Call me a cynic but I have been expecting this for some time because it seems pretty obvious to me that passport-less travel within Europe will only be acceptable to the governments and people of the member countries for as long as they believe that non EU citizens will not be allowed free entry by any of their member states as Italy has done recently with “refugees” from north Africa

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This report comes from the Guardian and it demonstrates the leftist mindset to a tee. Notice how they want to insist that Italy and France have only a minor problem? well according to the China daily:

The number of people fleeing North Africa has soared since mid-January, after Tunisia overthrew its president and set off a series of uprisings in Egypt and Libya.

Some 25,000 people, mostly Tunisians, have flooded Lampedusa, which is right off the North African coast.

Do you get what the Guardian is dong here?

They are using the rather disingenuous argument that the world wide problem with people wanting to flee from failed societies is so huge that we should be unconcerned  when only a “small” influx of people try to get into Europe that any concern is far in excess of the problem’s real magnitude. It is a fundamentally dishonest argument that tries to guilt trip the public into ignoring their legitimate concerns about the flow of uninvited  immigrants into their countries. It is the actual numbers crossing the borders that worries people and not how “low” those numbers are compared  to some academic toting up the size of a  “global” problem. In the case of Lampedusa the numbers were not insignificant and easily overwhelmed Italian resources on that island. Further the rather cowardly decision by the Italian government to just let these French speaking asylum seekers  immigrants transit Italy into France has fundamentally undermined the trust of other European nations that the external  borders of Europe mean anything.

As I see it if you want  immigration into any society to “work” it has to be at a rate at which the indigenous populace are willing to accept and welcome the new arrivals. This requires an orderly process and some measure of dispassionate selection that considers the needs of the country as much as considers the reason that individuals want to come in the first place. If a government ignores this necessity for the sake of some sort of well meaning but naive  “we are all part of one world” philosophy (ever so popular with the left) all you are doing is creating a problem for the future, just as we are beginning to see in some of the previously  more generous to asylum seeker host countries in  northern Europe. Another example closer to home is the decision by the Hawke government to allow unfettered arrivals from Lebanon during his stint in the big chair. It was certainly an act of compassion on his part but look at the social problems  in parts of western  Sydney now.

So what I’m saying is that its fine to talk about high minded principles of inclusiveness and compassion but you have to take the people with you and you have  to make sure that those that you allow to immigrate into your country will either have values consistent with your social norms, like a willingness to accept gender equality, religious diversity  or the liberal views of sexuality or a sincere  willingness to freely accommodate them. Otherwise all you are importing is the sorts of problems that we have seen in Denmark or Sweden and that leads to the very thing that the well meaning but naive left fear most, the rise of far right nationalism as the indigenous people begin to fear the fast growing immigrant communities within their own cities. Frankly I think that here in Australia we have the opportunity to avoid such social discord buy making sure that we create and maintain an immigration system where the numbers that come and the schedule of their arrival is determined by the governments that we elect not by those who try to get in uninvited by the back-door.

Cheers Comrades