I have always told people how welcomed I felt in Târgu Mureș. From the first week, I made really good friends, I felt integrated and I made this cute little town in Romania my home. But probably it only went that well because I am white, from Germany and because people don’t know I am atheist.
I come to this conclusion because the mayor of Târgu Mureș, Dorin Florea, has now proclaimed that people who are (assumed to be) a little bit different are not welcome in this town. Even if they face persecution or death.
Mr Florea calls the welcoming of refugees “hypocritical” and an “excess of generosity”. Then he claims that refugees (most of whom are from Syria) have a “different cultural level” (it doesn’t sound like he suggests they have a higher level, so you can guess what he means) and “concepts which are different from the European spirit”.
Whoa! What a stupid, xenophobic, uninformed, racist rant!
The only “different cultural level” I can see is that most Syrians and other people from the Middle East don’t make crass generalizations like that, don’t insult whole peoples and countries and probably would think twice before making incendiary comments about something that they obviously know nothing about.
I am particularly angry about this open display of racism and xenophobia, because in Târgu Mureș it would be so easy to meet Syrians, other people from the Middle East, Muslims or all the other people whom Mr Florea (and the other racists in town) are afraid of: Just go to the Medical University UMF, where hundreds of international students pay 5,000 € per year (plus the additional money they contribute to the local economy) to study medicine. A large part of the international students, maybe even the majority, come from countries or cultures that the mayor finds so “different”. I have met many of these students and the doctors that became of them and they aren’t different at all (notwithstanding the fact that all doctors are a bit scary, particularly dentists).
The students from the Middle East with their allegedly “different culture and different values” do volunteer work during their studies, they work in Romanian hospitals and help Romanian patients. And who on earth founded SMURD and coordinated the local emergency services? Oh, it was a doctor from Syria, who has contributed a thousand times more to Târgu Mureș and Romania than all the racist pricks who think that every Muslim is a terrorist. How would you like it if all Romanians were thought of as uneducated dictators? Or as corrupt politicians?
But then, what can we expect from a municipality that lets more than a thousand people live in a slum, denying them basic utilities, access to education, let alone some form of respect and dignity? And the people living in Valea Rece are not even refugees, they are Romanian citizens. Although on a recent visit there, one of the foreign UMF-trained doctors who had spent her childhood in the Middle East told me “this looks, smells and feels exactly like the refugee camp in Pakistan where I grew up”. Yeah, we sure have some great European values here that we need to protect. What a terrible thought if people from another continent were to teach us some compassion, dignity, generosity when we just want to be selfish, bigoted and narrow-minded.
I am sorry for Târgu Mureș, but we can forget about the bid for European Capital of Culture in 2021 now. Our mayor has fucked that up.
“But maybe I can become European racist of the year 2015?”
———–
UPDATE: Maybe, just maybe, I over-estimated the friendliness of people in Târgu Mureș. But judge for yourself based on what people tell me.
Well, at least he liked my TEDx speech. That’s nice.
Oh yes, the “go back to where you came from” line, always so ironic when I write about the welcoming culture of a place.
And then there must of course also be the “Hitler would execute you” guy.
To all those who claim in the comments below that I tarnish the image of our lovely town, I think the people above do that very well themselves. No help needed from me.
The Happy Hermit 
Andreas Moser, if you dont like it in our town you are free to leave to a town where the ‘multi kulti’ is so accepted and working well for example London, or Paris to see how well the muslim communities integrated into the local communities traditions etc. These people leave their war torned countries to seek a better, safer life yet when they get to western countries they demand SHARIA law for everyone, they dont believe in freedom of speech, the women are not treated equaly etc. Why would we want these people in our town or in our country? They should go to countries where they have sharia law and not impose it on others. The mayor is not racist or xenophobe he is trying to defend his town and country.
You sound like you don’t know any Muslim or anyone from the Middle East. If you dare to comment with your real name, we can meet with some friends from Iran, Syria and Iraq for a beer (yes, they drink alcohol) and some barbecued meat (yes, they eat pork).
Just like most Romanians didn’t like Caucescu, most Muslims don’t appreciate the dictatorships they live in. It’s weird that you blame those who flee from an oppressive regime for the regime they are trying to escape.
get your head out of your ass you self righteous muslim loving prick – if you have so much love towards muslim why dont you go to their shithole of a country then convert to islam and subjugate women and everyone who isnt of islam religion after that you could blow up some pathetic editorial for a fu*&@g drawing of mohamed….i could argue with you all day long,but your are so high up on your high horse that not even an earthquake could make you look the other way .ALAH AKBAR! 8=)—-8
Dear Andreas. no Romanian would object to the presence of foreign doctors, students, wherever they come from. We generally welcome law-abiding people who pay their way in society and make a positive contribution. However, we don’t want any criminals (and we don’t care about their justifications and reasons for being so) or lazy idiots or basically anyone who spits on pavements (we have too many of those already).
They dont like dictatorship.. then please tell me why they cant integrate into the countries they migrate to? And I’m looking at Sweeden, France, Britain etc? why ?Why they do marches and shout things like police go to hell, XYZ country will be muslim, Sharia law for everyone etc? They want democratic countries then they want SHARIA again? LMFAO. And yes I know people from the middle east and yes there are some moderate muslims as they like to call themselves. But a muslim will always be a muslim and for him/her the ISLAM is above all. You politicaly corect people can’t seem to understand that humans are DIFFERENT and they have DIFFERENT ideologies and most of the times 2 IDEOLOGIES can’t fuction as one or together. The political correctness bullshit is ruining this world and will keep ruining it until war breaks out again.
For most people, their religion is a completely private matter. You only see the tiny minority who are vocal about it because the others work, study and live just like everyone else.
Thats what the mainstream media and polls show you, you can use the internet to find out yourself, either way you can choose to believe what you would like its totally up to you, but you will see in a few years how things will change. Oh and btw I am an atheist myself and I think that religion is the root of all evil. It was nice talking to you, I respect your decisions and what you believe in, I just hope you dont have to find out the hard way that 2 totaly different societies and ideologies can’t and wont work side by side. Have a great day.
No, I don’t get my information from polls, I get it from traveling the world and speaking to people. And Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Jews and Hindu are 99% the same. They all want a job, a house, a good education for their children, health, two weeks of holiday and maybe a car. People aren’t that different.
I guess I envy your possibilities of traveling, seeing, experiencing new things, cultures etc. But you are living in a dream world.
Don’t envy it, but feel motivated by it.
