Do not pay the ferrymen

I know that I could easily be in their shoes. Indeed, I may still end up there: The status of a Syrian expat these days is as fragile as it gets. Even so, I still find myself objecting to what is happening in Europe – a stance that may be unpopular, or even considered heartless by some.
Although I am grateful to the European countries that have stepped in to help my compatriots, an open-doors policy to asylum seekers is not the right approach here.
My biggest concern is with the definition of “refugees”. Stories of migrants abusing the right to asylum are legion. They include reports of Syrians arriving in the EU by plane and requesting asylum, or well-off migrants simply seeking a better passport, or others granted asylum in the EU and secretly running lucrative businesses elsewhere.
The rumours are backed up by my two decades of travel in Europe, during which none of the Syrian and other “refugees” I met fitted the official definition: “A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster”. None was forced to flee; in fact many had actually returned home for vacations. I also encountered families living on welfare and others who had been working without paying tax for decades. Not only are these people abusing their refugee status, they have also been abusing the welfare system and are contributing little to the communities that welcomed them.
There are of course many Syrians currently fleeing war who have arrived in a safe country and rightly been afforded aid and rights under the UN convention on refugees. But, if these refugees are not happy with their situation and decide to move in search of a better lifestyle, economic situation or welfare, they are no longer refugees but rather migrants.
We might ask why the majority of asylum seekers in Europe are now trying to make it to the UK, Germany and Sweden. If one is fleeing war, why not choose Turkey, Greece, Macedonia or any other country that satisfies the basic need for safety, housing and food? 
You could argue that all these countries are facing economic difficulties. So then what is the problem with Austria? A recent report said that, of 8,500 Syrians who made it to Austria, only 20 filed for asylum while the rest continued on to Germany.
As much as Syria and Iraq sound like hell these days, the refugees who fled Armenia at the beginning of the last century were quite satisfied to find safety in these countries and have called them home ever since. Many of them still refuse to leave during these challenging times, joining the thousands of Syrians of all religions and ethnicities who would still rather die at home than get on the boats.
It seems that many – if not most – of the Syrian “refugees” we see on TV and read about in the news are in reality “opportunists”, eager to capitalise on the doors being opened to them in the EU, with its more generous welfare systems.
Human traffickers currently charge no less than US$5,000 to $6,000 per person for the trip from Syria to Germany. That amount is a fortune out of reach for most Syrians. Anyone who does have the resources to pay that price is most likely not a genuine refugee, or at least should not be prioritised for asylum.
The problem is that bona-fide Syrian refugees, who are genuinely and desperately in need of aid, shelter and security, miss out and are overshadowed by their wealthier and savvier compatriots.
Bona fide refugees like Abdel Halim Al Attar (Twitter: #BuyPens), who could neither afford the trip to Europe nor pay his rent or support his two children. He was wandering the streets of Beirut selling pens when a kind stranger used the power of social media to change his fortunes. Genuine refugees like him do not have the means to pay thousands of dollars per head to make it to paradise. Instead, they are stuck in Syria or in refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan, totally dependent on fast-disappearing international aid. Or, worse, they are begging for food and jobs on the streets of Lebanon, where Syrians have never been welcome.
These genuine refugee stories are part of daily life yet are rarely publicised. Unfortunately, the same applies to children drowning on the way to Greece or Italy. Aylan Kurdi was by no means the first child to drown on the sea trip to Europe and will not be the last.
Migrants, or even refugees, who can afford the thousands of dollars needed to make the trip to Europe are simply jumping the queue and preventing the aid reaching those who need it most. The reality is that there is a cut-off point in terms of the number of people that Europe can support, and there needs to be a proper system to evaluate who is most deserving of that aid.
Those who are still in refugee camps, or living in tents in Syria or carrying their children around the streets of Lebanon trying to sell pens, are the genuine refugees who should be receiving international aid, not the millions of migrants who are marching through Europe. The former have lost everything and don’t have the resources to pay the ferrymen. Meanwhile, EU governments are unwittingly aiding the ferrymen by allowing them to continue over-filling these death boats. It is an unfortunate reality that he who shouts loudest gets heard, and the asylum seekers in Europe are certainly making lots of noise. But this situation needs to be re-evaluated, because the genuine refugees are being forgotten and left to die in limbo.

Bassem Nimah is a Syrian journalist based in Bangkok.