Views from Down Under

by Glenn N. Holliman

Steph, our literary friend, playwright and author, from Australia has sent along an email in response to her expressed despondence concerning radical Islamism and global climate change.  Thanks Steph, for passing along Gary's thoughts and web links. We generally gain something when we listen carefully to persons in other parts of the globe. 

Below two very thoughtful ladies who have contributed on occasion to this blog - Steph, left from Australia and Nancy, right from Canada. I have had the pleasure of doing what does not come easy for yours truly, that is listening carefully to the viewpoints of others,  persons such as these two, who continue to offer me reflection laced with wisdom.  And now letter writer Gary has something cheerful and profound to share. - GNH

"Dear Steph, slittest thou not thy wrists just yet. I have two items to encourage you to set that sharp knife aside for the time being at least. 

These people seem sensible - http://www.australianlibertyalliance.org.au - the most moderate and non-hysterical ground swell against Islamisation I have yet seen. Their influence will grow. We will, I believe, see the day when politicians in western democracies will acknowledge the will of their people and take serious steps to stop radical Islam. Peaceful Muslims, including those whose inclination it is to fit in with the culture of their adopted secular country, will have the opportunity of either reaffirming that objective, or declaring themselves as rusted on to the more extreme aspects of the religion/political system that Islam is.

The other bit of good news is to do my major concern for our species. I discovered today, on that wonderful program The Science Show, that sea grass meadows store up to 100 times the carbon dioxide captured by rain forests. Robin Williams declared that when he heard that, he was astonished. We should all be astonished, and overjoyed by this realisation. It changes so many things. 

Think about the significance of this. Think about how much more of our planet is covered by sea than land. My most recent readings on atmospheric CO2 build up suggests that we really need to do more that stop burning carbon in order to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown, we need to actually find ways of more efficiently sequestering the CO2 that is currently in the atmosphere. This is a credible and wholly natural mechanism. It must become more widely known.

I now really want to see governments around the world taking action to prevent the removal of sea grass and to encourage its growth. More here -https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgY16pr8B7?play=true

In the same episode of The Science Show, the PM gave an excellent speech in which he laid out with great clarity and conviction his determination to make science and scientific research a vital part of Australian life in the future. How refreshing. Neither Abbott nor Shorten could possibly have a taken that position with any credibility or conviction. 

I hope you are now now smiling!

Cheers,

Gary"

Thanks Gary!  Comments anyone?

Our first comment is from Terry in Normandy, France whose view of Islam integration with society is profoundly pessimistic -

''Peaceful Muslims, including those whose inclination it is to fit in with the culture of their adopted secular country, will have the opportunity of either reaffirming that objective, or declaring themselves as rusted on to the more extreme aspects of the religion/political system that Islam is''

This is the core illusion -

1 The Koran clearly describes the stages of jihad. Fit in as a small minority, by ages through to ISIS, who force convert, slaughter or demand ransom payments.

2 Moslem peace is universally understood by Muslims as a state that exists when all the world is Muslim and submits to the will of Allah.

3 What extreme aspects. Read the Koran. IT is clear as a bell. Unequivocal and straightforward  Not subject to misinterpretation.

This sort of complacency, born of a sense of both innate superiority, and also absolute safety from any external threat, is exactly what is causing the monstrous slaughter of Christians, and the triumph of State Socialist Atheism throughout Europe.

Terry goes on to state it is already too late concerning climate change: 

It (sea grasss) changes NOTHING.

This is a given condition, simply enumerated.

The reality of climate change, GIVEN these existing mechanisms, is best described in last week's excellent interactive set of charts identifying the sensitivities.

Look at that.

Then do anything other than shudder in horror at the murder of our grandchildren we have all but guaranteed.

Glenn,

I suggest your people read the attached website to see the current best understanding; and see how the trajectories other than those of catastrophe are now all but impossible to achieve.

Best regards

Terry

http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2015/10/20/how-we-built-the-cop21-climate-change-calculator/

Concerning the recent Canadian election, here is information from Ron, a political activist in Ontario who campaigned for his winning liberal candidate in Ontario. 

Hi Glenn,

As you can imagine, there has been a ton of analysis in the aftermath of the election.

Here's a very good one, I think.

