[D66] European governments treat refugees as a hostile invasion force

[J.N.]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/09/05/pers-s05.html

European governments treat refugees as a hostile invasion force
5 September 2015

Peter Schwarz

Europe is currently experiencing its biggest refugee crisis since World
War II. The horrific images transmitted daily across the world recall
the cruel events of that time: Exhausted and desperate refugees trapped
behind barbed wire, mistreated and herded into camps, dying at sea or
suffocating in trucks. In the Czech Republic, refugees have been given
numbers on their arms to identify them—like the prisoners in the
concentration camps run by the Nazis.

European governments treat the stream of refugees as a hostile invasion
force. This was most clearly articulated by the Hungarian Prime
Minister, Viktor Orban. “If we give them [the refugees] the impression
that they are welcome, that would be a moral defeat,” he said in
Brussels. “We must make it clear to them: Do not come.”

The remarks by Orban, an ultra-right-wing politician, have caused much
phony indignation. But his “morality,” which recalls that of the Nazis
and finds its highest expression in the relentless persecution of
refugees, is shared by all other European governments and the European
Union as a whole. They are merely somewhat more careful in their choice
of words.

The measures that Hungary is currently enforcing with utmost
ruthlessness—the construction of a border fence, the use of tear gas and
the army against refugees, their internment in camps in deplorable
hygienic conditions—have long been practiced elsewhere.