This is a guest post by a young Czech man whom I greatly respect and whom I had asked for his views on the current ‘migrant crisis’ facing Europe.
First I would like to apologize for “beating around the bush”, but I feel that some more overview is needed to explain what is going on in Europe.
I will start this post with a brief history of Czech. After that, I will explain my (and not only my) point of view of EU and its politics.
If you meet some Czech guy, first thing you will notice is that he looks a kind of “pissed off”.
Yeah, we don’t smile that often.
But I can say that I smile a lot, even though I am Czech. I stick with the saying that “It is good to keep a good mood. You can piss off a lot of people with it”.
We have our reasons. The Czech nation lost its independence in 1620, becoming a part of Austro-Hungarian empire. From economical point of view, it was one of the best guilds of Europe in those days.
But, the Czech language almost disappeared at that time…
Czechs managed to regain their independence in 1918.
Yes, 300 years later.
There were thirty years of peace, until the Munich treaty and, next year, WWII.
After that war followed a forced participation in Warsaw pact – until 1989, the Czech nation was under influence of our “big brother”, the USSR.
In November 1989, we finally gained our freedom and independence. There was plenty of time for us to unleash our “national self-determination”.
Every time before this time, there was somebody to make decisions for us (without our participation) and suppressing our nationality.
I can remember it like it was yesterday.
I was in the 7th grade when our teacher said “remember, one of the most important dates of history of Czech Republic is now May the 1st, 2004. This is the day we entered EU”.
When I look back I would like to say “We are f..king loosing our independence once again! Didn’t we learn a lesson from history? No way!”
Yeah, we are repeating the past once again.
There are many Czech people that says it’s not EU, but the EGSR (European Group of Socialistic Republics). Similarity with the USSR is clearly visible.
In 50’s it was “You have to think positive. There will be brighter tomorrows! With our brother USSR on our side!”
Does this sound familiar?
Hell yeah!
It is the same old “vinyl record” now! Just exchange EU for USSR and Brusels (maybe Berlin) for Moscow. Smaller nations joined the EU with dreams of stability and visions to catch up with US economically.
But then, reality struck.
Orders came from the EU, like a winter snow storm.
“You shouldn’t produce so much sugar, we will support economies of the third world countries and import sugar from them”.
That was end of our highly developed “sugar industry”.
For example, sugar cubes are a Czech invention. “You shouldn’t call some things the way you call them, it will confuse the customer”.
WTF?
We have called it that for centuries and no one seemed to be confused by it. This was, and still is, the main role of EU restrictions.
One would say: “Why do they deal with such unimportant things?”.
I will tell you what Xanthippa told me once. “They must prove that they are worth their salary, so they deal with bullshit.”
So far so good. Czech people are used to deal with such things. When you receive an order that you have to import bananas with a certain shape (yes, there is such order from the EU), you just say “screw it” and you go on.
But then, the Ukraine crisis came.
Everyone in the EU was like “What do we do now?”
If you have a bunch of bureaucrats who are dealing with bullshit, which only makes your life harder, and now they face real crisis, what you expect them to do?
Certainly, you expect that they will face it and do what’s best for EU countries.
What does that mean for the ordinary man in Czech Republic?
First he thinks that his nation will have at least some effect to decisions in EU – but don’t get fooled!
There is a document called the Treaty of Lisbon.
Our former President, Valcav Klaus, was forced to sigh this document even if he had submitted it for examination by the constitutional court.
Why?
Simply because he thought that it is dangerous.
We now see, that he was right.
But, when he was resisting to sign the treaty, he was called a traitor. It is interesting, how media call our presidents traitors, when they don’t do what big brother EU says.
Wth the Ukraine crisis, we all expected some precise information about what’s going on out there.
We got only western propaganda in news…
Some internet servers were bringing a different point of view to all those things. Of course, that sceptic man will read them and think “Hey, it might be a different way, than they say on TV. And what if TV is lying to us?”
And then “independent” media brought a list of 42 web servers which are publishing “pro Russian propaganda”. You see?
Whole 42.
It is just like at least twice as many as “official” (good) news servers.
If the ordinary man sees this, he is like “What the hell should I believe now?”
My father once said “We don’t have much information about Medieval Times. I was feeling lucky to grow up in 20th century, when we know about anything that happens. But we have no idea about many topics in WWII. And now? We don’t even know for certain what is happening outside of our borders!”
This is the same during migration crisis now.
There is a total lack of solid information.
We cannot trust the “independent media” and we cannot trust in “alternative media”.
What do we get?
On one side, there are people who thinks that “OK, immigrants flee from war-zone and we need to help them. And if we help them they will sure be grateful. They will want to adapt to our way of life. Islam is not so bad. Islamic state (IS) is only bunch of idiots, which are totally different than others.”
These people are considered as good and “true and love”.
On the other hand, there are sceptic people. They don’t want our women to wear burka and be slaves of men. And they fear Islam.
Those people are called “extremists” and “fascists”.
All because they want a good “Islam-free” future for their sons and daughters.
When some leaders of north African states says that there are IS terrorists inside the boats with refugees, I would f..king believe them and I wouldn’t dismiss that information.
Instead, Angela Merkel says that they will greet every Syrian refugee in their country.
It really sounds like a bad joke.
But it is not!
It is reality!!!
There are approximately a half million refugees in Germany at this time. Hungary faces around 10 000 new immigrants a day! And the EU Parliament blames them from building a fence along their borders to prevent everyone to enter their countries.
The most EU countries are part of so called Schengen area, which allows every citizen who lives inside to cross borders within the area without a check at the borders.
This brings additional responsibility to the states that share borders with non-Schengen countries to secure the schengen borders.
But some countries already forgot what is required of them to do.
So when outer borders of Schengen are not secured, there is almost no control of who comes inside. And again, if Hungary builds a fence at the border with non-Schengen country, they are the bad ones…
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 