Do immigrants really need to risk their lives coming to Europe?

[Der]

I found the following post written by Mynydd on another thread, and after reading it, I begun to think about certain things that hadn't come to my mind before, that’s why I hope that some one will be able solve some of my doubts by answering my questions.

30,000 immigrant waiting to jump the borders

Then you should read here: Immigrant Crisis in Spain. Massive Assaults to the Borders in Ceuta and Melilla

Cruel? Perhaps. But the general feeling here is that the Sub-Saharans that we are seeing on the news are not the image of a starving people. Rather, they look very well fed and in good health (except for when they arrive on the boats, dehydrated during the travesy).

One of them told a TV that he had paid a few thousand dollars to arrive here. Now, a few thousand dollars is not something that you would expect a starving Black from Africa to be able to afford.

As for comments on "human rights", much has been said these days. The usual NGOs from Spain and other E.U. countries.

Just yesterday I read that some soldiers deployed at the fences of Ceuta and Melilla were complaining that they were there for nothing. They can't use force against the assailants, so they don't understand what they are doing there. Crazy.

From: A case of Zionism and WN Racism

Up to now I believed that immigrants especially sub-saharians came to Europe in search of a better life, one must be desperate to risk his or her own life coming in a boat to Europe as the sub-saharians do.

But after reading the previews post one realises that this "excuse" is in many cases nothing else than an excuse and not a reason (the real reason)

If Africans are not dying of hunger in Africa (they have thousands of dollars to spare), if they are not as desperate as the media, NGOs and leftists try to make out that they are. What reason is there that motivates them enough to risk their life’s tiring to reach the coasts of Europe (in particular Spain)

Are they not aware of how life will be in Europe for them? There are no assured jobs…

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Sub-Saharan Africa is not a monolithical block, not everywhere people are dying from hunger, only maybe in some areas.

Some of those who come to Europe are in fact a kind of entrepreneurs. They usually have something that they sell (land, house), how else would they be able to provide the money to the mafia that transports them to Europe? A wife of one friend of mine worked for the Interior Ministry of one of the Eastern European countries, for the Department of Refugees and Asylum-seekers, and she told me about great many cases that contradict the stereotypical image of immigrants who flee their country out of sheer necessity. There are great many swindlers, businessmen among them.

Of course, probably this cannot be said for all cases. There is widespread poverty in Africa. This poverty is caused, not by colonialism, as many think, but by the processes that were going on in Africa after the decolonisation. Western powers and multinationals contributed to it great deal. Globalized economy destroys the traditional way of life of many people and communities across the Black Continent, creating the proletariate that is expoited by local mafias, which often also provide service of transportation into Europe. If a person is too poor to pay his fare, sometimes they offer the possibility of refunding it in rates, while working illegally in Europe (it is especially the case with prostitution). So we see the pattern of the old slave trade where the local chiefs sold other fellow countrymen to slave traders.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

And Africa is, in addition, torn by constant warfare and violence, because of the lack of any form of civil society there. The natural state of Africa for millennia was a low-intensity warfare. Only when there arose some strong man, who happened to be chief of a tribe, and who at the same time had will to power and expansion, only then wars of high intensity used to start, including mass-slaughters of neighbouring tribes/peoples, in case they did not want to submit. Thus powerful confederations were formed (the most wide known example is that of Shaka Zulu) and even African empires, that, however, did not as a rule last for long time, having no deeper spiritual foundations (except for the element of magic and sorcery), only sheer power and force.

Nowadays, powerful weapons are available and international arms traders and even states are all too eager and ready to sell them, which causes more high intensity warfare and displacement of refugees who often go, guess where...

[Menydh]

The vast majority of Black Africans that we get over here do not come from where they suffer from severe famines. They come from countries like Sengal and Nigeria

Those are countries with a much more benign orography than Spain as a whole, better water resources through rivers and abundant rainfalls, more vegetation and a more fertile soil, etc.

There aren't either enough war conflicts to call for a refugee crisis.

Plethon has hit something here:

If a person is too poor to pay his fare, sometimes they offer the possibility of refunding it in rates, while working illegally in Europe (it is especially the case with prostitution). So we see the pattern of the old slave trade where the local chiefs sold other fellow countrymen to slave traders.

After the decision of Spanish Socialist PM Minister Zapatero of offering an amnesty to all illegal immigrants caused an uncontrolled mass flow of immigrants in Spain, the Spanish Socialist government looked for feeble ways to put patches to the huge hole that they had opened. One such attempt was to offer money to the governments of those countries so that they helped to control the flows from their origins. The press media here noticed that the failure of this attempt was due to the fact that, no matter how much money Zapatero offered them, the annual inflow of money that those countries receive through their immigrants is still far more attractive to them. And free of responsibilities.

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Der

Up to now I believed that immigrants especially sub-saharians came to Europe in search of a better life, one must be desperate to risk his or her own life coming in a boat to Europe as the sub-saharians do.

