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No-go zones: Alt-Right fantasy or new face of Europe?
FILE
PHOTO: Rosengard in Malmo in southern Sweden, early December 19, 2008
© Stig Ake Jonsson / Reuters
RT,
11
August, 2017
Immigrant-dominated,
crime-ridden and largely Muslim enclaves across Europe, the so-called
“no-go zones,” have become as much an ideological battleground as
a literal one, but many arguing about them have never been to one.
What no-go zones are not
For
most people at most times, the designation “no-go
zone” should
not be taken literally.
There
are exceptions. In the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby the local police
station was shut down in 2014, following the latest in a series of
fire-bombing riots, and the one currently under
construction is reminiscent of a war-zone outpost, to which police
officers will have to be driven. Sparked by seemingly routine
encounters between petty criminals and the cops, mass violent
protests have originated in the district most years since 2010,
though just as notably car burnings and stone-throwing flash riots
are at times so frequent they are barely reported in the local media.
FILE
PHOTO: Rinkeby, Stockholm, Sweden on February 20, 2017 © Aftonbladet
/ Global Look Press
While
Rinkeby, with its colorful moniker Little Mogadishu, and its own
melting-pot dialect that has been studied by linguists, is beloved by
journalists, there are other areas
in Sweden, and throughout Europe,
where police prefer to operate without uniforms,
or do not bother to enter, unless they have a specific order, or fear
violence spilling out beyond.
Journalists
are similarly made to feel unwelcome. Thousands of reports are filed
from deprived neighborhoods without incident each year, and it is the
exceptions that get reported, but attacks on TV crews and
live report spots in
particular are not infrequent.
More
alarming, if harder to document day-to-day, is the hostility toward
women and Jews. A petition launched by women in the Paris district of
La Chapelle gathered 20,000
signatures, and was endorsed by the city’s mayor, after
womencomplained of
aggressive comments from migrants towards women dressed in Western
outfits, such as “What’s
up your skirt?”
and “Lower
your eyes, slut.”
The
Jewish population of Malmo has halved in
a decade, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles has
recommended that those who remain leave the city since 2010, with
dozens of religiously-motivated street attacks recorded by the police
each year. A journalist filming a documentary in the widely-covered
Iraqi and Bosnian-dominated district of Rosengard while wearing a
kippah was pelted with eggs and cries of “Jewish Stan!”
But
for all the lurid stories of Sharia patrols and
men-only establishments, at first sight even the most notorious no-go
zones are not scenes of post-apocalyptic breakdown adorned with ISIS
flags, but often prosaicpost-war brutalist
inner-city housing blocks that
have been abandoned by the native population, and have not yet been
gentrified. The immediate dangers to visitors are not stray bullets
or gangland enforcers, but the calorific options at plentiful local
takeaways, and freely available hard drugs.
“These
are not full-fledged no-go zones,”explained Daniel
Pipes, the conservative writer who largely popularized the term, and
went on to visit over a dozen such areas in Europe. “In
normal times, they are unthreatening, routine places. But they do
unpredictably erupt, with car burnings, attacks on representatives of
the state (including police), and riots.”
Usually,
it’s not that no one can enter a no-go zone, it’s that no one –
other than the residents – wants to. And rather than the open
conflict – which brings news reports and a government response –
it insidious alienation and neglect that make no-go zones a blight on
European societies.
Reality of no-go zones
There
exists no universally accepted definition of a no-go zone, much less
a comprehensive statistical analysis of them. Since 1996, France
has designated over
750 Sensitive Urban Areas characterized by low house ownership,
unemployment and poor educational status, and while the areas, which
have a population of above 5 million people, have been used as a
byword for no-go zones both inside the country and in international
media, the overlap is inexact.
The 61“vulnerable
areas” singled out
by Swedish police are a closer match, with their emphasis on crime
and resistance to state involvement, but certain social and religious
factors go beyond this police definition.
