(Warning Confronting Picture) The Power of one Picture

[ntp Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close ntp]

Sad indeed... life is cruel and unfair in many examples. Tragically, there are many horrible things that occur in life all around the world. Most people live in a very small cocoon of reality about happens every day, somewhere in the world. Myself, and I'm sure many others on here, have witnessed first hand the depravity and worse of life right here in Australia. I still shudder at the images in my mind of the young children whose lives were damaged, destroyed and lost - those images never leave you. Humans are indeed both the most amazing and most cruel creature on Earth.

[RanJ Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close RanJ]

Wait for utopia before helping others? Define utopia. For many seeking help... we already have it. How many of our own resources would be wasted and people die needlessly while we wait for something that for some will never happen and others occurred years ago.

Beauty and refuge is in the eye of the beholder.

[r4ndll Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close r4ndll]

For those of you wanting to help directly here is a good list of charities working with Syrian refugees and what they are providing:

http://m.theage.com.au/world/how-you...03-gjea65.html

[Bushbasher Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Bushbasher]

kids are dying every day, here in our own country

They're only dying because mum and or dad (if either are known) are spending all their hard-earned centrelink funds on drugs, alcohol, tobacco and gambling. Meanwhile the kids starve, roam the streets, break in to people's homes and steal stuff and perpetuate the cycle.

[Bushbasher Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Bushbasher]

now ISIS is butchering their way across Syria - doh!

Should have nuked them all 20 years ago.

[RanJ Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close RanJ]

They're only dying because mum and or dad (if either are known) are spending all their hard-earned centrelink funds on drugs, alcohol, tobacco and gambling. Meanwhile the kids starve, roam the streets, break in to people's homes and steal stuff and perpetuate the cycle.

You know is that kind of hard arsed, completely ignorant, callous and narrow minded point of view that causes so many problems and really pissed me off!

Problem is... you have a bloody good point and unfortunately, while it's considered wrong to stereotype people... the word was invented for a very good reason. Because stereotypes exist.

[kav Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close kav]

Here in Sydney we have an entire specific police division paid for by the workers of Australia set up to help these immigrants and refugees . It's called the Middle eastern crime squad . The CIA , FBI , ASIO call it profiling, not stereotyping .

[MidLifeCrisis Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close MidLifeCrisis]

Pretty sure this fella hadn't joined ISIS. I have no way to prove it but I seriously doubt his parents would risk everything to escape the hell they faced including their own government that blows them up .

[krypto Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close krypto]

Here in Sydney we have an entire specific police division paid for by the workers of Australia set up to help these immigrants and refugees . It's called the Middle eastern crime squad . The CIA , FBI , ASIO call it profiling, not stereotyping .

There are bad apples in every society . The common denominator for people doing break ins and general crime in our area is drugs, not race.

[mickmac_42 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close mickmac_42]

I have no way to prove it but I seriously doubt his parents would risk everything to escape the hell they faced including their own government that blows them up.

The family had been living in Turkey for the past three years. The father wasn't earning enough money in Turkey, and he wanted to get his teeth fixed, so he borrowed four thousand euro's from his sister in Canada to pay people smugglers to take them from Turkey to Greece.

They weren't fleeing from Syria, ISIS, war, genocide, or any persecution. They weren't refugee's in need of asylum. Just a dirt poor family who decided to make a dangerous trip to a better country, and he got his whole family killed in the process.

[Bushbasher Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Bushbasher]

My dad lost his parents and 8 of his siblings to the Nazi invasion across Europe during WW2. He fought back, spying on Nazi troop movements for the partisans only to be shot and taken prisoner for 2 years. He fled the prison camps at the end of the war and travelled through Germany and Italy living in bombed out buildings and scavenging for food until finally making his way to England in the late 40s. He was classed an alien until 1954 and was only allowed to do farming jobs and had to report to the local police weekly. He never received one cent in benefits or hand outs. He never got a war pension or any medals for service. He's now dying from asbestosis and stomach cancer. He brought his family (me included) to Australia on assisted passage in 1967. On arrival we were deemed to be too rich to go into the immigration hostels because dad had built his own home in the UK. He worked until retirement once again without any hand-outs or benefits from the aussie tax payer. So I can emphasize with those who would take risks for the hope of finding a safe and prosperous haven for their family. But my dad, like many migrants, has embraced the Australian way of life and culture and has contributed. He (we) integrated and never brought religious or other cultural practices that threaten the things that we as Australians cherish and have fought and died to protect. Unfortunately, many of those new migrants want to reproduce the environments from which they have escaped. We don't need the trouble that is facing France, Sweden, Holland, etc from the enclaves that have been established there.

