It’s easy to recall that some of these countries and a number of NGOs offered a cool welcome to the Lebanese government’s decision to regulate the wave of migration over the border with stricter measures, when the number of people leaving topped one million in a country of four million people.
Meanwhile, the Schengen visa today is but a memory. The countries of the EU, with its free movement of goods and people, intend to establish serious modifications to EU treaties because of the gaps along the external borders of Europe amid the expected flow of refugees.
In all societies that suffer from a lack of security and large-scale socio-economic unrest, two contradictory types of extremism are likely to emerge. The first believes that terrorists have certainly infiltrated the migrant communities, and thus there should be stepped-up tough measures that practically stir up fear. The second is excessively «angelic» – it holds that Europe is answering a divine request to integrate all of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The two stances are equally dangerous, and equally simplistic.
First of all, if there’s a possibility that a wave of migration has made it easier for extremists to move around, police investigations have shown that most perpetrators of terrorism were born in the European countries that received them, where they lived and worked, and this is especially true of France and Belgium.
Thus, it is delusional to believe that Europe can host the peoples of three continents in the name of solidarity and participation. The French, Germans, Belgians and Greeks can’t simultaneously make more efforts for the refugees while complaining afterward about being forced to share the costs.
A big heart, and humanitarian spirit, with a dose of security: these are the conditions for a balanced management of the refugee issue.