Ron

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/25/justin-trudeau_n_8382304.html?utm_hp_ref=canada

The Most Recent USA Massacre

by Glenn N. Holliman

 All, the following appeared this morning, a free blog to which I subscribe.  In lieu of American's most recent mass killing, a down home Texas lady writes to her friend Margaret.  For those out side of the Southern United States, Helen expresses her feeling 'with the bark off'.  Your comments as ever welcome.

New post on Margaret and Helen I am pretty sure Republicans would be fine with abortion if a gun were involved by Helen Philpot  HELEN: Margaret, within minutes of the President saying that he would be accused of politicizing this latest shooting, right on schedule Fox News accused him of politicizing it.  I swear the yahoos over at that network could start an argument all alone in an empty room. How many times does our a President have to go on television to ask for our prayers and our thoughts  before our elected officials decide to pass sensible gun laws? Why in the world do we think it should be easier and less expensive  to get guns than it is to get mental health treatment? Crazy people fire guns at will these days and politicians have nothing to say except our thoughts and prayers are with the victims.  But a women makes the private decision to end an unwanted or unhealthy pregnancy and those same politicians cry murder and pass laws faster than a hot knife through butter. It occurs to me that if Planned Parenthood would just shoot the fetus with a gun maybe the Republicans would let women have control over their own bodies.   Now I know how awful that sounds, but it's no crazier than all those NRA-card-carrying idiots who are now warning the government to keep their hands off our guns while just a few days ago they pulled Cecile  Richards into a hearing to talk about the government getting its hands on a women's uterus. The hypocrisy of their actions is as appalling as what I just wrote. Then again, I'm not an elected official. If they cared so much about life, they'd work as hard to get rid of guns as they do to get rid of Planned Parenthood. But I fear the only life they care about is the one that will vote for them during the next election. Sadly, I mean that. Really.  MARGARET: Helen, dear, either you have fallen and hit your head again or you're just still upset by this season's Dancing with the Stars cast. Either way, I can tell that you are all fired up once again. Heaven help those in your line of fire, dear.

 COMMENTS - The Comments have been coming fast and thick on Margaret's letter to Helen!  

 From the English Midlands -

 

Dear Glenn,

You wrote me privately noting how much I deplore American policy on gun control. What policy? There isn't one. As for 'politicising' the most recent outrage, what else can your president do? His appeals to common sense are ignored every time. The Republicans won't support his policies, even though he was democratically elected, and his own party dare not, lest even they sacrifice votes to the gun lobby.

Your fellow blogger, linking abortion and gun control, is cynically spot-on.

I sigh, despairingly, with you.

From a Dear Cousin in Alabama -

  So not true, and unkind, Cuz!

From a Judge in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -

 Not sure what new laws in PA could be passed on control other than confiscation. We in central PA are all for that along with banning automobiles, knives, baseball bats, drug needles, medical malpractice, exhaust fumes, etc.

One nut comes out all too frequently and millions of non-nuts all look like mean spirited radical right wing Christian jerks who have lots of thoughts and positions other than dictated by the NRA.

The blog has truth and a right to expression but is insulting to many and that is OK. As a very general statement, I see considerable hypocrisy in the abortion, gun use analogy much as I see it in those who oppose the death penalty but support abortion.

Keep in mind the President laments his failure in the gun control area. He sees the solution as banning, I believe.  Of course he will politicize each incident.

 From a Second Cousin in East Tennessee -

 
Yep!

From a Third Cousin in Texas -

Hi Glen,

Yes … “sigh”.  I agree that this country needs to do something about keeping guns out of the hands of “radicals” and the mentally ill.  I find it interesting to note that though President Obama rails about needing gun laws changes, throughout his 1^st term with a Democratic Congress and Senate, nothing was done in this regard.

But, the outlandish headline statement of this blog is really over the top!  While millions of humans have been killed, in-utero, Margaret compares this nation’s “mass killings” to the murder of over 55 million babies since Roe vs. Wade in 1973 … over nine times more lives than lost in the Jewish holocaust.  At least she acknowledged that a number (actually it’s most!) of them were unwanted babies.

According to a press report,  the shooter had some of the students lie down and then get up one at a time.  When they got up, he asked them “what religion are you”.  If they said Christian, he shot them.  This sounds like a radical terrorist to me.  Hopefully the authorities will be able to sort this out during their investigations.