If Africans are not dying of hunger in Africa (they have thousands of dollars to spare), if they are not as desperate as the media, NGOs and leftists try to make out that they are. What reason is there that motivates them enough to risk their life’s tiring to reach the coasts of Europe (in particular Spain)

Are they not aware of how life will be in Europe for them? There are no assured jobs…

Plethon has already submitted two very perceptive posts. Let me add a few comments. Those literally at the bottom -- who are actually starving -- will not think of moving anywhere: their objective is just to survive to the next day rather than make the longer-term plans moving to another continent entails. Secondly, it requires some money to be paid to the international body smugglers who engage in this business. Sometimes the individual will beg, borrow, and steal from people around him; more frequently, however, he will place himself in indentured servitude to the smugglers, who find him employment at a starvation wages in the new country, and who charge loanshark rates for the money owed them (for transportation, fake documents, and lodging). In short, that individual has become a slave. These are the people who work in clandestine clothing factories or at construction sites.

In my humble opinion, it's usually not the fear of actual starvation that propels this movement, but the lack of opportunities for gainful employment. The main reason is probably rampant population growth -- which is not our responsibilty. Another lesser reason is the neo-colonialist aspect of many of the poor countries. Thus Nigeria need not be quite the hell-hole it is -- were in not for the tribal nature of its society, which produces corrupt generals and corrupt politicans, both operating hand-in-glove with Western energy multinationals to siphon the country dry.

My conviction is that their problems are largely self-induced and we are not responsible for them. However I feel impelled to also point out that a large chunk of our relative affluence is because of the neo-colonialist structure of world affairs: we are rich at their expense. We get cheap coffee and cheap bananas. Our multinationals -- aided and abetted by our governments -- exploited them for their natural resources and low labor costs. And this artifically unequal structure of international development is kept in place by coercion and bribery: even if a country tries to modernise, it finds there's no way of selling its manufactures (say) on world markets because of tariffs and trade regulations that have been set up for just this purpose. Nor -- except in rare instances such as oil -- can producers form their own cartel to break the hold of MNCs: one was tried for bananas, but it failed miserably. As long as this state of affairs continues it makes it slightly problematic for us to say that they should stay in their countries and we should stay in ours.

[Carnyx]

Do they even risk their lives to begin with? Some risk it, yes but it would be wrong to believe that all do. I would say many more arrive in Europe safe, by planes for instance.

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Carnyx

Do they even risk their lives to begin with? Some risk it, yes but it would be wrong to believe that all do. I would say many more arrive in Europe safe, by planes for instance.

They would need a visa for that, and such visas aren't easy to obtain for them. Forty or fifty years ago there was no problem: they could just land at a European airport and get their passport stamped. Today they must obtain a visa from a European consulate and the consular official will need to be satisfied about the reasons for visiting the country, the adequacy of funds, and the intention to return. That automatically excludes all those intending to surreptitiously and illegally take up abode in Europe and work off the books.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Carnyx

Do they even risk their lives to begin with? Some risk it, yes but it would be wrong to believe that all do. I would say many more arrive in Europe safe, by planes for instance.

Well, of those who arrive on raft boats (they are not exactly "rafts"), many are transported with the raft boat on wet nurse ships that leave them nearer to destination.

[Der]

Originally Posted by Carnyx

Do they even risk their lives to begin with? Some risk it, yes but it would be wrong to believe that all do. I would say many more arrive in Europe safe, by planes for instance.

When I started this thread I did so thinking specifically of the Sub-Saharans who come to Europe in raft boats. The people who come in planes are clearly not risking anything.

Originally Posted by bombadillo

They would need a visa for that, and such visas aren't easy to obtain for them. Forty or fifty years ago there was no problem: they could just land at a European airport and get their passport stamped. Today they must obtain a visa from a European consulate and the consular official will need to be satisfied about the reasons for visiting the country, the adequacy of funds, and the intention to return. That automatically excludes all those intending to surreptitiously and illegally take up abode in Europe and work off the books.

I am not sure how it is with Sub-Saharans, I know that there are many difficulties for some South Americans to acquire their visas, for example Colombians.
In any case the largest number of immigrants that come to Spain do so by plane, they come as students or tourists for a certain amount of time and when the time runs out they just don't get back on their plane.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Well, of those who arrive on raft boats (they are not exactly "rafts"), many are transported with the raft boat on wet nurse ships that leave them nearer to destination.

Yes, if they are found by either the "Guardia Civil" (Spanish civil armed police) or one of those "nurse ships" they are safely transported to their desired destinations. Although they are at the mercy of their luck, when the rafts set out they don't know whether the sea will take them to the coasts or whether they will be found at sea or dehydrate before they are found or get to their destination.

[Carnyx]

Originally Posted by Der

When I started this thread I did so thinking specifically of the Sub-Saharans who come to Europe in raft boats. The people who come in planes are clearly not risking anything.

OK.

I'm not quite persuaded all black Africans come in Europe in raft boats. The title is misleading in any case. What I do know is that most "clandestine immigrants" arrive in Europe by planes with a temporary tourist visa.

