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”
Laura Woodruff
Here is the full transcript, from the point at which Tima Kurdi was asked when she decided to send money to her brother: “The situation is Abdullah does not have any
teeth, has a story about it, so I have been trying to help him fix his teeth,
but it’s going to cost me £14000 and up to do it. He need denture, he need teeth, implant. So when I told him there is no way I can get
you the money in one time, the dentist they need to get payment right away, and
Western Union usually if I send them the money, they only allow $1000 at a
time, not under their name of course.
Has to be a third person to collect the money and give it to them. So I said to him, actually my dad he come up
with the idea, he said to me, I think if they go to Europe for his kids and for
better future, I think you should do that, and then we’ll see if we can fix his
teeth. And that’s what I decided three
weeks ago.” That doesn’t say to me that he decided to go to Europe to get his teeth done free of charge; it says that the family decided he should go to Europe for his children’s safety, and that he could get his teeth done once they were safe. I expect Tima Kurdi wishes she hadn’t mentioned the teeth, but she was asked a question and she answered it: she had already started sending him money before the idea of travelling to Europe arose.
jj
No, the reason why so many males are the ones who reach Europe, isn’t because all the women and children have died, they are the ones left in Lebanon, where 75% of Syrian refugees are women and children, more inaccuracies from LFF.
stantheman100
That doesn’t say he will go back to Syria to get his teeth fixed either as you previously suggested. As I said why would he go back to Syria when he was running for his life and,as mickb63 said, where he was tortured and had his teeth pulled out in the first place. His whole story is suspect and full of holes yet people like you are naive enough to believe anything without question.
Laura Woodruff
I most certainly do not believe anything without question. That is why I took the trouble to listen to and transcribe the interview with Tima Kurdi. I didn’t suggest he was intending to go back to Syria to have his teeth fixed – why would he when there are thousands of dentists in Europe? What I was suggesting is that Mrs Kurdi’s interview does not imply that her brother’s motivation for going to Europe was its free dentistry (in any case very few, if any, European countries have free dentistry, and those that do limit it to people in receipt of welfare benefits, children and pregnant women). She actually says she was sending him the money to have his teeth fixed. The fact that Mr Kurdi has now returned to Syria reinforces his and his sister’s statements that he wanted to get to Europe for the sake of his children, not on his own account. If it was for his own sake, why would he not have stayed once he was in?
stantheman100
Who mentione free dentistry? I certainly didn’t. All I said was that according to his sister having his teeth fixed appeared to be one of his main reasons why he wanted to come to the West as well as for his kids and a better future.
As for returning to Syria this seems to be at odds with the original reason why he fled – see mickb63’s comments. As I said his story is suspect and full of holes and you are naive to believe take it face value.