Dear Andreas Moser. I read your post, and I understand why are you talking about generalization. You are right, there is a generalization in our mayor’s words. But… when he said that refugees have a “different cultural level” I guess he alluded to their religion. I think is not a problem if you are atheist, christian, or muslim as long as your religion is not affecting anyone. I am a medical student, I know students from another countries, and I like them, I respect them. The refugees we are talking about are not medical students, what is more, statistics say 20% of them doesn’t even know how to read or write. You are saying that our mayor is : making incendiary comments about something that he obviously know nothing about. Well… I want to ask you how much you know about refugee’s religion? Do you know that muslims decapitate christians, just because they are christians? Do you know that their “bible” is Quran(Koran), and it says that: Nonbelievers either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed ? (Quran (2:191-193) – “And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out.) Do you know that they respect woman as they respect a dog? Do you know they could have 3-4-5 wives? How would you feel, when a muslim will attack your doughter or wife on the street, just because she looked at him? In Romania the average number of children per family is 1,9. In Syria is 8,8. I think this is the main problem. You say our mayor is xenophobe and racist, I say he is protecting our town. Because he knows, if refugees will move in everything will be changed. Not tomorrow, maybe 10 years later, or maybe 20. Our mayor said: let’s not confuse the imigrants with the refugees. We can help those, who need it. We may give them food or water. But I think is not racism if we don’t give them our home, future and freedom.
Do you know all the crazy stuff that is written in the Old Testament? And do you hold that against all Christians?
You are doing the same Islamophobic stereotyping in which you brand everyone who shares a religion as a brutal murderer.
I have traveled to many majority Muslim countries and 99% of people are not at all how you think they are. You are terrified of something that you make up yourself instead of being open and humane and talking to newcomers. You are a disgrace to Romania and Europe and I wish we will have more refugees instead of hateful bigots like you.
I think you live in a world where everything is pink, people love eachother, hate doesn’t exists, no one is poor , hungry, suffering. There are no guns, no terrorists, no murder. I wish you won’t ever be dissapointed. If you look around…really close… you will see that our country is not a daydream, is not a paradise. Hundreds and hundreds of children are suffering in hospitals, on the streets. They should be our priority to take care of. Romania can’t even give a home or a job for romanians. Maybe we should pack our things and move to Germany, just like syrian people….
If you read my article, you will notice that I know quite a lot about Romania’s problems. But I think that a war which has been going on for several years is a bigger problem than a lack of paved roads or a slow train system.
And if Romania hasn’t done anything for its poor children in the last 25 years, how is this the refugees’ fault. Not even considering all the money coming to Romania from the EU.
And it’s always funny when people who have never been to the Middle East call me naive about it, after I have been there at least 25 times, given speeches about it and participated in movies about it. I really don’t think I am the one who needs to be lectured.
Lastly, yes, everyone is welcome to move to Germany, just like the approximately 2-3 million Romanians who have already left to Europe or North America. Why not? Living in other places expands one’s experience.
Dear Andreas,
please look at those youngs, how good will they “integrate” when they become adults!
The documentary was made by the ZDF, I think one of your favorite stations:
And as you will see, those children are german nationals and not newcommers!!!
Related to our mayor, you are right, he’s intolerant and maybe xenophobic too :)
Like you said, these are Germans. I don’t see what this has to do with Syrian refugees. The equation Syrian = Muslim = radical Muslim = terrorist is wrong at each and every step of it.
OK, you are right those are alredy “NeuDeutsche” you can be proud of them ;) … but I think that you forget about the Salafists in Germany who have been already found recruiting such frustrated 2nd and 3rd generation youngsters…
On the second place, how do you differenciate a syrian, afgan, iraqi refugee from possible extremists, terrorist, economical migrants etc etc… when those people have no papers, they refuse to registrate, on and on… the have only special preferences! I my oppinion, a refugee should not behave like this… of course, you will not see this on any of the german brainwashed televisions!
I don’t forget about Salafists, but they have nothing to do with refugees. Actually, more Europeans are moving to Syria and Iraq for terrorist purposes than the other way round.
Anyone who is from a country that is completely in war, with no end or improvement in sight, is a refugee. The economic migrants are people like me or the millions of Romanians all over the world (I see no problem with economic migration either).
he is not xenophobic nor racist, he is just afraid of Muslim extremists as many of us are.. we are just terrified living some day under sharia law.. is that so hard to understand? we are not comfortable living with people who think that the only true way is their way of living and some day the whole world will obey their middle ages perception on life & death. instead of judging us maybe you should convince us that they are nice people..
I am not comfortable with people who are so stupid that they think that any Syrian is a Muslim and that every Muslim is an extremist. The mayor (and you) generalize and that is racist, Islamophobic and incendiary.
I did not say all of them are terrorists, I said we’re afraid of Muslim extremists, maybe they are all future Raed Arafats, who knows, but they could be extremists as well, right? can you guarantee for all of them that they will not blow themselves up in the future because they see too much naked woman leg in the “weekend” area? :) i just wanted to point out that we are AFRAID from POTENTIAL extremists and don`t judge us so hard Mr “I’ve been in so many places”.
Or maybe not….
But…as I said….you are wellcomed to leave if you dont like people who disagree with you. I’m atheist as well and belive me it’s not about relligion and i’m not talking about terrorism but i think that everybody would prefer if they stayed out of romania. We have our problems and i dont think we would like some more. Sorry if i offended you.
Why should I leave just because someone disagrees with me?
And that’s exactly where the racism comes in. Because you don’t worry about potential criminals when white people with blond hair show up. In Europe, far more people got and get killed and raped by Christians than by Muslims.
Cine-i Andreas Moser asta pana la urma? Va pierdeti vremea dandu-i replici care mai de care…Mr.Moser hai plimba ursu`!
Andreas, you are grossly misinterpreting the mayor’s statement:
“Dorin Florea, has now proclaimed that people who are (assumed to be) a little bit different are not welcome in this town. Even if they face persecution or death.”
He did not said that in the quoted text.
Refugees i.e. people who have been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster, of course must be helped.
However,he warns that people coming from a safe country, who burn their documents at the border and demand to be allowed to travel to country X or Y (usually countries with very good welfare systems), refusing registration, are to be regarded as migrants, as they move not in fear of their live but in order to improve the future prospects of themselves and their families.
Migrants should be, and are, also accepted as migration is a natural phenomenon in population ecology. However, there are different rules and considerations applying. Romanian migrants have also been restricted for long time in some EU countries, US, Australia etc., this is normal when dealing with immigration. Switzerland, US etc. has quotas for anybody.
