Kodolanyi Janos University of Applied Sciences

Social Anthropology - Final assignment:

EUROPEAN REFUGEE CRISIS: A

REFLECTION REGARDING
BORDERS OF CULTURE
By: Yen Hai Pham

Culture itself is a vague definition no matter how many times we try to search for the
right words to describe it. The main reason is that there is no clear borders to separate
one culture from another like the physical ones. This ambiguous boundary has been
shaking a lot since globalization, since the technology era arrived, when all cultures
meet in the melting pots, gradually erasing the so-called cultural barrier. However,
the refugee crisis in Europe that started from 2015 has raised the question concerning
cultural aspects: Are we building up those blurry borders? Are we separating outselves
instead of merging together as the true meaning of globalization? From my research, it
seems that we are indeed creating more barriers against the new wave of Muslim
culture, the three of which will be explained below.

The first barrier Refugees perspective

Since the legal ways to travel to Europe is getting narrower and stricter, refugees
started getting on flimpsy rubber dingheries or small wooden boats and heading to

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Greek islands. The journey is not only illegal but also extremely dangerous, due to lack
of facilities and overcrowded boats that can sink anytime. In fact, this year alone,
179,522 refugees and migrants have crossed the Mediterranean and Aegean to reach
Europe, and 761 of which have died or gone missing while attempting the journey.
However, even if they managed to survive the trip, they will be returned to Turkey if
their application for asylum is turned down; Turkey unfortunately is not known for
treating their refugees appropriately, and so far it has not been considered as a safe
country for refugees by the UN.

At first, the EU was open and welcoming to those refugees, but now, when the problem
has reached crisis-level proportions, the member states are getting stricter with their
regulations of processing the applications and controlling the life of the refugees. In the
Netherlands, the government claims that working refugees must hand in 75% of their
income to cover their accommodation, food and other daily expenses.

Getting used to a significantly different western culture is one of the biggest challenges
for the survivors in host countries. Most of them do not speak the language in that
country, and all local behaviors and customs are new and usually confusing to them.
Gender equality, freedom of speech and expression is not common in Syrian or Afghan
culture, so to uneducated refugees, it must take them a while to understand the culture
they are living in. It has been a long debate over which policy should EU adopt
multiculturalism or assimilation. In 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron, then-
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel famously
agreed that multiculturalist policies had failed. Consequently, this led to the rise of far-
right extremist parties who are anti-migration, and even violent acts, epitomized by the
attack by Anders Breivik that killed 77 people in Norway that year.

On the other hand, the Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) researchers have
found out that the countries with inclusive integration policies tend to see the
advantages in diversity, and therefore provide best social cohesion to the benefits of
both newcomers and general society. There are nevertheless no laws for integration, i.e.

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the host country cannot force the refugees to assimilate its cultural values and vice
versa. However, actual policies in national government tend to head towards coercive
integration. For example, there are discriminatory measures like religious-dress being
banned in France, Belgium, parts of Italy and Spain; while in the Netherlands, an
integration test is made mandatory for migrants before they are officially accepted as
Dutch residents. The more barriers they create, the more challenging the refugees lives
would be in a new land. To make it even worse, some countries in Eastern Europe,
especially Hungary, are conservative about their culture and they resist taking more
refugees; in those regions, local people do not want to see refugees in their
neighborhood. As a result, refugees barely move to Hungary since they are scared of
staying a place where they are not wanted.

The second barrier European Unions perspective

As the crisis worsens, more and more pressure has been put on European Union to
resolve it, but the barriers have been building up even inside the group. There has been
conflicts in the approaches towards migation issues among the member states. While
Germany has been transforming into a culturally diverse country, Hungary still has
their own distinct culture and languague, and they are one of the most resistant
against the refugee acceptance. In addition, EU policy that makes refugees apply
asylums in the first EU country they are in, has been putting pressure on the more
vulnerable countries like Greece and Hungary. Such differences and lack of agreement,
as a result, led to a disunity within the EU, threatening the existence of this partnership
concept. Schengen agreement on open borders among member states is now put under
question, since security on different regions are not the same, and some like Greece or
France are not considered safe to be open to other states as before.

