Whatever the cause the pictures on the news of these poor people trying, by any means, to escape from their own country because they fear for their lives must surely tug at anyone's heart strings. I count myself fortunate in that, in my life, I've seen real poverty in parts of Africa that nobody would willingly go to .. but even in those places the situation was rarely so bad that the population considered mass exodus as the only possible option.
Refugees on this scale in Europe have not been seen since WWII. The problem cannot be solved in the way we are treating it at present ..Throwing money at it would not seem to be a solution and politically I have no hope of a solution when ISIS etc. are so clearly intransigent - as their wishes are either genocide towards or compliance from those left within their areas of control.
It's a creeping disease that will affect most of Europe if it is not resolved ... these refugees or migrants (I have no issue with either term) clearly just want a life in a place where they can feel safe .. I don't believe that they are being drawn to Europe by the prospect of living off benefits - from what I've seen they actually want to work and settle somewhere that they can live in peace.
The biggest problem that I can see is that the places where their presence could be economically supported do not have the space or the desire to allow them to settle and the places where there is the space do not have the economic strength to support their existing population, let alone an influx of migrants/refugees.
Perhaps Europe on a global basis should be looking at areas of say North or West Africa (many of which already have partly Moslem populations) and offering these countries massive financial and infrastructure assistance to enable them to take migrant populations en-masse. It may cost Europe in the short term but it sure as hell is going to cost a lot more in the future if we don't fix it.
The population of Europe is currently in the order of 740 million .. a global 'refugee tax' of a $10 a head would provide a 'pot' of $7.4 BILLION ... more than the GDP of most countries in North and West Africa ...
Take, for instance, Senegal ...
http://countrymeters.info/en/Senegal
Population density 75 persons/sq km.
or Niger, or Liberia ... even lower densities.
They are amongst the poorer nations on the planet but, with massive investments, could become the promised land for these poor people. I'm not suggesting that we and our European partners should not be taking our share of refugees but the problem is too big to contain within developed countries.
There are doctors, engineers, scientists, academics all fleeing from ISIS and its extremist cohorts .. think of the benefit they could bring to the economies and development of countries devoid of these human resources ...
The World (and Europe in particular) has to start thinking BIG and outside of the box before it is too late.