“Mr Florea calls the welcoming of refugees “hypocritical” and an “excess of generosity”. ” Misinterpretation again. Mr. Florea calls the imposed/forced acceptance of immigrants (NOT refugees, he says “imigranti”) “hypocritical” and an “excess of generosity”. This can be the case: spending more on an immigrant (again mind the difference vs. refugee) than the minimal national wage (like in Hungary) is a high burden and an excess.
Of course, things are not black and white, it is hard to determine who is an immigrant and who is a righteous refugee seeker. I’m not addressing this issue. As you did not addressed it yourself.
You pulled a straw man, refuting the mayor’s POV as if he was speaking about refugees. As anybody can check, he used the term refugee twice in the beginning (warning about the difference between refugee and immigrant and acknowledging the rightful desires of a refugee for safety, decent life). In the rest of the text he was only referring to immigrants. If you wanted to refute him, you should argue that the people he is referring to are rightful refugees not immigrants.
If your post was not mean-spirited and you genuinely think that refugee and immigrant are synonyms, here are the definitions:
refugee – a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.
migrant – a person who is outside the territory of the State of which he or she is a national or citizen, is not subject to its legal protection and is in the territory of another State.
Have a nice day!
Refugees are migrants, too. Maybe not voluntarily, but they are.
And actually, it’s not hard at all to determine who is a refugee in the case of countries that have been at war for several years, with no improvement of the situation in sight. Everyone from Syria is a refugee and enjoys the legal protection that comes with it.
Please educate yourself, google “difference between migrants and refugees”. I do not know if I’m allowed to post links.
“According to the UN and to most migration experts, not everyone who engages in migration is a migrant.
Instead, the term “migrant” is used to refer to someone who chooses to leave his or her home country — not someone who’s forced to do it. Here’s what the UN Convention on the Rights of Migrants says:
The term ‘migrant’…[covers] all cases where the decision to migrate is taken freely by the individual concerned, for reasons of ‘personal convenience’ and without intervention of an external compelling factor.”
You say it is not difficult to determine who is a refugee. “Everyone from Syria is a refugee.”
That is a stupid statement. If Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi comes from Syria and ask for refugee status, would you give it to him???
More in general, how do you check, who is who if they purposefully destroy their IDs? What about Syrians coming from safe countries?
Things are not simple.
If Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi comes, yes, we would need to grant him refugee status because he might get killed in Syria, but then we can of course arrest him at the same time. A refugee status is not something that is limited to nice people.
Wrong again!
The declaration of human rights establishes:
Article 14.
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Also Refugee Convention, article F establishes:
F. The provisions of this Convention shall not apply to any person with respect to whom there are serious reasons for considering that:
– he has committed a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity, as defined in the international instruments drawn up to make provision in respect of such crimes;
– he has committed a serious non-political crime outside the country of refuge prior to his admission to that country as a refugee;
– he has been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
You seem very uneducated in these matters. I know this is a personal blog, but as a journalist you should strive to research and make informed posts, backed by facts. Read before you lash out to others, understand the details and nuances. If the inputs are in another language, reach out for help, to avoid misinterpretation.
You seem to confuse, have a “gut feeling” about what the terms immigrants and refugees mean. Yet you are very opinionated, you make generalizations, label others racist.
You did not address any of the other factual criticism of your posts.
Your entire original post is based on a logical fallacy, straw man. Please review what I wrote and consider retracting the harsh labels (that are not backed by facts) you put out on people.
As of now, countries aren’t deciding if everyone is a refugee or everyone is a migrant. They try to come up with ways to separate these categories, so that they can let the refugees in and send the immigrants back. Anybody who thinks all these people are all refugees (let everyone in) or all immigrants (keep everybody out) is delusional.
That is a very fine line to walk and there are voices concerned with going overboard of either direction. The mayor’s post was belonging to the category of being cautious with letting many immigrants in. He never said that refugees should be denied entrance or help. That part was made up, misinterpreted by you.
No, saying that people from outside Europe have a culture which doesn’t fit here is not about making legal distinctions, it’s racist scaremongering. What Mr Florea said is exactly the kind of hate speech which ultimately leads to racist attacks because others are not regarded as humans who have equal value as the local population.
Again, you are trying to resort to a straw man argument: “saying that people from outside Europe have a culture which doesn’t fit here” Where did he say that? Where does he mention that no immigrant can be accepted (because cultural incompatibility)?
No, he said that the imposed/forced acceptance of a big wave of immigrants (NOT refugees!) in a short time-span can lead to problems, due to cultural differences and the poor quality of life in Romania.
Countries usually limit the number of immigrants they accept every year, citing time needed for assimilation, naturalization. US with a population of 318 million people, I think accepts around 700000 immigrants per year, Australia 190000, recently Switzerland imposed also some tight quotas.
Germany has a literacy rate of 99% with a gender gap of 0%. Romania 97.7%. Syria 79.6% with a very high gender gap of 12.4%. Big gender gaps usually have cultural backgrounds. Some news report that the illiteracy rate in the refugee status seeking cohort is 20%. The educational and cultural differences are not good or bad, they are simply a fact, backed by statistics. Of course, they do not imply incompatibility. However, the effort needed for integration is proportional with the number of immigrants (provide basic education for many illiterate people, training, language courses for others, facilitate integration). Legitimate refugees must be granted asylum, nobody argued that. What about the rest, the (economic) immigrants? As they are not refugees, they can only be accepted at a sustainable rate, as done by many countries with quotas, following objective reasons.
“What Mr Florea said is exactly the kind of hate speech which ultimately leads to racist attacks”
Non sequitur – you imply a leap that does not follow logic. If not, prove it!
Look, I explained all this, in the hope that you are an educated, reasonable man, and you will recognize that the heavy allegation you made about people are not backed by facts, and might be the result of a misinterpretation of a text in foreign language, and as we seen, misapprehension of the terms used: immigrant vs. refugee. Please at least consider the option to retract you allegations, it paints my town in bad light, unfairly. You heavily distorted the words of the mayor. Admitting you were wrong, misinformed, does not make you week.
From my POV, as you never refuted or even addressed my objective criticism, never recognized that there are at least some aspects that you got wrong, and by continuing to distort the mayor’s words, you render this discussion not worth pursuing. If you are not following an agenda, read and think, then follow your conscience.
Good luck in the future!
I never had any intention of painting our town in a bad light. Most of the comments above did that themselves, without any of my help.
