Our expatriate Russian correspondent Russkiy, who has taken the trouble to learn Arabic, returns to Gates of Vienna with translated excerpts from the BBC’s Arabic service.
Russkiy includes this introduction:
As I have mentioned previously, I have been learning Arabic for a while, and I am at a level now where I can actually provide some translated articles for Gates of Vienna’s audience to read.
I came across this article at BBC Arabic. It asks Arabs who are thinking about or have already undertaken illegal immigration to Europe to provide some comments on their experiences.
There are hundreds of comments. Most of the commenters complain about living conditions in their countries, and claim that it is all fault of the Imperialistic West. In their view they are fully justified. There is no appreciation whatsoever of the West, except by a few commenters who say how badly they were discriminated against in Arab countries, and how well they are treated in the West.
Note: I think the translation is about 90% accurate.
Below is Russkiy’s translation of the BBC’s introduction along with several sample comments:
Your Views: Victims of Illegal Immigration
In many parts of the world a lot of people play with the idea of illegal immigration in search of a better life. The desire to accomplish this dream drives some, especially young men, to employ illegal means for immigration, which often are fraught with danger.
Typical examples are the attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea in flimsy boats from Africa to Europe, attempts to cross from Egypt to Israel, or attempts to cross the Mexican border to the USA. However, the illegal immigrants undertaking such journeys rarely can avoid the dangers of drowning, being shot by border guards or being arrested and deported.
If you tried to emigrate by using illegal means, or you know someone who has or who suffered because of such undertaking, please share your experience with us.
We also want to know the reasons why you felt impelled to undertake such a dangerous endeavor, risking losing your life and your possessions. In your view, do the benefits of such an undertaking outweigh its dangers? Do you think that young men who are considering such an action are ignorant of its true dangers?
Comment 1: I believe that illegal immigration is caused by British colonialism which cultivated poverty, ignorance, and an evil system of government in our lands. I am personally was born in the West and married someone from Europe, and worked in the countries of Persian Gulf, and because of my history, I couldn’t even obtain a reasonable standard of living in my country or any other, and the reason for that is the old and the new colonialism. I want you to discuss what European, British, American and Israeli colonialism has brought to people of the Middle East.
— Faysal al Saudi
Comment 2: Its not poverty that forced me to emigrate. I am an Iraqi and everyone knows the blessings of Iraq. But darkness and intolerance have covered up my country. I left Baghdad in 2005 to go to Izmir in Turkey, from where on small boats we tried to cross to the Greek Island of Samos where we were overtaken by Greek police. At that time the smugglers threatened us with guns so that we jumped into the sea at a distance of 2 km from the shore. Unfortunately, four of us didn’t know how to swim and one drowned.
— Ahmad al Shamari
– – – – – – – – –
Comment 3: Please tell me if the immigration of Europeans to America was legal or illegal or English immigration to Australia was legal or illegal or the Spanish and Portuguese immigration to South America was legal or illegal. And what has happened to the natives of North and South Americas and what has happened to the Australian aborigines?
Comment 4: I can leave my country even though I am banned from leaving, since I can obtain a fake passport. What I am afraid of is if I am caught by the Western police and given up to the Saudi authorities, who will cut my head off with their swords for my apostasy, or put me in the hospital for the mentally ill until I die. Unfortunately the free West doesn’t realize the circumstances of our oppression.
— Abadi al Najdi, al Riad
Comment 5: What is it that Europe is afraid of from illegal immigration? Is it the deeply ingrained Islam in the minds of Muslims? Is it the displacement by Islam of the barbarous capitalistic order? And what is it that Europe will lose if this happens via a legal pathway of arguments and proofs? The struggle of the Muslims is not with the general population but with the political order that supports a life of luxury there at the expense of the Third World.
— Islam Yusef
The struggle of the Muslims is not with the general population but with the political order that supports a life of luxury there at the expense of the Third World.
Boy howdy! That sorta sums it all up in a nutshell.
“We don’t hate you, just everything about your way of life and are we ever going to get even for your success plus Islam’s lack of it while guided by the lights of our zero-sum logic as we install global shari’a.”
Nothing to it.
So, the developed world isn’t up to its neck in camel dung because it keeps islamic open sewers in such a situation, right?