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Der

I am not sure how it is with Sub-Saharans, I know that there are many difficulties for some South Americans to acquire their visas, for example Colombians.
In any case the largest number of immigrants that come to Spain do so by plane, they come as students or tourists for a certain amount of time and when the time runs out they just don't get back on their plane.

There may be something in that. The other EU countries have tended to see Spain and Italy as the soft underbelly of Europe, relatively easy for migrants -- illegal or on temporary visas -- to get access to, and from there move on to Northern Europe. The people in Mediterranean Europe have also tended to have a more relaxed attitiude to migration (though perhaps this has now changed?). It is fiendishly difficult to get, say, a German or British visa.

Spain and Portugal still have some links with South America (which is probably not the main culprit as far as migration is concerned), so it may be relatively easy for an Argentine or Chilean to get a visitor visa for Spain. But this is probably not the problem

[Weltschmerz]

Originally Posted by Der

Up to now I believed that immigrants especially sub-saharians came to Europe in search of a better life, one must be desperate to risk his or her own life coming in a boat to Europe as the sub-saharians do.

Practically all immigrants come in search of a better life, and usually they get it at the expense of the indigenous population. There's even scientific work that proves it: Exit Folkhemssverige : en samhällsmodells sönderfall (9187028026) av Ingrid Björkman - AdLibris Bokhandel. The risks they take I don't claim to know much about, but I assume that they vary from none to their very life.

Are they not aware of how life will be in Europe for them? There are no assured jobs…

Well I don't know exactly how it works in Spain. But here they are practically given jobs, while natives have to fight for them. And those who do their best to seem not fit get some kind of support, I guess. There are so many parasites that not even our politically correct "national" television can deny the problem.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by bombadillo

There may be something in that. The other EU countries have tended to see Spain and Italy as the soft underbelly of Europe, relatively easy for migrants -- illegal or on temporary visas -- to get access to, and from there move on to Northern Europe. The people in Mediterranean Europe have also tended to have a more relaxed attitiude to migration (though perhaps this has now changed?). It is fiendishly difficult to get, say, a German or British visa.

This is highly subjective.

While it is true that the decision of Spanish PM Zapatero to regularize all illegal immigrants in Spain provoked an infamous "call effect" from Africa, it is also true that (at least until fairly recently) most sub-Saharan African and much North African immigration entered Spain via the Pyrenees, ie. through Europe. This, however, does not take the infamy away from Zapatero's provoked "call effect", since it is largely a result of it too.

Whatever the case, one must absolutely take into account that the distance that separates the Iberian and Italian peninsulas from the African continent may be easily be saved on small boats. With this in mind, it is more difficult to justify the immigrant base in countries in Central Europe, which are geographically more protected, and not to speak of countries which are theoretically safely isolated, like those in the British Isles or in the Scandinavian peninsula.

Spain and Portugal still have some links with South America (which is probably not the main culprit as far as migration is concerned), so it may be relatively easy for an Argentine or Chilean to get a visitor visa for Spain. But this is probably not the problem

It is a problem.

Unlike in any other European countries, Muslim immigrants in Spain are not the main group of invasion but they are second to South Americans. I believe that the numbers of Muslims in Portugal is even lower.

You don't see many Chileans, if any at all. As for Argentines, many of them have not arrived in Spain with a Spanish visa, but through Italy and with an Italian visa or even an Italian passport.

The previous Liberal government before the current Socialist one, had the idea to promote the immigration from South American countries in detriment of the immigration from Muslim countries. Most people will argue that this would be better. However true in part, it also brings the problem of an ease in assimilationist policies.

Originally Posted by Seekers

Practically all immigrants come in search of a better life, and usually they get it at the expense of the indigenous population. There's even scientific work that proves it: Exit Folkhemssverige : en samhällsmodells sönderfall (9187028026) av Ingrid Björkman - AdLibris Bokhandel. The risks they take I don't claim to know much about, but I assume that they vary from none to their very life.

The idea which many of them have in mind before arriving in Europe is that, here, money grows on the trees and you only have to extend your arm to pick it. Which is right in part, if you live in one slum in Mogadishu and change that for a life of social benefits paid by the state.

Therefore it matters little if we managed to improve the quality of life in their countries, because the alternative the way they believe it is, would still make it worth it for them to keep coming.

Well I don't know exactly how it works in Spain. But here they are practically given jobs, while natives have to fight for them.

We are in a moment which I would call of inter-periods. Ask this question again in about 6 months time and I will be able to give you a more precise answer.

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Seekers

And those who do their best to seem not fit get some kind of support, I guess. There are so many parasites that not even our politically correct "national" television can deny the problem.

I agree with the rest of your post and just wanted to comment a bit further on this snippet. These immigrants -- Asian or African -- typically come from cultures where truth-telling doesn't exist. In fact, "truth" in the sense we use it doesn't exist as a construct for them. They tell lies, and embellish and exaggerate stories the way Bush and Blair do. Our societies and our social welfare systems aren't designed to cope with this sort of behaviour and are easily exploited by them -- again at the cost of our own indigenous people.