Paris attacks

[DanaC]

Lamp's comments were overly harsh, but I see what he means about some of it. I doubt very much that bruce intended his comment to denigrate the syrian refugees - but the implied assumption that, unlike previous waves of refugees, the syrian refugees would be particularly uneducated, unskilled and unable to communicate in english definitely plays into an unpleasant and unfair stereotype.

The majority of those making such a journey are the people with the resources to do so, including access to funds and contacts. The proportion of refugees with higher education and an at one time affluent or middle-class background is much higher than in the general syrian population. Also - probably much higher than in the host communities they go to.

As an aside - we need to stop thinking about radicalism as a disease of the poor and uneducated - it's the other way around now. Look at which young men (and women) are travelling to and from syria pedalling extremism - how often do we hear that they were students?