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Depository for off topic / political posts (NO brexit related posts please)

AF wrote:

How many have taken a refugee or immigrant in?

My wife and I have taken in 30 to date. We have two, a Syrian refugee and an Eritrean asylum seeker, staying with us at the moment.

We also founded Refugees at Home. So far, the organisation has taken around 150,000 people off the streets for a night.

I read a lot of opinions on how things should/could/would be done. Are they coming from personal experience? Or philosophical training.

In my case a lot of personal experience, nearly all positive.

Ask me anything.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Timothy that is an excellent charity, well done in creating a very imaginative way to help people in real need.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

RobertL18C wrote:

well done in creating a very imaginative way to help people in real need.

It was really a justification for keeping our big house once the kids had left

EGKB Biggin Hill

@Timothy
Absolutely fantastic. You have my regard and my ear on the subject.

I’m curious what you have experienced with your new friends regarding integration.
Do they stay for short periods and then make their way into society?
Do you keep in contact with them afterward? If so, what is your experience of their journey into your country?

Is there a program for bringing them into fiscal responsibility (eg paying staged rents over time)?

Really curious if you have any bad experiences, and how those are handled.

Very much appreciate your efforts to help people and glad to hear your expression.
Thanks

@AF I will answer this in full in a couple of days, but I am away in India “fully committed” until then.

EGKB Biggin Hill

@AF

Before I get to answering the specific questions, I think I should make some introductory comments.

Firstly, people are people. There is no “we” who are individuals and “they” who are swarms, hordes or masses. With very few sociopathic exceptions, people the whole world over have the same hierarchy of needs. Water, food, shelter, clothes, warmth, education for their kids, luxury and self-actualisation.

And the spread of sociopathic exceptions is across all cultures and backgrounds. All cultures and backgrounds also produce people with mental and physical disabilities and mental illness.

Furthermore, whatever the Daily Mail and the rest would have you believe, there is no natural superiority of tall, blond people of the North over short, dark people of the South. There is no superiority of intellect, culture, education, honour, physique, cleanliness or anything else.

Indeed, most of what you read in the mainstream media about, for example, Iran and Syria, has no basis in reality. Just to take one example, in Iran more women than men get degrees, and that’s nearly 50% of all women. That is a level of education that the West can only dream of.

This is the tragedy of the Middle East. These countries are highly cultured, highly educated, highly developed societies and they are being ripped apart, with huge destruction of life, property, infrastructure and culture at the hands of a few psychopaths.

This is not because the Middle East is a breeding ground for psychopaths; Europe has produced plenty of its own over the years – Stalin, Hitler, Franco and the rest, and it looks like we might be entering another era of psychopaths at the moment.

Also, there is no cultural superiority of Europe. While early Britons were building Stonehenge, people in the Middle East, India and China were building magnificent cities and palaces. While Europeans were in the dark ages, the Middle East, India and China were building knowledge and libraries. The greatest library in the world was destroyed by uneducated European psychopaths in the name of religion.

So, let me address your specific points against that background of not accepting that brown people must be of inferior stock!

I’m curious what you have experienced with your new friends regarding integration.

The first thing that came as a surprise to us, but, on reflection, is obvious, was that the bulk of the people who get through all the financial and physical obstacles that are put in the way of refugees are the wealthy and educated. The subsistence farmers and roadsweepers, even the shopkeepers and office workers, don’t have the resources, physical, educational or intellectual, to make the incredible journey.

Most of the people we have housed have been doctors, engineers, lawyers, journalists, university professors and so on. One of our guests was the top Neurosurgeon in Syria, another was a famous radio and TV presenter in Uganda, another ran the Saatchi office in a Middle Eastern capital, another had to escape UAE because of his friendship with Princess Latifa; most have degrees or higher degrees.

You might ask why such people of quality and achievement are depicted by our media and politicians as swarms and hordes of sub-humans, deserving no interest or pity.

I suggest a thought experiment.

When we are in Cambridge, Paris or Prague, trying to go about our business, we are annoyed by the thousands of camera wielding tourists standing in the middle of the pavement taking pictures of their girlfriends holding their finger as if on the top of the Eifel Tower or bunny ears behind a Yeoman of the Guard. We dehumanise them. They are no longer hundreds of individuals with responsible jobs that get them enough money to travel from China to Europe, they are just swarms of nameless foreigners whose only purpose is to stop us proceeding around the city.

Yet when we visit the Taj Mahal, Petra or Machu Pichu we are dragged around in groups being told the same things by the same guides as thousands of others in the same place, yet we are fully aware that we are business owners, scientists, doctors or whatever we are. We retain our identity even though we are swarming with thousands of other pale skinned clones, all looking and speaking much the same.

So, when you ask about integration, the first thing to realise is that there is no “they”. Each is an individual and each does what he or she thinks best.

Having said that, nearly all our guests that have left us have gone on to integrate fully into British society, getting jobs or further qualifications, making friends, sending their children to local state schools and just getting on with it.

Their first and biggest task on arrival is to improve their English and most succeed to a good or excellent extent. One or two have not managed to learn good English and they have found integration a steeper hill to climb.