Again, I’m all for instituting a national background check for anyone purchasing a gun, be it from a store or an individual.  This check could also be utilized to identify anyone with a current mental disability (if they were registered).  Of course, this has only been moderately effective in countries that have instituted registrations, or even bans on weapons. 

All of this being said, I am also a firm believer in our 2^nd Amendment right to own a gun … be it for protection, hunting, target shooting, etc.  Of course this does not get rid of the 10’s of thousands of guns currently in the hands of gangs and hoodlums … but that would need to be handled by law enforcement.  God help us if the Government ever tried to confiscate all of the guns legally owned by U.S. Citizens.

From the Cotswolds in England, a former Police Officer -

Hi Glen

I had to look up the meaning of ‘with the bark off’, and am glad I did. I had assumed the ‘bark’ was that of a dog and that speaking with it off simply meant toning down any aggression and speaking in a controlled manner. Just goes to show how misunderstandings can arise even when the language seems clear.

From a well-read Chemist (Pharmacist) near Oxford, England - 

Really interesting the links and thoughts you are sending us regarding gun law.

We find the "logic" impossible to understand. It seems blindingly obvious to me that if you give crazy person with a grievance a gun they will probably use it.

There will always be people like that but mercifully in this country it is not so easy to find the means to react like that. They just mutter and send hurtful tweets which, though still horrible, don't kill.
 
What answers do the gun lobby in the US have to these shootings?

From a Librarian in Richmond, Virginia -
 

Hear! Hear!

From a Law School Dean in Pennsylvania -

I think that her insight is excellent.  And so is her satiric sense.  Particularly endorse her opinion that our legislators will do ANYTHING to get a vote--alas, too true.


From a Pennsylvania Farmer's wife -

 I deplore the death penalty.  I consider myself in favor of life.  But my heart goes out to those women for whom circumstances have conspired to make them pregnant from rape or incest, or when they feel emotionally or financially unable to care for a child.  Quoting Pope Francis in a different situation, "who are [we] to judge" a woman's heart?  Margaret's blog seems to me to be the voice of millions of American women crying to be heard.  Our voices are drowned out, ignored or overridden by men who think they are "taking care of us."  LISTEN TO US!  We are people too.

From another Cousin from Alabama - 

 Thanks cousin. I think this Texas lady is “spot on”!

From one of our English Thinkers in Normandy, France -  

 Glenn,
 

It is easy for us sanctimonious Europeans to say there should be enhanced gun controls, although what good that would do in a nation possessed of 400 million guns I do not know.

I am more interested in alienation, social fragmentation, purposeless lives, people with industrially educated blank sheets of paper between their ears.

In short, de-industrialised life in the west - and particularly in the United States of America leaves individuals free from the social constraints of mutuality of obligation that has been a continuous feature of life for people since the dawn of consciousness. 

We live in times where the body of people in a society accept the isolation of many of their number as the unspoken price of their continued survival. This killer is the same as many, and is the product of our lives, our values, our fears, and is a price we are, quit clearly from our soggy sanctimonious reactions, quite willing to continue to pay. The NRA reflects all our natures.

Just as I, my ancestors, and my neighbours in Europe are responsible for the slaughters that disfigure this continent. I am more than my brothers' keeper. I am his corrupter. So are you; so are we all.

From our biography and playwright from Australia -

Hi there Glenn

I know the situation seems hopeless – confiscating, what was it? 400 million guns in the US. I can only (hopefully NOT sanctimoniously) say that a former PM of ours, John Howard, was brave enough to bring in a law banning all AUTOMATIC and SEMI-AUTOMATIC weapons except for official use. The self-interested ones all tried lame excuses such as ‘the baddies will still get them, but through the back door illegally’. Well yes, I’m sure some of that did and does happen, but overall everyone is happier and safer. The farmers can still own rifles and shoot rabbits and foxes, the gun sports clubs can still shoot rifles at their targets, but it simply makes it much harder or likely that there will be fast firing guns sitting in people’s homes. We can bang on about society’s deficiencies all we like, and boy have we got some, but the first thing that poor Obama needs to impress, SOMEHOW, on the gun lobby is to volunteer to eschew automatic and semiautomatic weapons unless for condoned official use.

It won’t stop all shootings, but it will help to reduce these episodes of mass murders.

God help Obama, because the Gun Lobby won’t.

