[The Sabbaticus]

Watched (read: listened in the background to) a truncated version of this far left conference on 'refugees' and the Eurozone as organized by Varoufakis' organization 'DiEM25'. It was one big cringe-fest where not a single coherent argument was actually made to allow in these masses of illegal immigrants from the MENA region.

Varoufakis himself only speaks a couple of times and while he at least acknowledges the legitimate concerns of a certain class of Europeans, his argument mainly boils down to his interpretation of morality, as seen in the story of Odysseus.

The rest of the speakers were just painfully embarrassing. They kept on rapid-prattling in order to cram as much 'information' into the time allotted to them, but the content was mostly self-referential, in-crowd material and 'how Europe must do this', 'the far right is evil!' and 'over my dead body'.

Outsiders (those not in the fold of the far left) were completely left out of it. An afterthought as it were. They seemed to not even acknowledge the most basic concerns of the average European. Like what if one of these undocumented 'refugees' becomes their next-door neighbour. Who is going to pay for this all? Or what if they try to impose their religio-cultural norms and values on existing communities? What about the security concerns? Who are these people? Why focus on these illegal immigrants from the MENA region when they're not even European?

In short: the most elementary questions that any 'common sense' analysis would immediately conjure forth were completely ignored.

[noemon]

I watched the bit until Varoufakis' Odyssey reference and I agree with his statement that it is a litmus test about the strength and confidence of western societies.

I disagree however with his insinuation that it follows that absolutely open borders are the natural conclusion of this litmus test.

People in the antiquity were indeed very open to "the Stranger" and people in Greece still are extremely hospitable towards Strangers. Greek hospitality is world renowned precisely because of these Homeric traditions as any visitor to Greece will attest. However there is an evident issue of economies of scale and scope. The wave of migrants and refugees were quite extreme for any one county to handle & at the same maintain its openness. We all witnessed these Homeric Greek grannies carrying on the tradition that Varoufakis described but as he indirectly admits, this has not been enough neither for him, nor for the newcomers and nor for the social & economic issues created due to their arrival.

[JohnRawls]

The better question for people who are pro-taking illegal immigration in to the EU is how to integrate them in to the society faster and more efficiently. If, lets say, you are going to support this policy without question then there is no point in arguing over why you are doing it.

Better question is how are we gonna integrate people who are culturaly very far from Europe (Unlike the previous waves of immigration from Eastern Europe, Balkans, Russia etc), who are economically less well off (They are poorer), who are educationally less well off and where are we going to get the money ?

Immigration from the middle east/africa is harder to integrate because of the factors above, compared to previous waves of immigration(legal and illegal).

[Political Interest]

What about the Arab world's responsibility for the refugees they also had a large part in creating?

The entire onus is put on Europe without regard for the other players in the conflict such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

I would implore them to do their duty to their fellow Arabs and Muslims.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are unable to give any good reason why they have failed to accept any considerable amount of refugees.

[Albert]

The whole idea that Europe has a "duty" to refugees from middle east is some sort of weird karma police games. Instead of playing "im going to do gods judgement" games people should stick to the moment and what is practical. Leave such grandiose judgement of righteousness to god and just do your part in properly governing.

No letting millions of people across the border that then destabilize your societies is a good start.

In the end what is displayed in OP is nothing but self righteous arrogance, that life is making a complete mockery. Of caurse then these noble people blame the boogeyman ignorant right-wing racist white man for all this self inflicted trouble. How can they be in their self styled righteousness ever be wrong?

What you mean, the world works by its own rules? But I thought hippies moved us away from such primitive restrictions? How could this be? No way! But what about my noble goodiness? It feels so good.

[noemon]

What about the Arab world's responsibility for the refugees they also had a large part in creating?
The entire onus is put on Europe without regard for the other players in the conflict such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
I would implore them to do their duty to their fellow Arabs and Muslims.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are unable to give any good reason why they have failed to accept any considerable amount of refugees.

It is irrelevant to the argument being made by Varoufakis in the video.
While we can all agree about the responsibilities of others, the question is about our own personal & collective responsibility. Varoufakis is committing the error of transposing the personal to the collective and while most human beings will agree with the basic personal responsibility of humans to treat fellow humans with dignity and offer them a seat at their table, this takes a whole different dimension when transposed to a state's responsibility to offer the same kind of hospitality to significantly large masses of people. Questions of economics, social cohesion and essentially security then become the points of concern. Questions which he does not actually address.