- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
Norway may put a fence along part or all of the 123-mile border it shares with Russia, a move inspired by a similar project in its Nordic neighbor Finland.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/1WMyN
Um, so let’s think about this. Why are people fleeing the Russian military and its operations to secure the power of its chosen allies in Syria not rushing to seek asylum in the country that blew up their homes in the first place? I mean Russia is obviously such a great nation to live in, with its very high standards of living and no possibility of being forced to either join the Russian military or being handed over to the very regime you are claiming asylum from.
I also didn’t realize that Türkiye and Russia, the two nations between Syra and Norway, represented ‘the whole of Europe and large parts of the Middle East and North Africa’.
I guess the one poor country already hosting 3.2million refugees is handling it very well, as there have been absolutely no race riots, violence, or mass deportations back to Syria, and we should expect every single refugee to stay there instead of attempting to make a claim in any other nation.
I also missed that line in the UN declaration of human rights that says you can ignore applying these rights to people if the Russians are also being dicks to them. /s
It’s not about shopping for a great country to live in, that’d be just migration. It is about finding asylum from persecution etc. If they’re willing to travel very far to find one with the best quality of life until they make their asylum request, then that does sound very suspects. That’s not the point of the system and just makes things worse for those needing acute protection.
And I’m not sure if you are being purposefully obtuse about the system but also of the fact that there’s quite a few other countries closer to Syria than Norway and plenty of opportunities to apply for asylum. And of the fact that it’s not just Syrians who are doing the asylum requests but people from a lot further away.
When people paying hefty sums to traffickers and organizing trips through several countries to the far North instead of anywhere closer and aren’t willing to settle for anything other than Norway for example, it does put into question their motivation. Whether it’s acute need of protection, war, famine such a thing or just seeking for a better life.
Again, Norway is actually very close at just two nations away, one of which has regular race riots and has still taken in literally millions of refugees, while the other is the one that installed the regime persecuting them and is fucking Russia.
Most of the nations that are closer are either filled with religious persecution, so impoverished as to require vast amounts of western food aid just to feed their own people, or are already taking in orders of magnitude more refugees than Norway.
Why should the aid a nation provides the international community be based solely on geographical proximity? Does this mean that Norway should also not provide any aid to Ukraine, as it is also geographically far away? Why should it only the the poor nations that should do their part to take in people in distress and not the rich?
When so much of the world is impoverished and struggling to survive itself, why is it so ‘suspicious’ that when people are forced to start over from scratch they might try and do so in the lands of over abundance and where their children don’t have to worry about being beaten to death by a mob or living in Putin’s Russia?
Lmao it’s whole North-South lenght of Russia. That’s like saying Finland is very close to North Korea since there’s just one country between us and them. You are being silly.
It just makes sense that if you are in need of acute protection from persecution or are temporary displaced and need a temporary shelter that you’d seek it close to you, instead of organizing a trip to where you’d think the quality of life is the best and skip applying in counties you’re passing through.
If you are just looking for a place with a nice quality of life to settle in, you do seem more like a migrant than an asylum seeker in need of acute protection.
I get wanting to live in a rich country but that’s not what the asylum system is about. It’s not a human right to get to live in Norway. At that point it’s just immigration and they should do that through proper channels instead of frankly abusing the asylum system. In the long run that will just fuck up the whole system.
Given that it’s takes months of work to cross a border for a refugee but it’s only a three day drive from Sochi to the Norwegian border, yes, the number of borders absolutely matters more than physical distance.
Show me where in article 14 it says that this right only applies the geographically closest nation and all others are except.
Or, because you keep insisting that there are so very many safe nations with unlimited resources and food for people to wait out the collapse Russia and its puppets with only one nation between them and Syria, list them.
Note, these nations must not be a theocracy or limit the freedom of religion, not currently be at war, have an effective refuge program that does not limit the number of entrants, and of course not be in need of significant international aid themselves.
See, this is the shopping I meant. For some reason it has to be a wealthy land of plenty like Norway that they make their application in even though the point is just to seek protection, not to just pick a country that fits your bill for the best place to live. Nowhere in article 14 it is said that the asylum application guarantees that you’ll live in a wealthiest of wealthy European country while your status is processed. But somehow these people find the money and means to apply in such countries instead of accepting lesser conditions.
