Professor of public philosophy Marli Huijer complains about the cabinet approach for the people of the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece. Apparently she cannot understand that the Netherlands is not just bringing in everything and everyone. ‘Refugees are people and people have rights, that’s the deal!’
For a professor of public philosophy, Huijer makes surprisingly little effort to fully implement the logical consequences of her own way of thinking. This makes it seem as if the cabinet is acting like a cold machine and its way of thinking is humanity itself.
Through her analysis you can actually see why human rights (overshot) lead to undermining of the nation state. The problem, she says, is that defining national borders creates a ‘we’ and others who do not belong to them.
Huijer: “By creating a we, we also create a non-us. Us we are people within the Netherlands, within the EU. Because of our way of political thinking, refugees become different people than ourselves, people with different rights. ”
Apparently it does not occur to her that opening the gates for every refugee who once pitifully looks into the camera might not be the best idea.
“Even if the fire was started by one person, you still can’t let those other 12999 people sleep on the street.”
And what if only one person every time set such a camp on fire and caused 12,999 people to flee again? Also people who in most cases would not be entitled to a residence permit anyway, but are suddenly treated differently by such an arson attack.
I believe it costs something like 40,000 euros a year to take in one such refugee (including procedures). Should we just keep taking that together? Even if you know that the majority do not leave in the following years or only earn 16,000 euros per year and have to supplement their income with a benefit?
You will not hear this professor about that. She only keeps it to ‘yes, but we just agreed on this’ and does not look at the consequences at all. “Every person has the right to protection and safety,” says Huijer, but we cannot even guarantee that for the people we have admitted. She doesn’t say a word about it! Just that we should have absorbed ten times more. And then she accuses the cabinet of acting immoral and politically irresponsible …
