Bulgaria's efforts to guard its borders from invaders have degenerated into nothing short of a vendetta.

A few days ago an Algerian national stabbed a 20-year-old student in Sofia. The response of those, who consider themselves great patriots, came quickly - on Monday evening a 17-year-old refugee was stabbed with a knife at the Military ramp center.

According to witnesses the man was assaulted by two men. Meanwhile the staff at the refugee center said the attackers are not accommodated at the center and they spoke Bulgarian.

The poor, the sick, the children without parents, the vulnerable, the disadvantaged, are the perfect enemy for any sociopath. The sociopath will direct his anger and aggression against the Syrian man, who lives at a miserable tent in Harmanli, rather than the Briton, who has come on a bingeing spree in the Bulgarian coast resort of Sunny Beach and falls from the hotel balcony. The white European tourist then makes headlines and hurts Bulgarian's image. But that's no problem for the sociopath.

The white European tourist will never care to reveal corruption or any type of injustice, which he has witnessed, because his personal well-being is his top priority. The sociopath lives in poverty and is fully aware that nobody gives a damn about him. But he does not seem to care about that either.

It is namely people with this "social profile" that radical politicians, losing popularity, seek to capitalize upon.

The nationalists from Ataka party recently warned that a civil war will erupt in Bulgaria if the government refuses to close the Bulgarian-Turkish border and drive away refugees. The nationalist leader Volen Siderov called for expelling the invaders.

At the same time supporters of diverse nationalist formations, such as VMRO and the National Opposition movement, joined a rally on Sunday, chanting "Bulgaria belongs to Bulgarians, we want the refugees out." The protesters also demanded the immediate expulsion of illegal migrants.

I would not be surprised if those parties manage to pass the 4% threshold at the next elections and enter parliament. Protesting against the refugees is fashionable these days.

Meanwhile, on Monday, people protesting against a possible opening of a refugee shelter in the north-western Bulgarian village of Telish blocked the international road Sofia-Pleven-Ruse.

Nobody confirmed the rumors that a camp for refugees will really be built there, but the people continued to protest, just in case.

Internet forums are overflowing with information about how dangerous refugees are. Doomsayers say refugees will kill us, will infect us with AIDS and will plunder Bulgarian's land and turn it into their own territory.

What refugees really want is to get a refugee status and get away from here. They want to go where 80% of young Bulgarians want to go - to the civilized Western world.

Let's assume that the whole refugee hysterics aim solely to protect the national interest and keep terrorists away. The shocking lack of tolerance for people in trouble and total absence of empathy, however, is not something that we see only when down-and-out foreigners cross Bulgarian's border.

The refugee hysteria resembles the revolt of Kazanlak citizens in September, when they rose up in protest against plans for building a home for abandoned children and youths. The locals fumed that the municipality had first to secure their approval and only then launch the construction works. The abandoned children would be living too close to their houses, they argued.

Earlier in the year the people from the village of Leshnitsa staged a similar protest. The then minister Tomislav Donchev personally visited the village and explained to the protestors that the orphans, who have been living isolated from the society so far, need to be integrated. He pointed out that some 4700 children are currently living in institutions and it is important that they are gradually taken out and introduced into the real world.

Many Bulgarians have erected a wall around themselves to protect themselves from the reality. If a close one is in trouble, this is tragedy, if an unknown person needs help, this is a burden. The local patriot is a real patriot only at home.

If this is the case, we may well use the EU funds for providing pillboxes for all those Bulgarians, who can't bear the off-putting sights life can bring his way - refugees, sick people and abandoned children.