Migration to Europe: Exposing The Inconvenient Truth

The seemingly unstoppable flow of migrants to Europe is hardly the complete story, and proponents of open borders sing the endless mantra about diversity's strength which continues to ring hollow when the evidence is examined. America has its own parallel version of events, and the curious common denominator is that the general direction of the flow is always from South to North. Maybe there's a clue in there and Adrian Monk must be summoned!

The most commonly used classification for migrants is "refugee," which implies that people are seeking safety from wars, persecution, or natural disaster. Then famine and economic conditions are thrown in, and ultimately it's reduced to people seeking opportunity and a better life, which must be understood and accepted regardless of the consequences. After all we're all brothers and sisters and the ecosystem simply misfired when it developed different strains of the Homo Sapiens species. For the record, "sapiens" is Latin for "wise," but sometimes we wonder.

Syria is a prime example of a war zone, but what is lost in translation is that it's an eight-year-old civil war involving various factions—ultimately a Shi'a vs Sunni thousand-year-old rerun, really—and as despising as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is, everyone understands what happens when dictators are deposed in the Middle East. As demonstrated by Iran, Iraq, and Libya, either another dictator emerges, or chaos eventually blooms with a backdrop composed of faded rainbows and dusty flora. Unfortunately, dictators serve a purpose in the region due to long standing behavioral issues, but that's a topic for another time.

The maps titled "European Migrant Crisis 2015" and courtesy of Maximilian Dörrbecker, show the number of asylum applicants in Europe by country of origin and destination for the period between January 1 and June 30, 2015, a mere six months. It's impossible to ignore that the bulk of the movement is toward countries with deep pockets and/or appealing social safety nets, although those welfare mechanisms were designed for their citizens, not economically distressed tourists.

Noticeably, the migrant flow to Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan or further East is virtually non-existent, and one can only wonder why. Aren't Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan or Mongolia exotic destinations with fabulous landscapes and limitless opportunity? Think Age of Discovery, pilgrims and pioneers, and how America was built.

Nah, Western Civilization it is, because plumbing and electric power are far more reliable.

According to the Pew Research Center, "more than 5 million displaced Syrians live in neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa" and "about 1 million displaced Syrians have moved to Europe as asylum seekers or refugees since the conflict began, according to asylum seeker data from Eurostat."

Moving up or down the street within the same neighborhood is expected, but what is always left out of the equation is that it is not Europe's responsibility to accommodate the needs of mostly Muslim countries and their populations, not to mention that the successful integration into Western Civilization is and will always be a promised Unicorn that is continually missing in action.

Certainly, plenty of people will appeal to the humanitarian emotion factor, but the Middle East and North Africa—never mind sub-Saharan Africa—are home to 400 million people and is a virtual powder keg, a well-aged nest of instability if you will. Now imagine that all types of wars break out across the Middle East and Africa, and everyone starts to head North and Northwest. Sorry, not enough Sauerbraten and Swedish meatballs for everybody.

Here's the wake-up call, not woke, mind you, because we're somewhat educated: All those wars are coming for a variety of reasons and economics is always the trigger, even when religion appears to be the driver. But that's yet another topic for another time.

Meanwhile the finger pointing will never subside because Western Civilization is always at fault for everybody else's socio-techno-economic shortcomings, which is a self-defeating argument. Why? "All men are created equal..." or so goes the song in America—sorry ladies—which has been globally adopted but is still misinterpreted to this day, and we can see why.

European economies have their own challenges, and government debt, like the good U.S.A., is on the verge of showing its true colors—and it's not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, trust me! Adding millions of needy people that will become a net burden on society is hardly a clever move, and the problems are exacerbated by incompatible cultures that will never reconcile for as long as we live. Hell, the Portuguese and the Spanish still resent each other after almost 900 years and they have common roots, although they've upgraded their garments to look more 21st century.

Let's clarify that the microscopic examples of individual success that the media loves to employ when extolling the virtues of diversity are never the correct measuring stick, otherwise they wouldn't migrate to Western Civilization, would they?

It would be extremely enlightening and satisfying if one could sit in permanent orbit of the Earth, capture the ant food trails constructed by humanity's various groups with an iPhone, and project it to a giant screen in the sky so all doubts would be removed as to whom has a natural ability to build and prosper in real time.

Here's an inconvenient, yet not humorous dot that will irritate plenty of our fellow humans: While the main goal of European colonizers of centuries past was to build, the colonization of Europe by migrants—and America for that matter—is driven by the desire to take a piece of what's already built, while lacking the ability to contribute much to the process.

Now that we've traveled a couple of decades into the 21st century and the Internet is virtually everywhere, why aren't there migrant flows from countries in Europe to the Middle East or anywhere in Africa seeking opportunity and a better life in well established societies? Why aren't we seeing volunteers from these regions coming to Europe to share their wisdom and help solve its problems? We can sing and dance, we can yell, complaint and refuse to acknowledge the obvious, but can't escape reality: It's always about the people.