A heretic view on the Syrian displaced

Many of us realize, with some discomfort, that there are no safe havens from the effects of the global socioeconomic crisis. Europe experiences today an influx of war refugees which is reminiscent of earlier historical times. Most of the Syrian war refugees enter Europe by crossing the sea to the Greek islands and mainland. Between 1922 and 1923, one and a half million Anatolian Greek refugees following exactly the same path to migrate from Turkey to Greece, as a result of the last war between the two countries; half a million Turks followed the reverse route into Turkey.

The 1922/ 1923 Greek refugees did not receive a much warmer reception in Greece than the Syrians do today. Being financially destroyed, they were sheltered initially in tents. However, contemporary Greek historians agree that these people helped the country develop socially and economically, and were at large responsible for the passage of Greece to modernity. As many of them were highly educated urbanites, they brought new mentalities to the newly founded Greek state. In another example, Europe saw an outward current of immigration when more than 100 000 German Jews fled to North America to escape the rise of Nazism. Most of them were affluent urbanites, and despite being uprooted, they made powerful contributions to the postwar cultural, academic and economic development of Canada and the United States. This is not to say that poorer immigrants are less useful. It is just a reminder that we live in class-based societies and people of the upper class show an impressive ability to regain their social status even after they’ve lost everything. In fact, we live in class societies where the chances of inter-class mobility are few.

Let’s return to the Syrians. They cross into Europe illegally, with rubber boats, because the legal way is effectively blocked by the European countries.  But unlike the Greek and Jewish refugees of the 20^th century, the Syrians had enough time to sell off their assets and pay for the expensive route to Europe. In our screens, we have watched them landing ashore the Greek and Italian islands: they talk to the media unreserved, in good English and hold smartphones. Reasonably, the 250000 Syrian refugees who made it into Europe are members of the upper class: They represent only the 2% of the total population of displaced in Syria, the only ones who had the financial and mental resources to cross into Europe.

The Syrian refugees are not a burden for their receiving countries. We have seen that refugees carry their social class with their baggage, together with their education and attitudes. Even if they’ve spent the last of their savings in their way to Europe, they have the social resources to rebuild their socioeconomic standing. They represent a useful human capital for the aging European countries. If the European governments were not bound by their racist and xenophobic constituencies, they would embrace these highly educated, English speaking, resourceful people. After all, arguably, if they made it in the Middle East, they can make it everywhere.

Instead, the war refugees are a problem for the countries that they’ve left behind, where radicalism will fester hand in hand with poverty and mal-education. The crisis in Syria did not happen by itself. Several regional and international powers were explicitly or implicitly involved; these are the same nations that refuse to receive the Syrian refugees today. The welcoming of Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan refugees of war is not only about humanitarianism, it is a minimum act of war reparation.