Navid Kermani
The Iranian exile Navid Kermani published an editorial in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper on April 4, 2015, titled "Why Europe Needs the Migrants". (In German, "Warum Europa uns jetzt braucht.") Kermani should title the article, "Why Europe Needs More Immigrants," because Europe has already absorbed millions of them—many, if not most, from Muslim nations.
Kermani barely touches the question why Europe needs more immigrants, Instead, he concentrates on browbeating the Europeans to accept the immigrants. He tells readers that Europe's inhumanity to immigrants has already led to hundreds of deaths, so the Europeans must accept millions more, just to expiate their sins, rescue their reputation, or whatever.
The title of the article literally reads "Why Europe Needs Us." He words the title this way because he considers himself an immigrant. His parents emigrated to Germany from Iran, and he was born in Germany. Considering how bad life in Iran is, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, it should not suprise anyone that Kermani has little desire to go back to Iran. Naturally, he never talks about it, out of fear for his safety.
The way Kermani writes, Europeans have done almost nothing right for the humanitarian attitudes they claim to have. Their cruelty in rejecting the masses of people begging to gain entry requires a lot of explaining. Kermani just never explains why the masses of refugees need to come to Europe, in the first place. He does not give the Europeans credit for anything.
Kermani's act of turning over to Western nations responsibility for the overpopulation of countries that the West has no control over, while warning about the evils of imperialism, puts an additional squeeze on Western sympathies. It also sets up a scarier scenario for more browbeating—how the Western nations treat the refugees, relative to they how they treat their own citizens.
I love the deception that the browbeating permits. Third World nations get to blame the legacy of imperialism and racism from a hundred years ago. They seldom take responsibility for the problems caused by corrupt government officials, dictatorial religious attitudes, overpopulation, and corrupt middle-men who steal hand-outs from the West.
Corruption in the Third World makes bribery routine, as businessmen in the West have known for years. Overpopulation has degraded the physical environment and depleted the ability of nations to feed themselves. They have not bothered to upgrade their internal infrastructure. But don't blame the Third World! Blame the colonial administrators from a hundred years ago. Blame white racism, capitalism, and greed. Don't make the Third World accept responsibility for anything!
The Experience of an English Clerk in Iraq
Patrick McGoohan starred in the British TV series Secret Agent, known in Britain as Danger Man. It ran from about 1961 to 1966 and developed a reputation in the industry for its intelligent, realistic plots. In one episode, "I Can Only Offer You Sherry," secret agent John Drake goes to Iraq to check out a British accountant who has been passing British oil secrets to foreign agents.
Her name is Jean Smith. Her contact is a man named Ma'suud, who is also her lover. She fell in love with him out of admiration for his pursuing civil rights and democracy for Iraqis. Ma'suud is poor, like most Iraqis, drives a rickety old car, and has to deal with harrassment by the police. Ma'suud browbeats Jean Smith, much as Kermani and LeGrain do, by complaining about imperialist Britain and its exploitation of Iraq. After Ma'suud gains control of Smith, he also bullies her and slaps her around.
Ma'suud on the left (Anthony Newlands), the Secret Agent in the middle, Jean Smith (Wendy Craig) on the right
Then John Drake tells her that Ma'suud is not a civil-rights activist. He is not even an Iraqi, but a secret agent for a foreign country. Jean Smith tells Drake that she has lived such a sheltered life in Great Britain and has never seen such relentless poverty. Grinding remorse simply overwhelmed her. Her feeling of guilt made her an easy target for Ma'suud. So Drake decides to do some digging and finds that, in real life, Ma'suud lives in a comfortable house with his wife and drives a new Jaguar.
Ma'suud's badgering of Jean Smith should ring some bells for my readers. He is simply a template for all the LeGrains and Kermanis of the media, beamed into our homes everyday. The Jean Smiths of Western Europe would do almost anything to resolve the problems of the Third World. Modern-day Ma'suuds know how to exploit this fact. They bombard the Europeans with shocking images and ask "How can you live with yourselves, if such poverty exists?" It is extortion, plain and simple.
Kermani makes a splendid Ma'suud. He does not bother to make the case that Europe needs the migrants, just that Europe has a moral obligation to accept them.
That's the old ploy—it's Europe's fault! How curious to criticize your host country. I am sure that no one could persuade Kermani to move back to Iran. Even browbeaters like him know the difference between Iran and the Europe they claim to hate. He still wants to make Europe responsible for the suffering of the migrants, without giving Europe the authority to prevent it from happening again.
Don't give the Europeans an excuse to become imperialistic again; just hold them accountable for the all suffering of the World. In organizational terms, he makes Europe responsible, without giving it authority to improve anything.
Ironically, the recent migrations suggest that imperialism may be the only system that works in the chaotic Third World, no matter how much they may claim to hate it.
