It boils down to this.

In the end you have to consider the rights of the individual.

Yes, it is possible to identify antisocial behavioural trends in different groups of people and cautiousness is a perfectly acceptable response - provided it does not come with crass generalizations.

Yes, decisive action must be taken to ensure that the perpetrators of heinous acts are swiftly apprehended and brought to justice. Failure to do so will only cause further damage to the victims and inevitably lead the gullible and fearful to the extremes of the political spectrum.

Yes, our borders need better monitoring; not through raising fences, but by ensuring that there is a system in place to identify the people who are most in need of asylum and guarantee that they are the first to get it - as required by Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Safe passages need to be established.  More needs to be done by governments and local communities to facilitate the process of integration. This is what sowing the seeds of positive change involves.

All the while we witness a counter current of growing xenophobia and bigotry gradually paving the way for institutionalized group discrimination. Loud and vulgar voices evoke the spectre of oppressive regimes whose memories still linger in the scar tissue of our body politic.

Our modern secular societies are founded on the ideas of liberty and equality before the law. We must take heed and not fall into the trap of thinking it is okay to sacrifice some of our rights to gain some temporary safety; or we risk eroding the very fabric of our civilization.

And we must not forget that rights exist precisely to protect minorities from the whims of majorities; the smallest minority being the individual.

Eurogroup meeting 11/2/2015 - What is at stake?

Eurogroup negotiations starting today will have a lasting effect on European politics. Greece's debt is unsustainable (currently at 171% of GDP) and they will enter the discussions seeking a substantial debt reduction, refusing further bailouts from the Troika (EU, ECB, IMF), and requesting an interim (‘bridging’) loan to ensure the country’s short-term financial needs are met until the end of August, giving the new government enough time to form a solid economic plan.

I find it unlikely that a deal will be struck and the consequences could very well be disastrous. First, the majority of European partners find what little they have heard of the Greek economic plan unconvincing. Secondly, responding positively to the Greek requests means that other debt-stricken countries that have also endured austerity will demand a similar deal - basically transferring wealth from a thrifty economically conservative north, to the much less economically active and less transparent south. I cannot see how the German government can sell this to their electorate. Not only are they ideologically opposed to the Greek economic plan, but even assuming they went along with it they would most certainly lose the support of their electorate - it would be political suicide.

Bellicose rhetoric spewing forth from Athens over the last couple of weeks, reopening old wounds that the European project was created to patch in the first place, has marginalised support for the plight of Greece in Germany. Greece is betting that Germany will budge in the end because not doing so would destabilise the entire Eurozone with unpredictable reverberations in the political and economic spheres. What is at stake is European political stability.

What if there is no agreement? With Greece essentially forced to leave the Eurozone, having distanced itself from its erstwhile partners and seeking patronage in the East, the political status quo of the continent changes. Having an isolated and unpredictable Greece in the strategically important south-eastern corner of Europe whose national interests are no longer aligned with those of the rest of Europe is not a sobering thought. It would hardly be surprising to see a rise in military spending everywhere.

Important dates:
Wednesday 11 February
Emergency meeting of eurozone finance ministers, (known as the eurogroup). Greece also loses access to cheapest funding from the European Central Bank.

Thursday 12 February
European leaders meet in Brussels. Alexis Tsipras’s first meeting with all fellow European prime ministers.

Monday 16 February
Deadline to reapply for bailout according to eurogroup head, Jeroen Dijsselbloem.

Wednesday 18 February
European Central Bank governing council meeting to renew emergency funding.

Saturday 28 February
Greece due to receive final €7.2bn instalment from Troika. Without a deal by this date, Greece could lose access to ECB funding.