So much with the "hospitable nation" myth

[htpcl]

Hey, fellow indifferent popcorn-munchers conscientious peace-lovers! Here's a tale for ya. "We're one of the most hospitable, amorous and warm-hearted people in the world", the communist propaganda used to teach us Bulgars back in the good days of old.

Well, not so fast. Here's one "example" that I don't recommend anyone emulating:

Asylum Seekers

Comments

[fizzyland]

Small towns tend to be like that everywhere.

[htpcl]

As much as I wish that to be the case, these sort of sentiments are not solely confined to rural areas, I'm afraid.

[luvdovz]

The current EU laws are unfair to peripheral countries like yours which are at the EU borders. Right now, if a refugee from Syria passes transit through your place on their way to, say, Germany, they'll be forcefully returned to the country of entry (i.e. Bulgaria), and your country will have to host them. Meanwhile, the rest of the EU is doing little to nothing to aid your country in dealing with the refugee problem, and it's left to cope on its own. Same is valid for other border countries like Greece, Spain, Italy

[johnny9fingers]

You get folk like that everywhere...what is to be avoided if possible is letting them get any power whatsoever...easier said than done, however.

[htpcl]

Well, too late, unfortunately. See, I haven't been to the village of Rozovo but I know a few guys from the regional center, Kazanlak. One added some insight to the matter, reminding me that the famous Festival of the Rose starts in that village a few days from now (the BG rose is one of the symbols of the country, and that valley is its epicenter). So, in less than a month there'll be German tourists and Japanese tourists and all other sort of tourists flocking back there, they'll be meeting the young rose gardeners, the hotels in the area will be flocking with visitors, the restaurants will be making some nice revenue... All in all, the Festival of the Rose will go as planned - except, this time we'll all know for sure that it's just a facade, it's a circus of hypocrisy. A cheap trap for tourists that has nothing to do with this fabled hospitality of ours

[johnny9fingers]

It's difficult for folk from small enclaves to be cosmopolitan in the good sense of the word: and it is a word with a good sense.

In Blighty the propaganda ministry BBC has a long-running radio soap called The Archers, an everyday story of country folk, wherein immigrants are portrayed positively, or at least as human beings. Radio still existing in steampunk Britain. Even so...we have our Farages, and worse. After the French bankers came the Poles and then the Romanians, after the Transylvanians came the Bulgarians...small numbers actually, but a blade to the heart for a certain sort of small-minded Englishman who cannot see enrichment from other's experience

[htpcl]

They seemed cosmopolitan all right when it was suggested to them that some English pensioners could move to town and purchase and renovate a few deserted old houses to live there permanently, mhmmm?

Hell, they even seemed OK with the idea of hosting Ukrainian refugees there! As long as those were white.

Obviously, the problem is not the lack of cosmopolitanism (sic?).

[anfalicious]

As an Australian, I share your sense of shame.

[htpcl]

Well, another village of ours stepped in and washed some of the shame. Not only did they welcome the evicted refugees, but they met them with a traditional banitsa, and did their best to accommodate them and make them feel welcome. Of course, the bitter feeling from the first incident can't be completely erased, but the way these Syrians were accepted in the second location at least gives me some sense of hope that not everything is lost.

[johnny9fingers]

That's better. Folk are folk, some are Jeremy Clarksons, some are rather better than that.

[anfalicious]

Yep, my country definitely has many, many good people, but I have to judge us on our official policies, and I think we're currently committing crimes against humanity.