Bulgarian Anarchists About The Refugees

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it true that anarchists are running away from giving opinions on the refugee problem?

It’s not.

Unlike ‘elite’ philosophers such as Andrei Raivech and Michaeil Konstantinov, we don’t slave over cliché opinions about the migrants, be they supportive or critical of the situation. Unlike Raivech and Konstantinov, we don’t believe that “the invaders must be stopped at any price” – an allusion to physical violence. We also disagree with the ideas presented by some who wish ill on the refugees so that they turn around and discourage others from coming.
This is an absurd notion that provokes similar thoughts to Bulgarian migrant workers in the rest of Europe. Equally absurd is the notion of ‘baptizing’ the refugees as a means of integration – another idea that came out of our “intellectuals”. What do we win by replacing one poison with another?

The answer to the “crisis” is actually very simple. To stop people from fleeing to any particular region, the solution is not to make the destination inhospitable for them. Instead, the place that people are trying to flee by any means necessary must be improved.

Western governments have destroyed countries in the Middle East and Africa. After the second world war, millions of Turks and Arabs from European colonies saved Germany and France from ruins. Today, European companies have not complained that the influx of cheap labor (especially certain shady businesses that launder money and drive European capitalism) is hurting their interests. Therefore, no guns at the borders, denial of humanity for any reason, nor turning Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Turkey into refugee camps will stop the flow of refugees. Only stopping the machine guns, cannon fire, and bombings in the home countries will truly stop the problem.

But we see an issue that will exacerbate the problem. Refugee centers will become concentration camps, while regular European citizens will be eager to look for reasons of these problems elsewhere, outside of their own system.
Meanwhile today, resources spent on fences and guards would be enough for the recovery and improvement of troubled regions where the migrants are coming from. However, the West does not want to see competitors in the global or even regional markets. Because of this, the refugee crisis truly has no answer within the capitalist system which is founded on rivalry and oppression which will always create refugees.

You adamantly call these people “refugees” even though they are criminals who break the law by illegally crossing borders while not being legally deemed refugees.

Our attitudes towards the laws are, mildly put, skeptical. The law exists to so that lawmakers, lawyers, policemen, and judges can get their pay. For law-abiding citizens, the law is a thief who puts him or her on the defensive and makes him or her conform to what the law wants and keeps them from going where the law doesn’t want them to go. The law can turn anyone into a criminal – such as the case of Lora Kazanlieva, who was somehow found be an accessory in her own death when she was hit by a speeding driver because she didn’t heed the crosswalk sign. The law has already made criminals out of the homeless who dig for food in trash bins. The laws are on their way to turn anybody who doesn’t agree with elections into criminals. The “refugee status” doesn’t register the fact of whether or not somebody is really running from a warzone. The status is only a mark that bureaucrats are willing to recognize the obvious.

Then what is your answer to the problem?

First, we have doubts as to whether or not this is really a problem or if the media has overblown the issue. So far, Europe has been able to deal with the immigrants. How Europe has done so is self-evident. The products of hypocritical tolerance and financial opportunities motivates those born in the EU to bomb their fellow man, while their actions force innocents into refugee camps. The issues stem from the European powers, not anywhere else.

Our solution is a social revolution. This will happen when the exaggeration of the refugee crisis become the reality and proletariat of Europe works with them to create a new world.

Do anarchists really not see that the refugees are barbarians and invaders, dangerous to Bulgaria and Europe?

The topic of refugees is not very relevant for Bulgaria. Our nation is not the destination nor even on the ideal route of the refugees. Because of this, no agreement with the political elite in Paris, Berlin, or Brussels, nor with Moscow, Washington, or London will force us to work towards fixing the problems they have caused. Instead, we will work towards changing the existing world order.

Are the hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians that go to Shipka to celebrate Bulgarian Independence Day blind to the fact that the European governments behave just as cruel to others as the Ottoman Empire did towards us 138 years ago?

Why do anarchists not show any interest in the demise of the “Bulgarian nation”?

The disappearance of Bulgaria as a nation has nothing to do with the “invasion” of migrants. The Bulgarians are running away on their own to other nations. This also includes the battle of keeping our own language. Proud patriots often accuse migrants for being “young and healthy but not willing to fight at home”. But the same goes for Bulgarians – why are they not fighting for a better future instead of looking for an easy solution outside of the country? The paid-patriots are not fighting for the people, but for the most common enemy of the people – the state power, and they are bringing us with them under the pretense of reform.

So let us not cry or complain about the disappearances while we are actively fleeing our own country. No laws or reforms will stop the drain of Bulgaria’s people – just like barbed wire is not stopping the refugees. Something that’s dying will surely die, if it has no will to live, if it has no power to bring in hearts and minds, but has the powerlessness to force itself into a mold, a cliché – “true Bulgaria”. If “true Bulgaria” is not before all else a land for free people, who value their own freedom just as much as they value the freedom of others, there is no other way for it to be “true”, but it is instead a non-entity.