A closed border policy cannot be an answer as it is an even more intolerant attitude towards asylum seekers, Jews, Muslims, women and immigrants, political and social commentator Mohamed Ansar told RT.
RT:We have a
great clash of interests: refugees fleeing conflicts at home, and
heading to Europe, but finding they’re not welcome there. So
where’s the solution. To close borders or adopt policy
changes?
Mohamed Ansar: I don’t think having a closed
border policy is a right policy for the EU to move at this time.
We have seen a rise of the far-right across Europe. In the recent
European parliamentary elections we saw huge gains for the
far-right across Europe. At the time we are seeing a schism in
European politics, and we have seen left-wing socialists making
large gains in response, and a counter-movement to what we have
seen from the right-wing. [There is] widespread intolerance
towards minority groups within Europe, and we saw a research
piece a few years ago from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation,
another political foundation of the social democratic party in
Germany, on intolerance, prejudice and discrimination in
different countries which it selected throughout Europe. There
has been a hardening of attitudes towards particularly
immigrants, asylum seekers, Muslims, Jews, women and other
minority groups. The answer can’t be to close borders and to have
a more intolerant attitude towards them. What we need to do is
work together more closely with civil society organizations, to
work closer with government and political organizations to try to
find a solution to some of these problems.
RT: Germany’s expressed more willingness to
house refugees from Syria. But how much is the country doing to
help them find work and to obtain legitimacy?
MA: Research going back to 2006 showed that this
current trend that we see at the moment of prejudice against
immigrants, Jews, black people and increasingly also Muslims,
forms the central component of the right-wing populist and
extremist attitudes and we do also see this in Germany. Whilst
Chancellor Merkel and the German government have been extending
their hands towards Syrian refugees and asylum seekers, what we
have also seen at the same time is a hardening in attitudes
towards refugees. Germany is the country in Europe which is most
likely to imprison refugees; they have a very intolerant social
attitude towards refugees as we have seen over the last few days
in a recent stand-off with North African and Syrian refugees who
are held up in a local school there.
RT: Far-right activists have become more
active as the number of immigrants rise – what will it lead to?
More violence on the streets?
MA: It’s a sad but understandable consequence
that we will see tensions increase in Europe as the European
political and social project looks to try and understand how the
future is going to look in a closer working relationship with
migrant communities. Some of the leading statisticians who look
at population growth said that up to 2050 and 2100 whilst the
European population and population in the Americas will remain
relatively static, we’ll see a doubling of the population from
Africa and in South-East Asia. So this challenge that we have,
this societal challenge that we have for Europeans to become more
tolerant, to integrate successfully into the rest of the world is
going to be something that we are going to need some profound
solutions on.
These things don’t have added violence but we certainly do need
to consider what are the best forms of dealing with some of the
social problems. Largely many of these problems relate to
infrastructure, housing, health, education, and while a
government lives and functions in an environment of austerity and
is unable to fund those areas well, we also see a complacency
towards integrating funding for minority communities who are
moving into Europe and new settled communities, but this is going
to be the pattern of the future. If European governments are
getting onboard with dealing with new migrant communities, they
can find themselves increasingly isolated on the world stage.
RT: An inflow of people from other cultures
and religions is often perceived as a threat to local Europeans.
Is there any way to incorporate the immigrants into society?
MA: There are three main steps to prejudice
which happen within Europe. One is a categorization of what I
deem to be ‘the other’, the second is stereotyping and
the third is a judgment or effective priming is done against
these communities, which increase the likelihood of attacks, the
marginalization and alienation of those communities.
Within Europe we know that the largest migrant populations in
France, for example, are from North Africa and Algeria making up
around 10 percent, in Great Britain they make up around 9
percent, 4 percent of whom are we believe to be Muslims. In
Hungary we have far smaller populations, as we do in Italy. We
have relatively large populations in the Netherlands and in
Portugal as well. What we see in these countries is that the West
access integration model has worked, based on education. Europe
is not a Christian entity, it is a multicultural, multiethnic and
multi-religious region of the planet, and we need to start
encouraging a more broad-based education which looks more
inclusively on the contribution of those communities to European
life, not just looking merely at questions of integration,
hard-line counter-terrorism policies and other policies which are
looking to marginalize, alienate in a culture of hysteria
minorities that come from other parts of the world.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Comments
Add comment