According to the BBC, Canada has decided to reduce the number of asylum seekers from the Czech Republic. What Canada (population in excess of 33 million) considers a “large influx” of Czechs so far in 2009 are over 1,000 asylum seekers, versus 860 in all of 2008.
The vast majority of these are Gypsies or Roma, who are probably the single most despised minority in Europe.
Roma are seen simultaneously by many Europeans, and particularly those of a right-wing persuasion, as shiftless layabouts and crafty, dirty beggars, more or less the same way right-wing persuaders like Lou Dobbs describe immigrants to the United States: “Over there, they’re taking our jobs. Over here, they’re on welfare.”
The Canadians think Roma are economic migrants lacking a well-founded fear of persecution, although thousands were killed by the Nazis and there have been well-documented attacks by Czech neo-Nazi groups in the past year.
Gorilla assumes this news means we now can’t count on Ottawa, with its socialized medicine and its well managed banks, to take in Lou Dobbs…or Sarah Palin…or Rush Limbaugh…or Pat Buchanan…or the rest of our economically driven Roma.