Steph Mc from Down Under

My thanks to all for sharing comments from three continents.  The goal of this blog is to share opinions and listen to each other.   When we listen, we have a chance to ponder and consider how the world might seem to some one else.  GNH

The World Never Stops....

by Glenn N. Holliman

Please note comments at the end of this article!  As usual, thoughtful and insightful. And a delightful poem by a talented, but ailing, authoress in Australia!

Dan Schuckers, a learned legal scholar in Pennsylvania, sent this article along which makes very good reading.  This article is by a Financial Times contributor, Simon Schama, published in the September 4, 2015 edition.  


Mass movement sees the US and Germany undergo Historic Role Reversals

"Before our eyes, as drowned children are washed up on the shores of our shame, two great nations are undergoing historic role reversals. The mass movement of peoples lies at the heart of both American and German history. But faced with immigration crises, they have responded in ways very different from what those histories might have predicted.

In the US Emma Lazarus’s lines, which transformed the Statue of Liberty, originally designed as a symbol of international republicanism, into a beacon of hope for “the wretched refuse of the teeming shore” still face New York harbour. And yet today the country’s activist president is uncharacteristically quiet on the plight of refugees.

Meanwhile Republican contenders to succeed him in the White House, including those of immigrant background, compete to denounce illegals, issuing proposals to “secure” a border already defended by some 20,000 personnel, a budget of $3.6 bn and hundreds of miles of fence.

In Germany, on the other hand, where a mere three-quarters of a century ago the most pitiless campaign of dehumanisation and extermination was executed in the name of racial purity, the chancellor has been a tower of moral decency. The country’s people have, by and large, responded to the plight of refugees with heartwarming humanity.

Across the Atlantic, the talk is all of walls and mass deportations (in Donald Trump’s case of fully 11 m souls). In Germany it is of making arrangements so that 800,000 desperate people might find asylum.

Our world is facing three overwhelming problems.

 There is the relentless degradation of the planet’s ecosystem; then the monstrous, ever-widening inequality between rich and poor . And then there is the big one, which those of us born at the end of the second world war did not see coming and which has proved intractably murderous.

It is the division between those who want to live with people who look and sound pretty much like themselves, and those who think differences of skin colour, faith, language are no bar to sharing the neighbourhood — provided that newcomers subscribe to the same tolerant principles which brought them there in the first place.

Though since its foundation America has celebrated its exceptionalism as being the first nation of immigrants, its attitude has long been fickle. One of the great eulogies of American life, Hector St John Crèvecoeur’s Letters of an American Farmer, published in 1782, lauded the young republic for being the only place in the world where, regardless of one’s origins, race or language, subscribing to the common democratic ideal was enough to make a citizen out of an immigrant. 

But a century later, with hundreds of thousands pouring in from Italy and eastern Europe, the New York Times sounded a proto-Trumpian alert. In May 1887, seven months after the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, on a day when 13 steamers landed 10,000 immigrants on a single day, its editorial writers fumed “shall we take Europe’s paupers, her criminals, her lunatics, her crazy revolutionaries, her vagabonds?” 

Yet millions continued to come, laying down the rich loam of ethnic diversity from which 20th century America drew its cultural and economic nourishment. This changed after the first world war. In 1924 the aptly named Ellison DuRant Smith, senator for South Carolina, in a speech to Congress insisted that “we now have sufficient population in our country for us to shut the door and to breed up a pure unadulterated American citizen.” Sure enough a brutal quota system, based on tiny percentages of populations already in the country, began to close the gates. 

During the 1930s they slammed tight against Jews desperate to exit the Reich dooming them to destruction. In the same decade, violent attacks on Mexican workers. California persuaded them to flee back home; tens of thousands of others were deported. Worse still the US sponsored two conferences on “the refugee problem” in Evian in 1938 and Bermuda in 1943 (when the horror of the holocaust was known) in which the wringing of hands and the shedding of crocodile tears was followed by stony inaction. 

How remarkable, then, that it is Germany which has been most receptive to the plight of Syrian refugees — not just through the forthrightness of Angela Merkel (who was also exceptional in tackling resurgent anti-Semitism) but the generosity of its people. Perhaps it is precisely her demonstration as the tormentor of the long-suffering Greeks which has made Ms Merkel realise that if it is to survive at all the EU is in need of some other raison d’être than as the superintendent of fiscal rectitude. Or perhaps this moment of truth has just come to her and to Germany and for that matter to all 28 states of the EU inadvertently.