It’s just too bad that inbred bedouin savage tapeworms such as Mahoundianism Yusef never get to conclude by themselves, or see their fellow dune-dwelling mahound-worshipping tapeworms do so and then share such a conclusion with them, that people in the developed world didn’t get to be where they are economically, politically, intellectually, socially and culturally by rejecting science and skeptical thinking in order to avoid thoughts that might call into question the “revelations” contained in the glory-ass quran/Mein Qurampf. That instead of sitting around all day napping, smoking cigarettes, drinking tea and thinking up conspiracy theories to explain away all of their failures while waiting for the will of mahound’s imaginary alter-ego allah to make whatever is to happen come about (when they’re not persecuting, stealing from, murdering or raping members of non-mahoundian minorities in their countries that is), people in developed countries get up early and go to work all day long. And while mahoundians do consider such a daily routine to be typical of a life of stupidity, they would still love to reap the benefits of living like that without having to lift a finger (I suppose that’s exactly why they’ve been draining Western Europe’s welfare states, which allow them to have their cake and eat it when it comes to that.)
And just to mention one particular example of how their disordered minds work when it comes to making money, they would never consider that making their business attractive to more customers is a good way to increase their profits by having more folks to sell their stuff to. Instead, they prefer to try to sell something for 20 times what it’s worth to whatever few potential customers they can attract, and it’s all fine if they’ll spend 2 hours or more haggling over the price of a pair of sandals with a potential buyer instead of doing anything productive. They absolutely don’t feel bad at all about talking that time away instead of investing it into something useful and productive.
And it isn’t just at the souks, or sougs, that this is how they go about “working.” I’ve heard of similar things from people who have needed banking services from financial institutions in mahoundian countries… About how a random little new fee here, and a little surprise increase in an existing fee there substitutes for what the banks would get if professionalism and efficiency were the norm in how they do business. Moreover, overstaffing is another trademark of “work” in Dar al-mahoundianism. I’ve seen construction sites in Erdoclownistan, with my own eyes, where 20+ people were supposed to be doing the work that four workers would do in Switzerland. And, at any given time, there were never more than three or four people doing any actual work. The others either looked on at those toiling away, or took naps, or text-messaged their buddies, or smoked cigarettes and drank tea while chatting the time away.
To mention another such example, when it comes to repair/maintenance work, whereas we’d see one technician show up to do it in the US or Western Europe, between five and six people show up at in mahoundian countries. And the worst thing about it? It’s not uncommon for all of them not to be anywhere near as qualified as they should be to do the same job in the civilized world (as if only knowing how to tie the ends of two electrical wires with insulating tape were enough to make anyone a qualified electrician.)
It’s just too damn easy to blame the developed world for all the curses laid by mahoundianism upon their rear ends, up five times a day for 30-to-45-minute-long periods of time while they’re down on all fours, isn’t it?
I forgot to mention one more obvious thing about mahoundianism, which is the root cause of the mahoundian habits I mentioned in my previous post: their utter contempt for hard work of any kind, which is not surprising at all. Since mahoundianism, from the moment it took its current form of bedouin fascism 1400+ years ago, never encouraged any hard work, all that its followers have always been supposed to do, according to the will of mahound’s imaginary alter-ego, is to loot and steal from those doing actual work, besides murdering and raping them as well.
Reacting to Zenster’s comment : “We don’t hate you, just everything about your way of life.”
That’s indeed the problem underlying the oft-used policy statement: “We do not oppose Muslims, we oppose Islam”.
It might politically astute. You don’t want to alienate up-front millions of people living in your midst (many of whom might actually long to be freed from Islam’s cultural yoke), or one billion-plus living all over the world.
It might be morally sound. Something along the lines of Christian values. One can harbour robust views against Islam, and still be polite, and even generous, in day-to-day interactions with individual Muslims. There is a distinction to be made between political views and person-to-person standards of behaviour.
However, both these approaches have their limits. “Islam” does not exist. Unless your aim is to entertain a purely academic debate with no practical implications, “Islam” actually means what real Muslims think and do.
One could even argue that it is morally wrong to be respectful to individual Muslims. After all, isn’t being unpleasant to invaders the best way to make them feel unwanted, and therefore inciting them to leave ?
Isn’t being polite to them a way to feel morally comfortable, while at the same time harming the collective national body, because when you had the opportunity to do one small act of resistance, you took the path of the lesser inconvenience to yourself ?
After all, isn’t being unpleasant to members of the other community exactly what many Muslims regularly do, precisely in order to alleviate resistance and displace the indigenous population ?
