The Refugee Crisis and the greater malaise of the West

Yes please, I will take in a refugee and house them in my home. But also Lets be clear that it’s a collective responsibility to look after the vulnerable fellow humans in extreme condition. That collective responsibility has been delegated to the governments as the body that represents our collective wishes. The failure of the government to show resolve and strength demonstrates lack of leadership and efficacy. 

Just how dire is Western leadership?

The greatest service to refugees of all possible sources came from Victor Orban. His action on forcing refugees to camps, stopping them from travelling and erecting border fence along with comments like “Hungarians have the right to live without Muslims” galvanized public support for refugees at a time when one of the main rhetoric of Western governments is “immigration control”.  Civic activism and magnanimity forced Western governments to do something.

Leadership has degenerated into public management. Government has digressed to be only concerned with bureaucracy due to a lack of visionary leadership. Almost everything in social life is produced by rare but consequential shocks and changes; all the while almost everything studied focuses on the “Normal” in tune with the populous temperament that tell close to nothing. Democratic populism ignores the changing world, cannot handle the, yet makes us confident that we have tamed uncertainty.  The nature of social phenomena can only be understood in severe circumstance, not under the regular rosy glow of daily life. Can you assess the danger a criminal poses by examining only what he does on an ordinary day? Can we understand health without considering wild diseases and epidemics? Indeed the normal is often irrelevant.

Focusing on the “normal” means the government is represented on most issues by the vocal part of the society that includes the immigration debate. The anti immigration lobby happens to be xenophobic which makes government policies sinister and particularly unfair on the immigrants. 

Legal routes for Refugees to reach Europe

Germany is adopting a very moral compassionate position. However there simply isn't the public support for taking in tens of thousands of refugees in the UK. is there any alternative routes for people to reach Europe, some have argued that the UK should offer visas to highly skilled Syrians eg nurses doctors computer engineers etc. This could be sold as offering benefits to both the UK and the people concerned. Its hard to see why such professionals would come to the UK lack of social support and stringent visa controls while they can be free of immigration control in more supportive countries like Germany. such social support include child care, working family support, housing and education all of which are abysmal and withheld all together from working families who come from war torn countries.

I came to the UK on a skill visa from Afghanistan; after investing half a million pounds, creating numerous jobs for British citizens and paying tens of thousands into the public purse I face the prospect of being removed from the UK. The government this year introduced more requirements in order to qualify for stay such retrospective rules are against the rule of law yet contrary to Phil Woolas assertion I can not find legal help to initiate a judicial review. The official line of Home Office is to “control” the number of immigrants in response to concern expressed by British people through democratic processes in practice this has turned into oppressing minority by popular demand. 

The system suffers from a lack of visionary leadership, xenophobia and short-sightedness. Refugees have protection and the government cannot remove their status in response to popular demand but those who work are a toy for making political gestures. the proof is the immigration website where you will find constant and relentless stream of judicial decisions showing the vast numbers of errors which occur by the Home Office; transitional provisions regarding immigration rules ignored, policies not taken into account, ambiguous rules inconsistently applied, children or dependents not considered properly, judicial precedents ignored.

The system is broken because it does not recognise my circumstances. I am invested in the UK, my children are born and raised here; a war is raging in Afghanistan and apart from being born there I have no real connection to it. Yet I am constant threatened with removal by unfair rules. There is a divorce between the values the British society espouse to hold and the immigration system.