Dear Andreas….could you just fucking leave this town please ?!?! We really don’t care about other religions and especialy islamic ones….so dont take their side just because you want to be like so manny buttlickers !!! I dont think that we have a problem with european cultures but cone on…islam…where fucking a goat is permited ????!?!? Really ???? Just please let our mayor speak and if you don’t like it….you can just go to germany where they welcome those people ;)
Also…if those people go into another country…they have no right asking other people who LIVE there to respect their so called relligion……
Isn’t freedom of religion a European value? You don’t seem to know any Muslims, or you wouldn’t believe the goat stuff, you Islamophobe.
And why should I leave the town just because you have a different opinion than me? You sound like a cheap version of Clint Eastwood.
I have seen you do this before, calling people racist and xenophobes just because they are right. This city has been a peaceful one for a long time and we want to keep it that way. If you call him racist, please, would you take all these “refugees” into your own house so we don’t have to deal with them? You won’t. You know you are a racist if you don’t take them all into your own house do you? They should fight for their country, just like we did.
This city has been peaceful? You mean except when Hungarians get killed for being Hungarian or when Romanians get killed for being Romanian? Granted, that was 25 years ago.
I agree it’s peaceful, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help those who are fleeing war. Why should anyone fight for a country whose government is trying to bomb the hell out of them. – When and where exactly did you fight for what? I am curious to hear your glorious war stories.
Ask those who died in ww1, ww2 about glorious war stories, they did not run to Syria to ask for free houses, food and more benefits. Can you tell me why the countries around them (safe and very rich like UAE), Turkey with the same religion, same culture doesn’t want to take any 1 of them? I’m telling you this, watching all the videos with them in Hungarian train stations throwing away food that many hungarians would like to get, why were they all so angry and desperate to reach Germany? Personally if i would “flee from war” i would be super happy to be in a safe country and i would not throw away food and fight with the cops in that safe country. Could you explain this please? Also many of them blocking highways towards Austria by traveling on foot on the highway. Again, why so desperate to go somewhere when you are already in a safe country? That’s what doesn’t make any sense.
Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan have been harboring millions of Syrian refugees for years.
After I saw your CV i would say that probably you are an educated man, open-minded, who like to travel and to discover new cultures and places. Even though, I did not saw that from this article.
I am Alina, nice to meet to virtually, I also like to travel and I can say that people around the world are different and they think different, from one or another point of view. That does not mean that anyone is wrong in his way of thinking or living his life.
I am curious what was the purpose of this article? What did u intended to transmit?
Before you talk about a city, it`s people, it is professional to gather more information about it and then write!
First of all you twisted the mayor`s words, which I do not agree with. It may be the wrong translation which is not your fault or it may be a mean interpretation. In my opinion, if somebody asks him an opinion about anything, of course he would generalize if he does not know some particular people, probably you would do the same, like you did in your article.
Second, about your words: “The only “different cultural level” I can see is that most Syrians and other people from the Middle East don’t make crass generalizations like that, don’t insult whole peoples and countries and probably would think twice before making incendiary comments about something that they obviously know nothing about.” You are right in saying “we are not so different” because I live currently in Middle East, people are very nice, some educated some not, but I saw people making generalization and insults. So…they do it. It does not mean that I am jumping and calling them racists, stupid or xenophobic. Everyone has the right to think how ever they want even if they don`t think like me or you.
And third about this : “But then, what can we expect from a municipality that lets more than a thousand people live in a slum, denying them basic utilities, access to education, let alone some form of respect and dignity? And the people living in Valea Rece are not even refugees, they are Romanian citizens” I am gonna tell you because you don`t know about it. I can tell just because I lived there more than 20 years and I know the current and the past situation. Nobody denies them the right of basic utilities, they choose to live there and if you try to move them they will protest and trow with whatever and fight (just give a try if you don`t believe me), they don`t want to work, they get social help, they steel (lot`s of time from me itself), when i was just a kid (around age of 8) one of them beat me because they wanted me to give them money, they have access to education, because one of my college was from that community, studied for free but guess what? she did not finish school, she abandoned because it was to difficult! And the examples continue. After you find out all this I am curious about your opinion and what you would do in this case to integrate them?
I just want to inform people that our major, even if someone consider that he is bad or he is good, he did a lot of good things for Targu-Mures. The city of roses (as Targu-Mures is called) is a beautiful city to live in, very peaceful, people are welcomed to live in, but they are not welcomed to judge the mentality which is there or the citizens!
So you mean it’s a nice and friendly city, but not once you have an opinion that differs from yours? So much for freedom of speech. – I have been living here for a year and I can form, express and argue my opinions just as everyone else.
You insulted us calling us stupid people because we have a different opinion on the matter, in the first place. So who is not respecting whose opinion?
I called the mayor stupid because he said that people from the Middle East have different cultural values and norms, when he could simply go to UMF and find out that this is not true and that Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and whoever else have pretty much the same range of people as Romania.
I called the mayor stupid because he wrote like someone who had never been to the Middle East or spoken to Muslims.
I called the mayor stupid because of his stupid and incendiary generalization and because I put a much higher standard to the words of an elected mayor than to those of people who just rant on Facebook or my blog, myself included.
But maybe he is not stupid and he knows that racism is a vote-winner here. Judging by the overwhelming number of comments, he may be right.
I agree, our maior is stupid, in many occasions, and he is stupid in generalising in this issue, we all shouldn’t, but we see danger coming towards us, as we watch how the immigrants behave, a part of them, how they travel from country to country, not satisfied with what they get. Is that so hard to understand? Because of that are we racists and xenophobic? Hardly, i must say.
With the way the refugees were treated by Hungarian authorities, nobody can blame them for continuing to Germany. Even more so after they heard of the welcome they got there.
they were treated like that because they didn’t obey Hungarian or any laws of crossing a country border. if i go to Germany i have to show my ID at the frontier, right? and don’t tell me they are still refugees and they have the right to cross without any identification, after they already traveled thousands miles from war zone. as i read your beloved Germany also closed some borders, and has second thoughts about them as well. i guess stupidity is contagious and spreads from east to west as the “refugees” do ;)
i’m out of here, have a pleasant stay in our city.
Andreas! You are totally right! I have appreciated a lot your article. Whatever personal opinion each one of us might have on this matter, it is unacceptable as a mayer of a town to make those kind of comments! Still, I’m so so shocked to see how many romanian people have these racist opinions about the refugees, taking into account that Europe is full of bad romanians who day by day do bad things. It’s unbelievable!
Thank you very much!
It’s telling that your comment is the first one which is not made (semi-)anonymously.
