Canadians Drowning in An Unsustainable Flood of Immigration
"The
rising volume of asylum claims, along with the longer duration of
eligibility [under the Interim Federal Health Program] caused by
extended determination times, has been an important growth driver in
recent years [of steeply rising health costs in Canada]."
"[Resettled
Gazans received $41 million in various benefits; the Interim Housing
Assistance Program was given $400 million and $66.4 million was
described as funding "temporary accommodations to asylum seekers."
Parliamentary Budget Office report
"Rejected
asylum claimants are now receiving better health care than many
Canadians who have paid into a system their entire life."
"At
a time when six million Canadians cannot find a family doctor and are
waiting for care, it's unacceptable that bogus asylum seekers are
receiving better health benefits than Canadians."
MPs Dan Mazier/Michelle Rempel Garner, shadow ministers Health and Immigration
 |
| A new report
shows Ontario hospitals spent $9.2 billion on private, for-profit
nursing and staffing agencies over the past decade, a figure that
doubled between 2013 and 2023. Critics of private agencies urge Ontario
to phase them out, calling them a ‘band-aid on a gaping wound.’ CBC |
A
new analysis by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer reports
that it will cost Canadians a record $1-billion this year to pay for
health-care premiums of refugee claimants, some of whom continue
receiving free health care even while their claims have been rejected.
Costs are ballooning as a result of an unprecedented number of foreign
nations in Canada, representing a five-fold increase from six years
earlier when the cost totalled $211 million annually.
 |
|
Looking
ahead to the future, the cost projection reaching into 2030 sees $6.2
billion being laid out for refugee claimants' health care. Even asylum
claimants whose refugee applications have been rejected can access the
benefits of the Federal Health Program. The level of care being offered
to refugee claimants surpasses that given to the average Canadian
citizen where, in addition to hospital and surgical care, the IFHP
covers dental care, vision care, pharmacare and other services not
covered by general public health plans.
This,
at a time when hospitals are overwhelmed by a surge in demand on their
services, when wait times for surgery lead to early deaths, amidst a
shortage of doctors and nurses and hospital beds. A time when six
million Canadians cannot access the services of a family practitioner.
The
surge in both immigration/refugee/migrant levels into the country
amounting to about an increase of a third of the population falls
between the period of 2015 to the present, a decade altogether where two
Liberal-led governments in Canada have fuelled both a stupendous
increase in the population and a concomitant increase in the cost of
welfare and all manner of social services, extending even to a higher
cost of living for all Canadians where housing prices have soared.
Figures
released by the Immigration and Refugee Board indicate 299,614 foreign
nationals in Canada await their refugee claim results, representing over
a 1,800 percent increase from the number -- 16,048 -- in Canada when
the Trudeau Liberals took office in 2015. Tens of thousands of illegal
border crossers entered the U.S. on tourist visas planning to enter
Canada illegally, where they then made refugee claims. Similarly foreign
nationals who entered Canada on student visas, claimed refugee status
once their visas expired and they were expected to return to their home
countries.
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| A
refugee claimant arrives at the Roxham Road border crossing at the
US-Canada border in Champlain, New York. Photo by Lars Hagberg/AFP Getty Images |
Claimants
for asylum may be given immediate access to government benefits,
leading to uncontrolled surges in federal spending, and an unsustainable
burden to Canadian communities trying to cope with such sudden influxes
of foreigners taking advantage of Canada's reputation as an easy
country to access entry to, with copious social benefits to be had. The
Interim Housing Assistance Program picks up shelter costs and food for
asylum claimants. It was revealed that some asylum claimants receive
room and board benefits of over $200 daily.
Those
asylum claimants who are accepted receive food and shelter to the
equivalent of $84 daily for meals and $140 a day for hotel rooms. Gazans
entering Canada were given exceptional additional federal payouts of
some $3,000 each on entering Canada. Some 130,000 people accessed some
form of benefit from the Interim Federal Health Program in 2016, a
situation that has more than quadrupled to 611,000 according to the
Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Even
an ineligible asylum claimant can reach for at least two years of
Canadian health benefits prior to rejection of their claim, given the
current 24-month backlog at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
Benefits can still be accessed until the claimant, if rejected, manages
to exhaust all avenues of appeal, which can take years.
