In the aftermath of the tragedies of migrants in the Mediterranean, I spent many days reading reports in the media and comments by readers. Reactions seems to be divided between sorrow and alarm. However, I am surprised so few have perceived that the current phenomenon of migration is only the contemporary iteration of an immutable dynamic of history.

From the age of the first movements of modern humans out of Africa, human history reveals a pattern of constant migrations for many different reasons, including famine, warfare, plague, drought, scarcity of land and even merely for the love of adventure.

Great movements of people changed the cultural and demographic lie of lands across the world; they pulled down empires, peopled continental masses and virtually drove many ethnicities to extinction and death – the Indo-Europeans, the Barbarians, the Muslims, the Vikings, the Mongols, the Turks and not least the Europeans who, from the 16th century onwards, spread ruthlessly around the world, bringing fire, sword and slavery to so many hapless societies around the world.

This dynamic is a fundamental product of evolution in the nature of our species. It is thus futile to resist it because to do so is to resist a fundamental impulse in human nature. Nobody and nothing will hinder the unlimited flood of African and Arab youth into geriatric Europe.

There is no will in the EU to resist such an inflow through military means so these migrations should take place without the blood and thunder of the historic ones. Something else remains to be done.

Pull down all impediments and hasten the flow of peoples across the Mediterranean. This way, the inevitable will happen in the fastest and safest way possible.