Football fans and the refugee crisis

[cdbearsfan]

Shouldn't this thread be moved to Off Topic?

No, it has "football" in the name and a Villa supporters group are bringing a banner referencing the refugee crisis to our next match.

[nigel]

Will the banners be written on the back of Je suis Charlie ones left over from earlier in the year?

The humanitarian crisis of Syrian refugees (and the exploitation of economic migrants from across the Middle East and Africa) needs to be dealt with immediately, but banners at football grounds simply smacks of bandwagon-jumping, not least because the grounds themselves unfortunately remain repositories for significant numbers of our fellow citizens who would make those in desperate need of refuge anything but welcome.

I disagree.  Seeing the banners in Germany the other week was possibly the first time I'd see mass approval for a more pro-active approach to the crisis.  The politicians have successfully ignored the problem because there has been little pressure put on them to sort it out.  These public, possibly bandwagon jumping (don't care if it is) measures are a positive step to forcing change. 

Our current crop of politicians will change their tune to whatever they perceive is the public mood of the day.  UKIP shout far too loud in this debate for my liking.

Always have done, always will do.
I actually feel sorry for Cameron on this, as he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

[brian green]

I do not feel the slightest sympathy for Cameron. He has a wonderful opportunity to show us what he really is made of as a person. Is all the churchgoing and public compassion and wading in the Somerset floodwater sincere or political opportunism? The refugee crisis gives him the chance to show us.

[Chris Smith]

I do not feel the slightest sympathy for Cameron. He has a wonderful opportunity to show us what he really is made of as a person. Is all the churchgoing and public compassion and wading in the Somerset floodwater sincere or political opportunism? The refugee crisis gives him the chance to show us.

He's made of whatever he is told to be made off on any given day.

[dekko]

I do not feel the slightest sympathy for Cameron. He has a wonderful opportunity to show us what he really is made of as a person. Is all the churchgoing and public compassion and wading in the Somerset floodwater sincere or political opportunism? The refugee crisis gives him the chance to show us.

I'm gonna go with the latter, because this crisis has been ongoing for years now, and he's only just had an attack of conscience

[bruisedshins]

Nothing I would like better than a few Syrians doing paid work on my farm and some Syrian kids kicking a football round my farmyard. I think we should realise how this humanitarian catastrophe came about.  Many of us, my family included, marched against the Iraq war. We could see what came next and this is it. War begets war and war begets mass human suffering. It is time for the developed world to take stock of itself. It is time to turn away from pouring the talents and energies of educated people into building Mercedes cars and Rolex watches and pour it into the building of homes and schools and roads and bridges and drains and reservoirs and all the fabric of communities so that when humanitarian disasters like this happen there is the capacity to deal with it. It is no more than nations providing a spare bedroom for guests. Countries scramble to pour billions into hosting the Olympic Games or the World Cup. The same resources should be given to saving innocent people's lives.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[bertlambshank]

We will have a family camp in the back garden if they want.You can't cut the grass with a big tent on it.
Win win if you ask me.

[Jimbo]

I think it's incredibly heartwarming that so many people in this country are willing to offer their homes to refugees. Who knows, perhaps this will usher in a new era of benevolence and humanity in Britain, where we welcome all those Britons who are already without shelter on our city streets into our homes, solving the homelessness problem once and for all? Perhaps the refugee crisis will force the government to build the homes, schools, hospitals and transport infrastructure that we desperately need? Maybe it will make us a better country? Mr Cameron? Mr Cameron...

[oldhill_avfc]

The ordinary British people have always done the right thing. The government and ruling classes  of this country have always done the wrong thing!

If the government and ruling classes had always done the wrong thing then this country wouldn't exist.

If the ordinary British people had their way we'd have hanging.

[Malandro]

Shouldn't these people be moved to Off Topic?

Bastard

[oldhill_avfc]

I think it's incredibly heartwarming that so many people in this country are willing to offer their homes to refugees. Who knows, perhaps this will usher in a new era of benevolence and humanity in Britain, where we welcome all those Britons who are already without shelter on our city streets into our homes, solving the homelessness problem once and for all? Perhaps the refugee crisis will force the government to build the homes, schools, hospitals and transport infrastructure that we desperately need? Maybe it will make us a better country? Mr Cameron? Mr Cameron...

Exactly.

This country and it's people always acts in it's own interests.  There have arguably been 2 great reforming liberal governments in the last 100 years.  The rest have been driven by capitalism and popular greed.   And like it not, that's what's made this country what it is today - both the good and the bad.

There are some fine sentiments being posted on here, but if you need any sense of where the (silent) majority of thinking in this country is then you only have to look at the recent election results, and what will happen to the labout vote if Corbyn is elected as leader.

Cameron knows it and that's why he's acting the way he is.  Waving a flag at a football match isn't going to make a scrap of difference.

[Clark W Griswold]

What if one of these people that you take in and give your spare room to turn out to be like him out of 'The Hitcher'?

Just a thought like.

[1_Pablo_Angel]

This country had a reputation for centuries for doing the right thing.

I'd like it to come back, but the response of the political class - not just the government, NB - so far has been embarrassing. Paralysed with fear.

Yes, in Ireland we have marvelled for centuries at the UK's ability to do the right thing. Its actions in the period leading up to and during the Great Famine were particulalrly well guided.  If only we had an enlightened political class like that nowadays I'm sure everything would be just dandy.

That'd be a fair point if i had claimed that the UK had a faultless history.

Unfortunately, I didn't, so it's not hugely relevant. The fact of the matter is we used to be relied upon to put ourselves on the right side of things. Currently, we're not, we're being insular and pretending things aren't happening.

When there was a massive humanitarian crisis on its doorstep in the 1840s (far greater than today's with millions of deaths) the UK not only didn't do the right thing but its actions helped exacerbate the suituatuon. So to claim the UK had a reputation for centuries for doing the right thing is palpable nonsense rather than the "fact of the matter".   

Palpable nonsense because you've flagged up something from 170 years ago?

And once again, I am not suggesting we are without fault - no country is - but we have more often than not done the right thing for a long, long time, which makes the current inaction all the more disappointing.

Not trying to get into an argument, but that is rubbish. The people of most countries tend to think their foreign policy is fair and just and enacted for sound ethical reasons. This is generally absolute horseshit.

I'd recommend reading a book called Why Are We The Good Guys? which explores this in some depth.

[old man villa fan]

It's an unfair world and it always has been.  To look back and say we did this or that is not going to make any difference today.  As a country you have to look back and ask whether we have made it fairer over the passage of time, both here and places where we had influence to do so.  The world and what was thought to be right 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago etc. is completely different to today.

We can always make it fairer but is it a case of diminishing returns and should our main efforts be to influence other countries to make their country fairer where they are way behind where this country stands.

It is very easy to spend somebody else's money on a very worthy cause and, comparing with football, is similar in a way to how much a club should spend on transfers.

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

I only hope that this crisis doesn't mean a charity single involving Bono.