Do they stay for short periods and then make their way into society?

Again, no one size fits all. The hold up is invariably from our own government agencies, and often it takes months and years to get the right to work (or benefits).

It is sometimes argued that we hosts are exacerbating that problem, because the Government is less inclined to get its finger out and get people through the system because they are not occupying accommodation that they have to pay for. This is a real problem for us, because the accommodation is absolutely disgusting (as a result of Theresa May’s “Hostile Environment” – she, who said that she didn’t want to be in the Nasty Party – go figure). How can we send someone from our comfortable guest bedrooms into these sewers unable to afford anything to eat except boiled rice and cold baked beans?

So we have had people from one night to over a year. The one who stayed over a year is now a Producer at the BBC.

Do you keep in contact with them afterward? If so, what is your experience of their journey into your country?

Some we do, some we don’t. Some have become very good permanent friends, some have disappeared never to be heard from again.

The ones we have stayed in touch with are doing well. The neurosurgeon has just requalified in the NHS, another, as I say, is a BBC Producer, another works for the Local Government Association teaching councils how to deal with refugees, another is a help-desk operator for a multinational software company, another is a Marine Engineer on board ship – the list goes on and on.

They have each become good, valuable citizens, all made to feel very welcome by their local communities.

Is there a program for bringing them into fiscal responsibility (eg paying staged rents over time)?

There are so many such schemes, it warms your heart.

The one we have dealt with most is called Refugees Welcome in Wycombe. They get enough money together to pay the deposit and first month’s rent, and also stand as guarantors (because many landlords are very wary of immigrant people with no history of renting). They also offer English lessons, support in integration, culture etc., help with form filling and so on.

My wife also started The Epsom Refugee Network, who do a similar thing for families (so far from Syria.)

Really curious if you have any bad experiences, and how those are handled.

Given that there are bad people in every community, that the people who have made it to the UK must be the toughest (it is a terrible, terrible journey), that many have been brutally terrorised before they left their home countries and all suffer from some level of PTSD, we have had very few problems.

The worst was one young boy who, despite being told that he must not smoke in the house, and promising that he was a non-smoker, was smoking in his room, leaving the window open in mid-winter to hide the smell and getting drunk in his room. After the first occasion we explained very carefully, with an interpreter present, that it was completely unacceptable. On the next occasion, two days later, we arranged for him to go into a homeless hostel and disowned him. It’s a two way street.

But I hate it when people want to focus on bad experiences and then try to generalise. Since August 2015 we have had 30 guests, approximately 3,000 bed-nights and that is the only serious problem we have had.

The rest have been great. They have cooked their home cuisine for us, helped around the house and been ideal guests. For the second time, we are away on a long holiday (this time in India, last time in South America) leaving our guests in the house in utter confidence.

I wonder what our story would have been if we had taken that many homeless Brits off the streets?

I do hope my answer hasn’t been too long and boring, but this is a nuanced subject and there are decades of Daily Mail lies and crap to undo.

I continue to be very happy to answer further questions.

EGKB Biggin Hill

First, thanks for taking time out of your day to write and respond to me (and possibly others). I really appreciate it.
As my questions were not prefaced nor decorated, I didn’t expect a perfect response. Certainly, I didn’t expect such a soliloquy on prejudice and what appears to be the bias of people in your sphere (which apparently includes me).

That in mind, and still being grateful for your time, I’ll respond to some points that, although nicely decorated with oxford linguistic styling, I found to be at times derogatory and rather assumptive by nature.

Timothy wrote:

There is no “we” who are individuals and “they”

@Timothy thanks by starting off calling me a racist in so many words.
Yes, there are “they” and “we” simply by way of geography. Otherwise there is no “Britain”, nor is there any “Brexit”. Not to mention language or societal mores, like the concept of ‘mercy’ and how it is applied (think chopping hands off for stealing vs giving someone a social time-out).

Timothy wrote:

most of what you read in the mainstream media about, for example, Iran and Syria, has no basis in reality

I find Iranians to be incredibly intelligent, well educated and mostly humble. Perhaps I’m getting the good lot, but I have a lot of respect for those individuals I’ve met.

Timothy wrote:

This is the tragedy of the Middle East.

Oof, big overstep there. Iran != Saudi Arabia
Although Iran is a bit more Asian in some aspects, lumping all of the countries of the Middle East together and calling them educated, sophisticated, etc. is not accurate.

Timothy wrote:

Also, there is no cultural superiority of Europe.

Not sure I follow. Owning women is ok then? Having multiple potato-sacked women is great?
Refugees might beg your pardon for that statement and educate you on the differences which make Western Cultures freer and more supportive of individuals (pretty sure that = better, but you can correct me for holding that opinion).

Timothy wrote:

So, let me address your specific points against that background of not accepting that brown people must be of inferior stock!

Thanks again for publicly declaring your moral superiority.
BTW, “Brown people” is a slur in my book, and there is no race called “brown” or “black”. Races (genetic variations of human beings), and skin color vary from one end of the scale to the other, so not sure where those lines can even be defined wrt color.

