The Fall of a Previous European Empire

The online journal “Quartz” carried an interesting article this week about the fall of the Roman Empire. 

With classical history no longer widely taught in British schools, the proportion of Britons who know the background to the battle of Adrianople is probably very small. This is regrettable, since there are serious lessons to be learned, and today's politicians should be persuaded to reflect before they fail to act realistically, and continue to act rashly.

Valens, ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire

Sixteen hundred years ago, Rome held sway over a territory of 2.3 million square miles and ruled a population of more than 55 million. Over the previous hundred years, the Goths had migrated into the Roman Empire in search of safety from the Huns, whose violent and bloody destruction of the Goth homeland could be likened to the violent and bloody destruction of large areas of Syria in recent weeks. 

The Goths settled south of the Danube, placing a river boundary between themselves and the Huns, having previously asked permission to do so, from the Roman leader Valens. The Goths proposition to Valens was that they should “be received by him as his subjects, promising to live quietly, and to furnish a body of auxiliary troops if any necessity for such a force should arise.”

Rome had generally treated migrants wisely, and the arrangement could have strengthened both the Roman economy and the empire’s militia. There was a tradition of assimilating new immigrants and eventually accepting them as Roman citizens. However, on this occasion, the military forces in Greece and Italy took advantage of their position and profited by sequestering supplies and provisions, so that the Goths were starving, and their trust in the Romans was destroyed. They had escaped from being attacked viciously by the Huns and instead they found themselves exploited mercilessly by the Romans. They had arrived wanting to become Romans and in the space of a few years, they wanted to destroy Rome.

Piraeus: Tents on tarmac - as far as the eye can see

I have spent much of today at the unofficial camps on the tarmac  in the port of Piraeus.

I have seen many desperate refugees, who yearn for safety and the opportunity to create a home and securely raise a family. 

I have watched an army of young volunteers, coming mainly from all over Europe, who spend every day nurturing refugees and their bewildered children. 

It is such volunteers who feed the refugees’ physical hunger and feed the hungry minds of the children, who are happily spell-bound in informal playgroups. 

A welcome from riot police and barbed wire

By contrast, in locations all over Greece, the militia frequently maltreat the refugees, whom they have corralled into virtual prison camps. 

Piraeus is peaceful, but I have watched the police on their motorbikes today as they roared up and down the port road, in what could only have been an intimidating show of force. 

Most of the E.U. is not even pretending to welcome the human capital that could enrich all our economies. 

Sukhpal Singh - a refugee who arrived in Britain aged 13
and sold his business in 2011 for £225 million

I have previously echoed how this contrasts with the way Britain accepted the Asian refugees who were hounded out of Uganda by the mad despot Idi Amin. 

When they settled in the English Midlands, they established many new industries and businesses that have continued to flourish, revitalising cities like Leicester, and making a valuable contribution to our national economy.

In the battle of Adrianople, 100,000 Goths met 40,000 Roman soldiers and vented their anger and frustration, slaughtering 30,000 of the imperial militia. 

This was the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.

AD 378 : Defeat of the Roman army, and the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire

Every time a European authority fails to show compassion to Syrian, Afghan and Iranian refugees, it risks stimulating an enmity that could ultimately result in disastrous consequences. Compassion should not be self-seeking but, reviewing the situation with a degree of realistic cynicism and acting compassionately would probably be entirely in our own long-term interests, both economically and socially. 

By absorbing those who have lost their legal identity and absorbing them and their future generations as new citizens, we strengthen both our society and our economy.

As the Romans learned when they paid the ultimate price, we marginalise them at our peril.

So let’s be civil to immigrants at every opportunity. Let’s welcome those who have lost everything that was familiar to them; let’s treat them the way we would want to be treated. 

Together, we have the opportunity to build a thriving, peaceful Europe that can be a model to countries all over the world, of how to assimilate immigrants and build a harmonious, multicultural community.

With acknowledgement for source material from Quartz online journal 

and their reporter Annalisa.