In other terms, can we afford to be Christian with Muslims — or indeed with other, non-Muslim immigrant invaders who use the same tactics ?
Let me offer a personal example. I live in an upscale neighbourhood. The Muslim and African element is very visible though, and growing. I was once asked by a Muslim lady, in a supermarket, where she could find some pre-packaged turkey.
Actually, she was standing right in front of it. Turkey is the meat French Muslims default to when they cannot find halal produce.
From the way she behaved, it was clear that she asked because she was illiterate — and thus unable to read the labels.
In other words, she was the middle-aged wife of a militant Muslim born in France, plucked out of a rural and backward area in Algeria, dumped in the middle of a culture she is forbidden to mix with, in order to produce good Muslim babies for the glory of Allah, and not little unbelievers integrating smoothly within French society.
Because I’m a usually polite sort of guy, and, you know, out of personal ethics, I gently pointed to her the “dinde” packages. She went all “Merci, Monsieur” with her feeble French. It was all very nice and civilised. She could never have guessed what sort of a disgusting far-right, racist, Islamophobic extremist I really am.
However, the real question here is, shouldn’t I have replied her something like : “I’m awfully sorry, Madam, but my religion forbids me from speaking to a Muslim lady unaccompanied by her husband” ?
That would have pissed her off, of course, and she would have reported back home how horribly rude and arrogant these French kuffars are, but at least the message would have been clear.
Would that really have been worse than the other option ? Will being nice to them hinder their agressive intentions ?
Robert,
You were being far too gracious. I would have directed her to the pork products.
Robert Marchenoir: “Islam” does not exist. Unless your aim is to entertain a purely academic debate with no practical implications, “Islam” actually means what real Muslims think and do.
At day’s end, this is is the “real” Islam. You can read the Qur’an until you’re blue in the face but there will be only one jihad that we must confront and that is the version being implemented by Muslims around the world. In short: Islam is what Muslims make it.
Islam’s embrace of sharia law represents a central reason why the West is compelled to use collective punishment in dealing with this menace. Muslims have no problem inflicting collective punishment upon dar al harb in the form of terrorism and dhimmitude.
Towards that end, it is important to make clear the gross iniquity of such blanket treatment in order that they may obtain a better understanding of how flawed their world view continues to be. Absent that comprehension, the more primary goal of suppressing jihad in all its various forms will still be met by such measures.
After all, isn’t being unpleasant to members of the other community exactly what many Muslims regularly do, precisely in order to alleviate resistance and displace the indigenous population ?
Again, the key term is reciprocity. Pay Islam in its own coin. Muslims will accept no other tender.
Robert, that was funny. I had a funny occurance like that with a Chinese man at a supermarkt here. He wanted to find one of those wine bottle openers and he didn’t know how they’re called in Romanian so he couldn’t ask the shop attendants where it is and he came to me and asked me if I could help in a crappy Romanian and I said that sure. And he started to point towards the bottle and I asked him if he wants me to help him drink it. 😛 Then I eventually got what he wanted and he got extatic when I told him the name of the thing and asked me where he can get one and I told him that I have no idea and he got sad all of the sudden. The whole thing was just comical to me.
Jedilson, you are describing exactly the way gypsies are.
About the comments, my own critique:
#1: I am personally was doesnt meet the standards for someone finishing high-school in my country and I personally talked like that in 4th grade, English being my 3rd language. It’s funny how he could marry one of those evil oppressive Europeans though. I guess Fjordman was right when he said that the only good thing Europeans do is giving everyone else someone to blame and posters of pretty girls.
#3:Europeans didn’t emigrate to America, Australia or South America. We conquered those lands and built them up from the hellholes that they were. I’d have no problem with Muslims declaring war on Europe. Now, also, the Amerindians fought the British, does he mean that we are entitled to shoot illegals on sight? I guess he doesn’t follow through on the logic of his whining.
#4:We shouldn’t care about your circumstances. It’s not like the West is some place where people can move because they don’t like their countries and that’s the only reason for which they are admitted.
#5:Besides the idiocy of considering Europe capitalist, I’m amused by how doing something is ok as long as it’s legal. Well, I guess Europeans should make legal at the EU level to lynch non-Europeans on site, would that be ok? Of course not. But hey, this guy is a bit right – he gets that the West is superior and wants to force his inferior ways on it.