Sloan Ranger 'Gimmigrant' Refugees.

The talk for the past while has been about the hundreds of thousands of refugees. Not that I have mentioned them much here as this is an Anglophile place predominantly,  and Oz had (note the past tense) largely solved the problem of thousands of crying-poor invading our shores. 

But it cannot be ignored and some have been clamouring for getting a word in my ear. I am a patient Tavern Keeper.

I have practical and personal history sympathies for refugees.  Those that know a little of the man and my activities in the past know that I have been quite instrumental in bringing succour and relief to those in need. But sympathy and practical help need discernment.

As was illustrated by a particular gentleman who was a 'new' customer. One I had not seen before, that is.  He tells the tale of one particular gal with 'style, who made it to her destination. I will come to him and her in a moment.

But first let us get the measure of this vast problem that is affecting Europe. We stood watching an address on the big plasma TV by a Hungarian chappie; someone or other in their gummunt, bewailing the problem and telling us his view of what should be done.

And on his heel was a very pretty girl who had an unusual facility with Arabic who told of her own first hand experience being engulfed in refugees.

Let us give the floor to the 'Official' first: then get to her: then onto to the tale of the Gimmigrant girl. As the Parliamentary speech is not in English, one of my staff has translated it for you.

Quite heavy stuff, I think you will agree. Multiply it by a dozen Parliaments across Europe and Scandanavia. 

But now, a 'first-hand' account by a young woman. She is from the Ukraine and speaks in Ukranian, while a voice-over is in Hungarian. So you will hear two languages speaking over one another. Fortunately the sub-titles are in English so perhaps turn your speakers down and simply read along.

The 'quality' of the refugees flooding into Europe has attracted some questions. Such as , 'why all the men?' A very non-PC voice from the back of the bar said:

Watching European news broadcasts right now is like an insane demotic inversion of the Emperor's new clothes. "To a fool these thousands of fit young Muslim men appear well dressed and well fed. But a wise man such as Your Majesty can easily see that they are desperate starving refugees in rags." 

And so as the trains pull in to German railway stations to disgorge men who meet no known definition of "refugees" they are greeted on the platform by volunteers offering food and second-hand clothes. 

The cameras do their best to alight on a telegenic moppet or a covered woman, but, even when they do, you notice that they're surrounded by a sea of confident vigorous males - who, according to the UN, make up 75 per cent of the "refugees".

That would be an unusual demographic distortion in most emergency situations. If 75 per cent of the Titanic's survivors had been men who'd left their women and children back on the ship, there might have been a few disapproving comments. But not here. And why complain that the Syrian refugees aren't really "refugees"? 

After all, they're not Syrian either. 

Only one in five of the arriving migrants are Syrians fleeing the implosion of their country. But the vast majority of those marching across the Continent to the bountiful welfare states of the north-west are economic migrants lured by western weakness

'Reports' are difficult to verify in this age of superb communication. Everyone and his dog, particularly those in the large media organisation like the BBC, do have a growing and unenviable reputation for spin and plain bullshyte.  One has to be careful.

So it was with care that a gentleman in the Pin & Balloon Bar took out a very pointy lance to prick a BBC baloon for us. He partially answers the question of 'Why so many men'? Well perhaps the women are shopping en route.

The BBC and the Immaculate Refugee

There is a swathe of reporters from numerous media outlets currently “embedded” with the legions of Gimmegrants (sorry – “desperate refugees”) journeying to the promised land.

Few of their accounts have been more obsequious and uncritical  as those from the BBC. I recently encountered their depiction of one Nour Ammar and her tale of woe. It’s possibly the most surreal example of Metroluvvie propaganda I’ve yet seen concerning the “migrant crisis”.

Let us meet this poor, benighted individual, shall we?

*Enter stage left*

 http://www.4liberty.org.uk/2015/09/26/the-bbc-and-the-immaculate-refugee/

This is our protagonist, Nour:

As you can see, Nour is in a pensive mood, contemplating traveling “through nine countries to try and fulfill her dream of applying for asylum in Sweden“. Horrors.

Nour was in a dire situation I’m sure all readers can relate to:

“For two years in Istanbul, she enjoyed a comfortable life. 

Nour found work in a hair transplant salon, and later with Turkish state TV.  

She learnt Turkish, went horse-riding and dyed her hair blonde for the summer.”

We’ve all been there. The mid-life, or quarter-life crisis. You wonder what you’re doing with your life. You’re safe, relatively happy and have a comfortable lifestyle. Then someone comes along and tells you what you’re missing out on in the lifestyle of the “desperate refugee”.

