Wanting to Preserve Your Way of Life Does Not Make You Racist or Fascist

I have been trying to find the language to express my discomfort with the presumption that anyone who does not welcome very large numbers of refugees into Europe with widely opened arms is somehow resurrecting the ghost of Hitler. Or the right language to express the proscribed thought that those in Eastern Europe who want to settle only Christian refugees might have appropriate reservations about the very real difficulties of integrating very different cultural and religious practices into their distinct way of life.

According to the OECD, Europe is expected to receive up to 1 million asylum applications this year. The European Union's 500 million-strong population can surely absorb such numbers that may be small in the overall frame. But many communities are impacted in a concentrated way. By most accounts, today's refugees from the savagely war-torn Middle East or Africa are looking for a permanent place, preferably in Germany -- which expects 800,000 applicants this year -- or Sweden, to plant their future.

I have found that language not on my own tongue, but through the words of the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, famous for his provocative stance that we should engage in "obscene solidarity" instead of patronizing "political correctness" that tip toes around hard realities by using "pretty language."

But before I get to Žižek, let me take a detour that lays the ground of what we mean -- or at least what we have meant historically -- by cultural pluralism.

A member of global civic organization Avaaz wearing a caricature head of France's Hollande performs a satirical sketch related to welcoming refugees. JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images.

Some years ago I published a conversation with the great pluralist thinker Isaiah Berlin in the New York Review of Books entitled "Two Concepts of Nationalism." In that discussion we addressed the attachment to one's way of life as the very stuff of cultural pluralism that liberal civilization is meant to protect.

After examining aggressive nationalism of the kind we associate with Nazism that results from the wounds of humiliation -- "like a bent twig, forced down so severely that when released, it lashes back with fury" in Berlin's phrase -- we spoke about "non-aggressive nationalism." Here is what Berlin said:

Nonaggressive nationalism is another story entirely. I trace the beginning of that idea to the highly influential 18th-century philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder.

Herder virtually invented the idea of belonging. He believed that just as people need to eat and drink, to have security and freedom of movement, so too they need to belong to a group. Deprived of this, they feel cut off, lonely, diminished, unhappy. Nostalgia, Herder said, is the noblest of all pains. To be human means to be able to feel at home somewhere, with your own kind.

Each group, according to Herder, has its own Volksgeist -- a set of customs and a lifestyle, a way of perceiving and behaving that is of value solely because it is their own. The whole of cultural life is shaped from within the particular stream of tradition that comes from collective historical experience shared only by members of the group.

Thus one could not, for example, fully understand the great Scandinavian sagas unless one had oneself experienced (as he did on his voyage to England) a great tempest in the North Sea. Herder's idea of nation was deeply nonaggressive. All he wanted was cultural self-determination. He denied the superiority of one people over another. Anyone who proclaimed it was saying something false. Herder believed in a variety of national cultures, all of which could, in his view, peacefully coexist.

Each culture was equal in value and deserved its place in the sun. The villains of history for Herder were the great conquerors, such as Alexander the Great, Caesar, or Charlemagne, because they stamped out native cultures.

Only what was unique had true value. This was why Herder also opposed the French universalists of the Enlightenment. For him there were few timeless truths: time and place and social life -- what came to be called civil society -- were everything.

. . . In Herder, there is nothing about race and nothing about blood. He only spoke about soil, language, common memories, and customs.

Berlin then went on to express his own views:

Like Herder, I regard cosmopolitanism as empty. People can't develop unless they belong to a culture. Even if they rebel against it and transform it entirely, they still belong to a stream of tradition. New streams can be created -- in the West, by Christianity, or Luther, or the Renaissance, or the Romantic movement -- but in the end they derive from a single river, an underlying central tradition, which, sometimes, in radically altered forms, survives.

But if the streams dry up, as for instance, where men and women are not products of a culture, where they don't have kith and kin and feel closer to some people than to others, where there is no native language -- that would lead to a tremendous desiccation of everything that is human.

Enter Žižek:

"One of the great Left taboos," he writes, "will have to be broken here: the notion that the protection of one's specific way of life is in itself a proto-Fascist or racist category. If we don't abandon this notion, we open up the way for the anti-immigrant wave which thrives all around Europe."

In this regard, one should note that the largest party in Sweden today in the wake of the refugee crisis, according to polls, is the anti-immigrant Democrat Party.

A poster depicts Merkel wearing a veil during a demonstration of the Legida anti Islamization movement, an offshoot of Pegida. AP Photo/Jens Meyer.