With racial intolerance steadily growing among citizens, the traditionally liberal
attitude of European states is fast diminishing and governments are increasingly
adopting a cynical interpretation of international refugee law that lacks any sense of
justice or compassion.

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The third barrier Local peoples perspective

The way European residents act towards refugee crisis is not the same as how they
used to be. One big example for this barrier is the changing attitude in several cities of
Germany. At first, Merkel has shown Germanys bright-side leadership by welcoming
about one million refugees in 2015, but her decision has received strong political
criticisms, since she took more people than the countrys system can handle.
Consequently, up to now, the welcome culture in Germany has been fading as more
and more refugees are coming; local people have started to gradually change their
attitude about having refugees in their suroundings. According to a leaked government
report, the number of asylum applications has reached 1.5 million this year, almost
doubling the 800,000 as expected. Germany now is also going the same direction as the
rest of EU: beginning police controls over its border with Austria and Czech Republic in
September, the Bavarian border towns of Passau and Rosenheim have borne the brunt
of Germanys refugee influx.

The similar situation is happening to the Netherlands. At first, people were welcoming
and tried their best to help refugees. However, when the problem turned to a crisis,
local people are less and less positive about the acts of the government; only 25% have
faith in the government decisions, compared to 31% in the previous year. Far-right
parties have been gaining power in opinion polls in this country, with its leader Geert
Wilders being well-known to be harsh on the migration issues. Wilders called the
arrivals of refugees on EUs Mediterranean shores an Islamic invasion.

"Masses of young men in their twenties with beards singing Allahu Akbar across
Europe. It's an invasion that threatens our prosperity, our security, our culture and
identity," he said.

As the president of EU from January 2015, the Netherlands has proposed to exchange
illegal refugees for the legal ones in Turkey, and they expected to implement this

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agreement this spring. Even though there are a lot of issues with this proposal,
concerning international law and long-term consequences, the Dutch government takes
this as a temporary solution and is gathering support from EU member states, with the
hope that refugees influx can be reduced and there is a distribution of refugees among
the states.

Conclusion

The refugee crisis has been on the top-priority concerns in Europe for the last few
months, and it is proving that the barriers among various cultures are still rising. Razor-
wire fences, detention centres, xenophobic rhetoric and political disarray, are all
contributing to build up the cultural borders in Europe. Above all, these borders are
observing the separating of humanity, where everyone is confused and worried for
their future. A long-term solution that can solve the root problems of the refugee influx,
is of great necessity indeed at the moment.

References

Barigazzi, J. (2016, February 25). EU migration system could break down in 10 days.

Retrieved from http://www.politico.eu/article/eu-migration-system-could-

collapse-in-10-days-refugees-political-tension/

BBC News. (2016, May 2). Migrant crisis: EU 'to grant Turkey visa-free travel'.

Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36188558

EurActiv. (2015, August 18). An appeal from Central Europe on the refugee crisis.

Retrieved from http://www.euractiv.com/section/languages-

culture/opinion/an-appeal-from-central-europe-on-the-refugee-crisis/

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Johnson, H., & Bruer, T. (2016, April 28). Migrant Crisis: Changing attitudes of a

German city. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-

36148418

Makwana, R. (2016, March 15). The global refugee crisis: humanity's last call for a

culture of sharing and cooperation. Retrieved from

http://www.sharing.org/information-centre/articles/global-refugee-crisis-

humanitys-last-call-culture-sharing-and

Merry, R. W. (2015, November 4). Europe's Refugee Crisis Isn't about EconomicsIt's

about Culture. Retrieved from http://nationalinterest.org/feature/europes-

refugee-crisis-isnt-about-economics%E2%80%94its-about-14250

Paterson, T. (2015, October 7). Refugee crisis: Germany's 'welcome culture' fades as

thousands continue to arrive. Retrieved from

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-germanys-

welcome-culture-fades-as-thousands-continue-to-arrive-a6685361.html

Sullivan, P. W. (2015, November 22). Refugee crisis creates culture clash, disunity for

Europe. Retrieved from

http://raycomgroup.worldnow.com/story/30094135/refugee-crisis-creates-

culture-clash-disunity-for-europe

Sunderland, J. (2016, 13). For Europe, Integrating Refugees Is the Next Big Challenge.

Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/01/13/europe-integrating-

refugees-next-big-challenge