So you decide to get away from it all and “make it to the Swedish city of Gothenburg”, where you remember your “brother lives with his young family.” 

(Nour might want to reconsider the whole dying her hair blonde thing in Sweden, though).

As a general rule immigration protocols tend to favour applicants who already have family members settled in the receiving nation. Naturally, this makes the whole process of legitimately requesting to live and work in the nation in question much easier. Not least because a relative can act as a sponsor. This is where the tale ends, because that would be the sensible…

Oh.

“There, she would apply for political asylum….Nour planned to follow the increasingly familiar migrant trail from the Turkish coast to northern Europe.”

So hard up and desperate was Nour, that she put on her only pair of Jimmy Choo sandals and, one foot in front of the other and…

….booked a flight from Istanbul to Izmir on a Boeing 737

She then, miraculously, found $1,200 in her Harrods designer purse to pay a people smuggler to take her to the Greek island of Agathonisi.

By heck. This gal had someone watching over her. I am pretty sure though that it was not my Supplier. But, on the other hand...... objects lessons have to be found somewhere. 

The BBC appear to find it incredible that on her (and compatriots’) journey through Greece and into Macedonia, “hotels turned them away.” 

I find this incredible myself given that it is made clear throughout the article that Nour is not short of petty cash, including paying towards a taxi ride and bribing local police. 

I would  struggle to find a bed and breakfast in London that wouldn’t take hard cash for a few nights, never mind in south eastern Europe, where the youth unemployment rate is up to 55%+.

The BBC then spend some time detailing the fact that Nour and her fellow travelers were ill in transit. I hate to break it to BBC Metroluvvies who taxi everywhere, but this is quite common for us proles who use this thing called “public transport” and especially for long journeys.

Following this interval, we return to the urgent emoting. Nour is afraid apparently. No, not of her reserve of petty cash running out, silly. She’s afraid of being fingerprinted in Hungary. The BBC quote her saying “If we pass safe – that’s fantastic,….It would be a disaster to be fingerprinted.”

A “disaster”?

It would be a disaster for Nour’s Gap Yah, sorry – “desperate refugee flight” because it would mean being identified and possibly subject to the Dublin Convention. She would have to register for asylum in Hungary. 

This is unacceptable, obviously, because our Heroine is Asylum-Shopping and only Sweden will do, you philistines!

The BBC, in all their neutrality, make it clear what they think of the Dublin Convention:

“In theory, you have to stop and apply for asylum in the country which first registers you. This rule is not always enforced, but many refugees refuse to take the risk and do whatever they can to avoid being fingerprinted.”

Yes, what an awful “risk”. 

You’re so desperate to survive and escape certain death, everyone knows that being fingerprinted and asked to apply for asylum in the first safe country you enter is the most horrible thing that could happen to you.

But, not to fear! “Like a dream”, once within the Schengen area, Nour has no problem making her way to Gothenburg. As soon as she realised she’d entered Sweden, naturally “she sent a message to her mother on WhatsApp to tell her she had made it.”

Obviously it is important to let the family know on the iPhone. They’ll be desperate for those remittances once you’re settled in your new home. And of course, your heart will go out to anyone who is desperate enough flee abroad in order to support a distant family living in squalid circumstances like these:

Oops, sorry! Those aren’t poor Syrian refugees. Those are Romanian rural poor, who have never even seen an iPhone. But let’s pretend they don’t exist, and get back to our “desperate refugee” narrative for the middle class Syrian, Nour.

Nour has one last Herculean trial awaiting her. She has to apply in person for asylum in Sweden.

Not to worry, however. Her brother has supplied her with a script. The BBC doesn’t go into detail, but I’m sure it will have included mentioning persecution for political, or sexual preferences. The BBC helpfully leaves us with a final image, showing Nour attending a police station in Gothenberg to claim asylum.

You’ll be forgiven for thinking, as I did, she’s just finished a shop at Gucci, along with a visit to the hairdresser and personal stylist.

I’ve obviously been lied to all these years about what desperate people with nothing fleeing warzones and imminent death actually look like.

Not all is as it seems.

Fortunately she does not appear to be the sort to march down the street threatening to behead you. 

Maybe.

She might be ripe for becoming a Feminist though. 

But let the last (and slightly late) words go to Pat Condell. He showed up in the UK Room sounding a warning in his usual articulate manner. 

 My thanks to James Higham for bringing him in and wetting his whistle.

http://www.nourishingobscurity.com/2015/09/putting-it-gently/

Ale on the bar top gentlemen.

Pax.