IMMIGRATION – CHANCE OR DANGER?

Immigration has evoked mixed feelings among Europeans for a few years. For some people, refugees coming to Europe in large numbers are just ordinary people looking for a shelter, a safe place on earth to live for them and their children, and escaping the cruelty of war. For others, refugees pose a danger to safety and destroy their (our) system of values. In many European countries there has been a social debate about immigration for a long time. We can therefore observe an apparent discrepancy in this discussion. While numerous voices from the societies of many countries call for stopping an uncontrolled influx of immigrants, the representatives of the authorities insistently repeat the arguments which, in their opinion, argue in favour of the necessity of providing help at all costs, even at the cost of lives of their own citizens. The acts of vandalism and violence committed by immigrants in the countries that had agreed to let them in contradict repeating opinions about the advantages of accepting hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa. That raises the question of whether immigration is a chance for Europe or poses a serious danger to basic European values such as freedom, tolerance, mutual understanding and respect