LONDON — SOLDIERS putting up kilometers of razor cable fencing to help keep down refugees. a mom and child stuck in a field of mud. a vehicle parked on the road between Budapest and Vienna containing the decomposing figures of 71 refugees.
The scenes over recent days through the eastern edges of European countries have actually produced horror and revulsion. “Have Eastern Europeans no feeling of pity?” asked the Polish-American historian Jan Gross. Another historian, the German-born Jan-Werner Mьller, demanded that the European Union “ostracize” Hungary, “a country no further observing its values,” by cutting down funding and suspending its voting liberties.
For most, Eastern Europeans’ lack of generosity toward refugees reflects, within the terms of 1 Guardian columnist, a simple “political and cultural gap” that divides the Continent. Eastern European countries tossed from the Soviet yoke just a quarter-century ago and are also a new comer to the values of liberal democracy. Ethnically homogeneous, these are typically unused to immigration. Thus, numerous recommend, this prejudice and insularity.
Present history has truly shaped the smoothness of Eastern societies that are european. But will they be actually more xenophobic or hostile to migrants compared to those associated with the western?
Just by the magazines lately, one might be forgiven for convinced that until Hungary began setting up fences, europe had borders that are open welcomed migrants with kindness and gentleness. The union has constructed what many justly call “Fortress Europe,” keeping out migrants not with fences but with warships, helicopters and surveillance drones in fact, over the past 25 years. Continue reading
