Refugees Welcome

"It" being letting homeless people crash at your house all the time.

Pan-arabism was not such a bad idea. It was somehow similar to the "nation-state" idea prevalent in 19th century Europe, which, while true that generated some ugly side-effects (WW1), in the end was responsible for the creation of most European modern states as we know them today.

The same thing could have happened with pan-arabism, i.e. we could have talked right now about a modern Lybia, a modern Egypt or a modern Syria, but instead the Suez Crisis killed this possibility in its infancy and gave guys like Nasser (or Assad in Syria and Gaddafi in Lybia) reason to take even more power in their hands.

Out of these countries, only Egypt is even a signatory to the Refugee Convention and its Protocol. All of these countries range from "questionable human rights status" to "fascist theocracy".

More importantly, most Syrian refugees are in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, all of which are already overflowing (Turkey alone has close to two million refugees). They are fleeing to closer countries, but these countries are already operating beyond capacity.

> Same culture, same religion and they are much closer!

Watch this video of Damascus college students before the war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbM4trP42NY&sns=em

How much do you think they have in common with the culture of Saudi Arabia?

> It also amazes me why the EU leaders insist for other European countries to accept these "refugees" when the majority of EU countries is not responsible for this situation at all.

The underlying reason here is Dublin III. According to the Dublin Regulation, asylum seekers are to be processed in the country where they enter the EU [1]. Right now, this means that Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Spain. You see the problem?

Now, Sweden, Austria, and Germany are helping out despite Dublin.

Finally, it doesn't matter who is responsible. The EU member states are bound by treaty and customary international law to deal with refugees on its territory; the principle of non-refoulement prevents them from sending refugees back into danger.

And yes, it would still be nice if the countries that helped create that mess also helped out with the refugees. As it pertains to Syria and Iraq, that would be in particular the members of the "coalition of the willing"; Daesh arose out of the ashes of Saddam's military [2].

> Luckily there are some leaders out there that are not afraid of this stupid political correctness and they build fences on their borders because they know what this might lead to.

It's pretty hard to build a fence in the middle of the sea.

[1] The Dublin Regulation also is intended to support the countries of entry through various means, but was designed for a much smaller number of asylum seekers.

[2] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/iraq-war-on-terror/r...

It's easy to hate the concept of immigration and, by extension, the thought of millions of immigrants pouring into your home country. In fact, we're hardwired to have an aversion to this idea. Humans have always formed small units such as families or tribes in order to compete with other humans for limited resources. Immigrants are easily lumped together into a menacing tribe of competitors.

But when you host someone, they stop being "just another immigrant" and you can start to see them for what they were the whole time: a real person with a voice, a smile, sorrow, joy, tastes, quirks, humor, goals, and dreams. Empathy is crucial.

It's not going to solve the larger problem of the millions of immigrants displaced by war or corrupt governance, but it probably will have a positive impact on thousands of lives, which is an awesome outcome for a small group of people looking to make a change through technology.