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| An RCMP officer looks on as asylum seekers cross the Canada-U.S. border at Roxham Road . (Charles Contant/CBC) |
Labels: Access to Medical Care, Canadian Immigration Authority, Housing, Immigration, Liberal Government Excesses, Migration, Refugees, Social Services, Social Welfare
National Sovereignty and the Unstoppable Migration
"[The new U.S. policy on migrants remaining in Mexico until their applications for asylum in the U.S. have been vetted] will extremely limit people’s ability to access asylum in the United States."
"How
are people going to have access to due process if they are waiting in
Mexico and their asylum cases are being adjudicated in the United
States?"
"How are they going to have access to lawyers,
translation?"
Gretchen Kuhner, director, Mexico City-based Institute for Women in Migration
"So far it seems as though Mexico is acquiescing to this."
"There will be elements from [Lopez Obrador’s] own party that
say, ‘Why are we giving into the Americans? Why are we doing the
Americans’ dirty work'?"
Duncan
Wood, head, Mexico Institute, Washington, DC-based Wilson
Center
 |
A migrant from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands traveling
from Central America en route to the United States, poses in front of
the border wall between the US and Mexico in Tijuana, Mexico, Nov. 23,
2018.
Credit: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters
|
Mexico's new President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is opening his country to the presence of migrants in lock-step with the U.S. administration hardening its borders. He has taken steps to encourage migrants leaving their poverty- and violence-stricken homelands in Central America to choose to remain in Mexico. It will be easier for them now to acquire visas and work permits for Mexico. Obrador hopes by these means that investments will be promoted and that he can get on with public works projects in the creation of employment.
These new policies have encouraged more migration caravans from Central America to head to Mexico. Another large one, with over 12,000 people is headed to Mexico, many among them claiming their intention to reach Mexico, and remain there. For the time being, in any event. Many are aware that they are leaving their home countries mired in violence and poverty, and heading to another country in which violence and poverty dominate as well. Choosing to overlook that in America too poverty and violence is prevalent.
 |
| Aerial view of Honduran migrants onboard a
truck as they take part in a caravan heading to the US, in the outskirts
of Tapachula, on their way to Huixtla, Chiapas state, Mexico, on
October 22, 2018.
PEDRO PARDO/AFP/Getty Images |
President Obrador's invitation to migrants fits right in with his broader desire in protection of human rights, to reduce inequality and to prioritize the interests of the poor, serving as a counterpoint to the position taken by the White House. His policy, however, will without doubt create even greater strains. Caravans of migrants are responding in part to Mexico's new openness to accepting migrants while the migrants consider the new opportunity to be a temporary stop-gap on their way to the U.S.
"The humanitarian visa that they're giving now is the reason we are here. Later, if possible, we can get to the United States", stated Carlos del Valle, a Guatemalan teacher, applying for the Mexican visa on the bridge that connects his country with Mexico. The issuance of such visas has been expedited from five days rather than the month it has taken up to now, a permanent change in policy. Representing Mr. Obrador's strategic interests in presenting Mexico's immigration policy as more humane.
 |
| Mexican navy personnel hand out food to
Central American migrants stuck in no man’s land on the bridge over the
Suchiate River that is the border between Guatemala and Mexico, near
Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Saturday, Oct. 20, 2018.
Oliver de Ros/AP |
The Trump administration last month announced a new policy to return most asylum-seekers to Mexico arriving at the border by land, intended to discourage Central Americans from planning to migrate to the United States. Petitioners are now required to remain in Mexico while awaiting their case outcomes, thus easing pressure on the overworked U.S. asylum system.
Over 12,000 people arriving at the Guatemala/Mexico border have been encouraged to apply for the humanitarian Mexico visa at Ciudad Hidalgo. A proportion of the migrants state their intention to remain in Mexico to avail themselves of job programs sponsored by the government, but many see safe-passage permits in the visas, to attain Mexico's northern border, and when the time seems right, cross into the United States.
 |
| Aerial view of a Honduran migrant caravan
heading to the US, on the Guatemala-Mexico international border bridge
in Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas state, Mexico, on October 20, 2018.
PEDRO PARDO/AFP/Getty Images |
Mexico, citing a labour shortage, is attempting to fill thousands of low-skilled jobs with migrant labour, promoting job creation in southern Mexico with a proposed $30-billion regional development plan, ordering tax cuts in municipalities along the northern border to spur economic development and the creation of jobs. The minimum wage was recently raised by about 16 percent. All of which fails to persuade many caravan participants to remain in Mexico, their hopes still set on the U.S.
