Why Not?

Switzerland joins Denmark in confiscating the assets of refugees. Why not? Go ahead, take everything. From Damascus to Berlin, the journey of a Syrian refugee, or any refugee, is to be exploited thoroughly. The road to sanctuary, dignity and self respect as a human being lies through a gauntlet of lies, abuse and degradation. Syrians have to debase themselves utterly before they are worthy of pity. Why not? It starts from home. It starts from a country where you are fleeced as soon as you start trying to make a living. As early as you can remember you are taught in Syria that to get by you have to bribe somebody. Nothing is impossible, and when something isn't working properly, be it a university exam that you just can't seem to pass, to a job or work transaction that seems to never progress, it's all about finding the man at the choke point, the man who wants a favour.

In the days when Syrians could, only just, travel the world and return back, they were greeted by the fat security officials at the airport who would single a suitable "victim", someone with a Syrian passport, of course. It wouldn't do to show somebody with a real passport, a human being's passport, how barbaric we are. No, that wouldn't do at all. But a Syrian or Arab is OK, because he could be exploited.

"Have you any presents for us?" the official would ask, rubbing his hands. If you don't understand what he means, he'll make you understand. He'll um and ah, at the things in your suitcase. "Oh this wouldn't do at all. Oh this might need to be taxed. Oh this might be banned under the new security regulations", he'd say. Then, out of sheer frustration, you would pay him. Something, anything. Cigarettes would do, anything. Just pay so you can be on your way.

You leave the stable called Syria behind, and you get people smugglers, you get corrupt soldiers on the border. If you aren't driving an expensive car and look average, border police make you wait in the sun and keep you "in line" while beating you with rubber hoses - that's what they did on the border crossings to Lebanon by the way. You make it somewhere else, like Turkey, and you pay somebody to find you a flat, you pay them extra, just a place, any place. They raise the prices. If somebody else pays them more, you get turfed out. Then you have to pay money for visas, for transport, for "arrangements". It might pay off, it might not. You might end up as fish food in the sea, or your body turns into a leaky bag of skin and fluids after you suffocate in a refrigerator in wheels somewhere on a motorway in Austria.

Why not? Let's exploit Syrians, everybody else has. These refugees are "rich", "they have money". They are all "coming to rape European women" after all. Besides, they have diseases, they "hide terrorists" amongst each other. Why not? Fleece them. Maybe next Europe can start putting refugees in specially walled off compounds, and force them to wear special badges - no, badges won't do, it'll be special identity cards or papers. To mark them as special, to watch, to keep an eye on. Why not? A people with no home, no sanctuary, no respect or dignity even from their own, why should anybody else respect them? Why not also force Syrians - because that's what the word 'refugee' has become synonymous with - to walk barefoot across Europe, wearing sack cloth and with ash on their heads? That way everyone can be sure that they really are desperate and worthy of assistance.