{"id":70018,"date":"2016-02-22T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=70018"},"modified":"2016-02-22T12:56:51","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T12:56:51","slug":"how-humanitarian-imperialism-led-to-europes-refugee-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/02\/how-humanitarian-imperialism-led-to-europes-refugee-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"How Humanitarian Imperialism Led to Europe\u2019s Refugee Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"refugees<\/a><\/p>\n

19 Feb 2016 <\/em><\/p>\n

Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail:<\/strong><\/em> Do you see Cologne, 2015 as a turning point or the beginning of the end for European civilization?\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Jean Bricmont:<\/strong> I am not sure what\u00a0European civilization means, but if it survived the two World Wars, it will survive Cologne 2015. One should not exaggerate what happens with the refugees. I am of two minds about that. On the one hand, I don\u2019t think it is such a big deal; what are a few million refugees among 500 million Europeans? On the other hand, polls show that a majority of people in European countries\u00a0do not want to \u201cwelcome\u201d more refugees and I think it is their right to do so (even if personally I don\u2019t think it is such a big deal).<\/p>\n

What I call the moral left wants to force the population to be altruistic with respect to the refugees. But the population who is never consulted on the issue of refugees and who is constantly asked to make sacrifices because \u201cthere is no money\u201d understandably does not accept this moral discourse.<\/p>\n

Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail:<\/em><\/strong> How is what you wrote in Humanitarian Imperialism<\/a> related to the current refugee crisis?<\/em><\/p>\n

Jean Bricmont:<\/strong> Well, the same people who encouraged \u201chumanitarian\u201d interventions and \u201csupport\u201d for armed insurrections abroad, that have led to perpetual wars, generating a constant flow of refugees, are now demanding that the population of our countries \u201cwelcome the refugees\u201d. They first generate chaos there, then they applaud chaos here. It cannot last forever. One can see signs of\u00a0widespread\u00a0popular revolt against that. Now, I am not optimistic about the way this revolt will go, because, since the left has been almost totally won over to the cause of humanitarian interventions and its corollary of welcoming the refugees, this revolt will almost certainly benefit mostly the (far) right.<\/p>\n

Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail:<\/em><\/strong> Do you believe that guilt over the Holocaust is the driving force behind Germany\u2019s decision to accept over a million refugees?<\/em><\/p>\n

Jean Bricmont:<\/strong> It was not \u201cGermany\u201d that made that decision but Mrs. Merkel, to the consternation of many and perhaps most Germans.\u00a0 Her personal motives are unclear.\u00a0 For a minority of Germans who actively welcome the refugees, the Holocaust is no doubt a factor. But the younger generations, all over Europe, are fed up with this artificial guilt (how can anyone be guilty of events that occurred before their birth?).\u00a0So,\u00a0<\/strong>also in Germany, there is a lot of negative feelings with respect to the refugees.<\/p>\n

Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail:<\/em><\/strong> Do you think that one can be against US wars and Israeli occupation and at the same time have reservations about Muslim immigration to Europe?<\/em><\/p>\n

Jean Bricmont:<\/strong> Yes, of course. But I am very reluctant to see this immigration (as several people do) as a \u201cplot\u201d from the US and Israel to \u201cIslamize\u201d Europe. For one thing, the\u00a0Zionists here are divided: it is true that some of them are for more open borders, but others are afraid of the \u201cIslamisation\u201d of Europe, since they know that Muslims are not exactly fond of the \u201cJewish state\u201d. I don\u2019t believe such\u00a0Islamisation takes place, but I think one should be pragmatic about immigration. We will never have really open borders, unlike what some of the far left demands (otherwise we would really be quickly overwhelmed and a far right reaction would occur to stop that), nor will be have completely closed ones. It is only a question of degree. The problem is that some of our \u201celites\u201d live in a dream world where more globalization is always viewed as good and the wishes of the population are despised and ignored. That creates the risk of a dangerous backlash.<\/p>\n

___________________________________<\/p>\n

Jean Bricmont<\/em> teaches physics at the University of Louvain in Belgium. He is author of Humanitarian Imperialism<\/a>. He can be reached at Jean.Bricmont@uclouvain.be<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail<\/em> is a widely published writer and political analyst. In addition to having written a monthly column for Beo!<\/a>, his work has been published by Antiwar.com, Arab News (Saudi Arabia), Consortium News, Forward Magazine (Syria), Journal of Turkish Weekly, Khaleej Times (UAE), Ma\u2019an News Agency (Palestine), Middle East Monitor, Palestine Chronicle, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, RT, Tehran Times, The Nation (Pakistan), The Unz Review, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and many more.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 counterpunch.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I call the moral left wants to force the population to be altruistic with respect to the refugees. But the population who is never consulted on the issue of refugees and who is constantly asked to make sacrifices because \u201cthere is no money\u201d understandably does not accept this moral discourse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}