Erdogan draws refugees weapon at Europe, worsening crisis

Mostafa Salah

Europe is currently being threatened by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who opened his borders as a passage to Europe in light of the continuing repercussions of the war in Syria, and the continuous rise of displacement rates from Idlib, northwestern Syria.

In this context, the European Union has expressed its concern about the new wave of migration after Turkey’s announcement and declared a series of procedures to help curb bigger crises from developing.

Increasing refugee numbers may lead to competition in the labor market leading to social conflict not only in the refugee community, on the one hand, this conflict might extend to affecting European societies.

The biggest challenge facing European societies is how to deal with the cultural and social differences between refugees and European societies, which are distinguished by cultural and religious values.

Many indicators affirm that most of the refugees in Europe came from Muslim-majority countries in the regions of southern and eastern Europe, including the Middle East and Africa. According to religious affiliation, the majority of the expatriates were mainly Sunni Muslims with a small portion of non-Muslim minorities including Yezidis and Assyrians.

The cultural identity and behavior of refugees may change as they become more connected to the host community, and the cultural exchange process will see great challenges due to cultural difference and the related difficulties and conflicts that arise when identities conflict.

These difficulties might result several complications including that these refugees, in light of their sense of social rejection, might ultimately join terrorist organizations that seek recruiting these refugees as lone wolves to carry out operations and attacks in the host countries.

The refugee crisis has caused an increase in the rates of demographic change in Europe while the Europeans are striving to deal with the increasing numbers of refugees crossing the borders of their countries

Europe is determined to follow a number of mechanisms to adrdress the crisis including the establishment of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex, to secure borders and combat illegal immigration.

Within this context, there are some obstacles that hinder the integration of refugees, such as a lack of knowledge of the local language, different cultures, societies’ lack of understanding of refugees situations, discrimination against foreigners, as well as psychological impact and the inability to carry out any activity during the asylum procedures.

More importantly, the crisis hit Europe so hard because at its root is a simultaneous long-term public policy failure in about a dozen policy fields. Europe has failed to manage many things from immigration to integration policies, from border control to the fight against organized crime, from humanitarian aid to internal solidarity and burden sharing, from trade policy to development cooperation, and from military interventions to the European Neighborhood Policy, according to a report by Carnegie Europe.

The human tragedy of thousands of asylum seekers floundering in the Mediterranean highlights an unprecedented global challenge for the 21st century; as in terms of migrants and refugees, nothing has been seen like this since World War Two. Globally there were estimated to be 16.7 million refugees and 34 million Internally Displaced People (IDPS) at the end of 2013, according to another report published on World Bank Blogs..

The conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen alone have created some 15 million refugees and IDPs.  The numbers are growing almost on a daily basis. Just in the past few weeks, the fighting in Yemen has displaced another 150,000 while fighting in Iraq’s Ramadi has added another 114,000 to Iraq’s total displaced of around three million refugees and IDPs.

In conclusion, according to the report, efforts by the EU to try and stem the flow of arrivals from the Mediterranean will still rely on fences and closed doors only serving to displace the challenge. Ultimately a policy of managed immigration is likely to be the final outcome as the UNHCR calls for a more robust search-and-rescue operation and enhanced legal avenues such as resettlement programs, humanitarian visas, and enhanced family reunification measures.

However the EU will also have to deal with the Government in Tripoli which controls the ports of departure but is unrecognized by the EU. A strategy will also be needed to spread the burden of asylum seekers more equitably across the EU and even open transit camps in North Africa and elsewhere and tackle the smugglers and the financial gains made possible by current policies.