Žižek continues:

The standard Left-liberal reaction to this is, of course, an explosion of arrogant moralism: The moment we give any credence to the "protection of our way of life" motif, we already compromise our position, since we propose a more modest version of what anti-immigrant populists openly advocate. Is this not the story of last decades? Centrist parties reject the open racism of anti-immigrant populists, but they simultaneously profess to "understand the concerns" of ordinary people and enact a more "rational" version of the same politics.

While there is a kernel of truth in these moralistic complaints that Europe has lost empathy and is indifferent towards the suffering of others, Žižek argues that this is "merely the obverse of the anti-immigrant brutality":

Both stances share the presupposition, which is in no way self-evident, that a defense of one's own way of life excludes ethical universalism. One should thus avoid getting caught into the liberal game of "how much tolerance can we afford." Should we tolerate if they prevent their children going to state schools, if they arrange marriages of their children, if they brutalize gays among their ranks? At this level, of course, we are never tolerant enough, or we are always already too tolerant, neglecting the rights of women, etc. The only way to break out of this deadlock is to move beyond mere tolerance or respect of others to a common struggle.

Žižek then proceeds to the proper framing of Europe's refugee crisis:

One must thus broaden the perspective: Refugees are the price of global economy. In our global world, commodities circulate freely, but not people: new forms of apartheid are emerging. The topic of porous walls, of the threat of being inundated by foreigners, is strictly immanent to global capitalism, it is an index of what is false about capitalist globalization. While large migrations are a constant feature of human history, their main cause in modern history are colonial expansions: Prior to colonization, the Global South mostly consisted of self-sufficient and relatively isolated local communities. It was colonial occupation and slave trading that threw this way of life off the rails and renewed large-scale migrations.

Then he draws the lesson from this new reality:

The main lesson to be learned is therefore that humankind should get ready to live in a more "plastic" and nomadic way: Rapid local and global changes in environment may require unheard-of, large-scale social transformations. One thing is clear: National sovereignty will have to be radically redefined and new levels of global cooperation invented. And what about the immense changes in economy and conservation due to new weather patterns or water and energy shortages? Through what processes of decision will such changes be decided and executed? A lot of taboos will have to be broken here, and a set of complex measures undertaken.

And the solutions:

First, Europe will have to reassert its full commitment to provide means for the dignified survival of the refugees. There should be no compromise here: Large migrations are our future, and the only alternative to such commitment is a renewed barbarism (what some call "clash of civilizations").

Second, as a necessary consequence of this commitment, Europe should organize itself and impose clear rules and regulations. State control of the stream of refugees should be enforced through a vast administrative network encompassing all of the European Union (to prevent local barbarisms like those of the authorities in Hungary or Slovakia). Refugees should be reassured of their safety, but it should also be made clear to them that they have to accept the area of living allocated to them by European authorities, plus they have to respect the laws and social norms of European states: No tolerance of religious, sexist or ethnic violence on any side, no right to impose onto others one's own way of life or religion, respect of every individual's freedom to abandon his/her communal customs, etc. If a woman chooses to cover her face, her choice should be respected, but if she chooses not to cover it, her freedom to do so has to be guaranteed. Yes, such a set of rules privileges the Western European way of life, but it is a price for European hospitality. These rules should be clearly stated and enforced, by repressive measures (against foreign fundamentalists as well as against our own anti-immigrant racists) if necessary.

Clearly, the world of Herder's enclosed volksgeist, which still lives on in the reticent souls of those Europeans uneasy with the "plastic" reality of globalization, must give way to the world of Žižek. But in the transition, let's be careful not to affix a politically correct label to the nostalgia that authentically worries about "desiccation of everything that is human" as something other than it is.

Earlier on WorldPost:

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• Migrants walk down a slope on their way to cross the Greek-Macedonian border near the vilage of Idomeni, northern Greece, on 4 September, 2015. Europe is facing an 'unprecedented humanitarian and political crisis' as it struggles with the huge influx of refugees and migrants, the European Commission's vice-president Frans Timmermans said Thursday. 'We must find European responses to a problem that cannot be resolved by countries individually,' Timmermans said ahead of talks with Greek Prime Minister Vassiliki Thanou on a crisis that has seen more than 230,000 people land on Greek shores this year. AFP PHOTO /Sakis Mitrolidis (Photo credit should read SAKIS MITROLIDIS/AFP/Getty Images)

• Migrants raise hands to catch bottles of waters given by volunteers of humanitarian organizations as they wait to cross the Greek-Macedonian border near the vilage of Idomeni, northern Greece, on 4 September, 2015. Europe is facing an 'unprecedented humanitarian and political crisis' as it struggles with the huge influx of refugees and migrants, the European Commission's vice-president Frans Timmermans said Thursday. 'We must find European responses to a problem that cannot be resolved by countries individually,' Timmermans said ahead of talks with Greek Prime Minister Vassiliki Thanou on a crisis that has seen more than 230,000 people land on Greek shores this year. AFP PHOTO /Sakis Mitrolidis (Photo credit should read SAKIS MITROLIDIS/AFP/Getty Images)

