Figure 1.--The problem of migrants and refugee is a controversial issue in both America and Europe. Europe is the region most affected by the wave of migration coming out of the Middle East and North Africa and Italy because of geography is one of the contries most affected. Italians are divided on the issue. Some are concerned about the clture these migrants bring with them which they believe is aththtical to core Western values and that borders need to be enforced. Others believe that borers are not important and that all refugees and migrants need to be allowed into the country and assisted. They charge that people who disagree with them are xenephobic or Islamophobic. This photograoh was taken in Turin during a demonstration in favor of immigrants. The participants are barefoot as a sign of solidarity. Many people arrive in boats at southern Italy (Lampedusa Island is about 80 kms from Tunisian coast). Many aarive barefoot. It is heatning that young people are sympathetic to people in need. But we als think that young people should understand som of the complexity of the issue. We wonfer, for example, if the girls here understand how the migrants feel about the way they are dressed or about the role of womn in society. Notice the African boys. Not all the refugees/migrants are from the Middle East and North Africa. At least half of the refugees/migrants arriving in southern Italy are sub-Saharian Africans.

The Middle East and North Africa is the first region where we have found evidence of refugees. They would be the Jews Moses led out of Egypt. A few centuries later the Babylonian captivity and the return to Palestine were other refugees. We know the Assyrians and Babylonians took similar actions against other people who, however, did not leave a chronicle of their experinces. Another refugee group were the Muslims and Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal (1490s). Most were taken in by North Africans, especially Morocco, amd oher areas of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey during World War I launched its Armenia genocide. Some Armenians survived as refugees. In more recent times, the Arab-Israeli conflict created both Arab and Jewish refugees. And Islamic radicalism has created both Muslim and Christian refugees in both Iraq and Syria as well as the wider region. Europe as a esult is experiencing a major refugee crisis. Part of the problem is Europe's failure to confront Islamic extremism and President Obama's ineffectul forign policy. Ironically, President Obama was very popular in Europe, at least Western Europe. Combined with the ongoing migration crisis fed by economis failure in the Middle East and Africa. It is causing a major crisis which eventually may affect the very existence of the Europan Union beginning with the British Brexit vote (2016). The refugee flow has launched a major debate within Europe. Russia simply prohibits Middle Eastern migrants. Eastern Europeans tend to object to EU rules that allow the free movement of Middle Eastern migrants once they enter the EU. Western Europens have been much more welcoming. Any one with a heart can not help but be moved with he plight of these people. The problem is that the culture that the migrants bring with them is what has caused the violence that is tearing apart Middl Eastern contries. It is not that the refugees themselves are violent, although there are insrances of Muslim refugees attacking and killing Christian refugees. And terrorists such as ISIS veterans are slipping into Europe under the refugee guise. And the Eropean media tend to capture images of child and women refugees rather than the young men who make up most of the immigrant flow. The vast percentages of the rfuges are innocent victims. That said, many of the refuges do not share core Western values of democracy, free spech, tolration, women's rights, and diversity. We know this that in the few instances that free elections are held in Muslim countris, religious parties tend to win. The qustion arises, does Europe have a right to engorce borders and to reject peoplw which do not share its central values. Some beliece that it does. Others brand people who express these sentiments as xenephobic or Islamophobic.

Created: 1:50 AM 12/6/2017
Last updated: 1:50 AM 12/6/2017