people (Germany), they can probably handle quite a few but there's a point when the demographic shift is going to be.. unpleasant. Most immigrants don't leave their old practices behind and in most cases, that's not a big deal. This group of immigrant isn't Christian or areligious (most of Europe is one of the two) and doesn't hold similar views of [choose: women, society, gays, religion, etc, etc], so there already are and will continue to be clashes.
Hopefully those groups assimilate into the common German belief/societal structures but history says that with big enough numbers, they won't have to..
[+] [-] cylinder|10 years ago|reply
If Germany were an island it would do the same kind of processing.
There's nothing wrong with examining a person for a year before letting them settle in your country. The system has worked well thus far, why bust it up?
[+] [-] mc32|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcmalloc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PopeOfNope|10 years ago|reply
Why, do you want to see a lot of dead refugees? Because that's where all of this is heading. It'll happen in Europe first, since they have a stronger sense of national identity than most Americans, so we get a preview of what will happen here. Germans have started attacking refugee centers. Anti-immigration political parties are rising in popularity with shocking speed throughout Europe. The Greek and Italian coast guards have quietly started to sink refugee boats coming from Africa. It'll take the US a little longer to get there, but when small town America starts to feel unsafe in their own communities, their reaction will not be peaceful.
[+] [-] not_your_daddy|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bpodgursky|10 years ago|reply
> That is what it was for me when I moved to the US from Switzerland.
> Only then I realized that the way people live in Switzerland is not something you can take for granted and in the end made me move back.
Since you don't live in the US anymore, please stick to trying to influence Swiss policy. Since you aren't going to have to deal with the consequences of a widely expanded US refugee policy.
[+] [-] jbssm|10 years ago|reply
I just can't put my head around on why we should help the refugees before we help our own people. It just doesn't make any sense to me. We are giving millions to find houses for these refugees/migrants but we let our own live and die on the streets...
[+] [-] explorigin|10 years ago|reply
Each volunteer should consider carefully if they are able to meet these needs and fill these roles (triply so if you have children).
If everything works out, this could be very rewarding for everyone. If not, it could be catastrophic.
[+] [-] candl|10 years ago|reply
It also amazes me why the EU leaders insist for other European countries to accept these "refugees" when the majority of EU countries is not responsible for this situation at all.
Luckily there are some leaders out there that are not afraid of this stupid political correctness and they build fences on their borders because they know what this might lead to.
[+] [-] an4rchy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eadz|10 years ago|reply
Press release: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/press/news/airbnb-partners-with-vic...
But seeing AirBnB do something for refugees would be great.
[+] [-] kcbanner|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chbrown|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erikb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s3nnyy|10 years ago|reply
I agree. I lived in Germany for 20 years, now I live in Zurich and can't be any happier. Check out my post "Eight reasons why I moved to Switzerland" https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t...
btw.: Switzerland also takes refugees, but because they want to, not because they are forced by the EU.
[+] [-] rolux|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rolux|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] powertower|10 years ago|reply
The recent waves or unchecked immigration has produced nothing but negative effects to the population, to such an extent that even recent immigrants themselves want the doors shut.
[+] [-] werber|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dao-|10 years ago|reply
'Does this project make money with putting refugees in touch with flats?'
'No, “Refugees Welcome“ is a non-profit organisation. However, you can support our work with a donation to the association Mensch Mensch Mensch which carries this project. Our bank details are: Mensch Mensch Mensch e.V. IBAN: DE88430609671167120500 BIC: GENODEM1GLS We can provide donation receipts.'
[+] [-] roymurdock|10 years ago|reply
It's easy to hate the concept of immigration and, by extension, the thought of millions of immigrants pouring into your home country. In fact, we're hardwired to have an aversion to this idea. Humans have always formed small units such as families or tribes in order to compete with other humans for limited resources. Immigrants are easily lumped together into a menacing tribe of competitors.
But when you host someone, they stop being "just another immigrant" and you can start to see them for what they were the whole time: a real person with a voice, a smile, sorrow, joy, tastes, quirks, humor, goals, and dreams. Empathy is crucial.
It's not going to solve the larger problem of the millions of immigrants displaced by war or corrupt governance, but it probably will have a positive impact on thousands of lives, which is an awesome outcome for a small group of people looking to make a change through technology.
[+] [-] d9h549f34w6|10 years ago|reply
I'm assuming that the main difference between then and now is that an increase in resources means we can share freely with more "outsiders." Presumably resources aren't infinite, so what's the upper bound? How would we know?
[+] [-] Kalium|10 years ago|reply
I felt empathy for a beggar on the streets of San Francisco this morning. Yet my money stayed in my pocket. I have other uses for it.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] domrdy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dudul|10 years ago|reply
I know that in some countries this would be illegal, not sure about Germany though TBH.
Edit: No sure why this got downvoted, especially considering the response by mtrn.
[+] [-] mtrn|10 years ago|reply
However, as I read § 96 (I am no lawyer), it is slightly biased toward trafficking and the commercial aspect of the facilitation of illegal entry.
[+] [-] ashleyp|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prodmerc|10 years ago|reply
I wish there was something like this for migrant workers, who often get treated as bad or even worse than refugees by their employers (yes, even in Germany)...
[+] [-] vishalzone2002|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jqm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dao-|10 years ago|reply
Syria was fairly stable until its people made demands and their leader responded with gun fire. Not sure where you see the role of "the West" in that escalation. Do you think the problem was that the West sneakily infected Syrian people with the absurd idea that they could have the same rights as people elsewhere? Or maybe that the West failed to support Syrian rebels when they begged for it, allowing Assad to go on fighting his people for years and IS and other jihadist groups to gain ground in the country?
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hnpc123|10 years ago|reply
Must be white people driving the events in Syria.
[+] [-] lexcorvus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imahboob|10 years ago|reply