• Turkish soldiers prevent a journalist from crossing the Turkey-Syrian border post in Sanliurfa, on September 4, 2015, prior to the arrival of the hearse carrying the body of three-year old Aylan Kurdi , whose lifeless body washed ashore on a Turkish beach. Images of the toddler Aylan whose lifeless body washed ashore on a Turkish beach spread like wildfire through social media and his plight has dominated international headlines, in a heart-rending symbol of the mortal risks faced by tens of thousands of refugees desperate to reach Europe by sea. AFP PHOTO / OZAN KOSE (Photo credit should read OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images)

• People shout slogans outside of a train that was stopped in Bicske, Hungary, Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. Over 150,000 migrants have reached Hungary this year, most coming through the southern border with Serbia. Many apply for asylum but quickly try to leave for richer EU countries. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

• A man holds onto a fence outside a train that was stopped in Bicske, Hungary, Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. Over 150,000 migrants have reached Hungary this year, most coming through the southern border with Serbia. Many apply for asylum but quickly try to leave for richer EU countries. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

• Asylum seekers sleep at Keleti underground railway station in Budapest, Hungary, Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. Over 150,000 people seeking to enter Europe have reached Hungary this year, most coming through the southern border with Serbia, and many apply for asylum but quickly try to leave for richer EU countries. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

• Asylum seekers sleep at Keleti underground railway station in Budapest, Hungary, Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. Over 150,000 people seeking to enter Europe have reached Hungary this year, most coming through the southern border with Serbia, and many apply for asylum but quickly try to leave for richer EU countries. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

• Turkish soldiers take position on a road near the border with Syria as aconvoy of vehicles with Abdullah Kurdi, the Syrian man who survived a capsizing during a desperate voyage from Turkey to Greece has taken the bodies of his wife and two sons back to the Syrian Kurdish region they fled, to bury them in their hometown of Kobani, Syria, drive in Suruc, Turkey, Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. The haunting image of the man's 3-year-old son, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on Turkish beach focused the world's attention on a wave of war-and-deprivation-fueled migration unmatched since World War II.(AP Photos/Emrah Gurel)Turkish soldiers take position on a road near Suruc on the border with Syria as a convoy of vehicles with Abdullah Kurdi, the Syrian man who survived a capsizing during a desperate voyage from Turkey to Greece takes the bodies of his wife and two sons back to the Syrian Kurdish region they fled, to bury them in their hometown of Kobani, Syria. The haunting image of the man's 3-year-old son, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on Turkish beach focused the world's attention on the wave of migration fueled by war and deprivation. (AP Photos/Emrah Gurel)

• People shout slogans outside a train that was stopped in Bicske, Hungary, Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. Over 150,000 migrants have reached Hungary this year, most coming through the southern border with Serbia. Many apply for asylum but quickly try to leave for richer EU countries. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

• Refugees and migrants enter a bus, transporting them to the metro station, after their arrival from the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos to the Athens' port of Piraeus on Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. About 2,500 people arrived with the ferry Eleftherios Venizelos as Greek Government does not seen an end to the flood of refugees and migrants anytime soon with the vast majority of migrants were reaching five eastern Greek islands: with Lesbos seeing 50 percent of arrivals. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

• Migrants grab for food delivered by volunteers as they wait for registration at the reception center for refugees and asylum seekers in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

• Migrants show train tickets as they sit in front of the Keleti (East) railway station in Budapest on September 2, 2015. Hungarian authorities face mounting anger from thousands of migrants who are unable to board trains to western European countries after the main Budapest station was closed. AFP PHOTO / ATTILA KISBENEDEK (Photo credit should read ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images)

• Migrants sit in front of the Keleti (East) railway station in Budapest on September 2, 2015. Hungarian authorities face mounting anger from thousands of migrants who are unable to board trains to western European countries after the main Budapest station was closed. AFP PHOTO / ATTILA KISBENEDEK (Photo credit should read ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images)

• Young migrant shows a train ticket as he sits in front of the Keleti (East) railway station in Budapest on September 2, 2015. Hungarian authorities face mounting anger from thousands of migrants who are unable to board trains to western European countries after the main Budapest station was closed. AFP PHOTO / ATTILA KISBENEDEK (Photo credit should read ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images)