Well, please take them in your home then, and live by their sharia law for all I care, but not in my town! I’ve seen too much!!! I don’nt want them. Sorry, I’m this shovinistic-racist-nazi pig or whatever you want to call me, but I will never accept a religion that forces me to live by its rules, rules that contradicts our values. If you’re a refugee, then act like it! Let the authorities do their job regiszering and fingerprinting you. When you got the asylum you asked, be thankful, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you, do you?!! We have our laws thank you, we don’t need new ones. We don’t need people that are 500 years behind, I want a peaceful future for my children, not anarchy. Because they are bringing anarchy with them. Religious fanatism has no place in my town.
I haven’t seen anyone trying to impose sharia law in Targu Mures or in Romania. Apart from the fact that there is no such simple concept as one “sharia law”, most refugees are happy to reach democratic states with the rule of law. It seems to me that most refugees appreciate and understand our political and legal systems much better than people like you who have no idea about “freedom of religion”.
After reading many of Andreas’ posts about Tirgu Mures since 2014, I already began to consider it a worth holiday destination for next year. But hearing now about the xenophobic mayor and the hysterical replies to Andreas text by some of the local people, I think I better stay at home (or visit Russia instead). Since I probably have a different cultural level than 99.99 % of other people, I take his advice and avoid TG.
The mayor is not wrong! He is not xenophob neither racist. I think you just intentionally mislead people reading your blog and who don’t know Targu Mures or Dorin Florea. And I even suspect you of being a certain kind of extremist friend with Jobik and Viktor Orban.
Dorin Florea is not wrong. He is just carefull. Here in France where I live they try to show mayors who only accept christian refugees as xenophobic and evil racists. They only represent the interest of the people that elected them. Because in the near village a guy beheaded his boss showing how good muslim he was (beside Bourgoin Jallieu). Germany, Austria and others closed their frontiers and stopped train circulation. Danemark is in the same situation as Hungary as migrants violate its borders to cross the country. There are countless stories and videos with hateful and violent male “refugees”. They ARE bringing violence. People fear muslims everywhere in Western Europe already.
Most of the criminal gangs in Sweden are run by christian syrians, so I hate to burst your bubble buddy
The worst and most influential crime organization, Mafia/Cosa Nostra/NDrageta etc. are devote catholic believers. It might not have reached your attention, that last month the death of one of the Mafias godfathers received a glamorous funeral with catholic priests. Which conclusion you would draw from this ? That by abandoning catholizism you can minimize organized crime ?
Have you ever heard about the support of the Vatican to hide Nazi criminals after WW2, and helping them to escape to South America (so-called “rat path”), where they provided their expertise in torture and killing the opposition to the military dictators ? Does it mean that fighting catholizism is a useful way to prevent political dictatorships ?
Vatican (and its Banco Ambrosiano) was crucial in financing the Italian terror organisation P2, responsible for killing Aldo Moro and placing a bomb that killed >100 people in the Genova train station. Would you go as far to propose abandoning catholizism in order to fight political terror ?
Religion has to faces: for poor people it is like a drug, like a pain-killer. It might ease their life and prevents them from fighting against the injustice they live in. But at the same time, all religions are prone to got misused by political leaders, criminals, wannabe dictators. Promising them a little share of the power or a little share of the financial gain, it is easy to be granted relegious absolution not simply from sins, but from mayor crimes against humanity.
Very good point about the mafia! I am really scared of all these Christians now…
Actually, most people in Germany welcome refugees.
And accusing me of being a friend of Viktor Orban and Jobik shows that you are quite some conspiracy theorist (and haven’t read any of my articles on Hungary).
I have never had a problem with racists here in Targu Mures, when I say I am from an arabic country originally they usally ask me questions or bring up arabic history, or say how sorry they are for the situation. I have met alot more racists in western europe than I have in Romania. Yes they are scared (which is natural) but usually they don’t discriminate. If anything they dislike me for being from Sweden more than of my ethnicity. There is no reason to call out the whole city for what the major said.
I don’t blame the whole city for the mayor’s statement, but most of the reactions (even more so on Facebook) are actually worse than the mayor’s statement.
I don’t think it’s natural to be scared. You’re another human being, what is there to be scared about?
And what worries me most is that all the anonymous, yet hateful comments above may be from people who are friendly towards you and me when they meet us in person. But then, they go home and equate all Arabs with terrorists again.
It’s not for me to dictate what people do online or on Facebook or in their homes, they can hate my guts as long as they are friendly when you actually meet them face to face. Most acquire a radical opinion because of fear. Should we hate them or judge them because they are scared of the unknown? People just know what the news is showing them. Every new meeting with people start this way, both have prerequisite stereotypes about each other, then they find something about each other they both like and then it just goes from there. I think Mures would benefit from Syrians, they are hard working people who would make the best shaworma in all of Romania!. They would lift the city not lower it. But I can understand if people are scared because as I said, it’s natural to be protective.
I also think the city and the country as a whole would benefit a lot from accepting refugees. They are young, hard-working, motivated people. Young Romanians are leaving and in 20 years the Romanian population will be smaller and much older without immigration.
Well if you call our mayor racist please inform yourself about the muslim refugees all around the world. Please read more and watch more youtube movies about them before being a cunt! Stop being a fucking hater and see the reality in this story! When he said about the culture level he meant that they will integrate hard in our culture but haters like you understand that in their own haters way! Please feel free to leave if you don’t enjoy our city, feel free to free instead being a fucking hater!
Why should I leave? Do you send everyone away who has a different opinion? Is that your “cultural level”?
Dear Andreas,
i usually don’t write comments on blogs, but what you are pulling off here is really unprofessional and i feel i need to give you another (like you didn’t get enough) opinion on this matter. While i have read your other articles and really admire some of them, i think you are taking a wrong stance regarding comments on this one.
First of all, it’s impossible not to remark that once someone disagrees with you, even if they give you arguments, you take a defensive stance, quickly jumping to insults (you basically said that you find people who don’t share your vision are stupid, thus all of those who commented that they do not agree with you are stupid. Thanks! if all those who you insulted would have done the same, you would have called them intolerant) and to twisting around things other people say. Without wanting to be offensive, but you act like some spoiled child who always needs to have the last word and be right, otherwise you get upset and start breaking the rules and doing whatever it takes to win. You don’t seem to be able to accept that others don’t share your vision and beliefs and that they could be just as right as you.
