West responsible for creating refugee crisis: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with Anthony Hall, professor of globalization at Lethbridge University in Alberta, Canada, about a senior UN official warning that one million more Syrians will flee their homes by the end of the year if the ongoing violence persists in the Arab country.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: So when we look at the situation, here we have an official saying that perhaps even more refugees are likely to be displaced before the end of the year, but do you think that in general the main crux of the problem is really not being looked at and addressed, which is why are these people leaving their countries to begin with? Why is it that we are seeing this influx especially from the Syrians when the war on Syria has been taking place more than four years, but the violence has gotten so bad and who is behind it? Do you think we are not analyzing the foundation of the problem?

Hall: I think you are exactly right. This story is becoming a big factor in the election here in Canada. On October 19 there is a national election. We have been going in this official campaign mode for several weeks now, and there is beginning a surge of criticism towards Stephen Harper, whose party is running third now. The governing party is trailing the other parties’ view that Canada has a reputation to take in refugees, the boat people from Vietnam. There is a certain sense of frustration. Stephen Harper says, ‘well we have to have very careful filtering and weeding because after all these people are coming from a terrorist zone so we have to make sure and check everybody that they are not a terrorist.’

And I think this is the kind of dishonesty, the kind of posturing in this position is becoming frustrating to people, but still the idea that we in the so-called West, the NATO countries, USA, that we have an enormous responsibility for creating the context, the underlying situation that is resulting in people being so desperate they have to run for their lives, that we are responsible for creating the basis of this refugee crisis.

I do not think that idea is yet getting through here and of course there is enormous corrupt media campaigns that we talk about all the time that prevent these deeper underlying motives and situations from coming to light with the public.

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