• Migrant boy holds a sign reading 'SOS help me' as he sits with other migrants in front of the Keleti (East) railway station in Budapest on September 2, 2015. Hungarian authorities face mounting anger from thousands of migrants who are unable to board trains to western European countries after the main Budapest station was closed. AFP PHOTO / ATTILA KISBENEDEK (Photo credit should read ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images)

• BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - SEPTEMBER 02 : Migrants protest outside Keleti station which remains closed to them in central Budapest on September 2, 2015 in Budapest, Hungary. Hundreds of migrants protest in front of Budapest's Keleti Railway Terminus for a second straight day on September 2, 2015 demanding to be let onto trains bound for Germany from a station that has been currently closed to them. (Photo by Arpad Kurucz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

• BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - SEPTEMBER 02 : Migrants protest outside Keleti station which remains closed to them in central Budapest on September 2, 2015 in Budapest, Hungary. Hundreds of migrants protest in front of Budapest's Keleti Railway Terminus for a second straight day on September 2, 2015 demanding to be let onto trains bound for Germany from a station that has been currently closed to them. (Photo by Arpad Kurucz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

• BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - SEPTEMBER 03: Migrants board trains in Keleti station after it was reopened this morning in central Budapest on September 3, 2015 in Budapest, Hungary. Although the station has reopened all international trains to Western Europe have been cancelled. According to the Hungarian authorities a record number of migrants from many parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia are crossing the border from Serbia. Since the beginning of 2015 the number of migrants using the so-called Balkans route has exploded with migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey and then travelling on through Macedonia and Serbia before entering the EU via Hungary. The massive increase, said to be the largest migration of people since World War II, led Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban to order Hungary's army to build a steel and barbed wire security barrier along its entire border with Serbia, after more than 100,000 asylum seekers from a variety of countries and war zones entered the country so far this year. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

• IDOMENI, GREECE - SEPTEMBER 02: A Syrian migrant holds her daughter as they wait to be processed across a border crossing into Macedonia for migrants September 2, 2015 in Idomeni, Greece. Since the beginning of 2015 the number of migrants using the so-called 'Balkans route' has exploded with migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey and then travelling on through Macedonia and Serbia before entering the EU via Hungary. The number of people leaving their homes in war torn countries such as Syria, marks the largest migration of people since World War II. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

• GEVGELIJA, MACEDONIA - SEPTEMBER 2: Migrants wait at the Greek-Macedonian border to cross into Macedonia on September 02, 2015 near Gevgelija. (Photo by Ilin Nikolovski/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

• A local resident offers grapes to an Afghan migrant as they sit at Victoria square, Athens, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, where many migrants stay temporarily before continuing their trip to more prosperous European countries. The country has borne the brunt of a massive refugee and migration flow of people heading into the European Union, with more than 200,000 people arriving so far this year. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

• Hungarian policemen guard an entrance to the Keleti Railway Station in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, as hundreds of migrants demanded to be let on trains to Germany. Over 150,000 migrants have reached Hungary this year, most coming through the southern border with Serbia. Many apply for asylum but quickly try to leave for richer EU countries. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

• In this Sept. 1, 2015 (18.37gmt/21.37 local) photo Syrian migrants disembark from the catamaran Terra Jet at the Athens' port of Piraeus. About 1,800 refugees arrived from the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos as the country has been overwhelmed by record numbers of migrants this year. The vast majority of the people are from Syria and Afghanistan reaching from the nearby Turkish coasts and try to cross Balkans and continue to more prosperous European countries. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

• In this Tuesday Sept. 1, 2015 (2:14gmt) photo Syrian refugee Abed Hadi,19, feeds his nephew as he sits with other migrants at the railway tracks waiting to cross the borders from Idomeni town, northern Greece to southern Macedonia. Greece has been overwhelmed by record numbers of migrants this year. Nearly all head to Greece's northern border with Macedonia, cross into Serbia and Hungary and go toward more prosperous European countries. (AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos)

• In this Tuesday, Sept 1. 2015, photo, Red Crescent workers, some wearing protective suits, collect the body of a drowned migrant, who washed up along with several others in Zuwara, Libya (65 miles west of Tripoli) after two smuggling boats sank off the coast of Libya last Thursday. More than 2,000 migrants have drowned this year, including 200 last week, chiefly when trying to reach Italy's southernmost islands from Libya. (AP Photo/Mohamed Ben Khalifa)

• Migrants hold up their train tickets outside the Keleti Railway Station in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015. The station continues to be closed to migrants, other passengers are allowed to enter and trains operate according to schedule. (Zoltan Balogh/MTI via AP)

