Get your facts straight, gentlemen...
Angela,
Most of them lack even basic education, a huge percent are illiterate. Only 4% are well-educated.
Even if they wanted to work, there would be no demand for so many unskilled workers in Europe.
====================
This is also the case in Germany:
https://archive.is/VLptV
Economically, they are a net loss.
Get your facts straight before posting, gentlemen...
I'm not talking about the whole flood of migrants to Europe recently from Afghanistan, North Africa, SubSaharan Africa and on and on. Your thread was about Christian Syrians. We can extend it to Christian Levantines. I WORK with these people. Who told you that Christian Levantines, or even Muslim Levantines, are illiterate and have no job skills? Who is feeding you this information, Tomenable? You really have to start thinking for yourself; you're too intelligent for this.
The people for whom I help to process immigration matters are, or used to be, small shop keepers, carpenters, electricians, teachers, nurses, the occasional doctor or business manager even. The official statistics support that this isn't some fluke.
Back in the 1980s, literacy among the Lebanese as a whole was 80%, and it went up from there. Among the Christian Lebanese it was even higher. There were 16 colleges and universities in that small country, many of them Catholic. The American University of Beirut was a great place. I know people who went there.
http://countrystudies.us/lebanon/66.htm
What drags down the statistics in the Levant is the literacy rate among Muslim WOMEN, which is a huge problem, I agree, but even so, it's not like rural, southern Morocco, for goodness sakes'.
The story is similar in Syria...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Syria
"
Christians (as well as the few remaining Jews in the country) engage in every aspect of Syrian life. Following in the traditions of Paul, who practiced his preaching and ministry in themarketplace, Syrian Christians are participants in the economy, the academic, scientific, engineering, arts, and intellectual life, entertainment, and the Politics of Syria. Many Syrian Christians are public sector and private sector managers and directors, while some are local administrators, members of Parliament, and ministers in the government. "
Look at the statistics here. Literacy is in the high 90s in Syria.
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/syria_statistics.html
You are being fed totally inaccurate information, as are a lot of Europeans. As I've said before, in certain parts of Europe, the more homogeneous ones especially, there is absolutely no real knowledge of people from other parts of the world, so prejudice, rumor, and innuendo are substituted.
This is a Christian Lebanese, by the way, by ancestry anyway...big, bad, scary, Ralph Nader:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader
He was way too liberal for me every to vote for, but an admirable and accomplished man, nonetheless.
The much, much, beloved Danny Thomas, whose St. Jude's Hospital is an absolute wonder.
"
As a "starving actor", Thomas had made a vow: If he found success, he would open a shrine dedicated to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes. Thomas never forgot his promise to St. Jude, and after becoming a successful actor in the early 1950s, his wife joined him and began traveling the United States to help raise funds to build his dream - St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.[16] He fervently believed “no child should die in the dawn of life.”[17"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Thomas
The Danny Thomas Show and Make Room For Daddy were constantly in re-runs when I was growing up. It still occasionally shows up;whenever it was on, I encouraged my children to watch it: funny, heart-warming, just the kind of things I wanted to influence my children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txJRv-tv8ok&list=PLbKOcc4q-5p4VYeWH7BKHVJzFu3gC5eGW&index=30