Timothy wrote:

So, when you ask about integration, the first thing to realise is that there is no “they”. Each is an individual and each does what he or she thinks best.

You just labeled “they” as people who are integrating. If there is no “they” who is your charitable organization helping?
Good grief. Science has definitions for almost everything. Why this can’t be used to discuss cultures, displaced peoples and so-on is irrational.
However, I can see you’re struggling to educate me, so I’ll elaborate:
When I use the term “they”, I am referring to the individuals (whichever color, creed or culture from which they arise) whom you have come into contact with in the course of your efforts to enable “them” to find place and housing (according to the website).

Does that help? Perhaps I should have pointed to the definition of the word they.
Strangely enough, I didn’t see a listing for ‘racism’ in there.
Maybe Oxford should revisit the definition to include perceived and or real inference of derogatory bias toward one or more people

There, fixed it for the Newspeak online dictionary.

Timothy wrote:

The first thing that came as a surprise to us, but, on reflection, is obvious, was that the bulk of the people who get through all the financial and physical obstacles that are put in the way of refugees are the wealthy and educated. The subsistence farmers and roadsweepers, even the shopkeepers and office workers, don’t have the resources, physical, educational or intellectual, to make the incredible journey.

Thanks, that’s really interesting.
Definitely not what a lot of individuals I’ve spoken with opine, and I’m glad to read about your first-hand experience.
The people I’ve spoken with who’ve opined have not actually taken someone into their home, so I don’t hold their opinion as high as those with experience.

Timothy wrote:

Their first and biggest task on arrival is to improve their English and most succeed to a good or excellent extent. One or two have not managed to learn good English and they have found integration a steeper hill to climb.

Having been an immigrant myself at one point, I can empathize, and I beleive it is harder for individuals coming from countries where English isn’t spoken than the other way around, as most countries have an English-speaking population (at some level).

Timothy wrote:

It is sometimes argued that we hosts are exacerbating that problem

Interesting. Sounds like people don’t care to really alleviate the problem… (as you are actively working to do).

Timothy wrote:

So we have had people from one night to over a year. The one who stayed over a year is now a Producer at the BBC.

Fascinating, and congratulations to the one-year Producer, that’s great!

Timothy wrote:

Some we do, some we don’t. Some have become very good permanent friends, some have disappeared never to be heard from again.

Thanks a lot for sharing this. This is a real answer I was curious about.
Really, pardon my irritation at your patronizing (downward stooping) intro. I’m tired of being told what to think and how to believe. Experiencing your experience because you’re sharing it with me is supremely more impactful to me than your platitudes on equality.
it would suffice to state that groups are made of individuals and no individual is the same.
Again, pardon my irritation at reading paragraphs of opening text, like we’re having a dissertation on an academic topic.
I was really excited to hear about your experience, because you’re actually helping people.

Timothy wrote:

There are so many such schemes, it warms your heart.

That’s awesome to hear.
One of my biggest struggles is seeing people in poverty who would flourish, if only they understood the world. They were never taught, and consequently, don’t understand the simplest of things, like how Credit works, basics of accounting, proper savings discipline, real investing (creating wealth) and so-on. Concepts that are really easy to understand, but are simply never taught.
I think it is horrible that that’s the majority in many places.

Timothy wrote:

was smoking in his room, leaving the window open in mid-winter to hide the smell

Interesting, that’s the second time I’ve heard that.

Timothy wrote:

But I hate it when people want to focus on bad experiences and then try to generalise.

Yes, me as well. I hate it when people treat me like a racist because I ask questions about things I do not experience.
Apparently, you’ve had some bad experiences with peers, and that’s rubbing off on others as well. (generalizing people of affluence is all over your reply).
I also agree, coming from a rather low social status, about bigotry in general. It is miopic and leaves no room for personal development.

Timothy wrote:

The rest have been great. They have cooked their home cuisine for us, helped around the house and been ideal guests. For the second time, we are away on a long holiday (this time in India, last time in South America) leaving our guests in the house in utter confidence.

That’s really cool to hear. Sounds like a really neat experience, and like you’re making friends for life.
So enriching to open a home and experience other people.

Thanks a lot for sharing Timothy, I really appreciate it.
From the snippets I read, it sounds like you’ve really enriched your life by opening your home and holding yourself accountable to your convictions.

I agree with you wholeheartedly about each person being an individual.
It’s tough to keep that in mind when we have our culture getting in the way.

Last Edited by AF at 06 Oct 13:10

There was no intention to label you at all, I was just making some general observations. I wonder why you felt that I was suggesting you were racist? I had no such intention.

It’s just that many people do not understand the background of the situation and I was trying to explain to the general readership. Had it been a private message I’d have sent it to you as a PM.

You asked for information, I gave you information, I don’t understand why you want to fight. I can’t be bothered to do so.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Thanks for sharing, I appreciate your time and gained something from your experience.
Maybe I’m naive about the public aspect of this, and have simply asked too much.

Timothy thank you for posting and for the work on this worthwhile charity.

I hope the UK remains a beacon for human rights and helping refugees, despite the tone of political debate these days.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom
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