I just became familiar with a new name in journalism. Lydia Polgreen is a columnist for the NYT which she joined about a year ago–so I guess I was behind the Times in not knowing of her previously. That’s not a very good joke but it will be the only one in this column. This is a decidedly unfunny subject.

About a week or so ago Lydia did a column on the brutalities she had seen and heard about in Africa, and particularly at the Ethiopian Saudi-border. These included the wanton slaughter of thousands, many of them children, and such non-military actions such as forcing teenage boys, at gunpoint, to rape girls. So here are a few thoughts,.

First of all, a little background, but only a little. I’m not going to weigh you(or me, for that matter)down with extreme detail. On the question of why people are fleeing Ethiopia, the answers come down to mistreatment of women, mistreatment of different ethnic groups, and poverty along with lack of opportunity. It looks better about anywhere else including, apparently, Saudi Arabia. The whole thing sounds like the explanations we some times hear about why people are leaving Latin America to come here to an often unwelcome greeting and an uncertain future.

Saudi Arabia is even more complicated. There’s been a depressing series of government changes, rebellions and fighting for the better part of a decade now in neighboring Yemen. I’ll not go into detail but it comes down to a struggle between Sunni and Shiite Saudis and Yemenis and what amounts to a civil war in Yemen. It’s a part of the old Shiite-Sunni quarrel, but more complicated than just that. Nonetheless, many Ethiopian women keep trying to get to SA despite its constant interference in the Yemeni mess and the high level of violence and danger in both of these unhappy countries.

Lydia asks the question then about all the richer countries, African, European or whatever. Where do we go from here? And she points out that the willingness to use harsh, sometimes deadly methods of keeping people from moving is on its way to becoming accepted. This includes, to some extent the Western Europe Big Three, the UK, France and Germany, and of course, the US with its nightmare on the southern border. :”There appears to be no limit to the cruelty that will be done in the name of keeping out people whom rich countries deem undesirable,” Lydia writes.

She says that this policy of cruelty has been set mainly by the west and offers examples, some of which seem uncomfortably close to proving her point. She ends with a compliment for Joe Biden for what he said and she thinks he means about these matters, and regret at what circumstances have forced him to do or refrain from. She states that this century looks like being nasty, brutish and long.(This is a take-off an the words of 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes who famously wrote that without strong authority to keep order in a state, life would be “nasty, brutish and short.”

To a larger degree than some, certainly, I agree with Lydia’s column. The cruelties she mentions are insupportable by any civilized spiritual, philosophical or political standard and in opposition to just about every political/social thinker of whom we have heard. Nonetheless. there is another aspect of this which is more or less implied in her article but perhaps not addressed as directly as it might have been; and that is just how the richer countries are to deal with this hideous problem.

The US has, of course, tried different ways. Some states, particularly TX, have simply bussed them to far away cities(Washington, New York, etc)to get rid of them. This has had good results at times, but only seldom do they get anything really good–a welcome from friends or relatives already here, for example. New York has had over 100,000 arrive and over half of them are still there. Because of their race, yes, but more because of the culture, languages, and the fact that most of them have no legitimate way of earning money, they are an additional pressure in a big city and which is not inexhaustible in its ability to absorb people. Other large US cities have similar difficulties though NYC may have the worst one.

All of us have, I think, read and heard of some of the horrifying incidents in Europe as people try to get into countries, mostly Mediterranean ones, from Southwest Asia or North Africa. Thousands of people have made this journey in recent years and many failed to survive the trip. Of course, once they arrived, they were often not welcome. It is difficult to get accurate, recent information on this on-line, but the picture in both the US and Europe is mostly not an attractive one.

As stated, I mostly agree with Lydia’s column and I seriously condemn the practices that have made this journey one that ended the lives of some immigrants and led to a situation of something near imprisonment and poverty for others. But I also note this. Many European countries have troubles, but they are mostly manageable ones, at least west of Ukraine. Some of these countries rank high on lists of places where residents are better off(happier and more secure if not wealthier, I’d guess)according to studies and interviews.

It is not entirely unreasonable for them to object to a huge influx of outsiders who will likely bring instability, possibly including poverty and violence. Not many Europeans still remember World War II but most of them have heard about it from their parents and/or grandparents and they realize what Europe was for awhile and what is was that it escaped. They are not likely to want to replace a previous generation’s violence and instability with a different kind of their own.

As far as I know the only really successful immigration of a large number of people from another culture to a European country was the Turkish-German one after WWII. Actually, some Turks had been migrating there for years or even centuries, but the big push came after the war when the Germans were having their “economic miracle” recovery from the destruction their country had known. A lot of Turks were anxious to go somewhere where they might get good jobs and pay and responded to the opportunity. The Germans needed workers so in the 1950’s and 1960’s they flocked there.

There were some cultural conflicts and not all went well. But over time the Turks seemed to settle in to being a minority group, the largest one in the country. They did not have full legal equality for some time, and many still do not, but this was slowly worked on by the German government with some difficulty but also with diligence which seems to have paid off at least partly.

It would be wrong to say everything worked well from the beginning. It hasn’t. There was racism and resentment in the early 1960’s when the first large numbers began arriving. There still is in some places and some situations. But by and large it seems to have worked. There are now 3rd generation German-Turks who seem glad to be where they are. Not all of them are entirely happy. Less than half of the three million German-Turks have full citizenship and some still feel that they don’t belong. Many are pulled in two directions, emotionally, and feel both German and Turkish. But given the difficulties inherent in the situation it sounds to me as if this has worked fairly well. It is certainly hugely better than the violent and sad mess we see today in so many places including the US.

It appears that one thing that helped was education. As the Turks became better educated they fit in better–not a surprise. Also, and partly as a result of that, obviously, they did better financially. They were an asset to the German economy not a drag on it(this has varied some, I believe, from time to time, but appears to be largely true).

So, what does this mean today? Nothing easy, unfortunately. Obviously the European countries cannot take a huge mass of poorly educated people, most of whom speak the language poorly if at all, and start educating them. Obviously they can’t start most of them in good jobs that will make them feel at home and be treated as if they belong. But a start needs to be make.

Now I have not given this question a lot of thought or study. I imagine there are some efforts along this line going on already. My suggestion is simply that they use what happened with the German-Turks as a guide and possibly an inspiration. Language classes and instruction into how to fit into the culture would seem to be the first thing. Real education should not be far behind. I do not mean to say that I think this will be quick and easy. It may well be difficult and take much longer than anyone wants. The German-Turkish situation involved essentially two cultures and two languages. Now there are many cultures and a large number of languages.

This all will take time and patience and, yes, some money. But I trust this or something like it could be done. Given the current state of affairs–climate change around the world, political instability in southwest Asia and who-knows-what in Russia–it needs to be done, not just to relive the pain of these many migrant peoples but in the interests of the entire world. We are all in this together and are likely to succeed or fail in it that way.

Oh, yes, and the US might study the situation too. It’s possible we could implement something like the German-Turkish situation here. Like them we have basically two cultures ,Latin American and North American, to deal with and two languages. English and Spanish. We also have a big mess facing our society. This will require cooperation including cooperation between our two parties and between 2 colors–red and blue. I hope this society is ready.