He never used the word immigrant and always referred to refugees.
I am sorry if it seems like i am nitpicking, but he did try to "debunk" a myth and opened my eyes to a possibly different reality than what i personally perceive, so i went looking for hard data to support his claim and couldn't find anything that remotely resemble those figures among refugees. i found pretty similar numbers among immigrants (In austria alone) so i assumed he used those.
I did find some interesting data on the subject (Not from austria, sadly). a repeated claim is that this is a surprisingly difficult subject to tackle. even so, from what i did manage to gather, among world wide refugees, education is considered a severe problem with under 30% ever attending secondary school (Comparing to numbers well above the 90's in european countries). the common figure for university degree holders is around 8% (again, this is a most common figure, there are studies that show different stats, none remotely reaching the mentioned 20.4% though).
lets also not forget that a degree from vienna school of engineering is far more valuable than a degree from an obscure university in Syria, Iraq or Sudan.
It is also still true that refugees have on average a pretty good education with a lot of academics but also more illiterates than the Austrian population.
Citation needed. from the figures i have seen its not the case.
A few interesting facts:
A man can be born and be raised in his home, live his entire life in his own city of birth, go to his government funded university and get a degree, get married, buy his own house and still be considered a refugee. not only that, but his children and grandchildren will also be considered refugees. these kind of "refugees" make up around 30% of all the world's refugees.
Russia makes up for the second largest source of asylum seekers in the world. i am willing to bet that their situation is slightly better than syrians or libyans.
MAJOR WALL OF TEXT/RANTNow for some facts that i found bit upsetting:
Qatar, or shall i say, filthy rich, 2022 World Cup host with GDP per capita of $145K, has been so generous as to donate the UNHCR around 27 million usd from 2000 to 2014, of which 26.5M where allocated in 2014 alone and was thankfully willing to accept around 54 asylum seekers and 127 refugees so far (I saw claims that of which around half of the asylum seekers are actually from hamas leadership, a palestinian organization who's leaders were forced to flee Syria since they sided with the rebels there.). just to put things into perspective, so far more than 950 world cup slave workers died in qatar in 2012-2013 alone.
Saudi Arabia, drowning in cash with GDP per capita of $53K and the third country in the world with most cash reserves (around 740 billions USD in cash reserves) was so generous as to donate an accumulated sum of around 170 million USD from 2000-2014, of which 92 million were donated in 2014 alone and was thankfully willing to accept no less than 99 asylum seekers and 565 refugees.
United Arab Emirates, that country which owns half of london, with a well respectful GDP per capita of $65K, donated around 60 millions USD from 2000-2014 and has so far accepted no less than 514 refugees and 117 asylum seekers.
Oman, a country bigger than the UK with 3.2 Million people, GDP per capita of $45K, is apparently so afraid it can't house more people in fear of running out of space that they have so far accepted no less than 149 refugees and 129 asylum seekers. donations from 2000 - 2014: 2.4 millions USD.
2014 had been a great year for the UNHCR from the middle east, and without 2014, the donation amounts from some of these countries are laughable. also important to note, that contrary to donations from western countries, the vast majority from the rich middle east countries donations are restricted, meaning they are for a single purpose and not freely spent. the UAE have contributed 30 millions in 2008 alone, yet only 54K of those were unrestricted. another thing to take into account is the money being spent on each country from the UNHCR. in 2015 the UAE branch will get a funding of 3 million to help its ~613 refugees, while israel will get 3.2 million to help its ~52,000 refugees (Mainly from Eritrea and Sudan).
And to get things into perspective:
Greece, or that country that has failing economy and considers dropping out of the EU, who's cash reserves are lower than Afghanistan, Guatemala and Bolivia, a GDP per capita of $25K and unemployment rate of around 25% (real rate probably much higher), has 43K asylum seekers, 3,485 refugees and had donated around 26 million from 2000-2014 (A mere million short of Qatar). the unrestricted donations from greece are possibly higher than Saudi arabia's (Didn't bother to calculate it precisely, but even if its not higher, its somewhat close).
When i see these figures i just can't help but think to my self why should the west be solely responsible for refugees and take bashing from the U.N for "neglecting" to address the refugees from libya and syria while the richest of the rich are comfortably shutting out their far culturally closer brethren?
We sit and discuss the dangers the libyans and syrians are facing when crossing the med sea, while saudi arabia is less than 100 KM from Syria, or around an hour and a half by car? why does people from iraq have to travel weeks if not months all the way to greece, or more dangerously through libya and the med sea to italy when a bus ride from baghdad to Doha takes 12 hours or to the nearest saudi arabia's big city 7 hours? why do people from Eritrea don't cross to Saudi arabia instead of dying in the desert and the med sea?
Isn't it more logical that people from Iraq take refugee in Saudi Arabia, where the cultural differences are neglible rather than travel to europe and suffer alienation due to different language and culture? why aren't those countries taking in more refugees?! if the asylum seekers are so desperate that they risk their lives crossing deserts and the med sea, why aren't they simply crossing a shared border? maybe they know that in the med sea there's a chance to succeed, while in saudi arabia its 100% beheading?
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