Monday April 18, 2005

Constitutional treaty - no, non and nee?

• Posted by Rob (#1) on April 18, 2005 06:41 CEST

On SamizData (an excellent read for Anglosphere enthousiasts like me I should say), Perry de Havilland points out a shared sentiment of free market Brits and the French left: saying no to the constitutional treaty of the European Union. I'm personally on the side of those who think the EU is a behemoth capable of squashing enterprises with legislation. But according to The Telegraph, the French have a different reason for rejecting the treaty:

In France, one of the most infamous phrases in the draft Constitution is one that has caused barely a ripple in Britain. It is found in Article I-3, and calls for a European internal market "where competition is free and undistorted". Just reciting it at a French "No" rally is enough to provoke boos and hissing.

Perry fears that a French no would only cause Brussels to compensate by making the treaty more likeable to French socialists and that only a British no could actually shake the foundations of the EU. A fair point, and that's unfortunate, as a French no might cancel a British referendum. Therefore I can only hope that my contribution to a Dutch no will then put some essential weight behind the effort to get due representation of freedom thinkers in the EU. After all, unlike what Brussels believes, it is the EU itself that needs reform and not its citizens.

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Casual London

• Posted by Rob (#1) on April 18, 2005 07:15 CEST

Lacking a proper "blogroll" (I hate that non-word!), I'm making a short post listing two casual London-related sites I enjoy reading.

Londonist provides various tidbits in a wide range of categories, offering its readers the chance to go beyond talking about the weather. All collected by a friendly staff with proper writing skills. Much like SFX magazine, what Londonist is always fun to read even when the actual topic of an entry doesn't interest me much.

A topic that does interest me much is the tube and that's where the London Underground Tube Diary by Annie Mole comes in handy. Lots and lots of anecdotes and experiences. Co-writers are none other than Geoff and Neil of Tube Challenge. You know, those blokes who visited all 275 tube stations in less than 19 hours to set a Guinness world record. Certainly beats my attempt, but it should be noted that I was slowed down considerably by requiring half an hour to get an Oyster card. I just could not explain to LT that I was not going to register it. I wanted to, but their bloody forms (both dead tree and on-line versions) don't allow non-UK addresses. Ah, I wanted to get that off my chest for so long now!

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Fewer refugees? Sincere flattery!

• Posted by Rob (#1) on April 18, 2005 17:24 CEST

Doing some research is definitely paying off today: investigating the source of a small news item led me to a recent report of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) called asylum levels and trends in industrialized countries, 2004. The first bullet point gives a good summary of the document:

In 50 industrialized countries, the number of asylum requests fell by 22 per cent, from 508,100 in 2003 to 396,400 in 2004. Since 2001, asylum applications have dropped 40 per cent.

That's obviously not very surprising: immigration laws have been getting a lot stricter since September 11, 2001 and that might have led would-be emigrants to not bother. But what might be surprising to some are the conclusion that can be drawn from comparing generic numbers to some of the more specific ones in item 29 on the list:

The number of asylum-seekers from Afghanistan and Iraq, until recently the main countries of origin of asylum-seekers in the industrialized countries, continued to drop sharply in 2004. Since 2001, the number of Afghan asylum applications has fallen by 83 per cent. Similarly, the number of Iraqi asylum-seekers have decreased by 80 percent since 2002.

That's a mighty big decrease of applications for areas supposedly in quagmire. And slighty unflattering if you hold the quote "No matter what other nations may say about the United States, immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery." to be true. Maybe it used to be, but after the terrorist attacks came the Anglosphere, NATO, coalition of the willing or war hawks for all I care, implementing the Bush doctrine. Giving the people of Iraq and Afghanistan new hope, making them eager to stay in their home country, causing a decline in asylum requests.

So I believe that our efforts justify a paraphrasing: a decline of asylum-seekers is the sincerest form of flattery. It's still great that people from all over the world flee towards the Anglosphere for freedom, but it's even better that to obtain freedom in some countries fleeing is no longer necessary.

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