This is the followup to the original guest post on the ongoing European Migrant Crisis. As before, I don’t agree with all of it, but it makes for an interesting starting point for debate.
In the previous post, I discussed what I believe to be the origins of the current Migrant Crisis – and Europe’s collective inability to take measures before it was too late to prevent major trouble. In this post, I discuss steps that can – that must – be taken by European Governments, mainly Germany, but France and Britain too, to prevent the crisis from getting any further out of hand.
The problem facing those governments, however, is difficult. Can they safeguard their populations without fatally compromising European principles?
In Germany, the first step is all too clear: Merkel must go.
Angela Merkel is not just a failed politician. Politicians have lost credibility before and survived; Clinton, Bush and Obama all survived crisis that threatened to bring them down. Merkel, however, not only bears a large share of the responsibility for the Migrant Crisis, but in attempting to cover up the scale of the problem she has thoroughly discredited her government. Right now, I doubt very many people in Germany would trust a word spewing from Merkel’s mouth. When the government is untrustworthy – and anyone in Germany can see the disproof in front of their eyes – it convinces people that they can no longer trust the government to take care of them.
Merkel, not to put too fine a point on it, forgot who she was working for. A common problem among European politicians. Her duty was not to migrants, however pitiful they looked, but to the German people. A German, she failed Germany; a woman, she failed women. Her ham-fisted attempts to come to terms with the crisis have only undermined her further. For the sake of Germany, for the sake of law and order and common decency, Merkel must go.
Having said that, there are a number of practical steps that need to be taken as soon as possible.
First, the borders must be sealed. Unaccompanied young men must not be allowed to enter the country. The problem is already quite big enough. If worst comes to worst, those borders must be defended by gunfire. Europeans who marry non-Europeans should be denied residence rights unless they can convince officials that they have had a long-standing and genuine relationship.
Second, there must be a full registry of illegal immigrants and migrants within Europe. This can be accomplished by making it clear that any undocumented personage found within Europe, or Germany, after a cut-off date will be summarily deported. Fingerprints and other identifying characteristics must be collected, allowing any criminal elements to be quickly identified and rapidly deported.
Third, the police and security forces must retake control of the no-go zones. The areas must be flooded by policemen, backed up by soldiers if necessary. Any attempt to attack the police must be greeted with maximum force. Patrols must be run through the most dangerous areas, forcing local leaders to either knuckle under or send out their thugs (which will weaken them badly, when the thugs are killed or locked up in detention camps.) It must be made clear that any attempt to challenge the government’s monopoly on force will end badly.
Fourth, all Islamist preachers and suchlike must be summarily removed from the streets and placed into detention camps. The preaching of both radical Islam and terrorist ideology must be stopped, whatever the cost. Any riots following such arrests are to be brutally crushed.
Fifth, mosques, Islamic schools and other such institutions are to be ordered to warn immigrants of the new rules on pain of being shut down. The national languages used as the official languages; teaching materials are to be strictly vetted before they are allowed to be used in the schools. The rights of women in Western countries, for example, must be discussed openly, allowing young girls to make up their own minds about their futures.
Sixth, and finally, there must be a zero-tolerance policy towards any migrant crimes. Small crimes – defecating on the seats, for example – must be punished by deportation (or a one-way ticket to the camps, pending deportation). Large crimes must be punished by death.
I make no pretence that any of these measures will be easy. Islamist leaders, regardless of how hostile they are towards the outside society, will not take them lightly. Europe has made too many concessions to find it easy to retake control. The European Governments will have to build up their police forces and militaries while avoiding infiltration and grit their collective teeth against the howls of fury from the Left. Can they do it? I don’t know.
But they must, because the alternatives are worse. Fascism, Balkanisation (aka Civil War) and Caliphate.
I will explore these in the third post.