Either way it is this issue, not the question of sovereign debt that will decide whether Europe lives or dies as something other than a fine tuner of the business cycle. Doubtless there will be a conference. Pray it is not an empty charade like Evian and Bermuda. Pray again that it might be the moment when Europe — including Britain — finally discovers that long lost item of its political anatomy: moral backbone."

Comments? 

From a 'retired' United Methodist minister who runs a B & B with his wife in the rolling hills of Tennessee:

Thanks, Glenn, for sharing this..
This insightful article addresses several layers of issues worthy of my reflection and meditation.

Frankly, I'm "under conviction" myself as we sit here with a home of 10 bedrooms, 8.5 baths, fresh water streams and acres of land doing nothing ....

The minds of Adolph Hitler and Ellison DuRant Smith still breathe their arrogant exclusivity just below the American surface ...

Lord, have mercy!


From a Biologist and Deep Thinker in the English Midlands:

Dear Glenn

Obama Stuff

A masterly, and, in my view, objective, summary.

Would that we were all able to take such a non-emotive stance and vote with our heads rather than our gut feeling (or 'faith').

Mass Movement of People

The current wave of people fleeing war and strife, although not entirely Muslim, is a majority thereof. Many Europeans will welcome them and recognise their anguish, their need and their courage. How ironic, however, that their dogmas will forbid their integration - they will not share our meals, for much of what we eat is haram - their women folk will not socialise with men who are not their relatives. Mary had many female Muslim colleagues to whom we would love to have extended invitations to our home, but they would have shared neither our food nor my company. Alas, generations after becoming British, the Muslim community in Burton continues to live in a parallel universe. I have no answer. I simply think that it's sad.

Bizarrely, almost the same situation exists in Belfast, and there, the communities separated are both nominally Christian and their children even attend different schools.

God and religion have a great deal to answer for.

Our Scientist comments further in the day:

Donald Trump - bizarre.

Jeremy Corbyn - equally bizarre, but more frightening. His election - out with the new, in with the old (around 1950, I'd guess) - has removed a realistic opposition to our current government, the Labour Party now being effectively unelectable. Thus, with no proper democratic channel through which to voice opposition, the public may turn to undemocratic ones, like demonstrations; civil disobedience; rioting, even. The only consolation is that unlike yours, our public isn't equipped with assault rifles!

However, back to Trump and Corbyn as a duo (add Nigel Farage to make a trio): even though they are as mad as a box of frogs, I cannot help but admire the fact that they say what they mean and mean exactly what they say. They get their support, because Joe Public's view of politicians is a cynical one. Politicians in general, are believed rightly or wrongly, to speak in 'spin' and platitudes. 

Often this is to avoid saying anything, for fear of making a commitment, but otherwise it is an attempt to say what they believe the public wants to hear and thus to 'earn' its vote. Thus, even if you disagree completely with what our trio says and stands for, at least they stand for something and state their sincerely held beliefs honestly and loudly.

Had the world of politics not brought itself into contempt, people like our mad threesome and your tea party would simply be laughed at.

From a retired educator just north of the M-25 of London with whom I have had discussions on the 'First Past the Post' voting system in the U.K.
 

On the question of voting systems – UK is the ONLY country in Europe which uses our crazy system !!!   And can we really think this is democratic when 4 million people vote for a party and they only get ONE MP ! (in the case of UKIP).  Contrast that you can get a Tory MP with just 34.347 votes on average or a Labour MP for 40,290......

From the insightful author and playwright in Adeline, Australia, writing from her hospital sick bed:

 

This is one of the hardest topics to debate, because if one cautions against taking in a mass of desperate people, they will immediately be branded either ‘fascist’ at worst, or ‘hard-hearted’ at the least. But there are many reasons I say ‘beware’. A non-discriminatory welcoming of all those refugees who need sanctuary, will spell the death of any prosperity or order in many European countries, and then they will be of help to no-one.