FILE
PHOTO: Rosengard in Malmo in southern Sweden December 18, 2008 ©
Drago Prvulovic / Reuters
Nonetheless,
however they are labeled, no-go zones are “real” –
insofar as that areas that have gained notoriety as such share a
series of substantive characteristics and problems that are
exceedingly similar around the continent.
Demographics.
Economics
Crime
Religion
In
Malmo, a city where over 40 percent of
the population is of foreign origin, in areas such as Rosengard –
before it was merged with another district – the number rose to 9
in 10, three out of four residents of Tottenham, where the 2011
riots started are non-White
British, while the majority in Molenbeek, Brussels’ hotbed of
terrorism, was also born abroad. Unlike stereotypical ghettos – a
community united by a single culture or race – these areas have a
diverse mix of immigrants, their make-up repeating the layers of
migration into the country. In Rosengard, the former Yugoslavs were
replaced by Iraqis, who are now being supplemented by Syrians, with
Africans a steady but growing flow through the years. No-go zones
are magnets for the least integrated and most unstable populations,
who can afford to – or are assigned – to live there,
traditionally with an overrepresentation of youth.
In
a related point, no-go zones are some of the poorest places in their
own countries, however wealthy those are. In Rosengard, four in five
people are (at least officially) unemployed,
in 2010 – a year before the riots – Haringey, the local
authority that includes Tottenham, was the 13th most deprived out
of 326 in the whole of the UK.Unemployment in
Molenbeek is officially about 30 percent
Rosengard
and Rinkeby are both on Sweden’s “vulnerable”
list. According to the police report, 200 gangs and 5,000 criminals
operate within them, but it is the fundamental disconnect between
cops and residents that is the problem, and that goes beyond teens
lobbing stones at police vans. “Under
the surface there is a parallel society with alternative justice and
with little confidence in the basic institutions of [Swedish]
society,”wrote Sweden’s
police chiefs in an accompanying editorial, complaining that it was
“hard
for police to fulfil its mission”
as threats and gang presence made led to a “widespread
disinclination to participate in the judicial process”
among the residents. Molenbeek has been dubbed Europe’s gun
marketplace, with multiple media sources reporting that a weapon
could be bought within
minutes in the area for several hundred euros. Notably, while dozens
of terrorists were preparing the November 2015 Paris attacks, none
of the neighbors or relatives of criminals reported their concerns
to the police, and even after the deaths of over 130 people, no one
gave up the names, as the survivors plotted another brutal attack on
Brussels in the spring of 2016.
Partly
as a function of their demographics, most of the no-go zones have a
high Muslim population. Owing to alienation from mainstream society,
the mosque, which already plays a bigger role in Islamic social
order than churches do in modern Christianity, becomes absolutely
central to the lives of locals. Whether the embrace of Islam hampers
the integration of residents of no-go areas is a broader debate, but
in concrete terms, these suburbs often become areas where jihadists
meet like-minded associates and recruiting grounds for terrorists –
many of whom fit the typical profile of young, male, immigrant
residents with a criminal past. Belgium supplied more
ISIS recruits than any other country in Europe per capita, many of
them born or passing through the Brussels district, while Bergsjon,
in Gothenburg another area on Sweden’s vulnerable
list, provided 120
recruits prepared to wage jihad in Syria and Iraq.
Thus
those looking to dismiss no-go areas asa “myth,”
can argue the semantics of what constitutes a “no-go
zone,” or
how much of a threat they present, but not that term represents a
real phenomenon.
Impact of no-go zones on European societies
Painting
them as terrorist hatcheries is the easiest charge to pin on no-go
zones. But despite Islamist terrorism’s devastating impact, the
vast majority of Europeans have never been the direct victim of a
terrorist attack, nor is it possible to definitively prove that it is
the product of no-go zones, as opposed to say, radical Islam, mental
instability, or the general effects of poverty, though it is hard to
deny that places like Molenbeek provide a fertile soil for attackers.
In
fact, two other – more subtle – impacts of no-go zones existence
could be more debilitating.