Secondly, you are probably familiar with the romanian saying that goes like this: “When one person tells you you’re drunk you tell them to go to bed, when more than one person tell you you’re drunk you go to bed”. It’s something of this kind here in the comments section. While of course you have to defend your point of view, if all these people tell you that a) you just insulted us all and b) you twisted around the mayors words…maybe it’s time to revise your attitude. Just saying…
Now to the matter at hand. While i accept everyone for what they are, no matter what religion, nationality or ethnicity they have (i’m half romanian, half hungarian, half reformed kalivinst, half romanian orthodox, my best friends are jewish and catholic…so i don’t really know if it gets any more diverse than that) and i agree with you that cliches like “all muslims are terrorists” are just that…cliches, it seems to me that due to your background and experience you have difficulties understanding where the problem lies. Let me try to elaborate for you:
– romanians, and eastern europeans are probably against accepting refugees not because they are born racist or xenophobe, but because of their history. You have to understand that after the `89 revolutions, eastern europeans where considered by many westerners as inferior. Of course, doctors, engineers were OK to bring over, but the general view was still negative. You can deny it all you want, even as far back as a few years, Romania and Bulgaria were not accepted to the Schengen area because westerners feared and “invasion”. Of course, you will say there was some foundation to what people were thinking due to negative examples in western countries (eastern europeans comitting more crimes etc.). Well if this would be your argument, than i would tell you it’s the same situation with the refugees. Due to some negative examples of extremist muslims, this is the most widespread idea about them. It’s extremely hypocrite for germans, french or brits of whom many considers romanians criminals, thieves and rapists (you are probably familiar with “scheiss rumaenen, verdammte diebe” etc.) to ask us to welcome refugees and give them more rights than we enjoy in europe. What do i mean by “more rights”? Well, you are probably familiar that when i want to cross the border to Hungary (on my way to Germany for example :D ) i need to be identified and checked at the border. I don’t just jump over a fence. So why should these refugees have the right to come to romania if they refuse the legal way? (getting identified and registered). How do you expect romanians, who most of us still remember the time when austrian borderguards would make you empty the trunk of your car all over the bordercrossing parking lot, make you open your bags and show them your socks (before Hungary joined the Schengen area and Romania the EU…that was not such a long time ago), and now we should accept the austrians when they say “oh, these poor refugees, we love them and welcome them…you need to take them in”. Of course this is unfamiliar to you, but you need to understand that in the eyes of many romanians this is nothing more or less than hypocrisy.
– let’s cool down for a moment and take a look at the whole picture. Why do refugees need to break laws? Why do they need to jump over fences and force themselves into countries? Why do they need shout out that they want their rights, without even asking what their obligations are? Why do they need to pay (many of them, of course not all..) thousands of euros for smugglers to get them into Europe? Desperation is not an excuse. They could get refugee in countries such as Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc., and maybe then perform all legal actions in order to get the refugee status in an EU country. Why do they opt for the more dangerous and costly option? Isn’t the whole point that they didn’t feel safe and lost everything in their own country? Then why would they endanger themselves and most of all THEIR CHILDREN and why would they spend huge amounts of money (you probably know that in Romania thousands of euros is what an average person earns in a year) to get as quickly as possible to Germany, even if they know what they are going is illegal? I think it would have been more beneficial for them to go through the legal procedures and become refugees legally, not by force.
– again, try to be objective for a second, and try to understand what most romanians experience and have experienced when traveling europe. First of all, what really painted a great picture are cities like Paris or London. And if you want to tell me that SOME muslims in these don’t try to enforce Sharia law and refuse to live by european values and laws, then you’re a liar or just simply blind. I have personally experienced streets being closed down in Paris for muslim prayers, some pakistani (or maybe other ethnicity) restaurant owner in London shouting at us out for asking them if they had pork (it’s wasn’t on purpose, we just simply asked because my father fancies pork. It wasn’t an arabic restaurant either, at least by the looks of it) and of course there’s Venice, where some street merchants who seemed northern african shouted at us in some arabic language for looking at their fake Gucci bags and not buying any. Of course, these are isolated cases and probably the exception, but you must understand that exactly like romanians are coined as thieves and beggars when they visit western countries, they do the same to muslims. Why? Because it’s unfair and again hypocrite to ask a nation you stereotype as thieves and beggars to not put stereotypes on other nations. That’s just a double standard.
This is probably why many eastern europeans don’t want to accept refugees. It’s kind of a “Screw you, you barely wanted or want us but want us to accept refugees who clearly state that they want to go to Germany?” The wheel turns…round and round :)
PS. best regards, if you ever think you want a debate on this matter “face to face” we can go grab a beer anytime. We can even talk in german.
I don’t see how anti-Romanian racism is an excuse for anti-Arab racism. I would think that the lesson is that all racism is dumb and unjustified.
Your suggestion that refugees who try to flee a brutal dictatorship should go to other brutal dictatorships is also cute. It defies the purpose of asylum law.
By your logic, any place where breaking the law is not allowed is a dictatorship. The fact that you call the countries i’ve enumerated dictatorships just shows how ignorant you are and how far you would go to insult entire nations or countries just to feel satisfied that you are right…well be it…Turkey is an awful dictatorship, so is Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Targu-Mures and Romania in general, the only real democracy is Germany where as long as something is “politically correct” it doesn’t matter if it’s immoral, illegal or whatever. Truth be told, in this case i’m glad i live in a dictatorship.
Also, you are right…the lesson for romanians and eastern europeans should be that racism and xenophobia is dumb and unjustified, but that’s not something you can plant in peoples heads in a matter of days. It takes years and sometimes even generations to get rid of these feeling. By the looks of it i’d say you are probably one of those who hates Russia no matter what, because they are brutal tyrants, which is OK, but brings up the fact that no matter how hard you try, you can’t just get over some experiences (in this case the whole USSR thing, cold war etc.)
No, I actually don’t hate anything or anyone.
Am crezut ca ma abtin dar nu pot.
Sunt german, ca dl. Moser, vorbitor de lb. romana.
Tesa: Toti arabi sunt teroristi, sharia-isti si vor sa ne taie capul – asa cum toti romani sunt tigani.
Asta se numeste generalizarea si in nici un fel nu este bine, nu exista alb si negru, exista numai milioane si milioane de feluri de gri…
O seara faina tuturor.
There is a saying “Daca taceai, filosof ramaneai.” Or it is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Your comments and insults revealed that you are an infatuated ignorant, clueless about what an immigrant and what a refugee is, unable to discern the nuances between “NOT WELCOMING” and “REJECTING THE IMPOSED”, oblivious with regard to world affairs and international law.
You say that: “The only “different cultural level” I can see is that most Syrians and other people from the Middle East don’t make crass generalizations like that”
Because your simpleton mind cannot comprehend the differences, that does not mean they are not there! Here are just couple of FACTS about Syria and its population:
Illiteracy rate is tenfolds of the one in EU.
Like Jordan and Iraq, Syria also has family law based largely on Sharia.