[r4ndll Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close r4ndll]

I

My dad lost his parents and 8 of his siblings to the Nazi invasion across Europe during WW2. He fought back, spying on Nazi troop movements for the partisans only to be shot and taken prisoner for 2 years. He fled the prison camps at the end of the war and travelled through Germany and Italy living in bombed out buildings and scavenging for food until finally making his way to England in the late 40s. He was classed an alien until 1954 and was only allowed to do farming jobs and had to report to the local police weekly. He never received one cent in benefits or hand outs. He never got a war pension or any medals for service. He's now dying from asbestosis and stomach cancer. He brought his family (me included) to Australia on assisted passage in 1967. On arrival we were deemed to be too rich to go into the immigration hostels because dad had built his own home in the UK. He worked until retirement once again without any hand-outs or benefits from the aussie tax payer. So I can emphasize with those who would take risks for the hope of finding a safe and prosperous haven for their family. But my dad, like many migrants, has embraced the Australian way of life and culture and has contributed. He (we) integrated and never brought religious or other cultural practices that threaten the things that we as Australians cherish and have fought and died to protect. Unfortunately, many of those new migrants want to reproduce the environments from which they have escaped. We don't need the trouble that is facing France, Sweden, Holland, etc from the enclaves that have been established there.

I think that's true for most people fleeing persecution or searching a new life. They are grateful and keen to contribute. I read a UK study recently that found recent migrants/refugees contributed more in taxes and claimed less benefits than UK citizens. I'll try and dig out the link. There's also a lot of BS being said about refugees and migrants only coming here to claim benefits (they're not allowed to claim benefits-I arrived on a spousal visa and wasn't allowed to claim for 2 years until I became a permanent resident)

The enclave issue is a bit more complex. It stems from people's need to find similar to themselves, and those that speak a similar language. This is magnified if you arrive in a country with a level of hostility (perceived or real) towards you. It's a feeling of safety. If i'd left Australia and moved to an Arab country, would I live in amongst the Arabs who don't speak English, practice another religion , or amongst other westerners with similar beliefs and languages? (Though I'm atheist so would struggle with the religion bit. . Generally as the second generation is born, they start to move out to new areas. We saw that with the WW2 refugees and are seeing it now in Australia with the Vietnamese and Asians. The flip side of it is that many new migrants don't have money and are poor. Poverty breeds crime. Put a large amount of poor people in the same area and crime goes up. Governments are also to blame, they lump new arrivals together in the same area, that is very true in France, where they've created large Algerian and Muslim enclaves. Don't forget France ruled Algeria as a colony and there was bitter war of independence not that long ago so there's an undercurrent of hostility any way. Couple this dumping with the high levels of poverty and you create or at least exacerbate the problem.

There's plenty of non-migrant problem enclaves as well. The UK government had this idea that they'd put all the trouble maker in the same estates and contain the problems to a single area. All they did was create what are called sink estates which became virtual no go areas for the cops which theyve been working to fix for the last 20 years. And they were all locals.

[RanJ Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close RanJ]

My wife's parents were in a similar boat as Bushbashers. Difference being they were German citizens. They were first fleeing the Nazi SS regime along with many other Germans(Keep in mind that only a handful of citizens were Nazi sympathizers.) Then when Nazi Germany fell... they were escaping the Russians.

When they finally landed in Australia after 18 months of being on the run and sleeping in train cars, sewers and small freight boxes they were allowed no help.

The story continues very similar to BBs parents and is no point duplicating. But the opportunities available now is amazing compared to yesteryear. In another 50 years we can only presume the change will continue to persist. No system will be ever perfect, will we be able to find the solution for our current immigration system? Nope, we will always make mistakes. 3 steps forwards and then two steps backs. But at the end of the day that's still progress and look where it got us today compared to 50 years ago.

We just need to keep plugging away at it along with so many other problems in our fair land.