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Irakiske flygtninge - dansk politik og det store billede
Mens afviste irakiske flygtninge vantrives og deres børn bliver syge på danske flygtningentre, sættes småligheden i dansk flygtningepolitik i relief af det reelle omfang af det irakiske flygtningeproblem, som vi læser om hos Abu Aardvark:
Iraq’s refugees give little sign of returning home, and it is no wonder why. Iraq continues to unravel, and life is especially dangerous for the cosmopolitan petit bourgeoisie whom many assumed would inherit post-Saddam Iraq. Today’s Iraq is no place for a doctor or a professor, especially one with a young family.Aardvark citerer her mellemøst-eksperten Jon Alterman, men gør også opmærksom på, at problemet er lige så meget strategisk som militært: To millioner irakere på flugt og mange flere på vej, hvoraf mange reelt er fordrevne fra deres hjem af sekteriske grunde og derfor ikke vil kunne vende tilbage, vil kunne få dybtgående og langvarige konsekvenser i hele regionen - ikke mindst, hvis Syrien og Jordan bliver ved med at skulle bære hele byrden.
In many ways, however, fleeing the country provides only a brief respite. Few refugees are allowed to work in their new homes, and savings are running out. Children are sometimes barred from school, and others go to schools bursting at the seams. Health care, when it is available, is often expensive. The refugee flow has dramatically boosted housing prices, not only raising costs for the new émigrés, but also squeezing the young and working class in countries such as Syria and Jordan who see affordable housing sliding beyond their grasp.
The refugee flows are massive, and they are squeezed into a very small number of countries. Syria alone claims to have more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees—representing about eight percent of Syria’s population—mostly concentrated in the Damascus area. The economy is far from booming: foreign subsidies have dried up, the country’s small oil reserves are fast depleting, and foreign investors balk at penetrating a government bureaucracy that is slowly reforming but remains profoundly opaque. While some Iraqis maintain businesses back home while living in the safety of Damascus, desperation forces many more into prostitution and other crimes.
Difficult as Syria’s problems are, Jordan’s are even more dire. Jordan has accepted 750,000 Iraqis, who now constitute more than ten percent of Jordan’s population. When combined with the 60 percent of Jordanians of Palestinian origin, the ruling Hashemites and their East Bank Jordanian allies have become an even smaller minority in their own country. Jordan has always been more homogenous than Syria, but the influx of hundreds of thousands of Shi’a Arabs has put an end to that.
Den danske regerings og flygtninge-administrations insisteren på at sende folk hjem til det "befriede" og "fredelige og rolige" Irak, som folk samtidig flygter fra i hobetal - forekommer i den sammenhæng mere end almindeligt ussel, for ikke at sige kynisk eller noget endnu værre.
Update:
Som Rune Engelbreth Larsen minder om, er det eksplicit ikke den danske regerings politik, at afviste flygtninge - bl.a. en del irakere - skal have bedre vilkår og f.eks. bolig udenfor asylcentrene, bare fordi børnene bliver syge. Så er det ligesom på plads.