Polygamy is legal, many man have more than one wife.
While legal age should be 16-17, Syrian children can be and are forced “legally” into marriages by obtaining the blessing of religious leaders.
13% of girls under 18 in Syria, were married in 2011 (this was before the crisis began). Statistics gotten worse, since.
SIGI discriminatory family code 2014 for Syria: Very High.
Cousin marriage is a big thing! In some communities the paternal cousin (ibn ‘amm) has the RIGHT to marry a girl.
Article 3 of the 1973 Syrian constitution declares Islamic jurisprudence, one of Syria’s main sources of legislation.
The Personal Status Law 59 of 1953 (amended by Law 34 of 1975) is essentially a codified Sharia law.
The Code of Personal Status is applied to Muslims by Sharia courts. In Sharia courts, a woman’s testimony is worth only half of a man’s.
The book Thomas Collelo, ed. Syria: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987. reveals the following (sometimes debatable) observations about the country (compiled by countrystudies):
Women are viewed as weaker than men in mind, body, and spirit and therefore in need of male protection, particularly protection from nonrelated men.
Syrian life centers on the extended family. The individual’s loyalty to his family is nearly absolute and usually overrides all other obligations.
Although status is changing within the emerging middle class, ascribed rather than achieved status still regulates the average Syrian’s life.
Syrians employed in modern bureaucratic positions, such as government officials, therefore find impersonal impartiality difficult because its conflicts with the deeply held value of family solidarity.
Syrians have no similar ingrained feelings of loyalty toward a job, an employer, a coworker, or even a friend. There is widespread conviction that the only reliable people are one’s kinsmen.
An officeholder tends to select his kinsmen as fellow workers or subordinates because he feels a sense of responsibility for them and trusts them.
Commercial establishments are largely family operations staffed by the offspring and relatives of the owner. Cooperation among business firms may be determined by the presence or absence of kinship ties between the heads of firms.
Ideally one should marry within one’s lineage. The son or daughter of one’s father brother, i.e., one’s first cousin, is considered the most appropriate mate. Particularly among the beduin, such marriages occur frequently.
In some communities, the male cousin has a presumptive right to marry his female patrilineal first cousin and may be paid by another suitor to release her from this obligation. In towns, marriage between cousins is common among both the wealthiest and the poorest groups. In large metropolitan centers, however, the custom is breaking down, especially among the middle class.
Traditionally, in both Muslim and Christian marriages, the groom or his family must pay a bride price or mahr to the bride or her family. The bride price can be extremely high; it is not unusual for a middle class family to demand of the groom the equivalent of several years salary as the price of marriage to their daughter.
Marriage is usually customarily arranged.
According to sharia, a man may summarily divorce his wife simply by pronouncing the talaka, or repudiation, three times, although it is far more difficult for a wife to divorce her husband.
Except in the small, urban, Westernized segment of society, the spheres of men and women tend to be strictly separated, and little friendship or companionship exists between the sexes.
In the case of a discovered transgression, the men of a family were traditionally bound to kill the offending woman, although in modern times she is more likely to be banished to a town or city where she is not known.
There is no evidence that urbanization per se has lessened the importance of the concept of honor to the Syrian.
Failure to produce sons may be used as grounds for divorcing a wife or taking a second.
No difference, ignoramus?????!!
As you stated, you base your opinion on anecdotal experience, you get your information by traveling and speaking to people… No need to read, riiiiiight? ;)
Maybe if sometimes you were to make an effort to inform yourself, you would know that the “cultural gap” is a thing discussed in courts. You probably deny it, because you are just clueless dolt. You are like an ostrich: if you don’t see it, it certainly does not exist! It is OK to be dull, but why insult others? Your vain self regards your opinion as valid above all others?
Recently, a Canadian Appeal Court ruled that is wrong to assume that cultural differences are a mitigating factor when one performs “legal” things under just Sharia law, like raping the wife, beating the children.
As the previous poster said, there is no universal stereotype. The are many great people from that region, maybe even the very-wast majority, and they would be great additions to western societies. As our doctors leave, we would be lucky to welcome those who attended school here or other skilled individuals. It is entirely possible, you only met these kind of people due to sampling and selection bias (highly unlikely that the illiterate polygam attends UMF, or travels the world, and you had a chance to meet him or if you were to meet an ISIS terrorist, you would not be here posting stupid, uninformed rants). The problem is that your are obtuse, unable to realise that personal experience does not equate absolute truth, and there is more to the global picture! There are also problematic people from there, with severe issues, yes, many times associated with their cultural background, which you even fail to realise it exists!
What is you problem with sovereign communities, that similarly to every other sovereign entities, wishes to screen the immigrants it receives? Who protests against imposed, unconditional acceptance of unscreened mass of immigrants? How dare you call them racist and xenophobe? By your severely flawed logic, the USA is xenophobe for rejecting so many immigrant and even short-term VISA applications, the Schengen zone is xenophobe for not letting us in and actually imposing conditions and usually the world is wrong, for imposing conditions upon immigration!
“Mai rau decat un prost lenes e un prost cu initiativa!” So try to just chill and enjoy the beautiful town ;)
It’s not “screening immigrants” when one proclaims them to be culturally inferior per se.
I still don’t get all this talk about alleged shariah law. It’s not like Syrians voted for this. Syria is a dictatorship and that’s one reason to flee it. By your logic, every Romanian refugee was a communist until 1989 because they came from a communist country.
Also, you overstate the importance of some ancient rules. It would be like saying that all Christians are brutal and intolerant murderers based on the Old Testament of the Bible. Most people from the Middle East have the same respect for shariah as Catholics have for the Codex Iuris Canonici: zero, if they even know about it.
Lastly, someone else’s xenophobia really isn’t a very good reason for your own.
Hm, I suspect you have a severe reading comprehesion disability… Who is talking about refugees? Not the mayor, not me, not the others. We are talking about immigrants. Are you able to process the huge difference?
So the proper analogy is the immigrants after 1989, before we entered EU. Yes, the Romanian immigrants were screened, those who probably held a good promise to the foreign communities were accepted, some of them were rejected, the process was not always fair and flawless, business as usual! The illegal immigrants were arrested, deported.
Choosing what immigrants you accept, is not xenophobia, it is a basic right of a community. Waving that right (like migration inside EU) is an exception, not the rule! That is why you just can’t go settle wherever you want in this world! What is so difficult to understand?
It is not only about sharia law, that is just one different aspect. You did not read the rest?
Who proclaimed them “to be culturally inferior per se”? That is only in your head. Where did I say that??
