Despite their vast wealth and proximity to the Syrian Civil War, Saudi Arabia and Qatar won't take in refugees, a Polish Member of Parliament pointed out.
"Where is Saudi Arabia, one of the richest countries in the world, where is Qatar? Most of the refugees are Muslims which are neighbors to this country, so why you are calling this a European problem?" Dominik Tarczyński asked during an interview with Turkish media outlet TRT World.
“The European Union is not responsible for Angela Merkel’s madness and [her] looking for cheap labour.”
‘Where is Saudi Arabia, one of the richest countries in the world, where is Qatar? Most of the refugees are Muslims which are neighbors to this country, so why you are calling this a European problem?’ asks Polish MP @D_Tarczynski in response to world's refugee crisis. pic.twitter.com/Di3GcBVTOG
— The Newsmakers (@The_Newsmakers) July 31, 2018 The show's presenter claimed Europe was responsible for the migrants, instead of neighboring Muslim countries, because of "post-colonial repression."
It's worth pointing out that TRT World is owned by the Turkish government, whose president, Recep Erdoğan, had reportedly threatened to flood Europe with migrants unless Turkey receives cash aid.
"According to [a leaked] memo, the bargain was hard and Turkey demanded 30 billion euro from the European Union in order to refrain from sending refugees and migrants to Europe through Greece," reported Zero Hedge, citing a report from Greek media. "EU’s offer was three billion euro in two years, but Erdogan demanded three billion euro per year."
And Erdoğan has been accused of trying to effectively restore the Ottoman Empire, which makes the "post-colonial repression" claim rather ironic given the empire's strong advocacy of slavery and its rule of conquered lands against the will of the people which has been compared to the worst examples of colonialism.
Those factors led to the internationally-recognized, independent Kingdom of Greece in 1832.
Erdoğan himself has made statements idolizing the Ottoman Empire.
“The president said that modern Turkey is a ‘continuation’ of the Ottoman Empire – a direct contradiction of [the first President of Turkey] Ataturk’s ideology, which cast the Imperial era as backwards, stale and to be discarded and forgotten rather than celebrated," reported the Times of London.
As was reported in 2015, Saudi Arabia has 100,000 air conditioned tents near the city of Mina, which are only used for five days of the year by Hajj pilgrims - yet the country refuses to take in a significant number of Muslim migrants.
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