• Migrants are helped to board on the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship during a rescue operation off the Libyan Coasts, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2015. Four dead bodies and hundreds of migrants were transferred on the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship from an Italian Navy ship and a Doctor Without Borders vessels after being rescued in different operations in the mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

• A young man sleeps in a window as migrants rest near the Keleti Railway Station in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, after police stopped them from getting on trains to Germany. Over 150,000 migrants have reached Hungary this year, most coming through the southern border with Serbia. Many apply for asylum but quickly try to leave for richer EU countries. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

• Migrants charge their mobile phones outside the Keleti Railway Station in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015. The station continues to be closed to migrants, other passengers are allowed to enter and trains operate according to schedule. (Zoltan Balogh/MTI via AP)

• Migrants shout slogans in front of the Keleti Railway Station in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, as hundreds demanded to be let on trains to Germany. Over 150,000 migrants have reached Hungary this year, most coming through the southern border with Serbia. Many apply for asylum but quickly try to leave for richer EU countries. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

• Migrants hold up their train tickets outside the Keleti Railway Station in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015. The station continues to be closed to migrants, other passengers are allowed to enter and trains operate according to schedule. (Zoltan Balogh/MTI via AP)

• GEVGELIJA, MACEDONIA - SEPTEMBER 2: Migrants wait at the Greek-Macedonian border to cross into Macedonia on September 02, 2015 near Gevgelija. (Photo by Ilin Nikolovski/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

• GEVGELIJA, MACEDONIA - SEPTEMBER 2: Migrants cross the Greek-Macedonian border near Gevgelija, Macedonia on September 02, 2015. (Photo by Ilin Nikolovski/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

• GEVGELIJA, MACEDONIA - SEPTEMBER 2: Migrants cross the Greek-Macedonian border near Gevgelija, Macedonia on September 02, 2015. (Photo by Ilin Nikolovski/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

• BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - SEPTEMBER 02: A young Syrian girl holds up a sign as migrants protest outside Keleti station which remains closed to them in central Budapest on September 2, 2015 in Budapest, Hungary. The station was closed yesterday in what was said to be an attempt by the Hungarian government to uphold EU law and restore order after recent choatic scenes at the station as migrants attempted to board trains to other parts of Europe. According to the Hungarian authorities a record number of migrants from many parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia are crossing the border from Serbia. Since the beginning of 2015 the number of migrants using the so-called Balkans route has exploded with migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey and then travelling on through Macedonia and Serbia before entering the EU via Hungary. The massive increase, said to be the largest migration of people since World War II, led Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban to order Hungary's army to build a steel and barbed wire security barrier along its entire border with Serbia, after more than 100,000 asylum seekers from a variety of countries and war zones entered the country so far this year. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

• BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - SEPTEMBER 02: Migrants protest outside Keleti station which remains closed to them in central Budapest on September 2, 2015 in Budapest, Hungary. The station was closed yesterday in what was said to be an attempt by the Hungarian government to uphold EU law and restore order after recent choatic scenes at the station as migrants attempted to board trains to other parts of Europe. According to the Hungarian authorities a record number of migrants from many parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia are crossing the border from Serbia. Since the beginning of 2015 the number of migrants using the so-called Balkans route has exploded with migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey and then travelling on through Macedonia and Serbia before entering the EU via Hungary. The massive increase, said to be the largest migration of people since World War II, led Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban to order Hungary's army to build a steel and barbed wire security barrier along its entire border with Serbia, after more than 100,000 asylum seekers from a variety of countries and war zones entered the country so far this year. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

• Migrants are helped to board on the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship during a migrant search and rescue mission off the Libyan Coasts, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2015. Four dead bodies and hundreds of migrants were transferred on the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship from an Italian Navy ship and a Doctor Without Borders vessel after being rescued in different operations in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

• Migrants crowd the main deck of the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship after being rescued off the Libyan Coasts, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2015. Four dead bodies and hundreds of migrants were transferred on the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship from an Italian Navy ship and a Doctor Without Borders vessels after being rescued in different operation in the Mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

• Migrants are helped to board on the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship during a migrant search and rescue mission off the Libyan Coasts, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2015. Four dead bodies and hundreds of migrants were transferred on the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship from an Italian Navy ship and a Doctor Without Borders vessels after being rescued in different operation in the mediterranean sea. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

• Women from a group of Syrian migrants who refused to board a train to the Debrecen refugee camp gesture as police officers block them on the platform of the Kobanya-Kispest station, Budapest suburb, on September 2, 2015. Hungarian authorities face mounting anger from thousands of migrants who are unable to board trains to western European countries after the main Budapest station was closed. AFP PHOTO / ATTILA KISBENEDEK (Photo credit should read ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images)