As opposed to you, I don’t see the world in black and white. I stated that most of them are nice people, they are welcomed. I read the stories of doctors, lawyers, students. I hope they can rebuild their life here! You seem unable to grasp that some might call for a balanced approach. Your dichotomous mind perceives that if somebody says NOT ALL immigrants should be accepted unconditionally, he means NONE of them should be accepted, ever. False. There are nuances: all, not all, big number, moderate number, not a large number, only few, very few, none. You only perceive ALL, and you default everything else to the other extreme, NONE.
Fact: we don’t agree with a large number of imposed, unfiltered immigrants.
Your feebleminded conclusion: Boooo, we are not welcoming anyone!
Assume everybody is good? This does not solve the problem that the minority who come screaming “death to the infidels”, believes deeply in Sharia law, think of their wives as property, endanger their children by throwing them over the fences, throw fellow immigrants into the sea to drown because they are not muslim, don’t want to accept that here you can only have one wife, consider that it is OK to rape women if they don’t cover themselves properly, that there are new rules you have to follow, refuse to adapt, register and follow the laws of the land, have a history of war crimes etc. must be filtered and kept out! It is not about race, religion, colour of skin. My opinion is the same about other bozos also. If an old-testament zealot is coming, whom would like to enforce death penalty upon gay people by stone-throwing, or would like to kill muslims, ban women to wear clothes from two types of fabric etc., should also be kept out!
These kind of people exists, even if you did not meet them, yet. As I told you, personal experience is not enough. You just don’t know about them, because you are ignorant, gather your information by “speaking to people”. You could learn something by that way also… sadly, you also disregard opinions you don’t like quickly. But a fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion…
No, I don’t have a reading comprehension disability (that would be hard to reconcile with my CV, wouldn’t it?), but I don’t read long, repetitive sermons by people who don’t even use their real names.
Hmm, maybe when you have been challenged, and factually proven wrong on many counts, it is easier to claim, you did not read, than admit you were wrong, or defend you statements?
Or you truly didn’t read (and tried to learn, have a conversation). But then why did you reply? Ah, I already provided the answer. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. You never read it, never understand what I wrote, but you keep rambling on… Thanks for admitting at least this part :)
Now you could admit that you are clueless about the immigration topic.
Your appeal to authority, CV, does contribute 0. Nada! There are many people with “good” CV who don’t understand basic issues. You are not alone :)
tl; dr;
Just tackle the raised issues, tell us:
1) Where did you see somebody proclaiming the immigrants “to be culturally inferior per se”?
2) Why do you keep rambling about refugees when the conversation was from the start about immigrants?
3) Why did you falsely wrote that the mayor was speaking about refugees?
4) Why did you dimwittedly extrapolated, that not accepting unconditionally, a large number of imposed, unscreened immigrants, means that we are xenophobe, not welcoming people?
Why all the personal insults, fired off from behind a screen of anonymity?
What is wrong with pointing out that you are clueless in certain topics, make unfounded extrapolations, IF I also factually back up my assertions, show where and why you were mistaken?
You did the opposite, insulted us without having any factual support. You lied to the world about what the mayor was speaking about, what he said, you insinuated that we are xenophobe.
Just in your latest blog post, you are ignorant how the ice bucket challenge helped raise not only money, but also tremendously boosted awareness of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis disease. It would have only taken you to read the first to lines of the wikipedia entry to realise, it is not only about the money, it is also about raising awareness. Just like with marathons. I don’t go there and post and scold you because your ignorance is harmless. That is not the issue in this case. I feel that I have to argue because you are spreading FUD, disseminating negative and false information about us. Probably, I cannot convince you, but if somebody will take the time to read and digest the comments, will realise that you misinformed, they will realise that you are prone to put words in other people mouths, that you write replies and state opinions to matters you do not read and thus certainly don’t comprehend.
The ideas expressed by the mayor are along the lines:
1. Naturally, REFUGEES deserve a safe place, better life.
2. Europe mistake (economic) immigrants with refugees.
3. Spending big on immigrants is hypocrite and an excess (when your own people are in need).
4. Accepting a large number of immigrants will cause problems, because of cultural differences.
5. Romania has to many problems to be able to cope with an IMPOSED quota of immigrants, whom we don’t have the right to filter, must accept all of them.
You misinformed on the following lines:
1. You lied that the mayor has referring to refugees, while the truth is he was speaking about immigrants.
2. You asserted that the cultural differences does not exist, which is not true.
3. You extrapolated and insinuated that our town is xenophobic, we don’t welcome anybody, when the topic was clearly about an imposed quota of immigrants we have no right to screen and reject.
About your statements:
“But probably it only went that well because I am white, from Germany and because people don’t know I am atheist.” – FUD, this does not follow from the text in any way.
“Dorin Florea, has now proclaimed that people who are (assumed to be) a little bit different are not welcome in this town. ” – fabrication, he never proclaimed that. He was speaking about an imposed number of immigrants, we have no right to reject.
“Mr Florea calls the welcoming of refugees” – lie, he speaks about immigrants.
“The only “different cultural level” I can see” – you cannot see it, but it exist, see the many listed facts.
“I am particularly angry about this open display of racism and xenophobia” – accepting and rejecting immigrants on a case by case basis, is a basic right of a community, not xenophobe or racist.
What is your problem with anonymity? Factual assertions, observations stand on their own, judge and refute them on their merit, not according to the CV of the person issuing them.
Târgu Mureș, where the mayor is #xenophobic and #racist #immigration #refugee #crisis #Romania – well done Andreas Moser – calling it like it is – ignore that haters – if you need PSD let us know #FOC :)
Thank you very much!!
It’s generally a peaceful place here, so I think I can do without the protection. Maybe when I will be in Mexico. ;-)
Absolutely buddy – I worked for Banamex, Bital and Cemex in Mexico City and Panama in the 90s – just give me two weeks notice and I will get you sorted P.S don’t take a blue cab – ever :)
@alex – emotions run high in all of these matters – but a modicum of context in the form of researching a subject before making sweeping and aggressive generalisations would be advisable. Always I find it difficult to take contributors seriously who allow their emotions drive the use of foul language – also you should be more circumspect regarding the content of your postings in an age when legislation regading online hate speech is being ratified and there are elements of your “contributions” that might one day result in you having to publicly defend your statements – and in that case you will not be able to hide behind an anonymous / fake moniker #peace fucker :) – P.S. the use of “fucker was meant to be ironic in teh context of my comments above just in case your intellect does not extend far enough to clock that.
I dropped in a few typos and spelling errors just to level the playing field a wee bit