The triple betrayal of not doing age tests

.

The Finnish police now reports that that it can confirm the identity of the man who stabbed two people to death and wounded 8 in Turku a week ago. The police also reports that his real name is not Abderrahman Meckah, and that the man is not 18 years of age, as he had himself earlier claimed. He was born in 1994, so he he's about 23.

This is in no way surprising. Many have been suspecting that some of the young men in children's asylum centers are not actually children at all.  In fact it was obvious from the start. Look at the "17-year-old" who posed together with PM Juha Sipilä, in front of TV cameras. It very soon emerged that we was 20 at the time, not 17.

On the other hand, I've spoken to many of these boys when we arranged football trainings for unaccompanied minors at the time of the great influx in 2015-2016. I believe most of those I saw have reported their age at least approximately correctly. Young people's center was the right place for them. They were nice lads, just alone out in the wide world. It was easy to sympathize with them. I wish well to them. But some were obviously much older than they claimed.

Not outright believing everything they said was deemed bad. Many politicians told everyone with suspicions to shut up. Suspecting what these men told us would be racist, bigoted and stupid, hate speech, not tolerated. Suggestions for age testing were turned down, often quite scornfully, e.g. by Li Andersson (Left Alliance) . This was despite that fact that when testing was done, about 70 % of those tested were deemed not minors. (For the others who were tested, it remained sometimes doubtful, sometimes not).

But this whole mess makes me consider three different betrayals, done in the same deed.

Betrayal of the taxpayer

This may not be the most important point, but it is the most obvious. It is a colossal waste of government funds to put a 20- or 25-year-old man to a children's refugee center and treat him as a child, because the resources we expend on children are vastly more expensive than what we can afford to take care of able-bodied and able-minded young men. As taxpayers we have the right to be indignant.

And of course, in principle it was also a betrayal of security, although I don't think that's a big deal in practice.

Government: we told you we can see this is waste, and you turned us down. The biggest twats here are the Left Alliance, Swedish People's Party and Greens. But most of the others were similarly populist.

Betrayal of children

But if we forget the petty matters of money and resources, we also notice that we have put grown up men, 20 or 22 years old, or much older, to live in the same housing and go to the same schools with actual children of 12 to 14 years who just honestly reported their correct age. Is this appropriate? 

I think not. There are several risk factors. There is the risk of different kinds of exploitation. Sexual abuse is not unheard of, particularly among some of the ethnic groups involved here. There is risk of indoctrination and radicalization. Or just crime, petty crime or serious.

Betrayal of Abderrahman Meckah

On the level of individual people, in addition to the two women who were killed and several who were wounded, the one most betrayed by this situation is Abderrahman Meckah. Or whatever his real name is -- his identity is actually unimportant. But there are many young men like him. They have been lured to come to the northern lands, with the banners "Refugees welcome", with promises of a house offered by the extremely naive Prime Minister in our country, and of jobs, suggesting that they are actually welcomed by the receiving countries  and societies. That there were no jobs that they could do was not told to them. That the local job market is very specialized and needs high levels of education and language skills to participate, was not told to them. That there is ample resentment towards them was not told to them by the xenophilic activists, nor was it of course shared to them by the traffickers -- presumably mafias in many countries -- who made plenty of money when arranging the travel.

In a way, our political system created Abderrahman the pathetic killer.  And created Abderrahman the jihadist who sought meaning to his useless life by shouting Allahu Akbar when stabbing people. Abderrahman the despised prisoner who will have to watch his every step over the next decade or two, to avoid being cut to pieces by fellow inmates in his prison.

He alone carries the criminal responsibility, but he was set up by naive politicians. Perhaps good-meaning politicians, perhaps cynical and calculative populist "Refugees welcome" types, but in any case, those who sent the invitation are responsible for what became of Abderrahman, the knife and the market square in Turku.

Candles at  the square in Turku where two people were killed (Helsinki Times)