"Even though I have to wait five days for the pass to get into Mexico, later I will see how to get to the United States", stated Franklin Caballero, 30, from Honduras, deported from the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant for driving without a license. He plans to pay a smuggler in northern Mexico to sneak him across the border into the United States.
 |
| A Catholic nun gives travel advice to Central
American migrants riding in the bed of a semi-trailer, as they move
toward the U.S. border, in Ixtlán del Rio, Nayarit, Mexico, Tuesday,
Nov. 13, 2018.
Marco Ugarte/AP /
ASSOCIATED PRESS |
Labels: Borders, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Migration, United States
Evil Is As Evil Does
"Evil
does not prevail."
"And the message of
Christmas has not been contradicted but rather confirmed by Tuesday’s
dramatic night: Evil and good are both there, but in the end the good
will have last word."
Archbishop Luc Ravel, Strasbourg cathedral
"[Cherif Chekatt was] an Islamic State
soldier [who had] carried out the operation in response to calls for
targeting citizens of coalition countries [fighting its militants in
Syria and Iraq]."
Amaq, Islamic State news agency
"The terrorist threat is still at the heart of the life of our nation."
"Our engagement against terrorism is total."
French President Emmanuel Macron
"[As police moved to stop him, the suspect turned round and opened fire. They fired back and] neutralized [the attacker]."
"As I am speaking to you, I am thinking about the victims and the
wounded. I am thinking of those close to them."
"I am thinking of
Strasbourg and France that was hit by this terrible attack."
French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner
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| French special forces secure the area where Chekatt was shot Reuters |
Born in Strasbourg, 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt has distinguished himself through criminality for the past 19 years. At age ten police were already alerted to his errant behaviour. In prison in France in 2015 as a result of criminal activities including robbery, he was added to a watch list for
"practising a radical form of religion". Not only in France did he serve time in prison, but over the border from Strasbourg in Germany as well, and for the same reasons, though the German authorities failed to flag him as a potential terrorist threat.
Neighbours and stalwarts of the European Union; the fulcrum around which the EU exists in fact, both France and Germany are home to millions of Muslim immigrants and migrants. In France they live in
"banlieues", ghettos where police, firemen and authorities of any description are loathe to venture in view of the violent hostility with which they are viewed and by which they are threatened. It can be worth life and limb to venture therein.
Neither France nor Germany will admit to having a Muslim 'problem' with Islamofascism since both are progressive countries not averse to post-nationalism verities, the new-left progressive ideal. Both, like Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway and other generous illegal migrant intake countries suffer violent crime in lock-step with an increase in the Muslim population of angry young men who flirt with Islamist jihad.
Cherif Checkatt was one of many. As in a number such as 25,000 Muslims who have succeeded in making it onto a list of people on France's "S" watch; these are individuals identified as potential security threats. And from time to time one of these 'security threats' reaches out to jihad to meet his destiny, on the way to doing which, they do their utmost in careful planning and stockpiling of weapons to send Allah the gift of slaughter.
Armed with a gun and a knife, Chekatt entered France's oldest, most popular Christmas market at 8:00 in the evening, busy with Christmas shoppers, to begin stabbing and shooting at unaware innocents, killing three people and wounding a dozen, leaving several of the wounded in seriously critical condition. Before the Christmas market attack, just hours before, he had robbed a store, then escaped detection.
Police had called at his home with questions linked to an attempted murder, but he was absent. He had left behind, however, a grenade, a rifle, and four knives.
With a total of 27 criminal convictions in France, Germany and Switzerland for theft and armed robbery, this was a busy person, leading France's intelligence agency, the DGSI to keep tabs on him. Leading to the inevitable question; how close those tabs were for such a crime-invested individual? No fewer than 700 police were tasked in the search for the man following the deadly Christmas market attack.
Five people have been taken into custody for questioning. Four members of his family. It wouldn't be the first time that family members of terrorists who shout
Allahu Akbar! as they attack innocent people for slaughter in the name of Islamist jihad have been shown to have knowledge of an imminent attack, failing to intervene, much less contact authorities in an effort to stop the carnage.
Labels: France, Germany, Immigration, Islamism, Migration, Terrorism
Cameroonian Migrant Returnees
"I was fortunate to cheat death on several occasions, but other migrants didn't have such luck -- they died in the desert. In fact, I have been to hell and back."