Jordan for example is right next door to Syria and understandably a lot of Syrians have went there. But these certain desperate people in need of acute protection skip over Turkey and whole of Russia to apply in Norway instead.
I don’t fault them for wanting a better life and Norway is an excellent pick. But of course it’s easy to see why them being serious asylum seekers is taken with a pinch of salt and they’re often just treated as migrants.
I think everyone does that to a degree.
So that’s the one option then, and it’s a good option that a lot of Sunni Syrians (who are not subject to the same religious persecution as converts) take, and as such 30% of the entire nation are refugees or migrants from Palestine and Syria.
Naturally a small desert country, the influx has caused significant strain on the nations water infrastructure, and with a small economy, limited resources, and limited capital, Jordan is forced to sacrifice 6% of the entire nations GDP on the refugee program. Also worth noting that said national GDP is smaller than just the Norwegian government budget.
This on top of an already struggling economy, and the fact the nation is dependent on buying foreign food, and the limits placed on foreign dept by international creditors, the nation has been forced to undertake an extreme austerity program in order to prevent mass famine, which has of course further limited economic growth.
As such not only are people fleeing religious prosecution going to find similar prosecution in Jordan, but the nation is struggling hard to feed its own people and is in no position to take everyone even if it wanted to. As a result it has increasingly turned refugees away, and heavily pushes for non Sunni refugees to go to places where they will actually be safe.
Since most people arn’t dumb, many take said advice and travel to a nation where they will actually be safe, you know, the whole point of the asylum system.
The whole reason it needs to be a wealthy land is because the land needs to actually be able to support the refugees for them to all actually be able to go there without trapping the host nation in a cycle of poverty.
So now that you, as a non Sunni refugee, have been rejected from Jordan, what’s you next suggestion for the nearest safe nation?
And again I must ask the basic question, why are poor nations expected to sacrifice so much so that the rich ones can do absolutely nothing?
edit: Or on second thought don’t, this conversation has already drifted so far from the actual subject of border security methods, and going nowhere if I have to explain the baisc idea of why the rich might have to help the poor or why border crossings between unsafe nations might be harder than a road trip within a single nation.
Going down the list of nations within two hops of Syria and explaining why each in turn may be unsafe for you or turn you away is also going to be exhausting and you can just google it.
It’s not that certain nations have to suffer the burden of asylum seekers and refugees. We’re not dealing these people like they’re chips. That’s not the discussion. But rather that some of these people, rather than applying for asylum in any closer country, they will seek out these wealthier ones much further away to make their asylum applications. And that can be pretty sus when you consider their honest motivations. If it is actual need of protection and safety or want to live in a wealthier country.
If there was a civil war in Sweden and Swedes needed asylum I wouldn’t be asking why Saudi Arabia isn’t taking these people in. It’d be natural that they’d come to Finland and Norway. But when there’s issues in Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, wherever, it’s Finland, Norway and Sweden they come to. Hmm.
And many will use that opportunity to make false asylum claims and just try to migrate somewhere where they’d rather live. Which is not the point. Asylum seeker system isn’t supposed to be some way to sidestep normal immigration procedures for people who’d rather not apply through the normal means. Abusing the system will just fuck over genuine applicants and make sure things such as what happened in Finland happen again. Russia brought in migrants to hassle Finland and we shut to borders. Now because of that even genuine asylum seekers were stranded.
It’s funny when people came here to Finland through that route, claimed asylum on basis of needing international protection, then fucked off from Finland in the middle of the process to live somewhere else (often knowing their claim couldn’t stand the scrutiny). Fucking hell, talk about discrediting the system. Sucks that the wealthier people who are able to pay for the visas, passports, to pay the smugglers travel all the way to Norway to apply for asylum while the ordinary people are stuck in camps much closer to the country of origin. Doesn’t seem fair.
Well, the actually wealthy and well off people will just hire an immigration lawyer and fly there while keeping some wealth, and not working their way from dangerous predicament to predicament one step at a time, often dying in the process.
If you’re well off, you sure arn’t going to give it all up to a smuggler for an asylum claim.