Topple: Deport All Bigots, Not Refugees
Op-ed writer Steve Topple has appealed to Europeans to learn their history lessons again before calling for Nazi-like collective measures against refugees fleeing conflict zones such as Syria.
Topple does not hesitate to point out the west is to blame for the war in Syria. The west must make space for refugees, as it must face the consequences of its actions and atone for what it has done.
The post accuses Western societies of ignoring their own hand in creating a crisis for themselves, which they now try to shirk responsibility for by wanting to turn refugees away:
The anti-refugee rhetoric appeared to be systematically ratcheted up in nearly every country across the continent, without the smallest whiff of hypocrisy that the West’s agenda had largely contributed to this man-made crisis.
Elaborating on this responsibility, Topple writes that “Western foreign policy is partly to blame for the situation in the Middle East, which is rapidly spiralling out of control. Decade after decade we have geopolitically been led by our unquenchable thirst for oil and gas, regardless of the consequences.” Amidst the hysteria spreading through Europe at the inevitable globalization of displacement and misery caused by western military aggression, many have called for all refugees (with particular emphasis on Muslims) to be deported.
Topple has an alternative suggestion of who deport:
Expatriate all the loathsome, lobotomised right-wing bigots and replace them with refugees.
Because I, for one, would rather we have a diverse, socially-rich, colourful society where the quality of life for everyone was far greater, than an insular, closeted, angry and scared country where the opinions of loathsome, vile bigots whose views belong in a 1970’s sitcom were the norm.
Tackling the specific hysteria of many right wing groups and commentators, Topple strikes back at their assertions:
Oh – and the individuals screaming “Rapefugees!” and “Women and girls aren’t safe!” when discussing refugees after we have just observed Holocaust Memorial Day, may wish to Google “Collective Responsibility” – although I doubt their myopic brains would be able to cope with the resonance.
Although many right-wing figures in the west are obsessed with World War II and the idea of supporting the Israeli apartheid regime to atone for the Holocaust, they are just as interested in committing a new genocide against Muslims. The additional inability to condemn Israeli expansion and ethnic cleansing and to support it, no matter how untenable, shows nothing was really learned from the Holocaust.