"Before I left Nigeria to Niger, I was robbed of all my cash. Fortunately, I had paid the connection agents ['passeurs']. When we got to Niger, the smugglers who received us locked about 200 of us in a room in a bid to evade a state crackdown."
"We were tortured several times with electric wires and given very little food and water. Two people even died."
Jean Toukam, 30-year-old Cameroonian, Yaounde, Cameroon
"I stayed for six months without the promised job upon arrival."
"I did a crash training course in transport and logistics and got a job with a salary of 100,000 CFA francs [about C$230], less than half of what I used to earn back home."
"At this time, I was sleeping on a bare floor in an air-tight room with no furniture."
Malvina, Cameroonian returnee
"We have so far chartered ten flights -- five from Tripoli and five from Agadez -- to bring home migrants who voluntarily wanted to come back."
Seybou Boubacar, UN International Organization for Migration, Cameroon Chief of Mission
Malvina who wanted her last name withheld is back home in Cameroon. She has set up a small business of her own and it is thriving.
"Home is really home", she stated. She had decided to leave Cameroon when she was invited to travel to Mali by a friend who told her of a well-paying job. When she left, she took her three-year-old son with her. Before long the company she worked for was forced to perform a financial restructuring and her job was eliminated. She would go on to Algeria, crossing the desert on foot, carrying her son on her back. She was found and repatriated to Mali. Then made her way back to Cameroon. Her migration was not one of desperation.
As for Toukam, he set out to cross the Mediterranean Sea to arrive in Europe with the expectation that his life would change for the better. He was trained as an agriculture and livestock technician. Leaving Yaounde, he passed through Nigeria and Niger to reach Sabratha a city on the Libyan coast where he fell victim to slavery. He is only one among thousands of young people from sub-Saharan Africa feverish to migrate to Europe though it means traversing dangerous routes and enduring harsh climatic conditions in the Sahara and facing the risks of the Mediterranean.
These
"adventurers" use trafficking networks of clandestine operations. According to the U.S. Department of State, their 2018 report states:
"the Government of Cameroon does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking". When Toukam left Cameroon in 2015 he planned to meet up with a Libyan friend to find work on an agricultural project in Libya. He set out on a journey of over 3,000 miles to Libya, cash in hand. He ended up staying in a ghetto in Agadez, Niger for three months and spoke of his time there as
"life-threatening".
Deciding to move on to Libya he and 25 migrants were packed into the back of a pickup truck and as they travelled through the Sahara Desert two of their company died of dehydration before the smuggler abandoned them all. Two weeks later he attempted again, and reached Libya where he was sold by his 'passeur', and locked up in an encampment by armed smugglers. Eventually his family sent back 800 euros to buy his freedom. Upon which he decided to cross to Italy; en route being abducted by armed smugglers when he incurred bullet wounds attempting to escape following four months of captivity.
The European Union arranged for him to be taken to a repatriation camp in Tripoli, Libya. Now back in Cameroon, Toukam has created a returnees' association whose purpose it is to alert young people in Cameroon of the risks inherent in irregular migration. The United Nations is giving aid to migrants along the central Mediterranean routes if they voluntarily return to their home countries. There is concern that young girls are being trafficked to Europe and Middle East countries like Kuwait and Lebanon as domestics or sex workers facing forced labour, torture and other forms of violence.
Through this program in the last year and a half 2,397 Cameroonian migrants have found assistance to return home. Each returnee is given money for incidental expenses and seed capital to help them start up a business. The International Organization for Migration covers the cost of those agreeing to return on commercial flights back to Cameroon.
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| 184 Cameroonian returnees have been supported by IOM to start their livelihood activities. Photo: IOM |
Labels: Africa, Danger, Europe, Migration, Returnees, Smuggling
Infiltration Through Stealth of Numbers
"According to a Harvard University study, the Islamisation of a
country cannot be stopped once the Muslim population reaches 16 percent
of the total population. This is what Islam expert, Nikoletta Incze,
said on 22 June, on Hungarian public television".
"Incze
is a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Political Islam, a
foundation of American Islam critic Bill Warner, which is active in
several countries."
"The interview
with the Islam expert was broadcasted as part of a morning magazine
report that focuses on the spread of Islam in Europe and bears the title
“Islamic Advance – Already 44 Million Believers in Europe."
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| Muslim women in Paris - Photo Credits: Zoetnet / Flicrk.com CC BY 2.0 |
"The main issue is ... about what the people believe what should be done."
