THE MODERN TOWER OF BABEL

The invasion of migrants into Europe, which has long been complaining about economic problems and a systemic crisis, has made everyone seriously alarmed for the Old World. Will the EU be able to cope with the refugees from the East? Will Europe digest the new blood or will the new blood dilute Europe so much that it will no longer be recognizable? It seems what is happening is not unexpected, and initially, there were not many reasons for concern - after all, migration existed throughout the second half of the last century and got stronger in this century.

But…

According to unofficial data, the number of refugees in Europe already exceeds half a million people, while unofficial sources are talking about the figure of a million or even higher. Most of the refugees are believed to be Syrians. However, according to other sources, the Syrians, at best, make up only one third of the total flow - the rest are residents of Africa, Maghreb, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iraq and Yemen and are diluted by European Kosovars. No risks and dangers stop people fleeing their countries.

Not wanting to stay in economically ailing Greece, the refugees rush on. Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Croatia are only a transit corridor for them, because the main goal is the rich countries of the Old World: Germany, France, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and others. As a result, the refugees who have gone far away from the beaches of the Mediterranean and Aegean founded their camps at such a symbol of a united Europe as the famous Eurotunnel under the English Channel, the ideal autobahns of Austria and Germany are strewn with garbage, migrants occupy the territory of children's camps and even some hotels. The world has begun to talk about "new migration of peoples" and the biggest challenge to Europe since World War II. It is not surprising, because there is too much at stake - it is necessary to resettle the refugees, save face in front of the world community and not to quarrel with each other. The Europeans could not even agree first on the distribution of 160,000 migrants (and these only some of the refugees) among all 28 EU member states. No coordinated and concerted action was observed - on the contrary, each country covered by the migrant crisis took unilateral action and came up with contradictory statements.

To each his own

Thus, the Hungarian authorities, unable to withstand stress, decided to close the border with Serbia. Armed men lined up along the border, and criminal liability was introduced for illegally crossing the border (although it is not very clear where the Hungarians are going to keep all intruders if there are thousands of them). The Hungarian police were forced to use water cannons and tear gas against migrants rushing to their country from the Serbian side. Then the migrants decided to pave a new way to Western Europe - bypassing Hun-gary through Croatia. At first, Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said that migrants arriving in Croatia will be allowed to continue their journey to other EU countries. Experts of the Croatian Mine Action Centre (CROMAC) were urgently sent to the border with Serbia to clear the minefields left over from the civil war of 1991-1995. But a day later, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic said that Croatia's border control should be tightened, since the country has been illegally penetrated by "too many" people. According to Grabar-Kitarovic, Croatia showed its human face, but the safety of Croatian citizens and the stability of the state are more important for it. In turn, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who promised that her country would take in and help everyone, decided to temporarily suspend the Schengen Agreement and introduce border controls at the southern borders of the country. Similar steps are being taken by other European countries, most of which also oppose the German-backed quota system (considering the population, GDP and other indicators) for the distribution of refugees. The position of Hungary and Croatia is already clear. Poland says that it has already sheltered many refugees from Ukraine. Slovakia is ready to accept only Syrian Christians, because "the prospects for the integration of other refugees are uncertain and the Slovaks have not even been able to integrate the local Romany community". In response to the obstinacy of the neighbours, Berlin threatened that if the problem is not resolved in the near future in a spirit of solidarity, Germany will reduce structural assistance to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius accused German counterparts of blackmail, while the European Commission hastened to reassure everyone that there is no legal basis for the implementation of the German threat. Germany was also credited with a selfish attitude to the Dublin Convention, according to which refugees should be registered in the first EU country. In this way, Berlin was allegedly hoping to stop the migration flows to poor countries at the external border of the EU.

The Dutch prime minister... is a Syrian

However, the refugees have their own plans - they strive to move precisely to Germany, France or Britain, which allows many observers to say that the fugitives are looking not for security or at least some roof over their heads, but for a better life. But there is no such clause in the basic documents on human rights, otherwise, many inhabitants of the earth could be considered refugees. And all talk about the fact that many migrants were once prosperous people in their countries and are not willing to live in a refugee camp will not salvage the situation. Merkel said that refugees who have not come from conflict zones should leave Germany. However, separating a real refugee from an unreal one is difficult - a passport can "burn" or "drown", you can buy or forge it. The German newspaper Die Welt said that a Dutch journalist bought a fake Syrian passport in the name of "Malik Ramadan" with a photo of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. In addition, a person with a clean passport may argue that even if there is no war in his country or city, they have been completely devastated and taken over by gangs.

Therefore, the Europeans are urgently looking for a way out of the crisis. It is proposed to urgently open identification centres, which would collect fingerprints, and invest in measures for the integration of migrants. There are more and more calls to "slow down" refugees on the outskirts of Europe, for which it is necessary to extend aid to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, countries that also host refugees from the war-torn regions of the Middle East, or create a joint force that will stop the migrants in Greece. There are also financial considerations: European Commis-sioner for Digital Economy and Society Guenther Oettinger called on Germany to urgently consider ways of reducing social benefits to migrants. And, finally, they suggest trying to resolve military conflicts that cause people to take risky journeys for thousands of kilometres by sea and land.