FILE
PHOTO: Molenbeek, Brussels, Belgium on April 2, 2016 © Global Look
Press
The
existence of areas of such stark cultural difference, and in the
midst of some of Europe’s most prominent cities, creates alienation
and resentment on both sides – from the native population that
feels threatened by newcomers, to those inside the modern-day
ghettoes, resentful about their lack of jobs, education in schools
where no one speaks the native language, or encounters with
authorities who they feel may treat them unfairly. And while
incidents of poor relations between the area residents and other
populations may be trivial, their effects are often cumulative, and
according to several prominent studies, only better integration can
lead to a restoration of social trust.
The
other is the breakdown of trust in social institutions, if an area is
allowed to exist outside of accepted norms. Once again, this applies
not only on those who see immigrants commit crimes and don’t want
to pay taxes to furnish them with benefits, but also the residents,
who feel betrayed by the system.
"If
people are hit by crimes which then aren't investigated, they will
lose faith in the rule of law," Malmo's
chief prosecutor, Ola Sjostrand, complained last
year, when he noted that the entire judicial system in the city was
on the verge of collapse.
“No-go
areas” –
whatever their exact delineation – are both the symbol and the
coalface of Europe’s interaction with immigration, foreign culture,
and both social cohesion and prosperity depend on reversing the
worrying trends that are only likely to get worse, considering the
influx of new migrants into Europe since 2015.
Germany under ‘great illusion’ it can deport failed asylum seekers – senior official
11
August, 2017
A
“great illusion” prevails in Germany over the deportation of
failed asylum applicants, Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer argued,
adding it is unrealistic to expel all migrants once they are in the
country.
It
is much more humane for European countries to protect common borders
and decide on the spot whom to allow in than to accept migrants en
masse and struggle to deport failed applicants, said Seehofer.
The
politician, who also leads the Christian Social Union (CSU), the
Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian
Democrats (CDU), told Focus magazine on Friday it was “almost
impossible to send back migrants once they are in the country.”
“I
say this having a nine-year experience as [Bavaria’s] prime
minister,” Seehofer told German magazine Focus. “A great illusion
prevails in Germany when it comes to the issue of deportations,”
the politician said.
“There’s
a bulk of lawsuits in courts challenging deportations,” the
Bavarian premier explained. “In most cases, [refugees have] no ID
documents, without which the home countries refused to take them
back.”
“Others
have put down roots here or found a sponsor who secures their stay
here,” he went on. “That’s the reality in the Germany of 2017.”
Last
year, the CSU proposed establishing more efficient controls over the
EU’s external frontiers, introducing border controls within the
bloc and ensuring a “fair distribution of migrants and refugees
among the EU states.” The proposal advocated an annual limit of
200,000 asylum seekers that can be accepted by Germany, and sending
migrants back to the borders of neighboring states, primarily
Austria.
He
also voiced criticism towards Chancellor Merkel regarding her
‘open-door’ refugee and migrant policy. On one occasion, the CSU
sent Merkel a letter threatening to take the chancellor to the
Constitutional Court if the federal government fails to secure the
country’s borders and reduce the influx of refugees.
Speaking
to Focus, Seehofer reiterated his stance on what Germany’s refugee
policy should look like, and said European countries need to protect
the common border and stop those not qualifying for entry.
“This
is much more of a Christian way and more humane than making people
wander all across Europe and then tell them – you can’t stay,”
he argued.
Germany,
a major destination for many refugees, has recently resumed
deportations to Greece, in a bid to stem the flow of migrants. On
Tuesday, Greek authorities said they have received 392 requests and
approved the return of “a small number” of asylum seekers from
Germany and some other EU countries, said Migration Minister Yiannis
Mouzalas, as cited by Ekathimerini.
In
December 2016, the European Commission advised that EU member states
finally invoke the so-called Dublin Regulations and gradually resume
transfers to Greece of unauthorized migrants arriving from March 15
onwards. Under the regulations, refugees must file their asylum
applications in the EU country they first arrive in, meaning Italy
and Greece are likely to shoulder most of the burden.
Some
countries have requested permission from Greece to send back
migrants, but none have been transferred since mid-March.
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