"[The
move to return migrants to where they came from represents the
beginning of a] new period when we try to reconstruct the European
democracy."
"[No more migrants should be admitted, those that entered Europe and remain there] should be sent back."
"The invasion should be stopped, and to stop the invasion means to have a strong border."
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
"It
seems as if today [at the European Council Brussels summit to place
deterrence and EU border protection at the forefront of EU migration
policy] we will manage a shift in migration policy."
"[No longer should being rescued in the Mediterranean] automatically become a ticket [into central Europe]."
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz
"Some may think I am too tough in my proposals on migration."
"But trust me, if we don't agree on them, then you will see some really tough proposals from some really tough guys."
European Council President Donald Tusk
"We all face a simple choice: do we want national solutions or do we believe in European solutions and co-operation?"
"For my part, I will defend European solutions."
French President Emmanuel Macron
The "European solutions" that Emmanuel Macron speaks of so fondly, in
support of central decision making that all EU members must adhere to
for conformity of purpose and design and strengthening of the union
which has been noticeably fraying at the edges when Eastern European
nations began their dissent over accepting the tens of thousands of
mostly North African but also Middle East refugees comprised mostly of
single, young men has come at a time when some member-nations have
absorbed a presence of Muslim immigrants who have failed to integrate
into the prevailing values, customs and laws of the nations they burden
with their presence.
This was a choice that France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and Norway made,
generously opening their doors to Muslims harbouring a wish to live
elsewhere than in their countries of birth. Ostensibly to find greater
freedoms elsewhere, along with opportunities to advance their interests,
which includes taking advantage of generous social assistance programs
in 'progressive', democratic nations. Despite which, these are
populations which have often held themselves apart from the general
population, failed to respect national laws and impose their
religious-cultural practices on others.
Poland and Hungary among other countries have refused to dilute their
heritage and values in this same way and they have been joined by the
Netherlands and Austria, Italy, Greece and Spain, however tardy that has
been with their populations already swelling with the presence of
strangers at their gates, entitled, resentful, regarding themselves as
victims and imposing their cultural values and demands on the indigenous
populations, dismayed at the fraying of their nations' valued culture.
Europe has been swamped.
And it is slowly, but inadequately realizing that it is imperilled, turning toward the potential of transforming itself to
"Fortress Europe",
a situation imposed upon it through the unending tide of hopeful
economic migrants under the guise of refugees from oppressive and
dysfunctional governments, sectarian and tribal conflict, resulting in
mass unemployment and corruption. Leading tens of thousands of young men
to abandon their countries rather than embrace the more difficult route
of political activism demanding change.
Now, with the EU forced into action to protect its borders from
continued incursions of the magnitude seen in the past several years
which saw invasions of millions, Italy finally sees some relief on the
horizon:
"We hope these words will be translated into action. Italy no longer has a need for words and statements, we need concrete acts",
emphasized Italian Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte in the wake of the
country's spat with France and Spain over its refusal to absorb migrant
rescue ships' cargo of human traffic.
 |
Syrian migrants after
crossing the border between Macedonia and Serbia in August 2015. ‘The
EU’s agreement with Turkey ... ultimately led to the shutting down of
the Balkan route.’
Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images
|
"Europe has many challenges but migration could end up determining Europe's destiny",
remarked German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose own decision to open
wide Germany's frontier to a million migrants in a gesture of virtuous
generosity, ended up with her countrymen and women expressing
frustration and rejection at the unwelcome flood of mostly young men for
whom social welfare was extended and toward whom civil respect for
women had to be emphasized in the wake of mass sex assaults. Another
cultural importation.
Europe now imagines it can have a partnership with the very African
nations from which migrants are endlessly streaming, by convincing them
to agree to accept those migrants back into the African fold. And what's
more to agree to hosting EU immigration stations to legalize entry
through normal, civilized means of making application to emigrate in
circumstances where the EU will be enabled to evaluate suitability for
immigration and make those determinations either denying or accepting
applications at their source.
Donald Tusk visualizes increasing border forces in Europe to maintain
order and control of borders to ten thousand personnel, in tandem with
forging return agreements with the migrant-source African states. As
well,
"hot-spot camps"
to be set up in North Africa to be established to ensure that the
ongoing floods of human beings entitling themselves to haven, could be
controlled outside Europe. The African reception of these novel, civil
and normalized solutions has not, however, been very welcoming.
