More garbage from the Daily Mail's blowhard columnist
In the latest ‘yes it’s sad, but..’ column to emerge since the death of Aylan Kurdi, Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn assures us it’s nothing to do with us:
“Which brings us back to the child’s corpse on the beach in Turkey. I repeat, it’s awful. Heartbreaking. But it’s not our fault, and it’s not our responsibility, however compassionate we might feel.”
Littlejohn is keen to prove this lack of responsibility, but proves only his own ignorance.
Of many examples, here are the top 5:
1 . “Sorry, but while I accept that many are genuine asylum cases, most aren’t. What about those bouncing up and down outside Budapest station chanting ‘Germany, Germany’?”
At least half of the people risking their lives sailing across the Mediterranean are seeking asylum, according to Amnesty International.
EU figures show Syrians and Eritreans alone make up 46 per cent of those who reached Italy by boat last year. The numbers are likely to be the same for those now in Hungary.
Unless Littlejohn has information he’s keeping to himself, he’s wrong.
2 . “Just as at Calais, 99 per cent of them are young men, aged between 15 and 25. Where are all the women and girls? If you were truly fleeing tyranny and certain death, wouldn’t you bring your wives, sisters, mothers and daughters with you, instead of abandoning them to their fate?”
It clearly hasn’t occurred to Littlejohn that the people arriving in Europe might be the only surviving members of their families. At least 200,000 have died in the Syrian war, including many women and children.
The reason many of those who reach Europe are male, in other words, is the same reason that they are young – they are the ones who made it out alive.
It’s also possible families languishing in refugee camps in the Middle East have send their young men to secure a safe place for them to move to – and a safe means of travel – for the rest of the family. All these reflections must be beyond Littlejohn, who appears incapable of empathy (or research).
3. “But here’s what puzzles me. They’d been living in Turkey for the past year. So why didn’t he [Alan Kurdi’s father] apply for asylum there?
Syrian government policy under Bashar al-Assad denies citizenship rights to Kurds. Since they have no passports, Turkish law says they are not entitled to move freely in the country under its temporary protection measures for refugees.
They had either to register at a Turkish refugee camp or live outside of it as ‘irregulars’. They chose to apply for asylum in Canada, where they had relatives, but the application was refused.
4. “After all, surely culturally Syria has more in common with Turkey, another Muslim country, than with Tunbridge Wells or Trondheim.”
Not all ‘Muslim countries’ are alike, culturally or otherwise. He means: ‘Let them stay with their own kind where they will be happier’.
5. “We’re also told that he’s a Kurd. So why didn’t he move to Kurdistan? Who knows? And that’s just the point. No one knows anything for sure.”
Kurdistan is not recognised as a country by any international body. It is the historic homeland of Kurdish people, straddling the borders of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran.
The Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq, governed by the Kurdistan Regional Government and sometimes referred to as Kurdistan, is currently at war with ISIS terrorists, who are raping and killing Iraqi, Kurdish and Yazidi civilians, most famously in Sinjar.
Of the other countries, two are dictatorships (Iran and Syria), and three are at war, if you include the renewed fighting with Kurdish PKK guerillas in Turkey.
Perhaps this is why the Kurdi family might not have wanted or been able to ‘move to Kurdistan’.
‘No one knows anything for sure’. What’s ‘for sure’ is Richard Littlejohn doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But we knew that already.
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If you’re sick of reading people like Littlejohn in the Mail, tell the paper to run a piece by a refugee. Sign our petition here.
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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Read more:
Richard Littlejohn calls new mother a ‘gypsy’ who ‘contributes nothing’ to society
Since when did the Tory press care about the lives of refugees?
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65 Responses to “Top 5 ignorant remarks by Richard Littlejohn on the death of Aylan Kurdi”
Lanky
Littlejohn also claimed in the article that Peterborough councillor Charles Swift resigned from the Labour party in protest at the Blair/Brown government policies which resulted in Peterborough being, “swamped by foreign newcomers”. Mr. Swift became an independent councillor in 1992 and gave his reasons for leaving Labour, “the thrust towards centralisation”, in article he wrote for the Mail in 2011. As ever with Littlejohn, why let the truth get in the way of a good story?
mickb63
The ultimate injustice one can commit to Aylan Kurdi and his family is to omit the parts of his story which explain why he ended up dead on the beach. The details matter, so please read and share:
1) Abdullah Kurdi, the father, was detained for 5 months in Air Force Intelligence in Damascus. While in detention, he was tortured and his teeth were pulled out. He had to sell his shop in Damascus in order to bribe the officers to let him out. This cost him 5,000,000 Syrian Liras (around $25,000)
2) After he bribed his way out of jail, Abdullah fled to Aleppo with his wife and sons, Alyan and Ghalib. The situation in Aleppo became dangerous due to the constant aerial bombardment, so he fled again to Kobani, his hometown.
3) When ISIS attacked Kobani last year, the family could no longer live in their hometown, so they fled to Turkey. Once in Turkey, the Turkish government did not provide them with assistance, so they paid almost $6,000 to secure 4 spots on a rubber dingy to the Greek island of Kos.
4) While on the boat, rough waters caused the boat to flip. The lifejackets they were given were fake. His sons and wife all drowned in front of his eyes, in his arms.
5) Kurdi had applied in June for refuge to Canada, but was rejected. After Aylan’s photo became a media story, he was reportedly offered citizenship to Canada. But he doesn’t want to go to Canada or Europe anymore. He says he will go bury his family in Kobani and stay there to fight against ISIS, because everything has been taken away from him and he has “nothing to live for.”
So if the world wants to no more Aylans on the beach, someone needs to do some combination of the following based on above: (1) stop torture and arbitrary detention by the Assad regime, (2) stop the regime’s aerial bombardment, (3) stop ISIS, (4) make traveling to Europe safe, (5) get Canada and the USA to accept more refugees.
Mason Dixon, Autistic
Or for a less selective account, read Mickb63’s post where the actual circumstances for the Kurdi family are laid out.
Andrew Snowdon
You can nit pick the article all you like, but the fact remains, this boy was but one death, sad, unfortunate, but no reason to open the gates and cry “all are welcome”. If you do allow more in, you will cause yet more deaths etc. What is needed is support close to the source, which we are funding, what more do you want?. Illegal migrants swarming into Europe is not a good thing, it has to stop, and in many ways, all out war on ISIS etc is probably the only way, but one had best be prepared for the mutterings that will come from Islam across the world if we do. Islam, as a religion has caused this because of the constant historical infighting between groups, based on how they interpret an ancient and untrustworthy religious book.
Martin Odoni
“They were in a place of safety”
A place of safety? Are you for real? Have you any idea how Kurds are treated by Turkish society? It’s just like the way Israel treats Palestinians.
And how can Littlejohn be ‘absolutely right’ when he suggests the refugees should flee to Kurdistan, a country which doesn’t even *exist*, and a region that is caught up heavily in the very wars the refugees are trying to escape from in the first place?