Europe using refugee crisis for political means: Commentator
Press TV has conducted an interview with John Steppling, an author and commentator, to discuss the remarks made by European Council President Donald Tusk, saying the European Union (EU) is almost unable to take in more refugees.
Here is a rough transcription of the interview:
Press TV: Do you think that Donald Tusk’s comments are in a way trying to divert attention from the horrible mishandling of the refugee crisis in Europe?
Steppling: Yes. You have to look at this firstly in terms of the numbers. I mean the refugee crisis is huge and growing but this is still 0.5 percent of the European population. There is 500 million Europeans but it is the rhetoric around this, number one, and the rise of these far-right parties in Europe, neo-fascist parties in Hungary and other ones and so forth, that is stoking this but the three countries that the refugees are coming from are Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Now what do those three countries share in common? They have all been subjected to American military intervention.
So Syria right now is the leader in terms of numbers of refugees and you have to remember that the US targeted Syria for regime change way back right after 9/11 and certainly in 2009 they have been the ones arming and funding the anti-Assad forces which they kind of laughingly call moderate. People are not fleeing Assad. They are fleeing the American-funded conflict.
So there is a global aspect to this though, too, because you look at Australian refugee camps, you look at the conditions of camps in Calais and so forth, in Hungary, different places, and you cannot separate this even from like the American prison population which is gigantic. There is a new class of disposable human being globally and this is part of, the result of neo-liberal policy.
The crisis is being used for political means across Europe and it is not really a crisis of numbers, it is a political crisis. Europe is perfectly capable of taking many more people. That is not the problem. The problem is politics and the problem is that most of the leaders in the EU feel the pressure of these far-right parties, it means being used for very jingoistic and xenophobic reasons.
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