Far Right in Eastern Europe Makes Gains as Syrians Arrive

[pampango]

The local leader of Ataka, a pugnacious, far-right party, Mr. Bozhinov lost his seat in the town council at the last municipal elections in 2011 but now sees his fortunes rising thanks to public alarm over an influx of Syrian refugees across the nearby frontier.

Membership of the local branch of Ataka, he said, had surged in recent weeks as “people come up to me in the street and tell me that our party was right.” Ataka, which means attack, champions “Bulgaria for Bulgarians” and has denounced Syrian refugees as terrorists whom Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest nation, must expel. An Ataka member of Parliament has reviled them as “terrible, despicable primates.”

With populist, anti-immigrant parties gathering momentum across much of Europe, Ataka stands out as a particularly shrill and, its critics say, sinister political force — an example of how easily opportunistic groups can stoke public fears while improving their own fortunes.

The arrival of the refugees and public fury over the stabbing of a young Bulgarian woman by an Algerian asylum seeker “has opened the floodgates” for far-right nationalists, said Daniel Smilov of the Center for Liberal Strategies, a policy research group in Sofia, the capital. “They see this as their big chance.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/world/europe/far-right-gains-as-syrians-reach-eastern-europe.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

"Fear", "hate" and "us vs. them". The right wing playbook does not change no matter anywhere in the world. Everyone agrees that Syrian refugees need help. It's just that someone else should help then not 'us'. 'We' have our own problems. (They may not be as bad as those of the Syrian refugees, but they rank higher because they are our problems.

[DFW]

1. Pots and kettles

Since the admission of Bulgaria to the EU, the number of violent crimes committed in western Europe by Bulgarians has exploded upward. Their most brutal criminals have a field day here with the comparatively lenient justice systems of western Europe (they only jail you if you skip half a euro on your income tax declaration). And of all people in Europe, a Bulgarian calls people from another country "terrible, despicable primates." Ask the people of western Europe if they'd trade 99% of their now-legal Bulgarian immigrants for Syrians, and they'll jump at the chance. The Syrians are just trying to save their families and their lives. The Bulgarians are here for the money.

[pampango]

2. Perhaps I misunderstand. You're not calling 99% of Bulgarian immigrants undesireable are you?

One could interpret your post as implying that Bulgarians are the real "terrible, despicable primates". You seem to have a positive take on Syrian refugees which is great. I wonder how the far-right populist parties in Western Europe will react if and when large numbers of Syrian refugees are admitted into their countries. I think I know.

It is my understanding that Bulgarians and Romanians don't yet have the freedom of movement to live and work anywhere in the EU that citizens of other EU member states have. This is scheduled to start in January unless it is postponed. Are there already many Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants in Western Europe?

[DFW]

3. Yes, there are large numbers of Bulgarians and Romanians here in Western Europe

And no, I'm not calling 99% of them undesirable. However, I can tell you that the governments of both countries are only too willing to lighten their load of domestic undesirables by seeing them go to greener pastures (i.e. here in the West). Poor people, jobless, Gypsies, homeless, all are financial drains on the two governments that would just love to shift the burden westward and off of their own backs (and distract from domestic government corruption as well).

Both countries are dealing with huge unemployment. Many of those people are ex-military and ex-cops, and have the training to do armed aggression and break-ins. There are organized gangs that bring in this "help" to do their break-ins/robberies, organize getaways, and have them home by lunch the next day. Weapons and tools are stored here in the West, so they come across the border "clean." The actual perps are given ten or twenty thousand euros for their "work," and the live back home like kings for maybe six months, until the next job, usually not in the same country as their previous job. Now that Switzerland is part of Schengen, nocturnal armed break-ins at private houses, almost unheard of there ten years ago, are now commonplace. A friend of mine in Geneva had the "honor" of waking up in the middle of the night to a pistol shoved in his face, and his "house guest" was definitely not Swiss.

An ex-Mossad friend of mine who lives in Holland doing private security work told me that the number of violent crimes (only talking about solved ones now) committed by Romanians and Bulgarians in the Netherlands since their joining the EU have tripled. That will obviously not diminish on Jan. 1.

There is no easy solution, although letting Romania and Bulgaria into the EU was a drastic mistake. Indeed, it was only done for the benefit of maybe 20-30 large companies that were interested in some cheap labor closer to home than China. It helped no one else in the EU, and certainly not the workers in the countries where those businesses were based. The USA isn't the only country who knows how to outsource.

Ironically, I may end up benefiting from Romania joining Schengen, as I am talking with a Romanian woman who has done work for the American government in Romania about offering her a position for our German office. I told her she would need to learn German, and she is picking it up so fast, she is almost conversational after three months of courses in Bucharest. She is very bright, and may join us permanently. She wouldn't have been able to without Schengen. However, if this means I need to install heavier security and purchase armed protection to keep me and my family safe from others among of her countrymen, it will have been a Pyrrhic victory.