By the way, the refugees blame the armed conflicts precisely on the Europeans who supported the spread of the famous "Arab Spring", introduced order in Iraq and Afghanistan together with the Americans and are now trying in vain to cope with Islamic State. As a result, there is no order, and many countries lost their institutions and foundations of statehood. In fact, countries such as Syria, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan are just the names of territories where disparate and sometimes openly warring factions, clans and tribes coexist. In the same way, European countries are reminded of their rich colonial past, but it is, as they say, a little different story.

Collusion?

Against the background of what is happening, someone sees a conspiracy "behind the scenes" - in other words, someone is trying to weaken Europe and especially Germany by injecting young and vibrant Arab blood.

The first argument is that the refugees are not going to the rich and stable countries of the Islamic world such as Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. But in response to allegations of denying the right to a good life, Saudi Arabia said it has taken in 2.5m Syrian refugees.

The second argument is that the current wave of refugees, mostly consisting of young men, is very similar to paratroopers, who want to gain a foothold in a new place in order to bring in all other relatives later. And these people are hardly going to integrate with German burghers. Rather the opposite: the indigenous population will inevitably have to reckon with the laws, habits and customs of the incomers. According to Prison Planet, the administration of schools in the German city of Poking located in Lower Bavaria has already urged parents to forbid girls from wearing mini-skirts and shorts. According to the school management, this measure is necessary in order not to provoke the children of migrants, most of whom are Muslims.

The third argument is if the Germans, French and Swedes resist, major clashes motivated by racism and Islamophobia await Europe. During the recent elections to the European Parliament, it became extremely far-right and, we think, in the near future, this trend can only increase. Someone may leave the EU, for example, the United Kingdom.

A separate and much dreaded last argument - it is likely that under the guise of refugees, masses of terrorists are infiltrating Europe to take up arms later. After all, if employees of checkpoints cannot distinguish between a Syrian and a Pakistani and a refugee and a non-refugee, how can they tell a refugee from a terrorist? For example, it was reported that on 1 September, border guards detained a party of contraband weapons on the Haddad-1 freighter - several thousand firearms and millions of rounds of ammunition - in the Greek island of Crete. Regardless of whether the supporters of the conspiracy theory are right or not, the fact that the great migration could not happen spontaneously and clearly has its own assistants and organizers is hard not to notice. On the World Wide Web, rumours are freely going round that there are certain companies and funds that pay for the services of "guides" that smuggle migrants to Europe.

At the same time, the media is distributing completely different opinions - Europe, on the contrary, needs migrants, because, as German analysts admit, in 2030 Germany will need 6m workers in fields such as hotels, logistics, health care and care for the elderly. In addition, migrants will help increase the volume of the domestic market due to the growth in consumption. The director general of the German carmaker Daimler AG, Dieter Zetsche, said that the flow of migrants will have a positive impact on the country's economy and refugees may cause a new "economic miracle" like the influx of immigrants contributed to economic growth in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1950-60s. Third, when the war ends, perhaps, many of them will want to return. And finally, what about morality and human rights? It is necessary to help the needy.

Charlie Hebdo again

However, it is the concept of human rights that the current migrant crisis has the greatest effect on. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, for example, said that he was shocked by the way the Hungarian police treated the migrants. According to Ban Ki-moon, such treatment of people trying to get asylum is unacceptable. And it is in the heart of Europe! However, it is becoming more and more difficult recently to understand what is acceptable for Europe and not. One small example. The well-known satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose employees were shot at the beginning of this year by terrorists from the Yemeni cell of Al-Qa'eda for the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, quite expectedly intervened in the situation surrounding the migrants. At that time, European politicians and ordinary people held a march in Paris for the victims of the terrorist act and in defence of freedom of speech and general European values. The phrase Je suis Charlie flooded the Internet and became a slogan for the defenders of freedom of expression throughout the world. In early September, Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of the deceased Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi, whose body washed up on the Turkish coast. This time, freedom of speech was liked by a much smaller number of people, while the community of black lawyers in France even threatened to file a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court. Although the editors of the magazine attempted to explain the meaning of their publications, there is a feeling that the goals of the cartoonists remained misunderstood. Meanwhile, along with freedom of speech from Charlie Hebdo, representatives of the Facebook office in Germany reported that as the number of racist and xenophobic comments has recently significantly increased, a special group of people will be set up to remove content directed against migrants and refugees. What principle will be used in this case to determine whether it is freedom of speech or something quite different here remains a mystery. Like many other principles. Therefore, many see the current problems of the EU not only as a result of its foreign policy and miscalculations by its leaders but also as a result of the internal crisis of the Old World, which is entangled in globalism, multiculturalism, tolerance, and other liberal concepts, and may collapse like that very biblical Tower of Babel. The biblical legend of the Tower of Babel suddenly finds a new interpretation in the events of the present day. People live under one flag represented by a united European family and build a tower to heaven to "make a name for themselves" and teach all the others how to live. However, the construction of the tower can be interrupted by incomers who speak other languages, which is why everyone will stop to understand each other and will not be able to continue construction. And the "incomers" are called migrants...