"That's not a solution", Morocco's migration and border surveillance director Khalid Zerouali, scoffed, referring to the
"regional disembarkation platforms".
Morocco has been increasingly in use as a jumping-off point to access
Spain, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangiers on unseaworthy
boats or clambering over high fences to reach enclaves in Morocco:
Melilla and Ceuta, Spanish enclaves.
Europe has struggled to react to, absorb and attempt to control
approximately 1.8 million sea arrivals of migrants since 2014, with
thousands of migrants losing the battle for safe arrival, to a watery
grave. Morocco, it seems, has not come up with a workable solution of
its own, since its country serves as a major transit point. Africa seems
not to mind its citizens searching elsewhere for personal fulfillment
thanks to its own mismanagement of its human resources.
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| Migrants rescued at sea in the Mediterranean. [Irish Defence Forces/Flickr] | | | | |
Labels: Crisis Management, Europe, Islamization, Migration, Refugees
Christianity in the Middle East
"Despite all your suffering, stay! Be patient! Don’t emigrate! Stay for
the church, your homeland, for Syria and its future!"
"[Europe, forbear and do not] encourage Syrian Christians to emigrate."
Syrian Catholic leader Melkite Patriarch Gregory III
"There will be lights, parties, Christmas trees and Nativity scenes."
"It’s all a charade."
"We should ask for
the grace to weep for this world, which does not recognize the path to
peace."
Pope Francis
"In Iraq, when Saddam Hussein was removed, we lost a million
Christians."
"Why? Not because the regime fell, but
because there was no more authority, there was a vacuum. In Syria, it’s
the same thing, Christians do not back the regime [of Bashar al-Assad],
but they are afraid of what may come next."
Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, Lebanon’s Maronite Christian
Patriarch
In Bethlehem, fondly rgarded as the birthplace of Christ, there are few
Christians left; they have migrated elsewhere, victims of persecution by
their Arab Muslim brethren. But the quaint, colourful customs of
Christmas continue in Bethlehem. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas makes it a point to attend Christmas church service as a gesture
of solidarity with the Christians who are no longer there.
Bethlehem aspires toward attracting tourism as a world heritage site.
But Christians are also wary of the lack of esteem in which they are
held. They fail to appreciate the decorations faithful to the season
meant to attract foreign visitors wishing to visit the site and are
willing to act the temporary part of Christians. Less the violence where
young Palestinians throw rocks at Israeli soldiers at the wall
separating the West Bank from Israel.
The tear gas that the soldiers lob back at the Palestinians creates a
fog of indifference by Muslims to the the hypocrisy of venerating one
version of god while denigrating the other, earlier version as false.
The despicable disregard for the minority religions around them which
holds Christianity to be an insult to Islam and the violence that
accompanies that venomous disrespect sees churches burned, Christians
threatened and their right to the sanctity of life in abeyance.
In the very cradle of Christianity, there is a scant 4% existence of
Christians remaining among the vast sea of Muslim detractors. The
low-grade persecution throughout the Middle East of the indigenous Arab
Christians has more recently witnessed the horrific spectacle of Islamic
State jihadists inflicting atrocities on the despised Christians. In
one incident whose vile butchery enervated Christians, a video showed
three Assyrian Christians forced to kneel, then shot in the head by ISIL
jihadists.
There is a variance in the birth rate between Christians and Muslims;
Coptic Christians in Egypt have a fertility rate of 1.9, while that of
Muslims is 2.7. In northern Iraq, Mosul was home to tens of thousands of
Christians when a wave of killings took place in 2008, which included
the murder of the Chaldean archbishop. When ISIL arrived in 2014
Christian homes had an "N" (for "Nazarene") placed on the exterior,
their occupants given the choice to convert, pay the jizya or face
death. The Christians fled.
 |
| The snow-covered golden Dome of
the Rock Islamic shrine in the Old City is seen behind a detail from
the glass-and-lead window of Dominus Flavit, a Catholic chapel on the
Mt. of Olives, on January 31, 2008 in Jerusalem, Israel Getty Images |
A century ago, Christian Arabs represented 20 percent of the region's
population, quite a downgrade to the current 4 percent and dwindling.
Christians continue their migration in the face of persecution, threats
that have drained the region of its diversity. The ancient presence of
Jews living among their Arab neighbours in Muslim nations such as
Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Algeria and Iran among others,
predated the exodus of Arab Christians.