Imagine for a moment that your family is tucked in bed in their house in a western country, and all is well. An urgent knock at the door, and when the door is opened a family of desperate foreigners seeks refuge. You take them in, of course, and feed them and find beds. The next night another knock on the door, and this time when you hesitate the refugee father puts his foot in the door and says they won’t leave – they are too desperate for that. So you take them in, and feed them and find some more bedding. Now the word has spread, and over the next week many more families ask, in fact demand, to be let in and fed and housed. If the refugees are from the Middle East, you may have to witness the subjugation of women while you play host, and other practices which you have never condoned, and indeed may even be against your country’s law.  

I ask all those good and humane people who are criticising governments for not taking in more Syrians right now, ‘when will your charity stop?’ Will it be when you are financially ruined, or when the jobs of your children are taken, or when your guests are now in the majority and wish to take over with their laws and rules?  

This sounds simplistic, almost absurd, but it is the only way I as an individual can describe the conflict I face when I see the heart breaking pictures of millions of individuals fleeing. As for the conflict which various governments must be facing now, they have my deepest sympathy, and I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision on behalf of my country.

And here is her poem
worth many a shinny coin
describing her woes
of feeling ill from head to her toes - GNH (ugh)

 A TALE OF SLUDGE AND WOE

I’ll tell you the story of Hillary Mudge

Who grappled with problems of biliary sludge

In most bad gallbladders sit stones that won’t budge

But swollen with cream cakes and caramel fudge

Hillary’s bubbled with biliary sludge.

Engorged between liver and stomach it lodged

While it gruesomely churned with its porridgy splodge

On the xray the doctors saw one pudgy smudge

And they pondered the problems of biliary sludge.

So what was the cause of this bladder so large?

A rogue gene from Hillary’s mad mother Marge.

So tight was the bloated bladder wedged

One surgeon thought it should be dredged,

Another, perhaps more fully-fledged,

Suggested trimming round the edge

Like the gardener had done to the hospital hedge.

One doctor said ‘Stomach and liver we’ll merge

As round the gallbladder we diverge’.

A vacuum doctor, a funny old codger

Said ‘Why don’t we suck out the fat little bludger,

And if that doesn’t cause an immediate purge

We’ll switch the vac from suck to surge

And blow out the bugger in one massive splurge!’

Another suggested a by-passing bridge

From liver’s far corner, to stomach’s near edge,

But as you can tell, all solutions seemed dodgy

For a bladder so grossly engorged and so podgy.

Then Dr Chen remarked with a nudge

‘There’s a simple solution for Hillary Mudge.

It will not be easy, it will be a drudge,

She will need to train for a daily trudge

Lots of mileage through foliage

And upon her return she must go to the fridge –

Now all listen closely, this is ridgy didge -

She must reach to the ledge where she finds a thick wedge

Of frittata stuffed full of eggs, parsley and veg,

For the only way that Miss Hillary Mudge

Can resolve the affliction of biliary sludge

Is to give up all cream cakes and caramel fudge!’

And a follow up on 14 September from Australia capturing the angst:

I can’t believe it!  My little parable about the family accepting ever increasing numbers of refugees, then reaching its limit and yanking away the welcome mat, is actually coming to pass. Germany now closing its borders; others putting up the wire ever higher. You know, it’s a horrible thing, but in the end we are like rats in a cage. At first, with the low numbers, all needs are met and the community is one of harmony. Then, as the numbers increase beyond the ability of the infrastructure to meet all needs, the mood turns and it’s every family for itself.  It is why the human species has survived and reproduced for so long so successfully.

Horrible, but undeniable, and inevitable.

You and I are just so lucky to be born when we were, and where we were.

Meanwhile, I try not to feel senseless guilt for my lucky life.

From a Pennsylvania Farmer:

I, too have thought more on this subject mass migrations and refuge crises.  Started last night at dinner and your other commentators have helped to firm up my opinion and, yes, fear.  The disruption we fear in Europe is inevitable.  Peoples' lives and livelihoods will be affected.  Taxes may rise. Housing and school slots may be scare.   Assimilation will be difficult.  Native Europeans will certainly protest.  But disruption is going to happen regardless of whether or not the EU opens its door to the Middle East and Africa.   With an open door people can show love, goodwill and generosity, which is reciprocated once a relationship develops.  Closing the doors hardens hearts among those who close the doors and breeds fear, resentment and retaliation among those who are turned away.  Those who find a way in are illegal and must live in the shadows.  Those kept in camps or turned back either die or seek to hurt those who have hurt them.   I can see no way to avoid further radical change and turmoil.