Arab Christians found protection when strong dictators ruled the land.
Keeping the peace and maintaining order, although the situation was
always tenuous and they suffered minor indignities, violence was kept at
bay when Christians gave their support to the dictators. In Egypt, the
late Pope Shenouda III, of the Coptic church, the largest in
the Middle East, gave his trust to former dictator Hosni Mubarak,
discouraging Copts from joining protests that succeeded in toppling his
rule. When Tawadros II succeeded, he supported Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi who
maintains a level of order protecting Copts.
In the most piquant of ironies it is in the Gulf States where there was
always a paucity of Christians that their number has accelerated. They
come from the Asia-Pacific as labourers. As migrants they will never be
anything but migrant labourers, citizenship will always be denied them.
They have no roots in the Gulf, where the most conservative Islam is
practised. By no means do these migrants lead a particularly pleasant
life; they have few workers' human rights, but the allure of steady
work, sending their wages back home keeps them there.
Christians now live in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, though
their Christianity must be maintained at a low, inconspicuous level.
While Saudi Arabia bans Christian practise, leaving the Asian Christians
to worship in private, the UAE permits churches to be erected.
Nonetheless, states Father Paul Karam, president of a Catholic charity
in Lebanon, once a majority-Christian country, now in the minority:
"Christians are not guests in the Middle East.We are the
original owners of the land."
Much good that will do them.
(Guess he forgot Judaism, predating Christianity.)
Labels: Christianity, Islam, Middle East, Migration, Persecution
Concern Over Violent Islam Identifies You as a Fascist Racist
"It is evident to everyone that there is a correlation between illegal immigration and terrorism."
"Europe must protect itself, and the security of the people must be guaranteed."
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto
 |
| Las Ramblas after a vehicle mounted the pavement and drove toward crowds. Sunday Express |
There, it is said. And in the saying this man has committed the cardinal sin of 'racial profiling', of using a sloppy brush to paint a religion, the sacred concept of open borders to welcome the afflicted as being tainted with terrorism. In so doing willingly identifying himself as a typical Islamophobe, a philistine, a black-hearted cretin, a racist and a fascist. It is not fashionable to describe the links between Islamofascism, atrocities and the gentle religion beloved of a significant proportion of the global population.
But he is from Eastern Europe and known to be right-wing, and so his statement is explicable, expected, albeit deplored. In response, demonstrations materialized on the very day that Islam holds sacred for prayers in mosques around the world. Where people strenuously defended the place of Islam within Europe. Counter-protesters presented their faction's concern over the
"Islamicization of Europe", a concept which once expressed identifies the utterer as a fascist lout.
The generous acceptance of the presence of Muslims throughout Europe by the left, contrasting with concerned citizens labeled fascists for their well-earned doubts over that stifling and threatening presence. The good-hearted contingent decried Islamophobia, waving rainbow flags shouting
"Barcelona! Anti-fascist!", sleepwalking their way to a future of totalitarian Islamism capturing Europe, amending history to gift Islam with territory it had lost in centuries past.
France, it appears, is tightening its border with Spain, the country that has become destination central for Moroccan masses on the move. France and Belgium are familiar with Moroccan respect for the nations that have absorbed them. European counter terrorism circles have attuned their antennae to the large presence of Moroccans that have infiltrated Spain, France and Belgium, while government and municipal authorities assure their indigenous populations that all is under control.
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| Las Ramblas after a vehicle mounted the pavement and drove toward crowds. Sunday Express |
The fearfully uncontrolled episodes of Islamic jihad striking Barcelona and Cambrils this week must be viewed with circumspection; these things happen, shrug, shrug. But the police are reliably protecting the population, no need for concern. Unwisely, a Catalan police official, speaking to reporters in Barcelona, stated
"We cannot rule out further attacks": tch, tch, Major Josep Llufs Trapero.
If there is a hero, it is the Spanish police officer who reacted when her male partner suffered a broken leg and head wound when an Audi with five jihadis within plowed into pedestrians then collided with a police car, turning the Audi onto its roof but leaving the five within intact to confront the police in Cambrils. She, in lightning reaction, shot four of the terrorists dead.
"To kill four people, even if you are a professional, is not easy to digest" commented Police Chief Trapero.
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| Police check a car involved in the attack in Cambrils. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images
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Labels: Europe, Islam, Migration, Spain, Terrorism
