I loved Jean-Claude Juncker’s line “there is no more time for poems and the usual rhetoric” (the Times of Malta, September 10). My only hope is that the honourable official was including his own self in the diatribe. I would include some of the many who have spilled litres of tears over the shocking picture of the dead child.
While obviously being scandalised by those who fail to empathise with the immigrants and keep talking about ‘being invaded’, ‘pushbacks’, or idiotically thinking that immigrants embark on deadly journeys capriciously or for some silly reason like imposing their culture, I am equally put off by those who needed that picture in order to empathise and realise that ‘we’ need to do something.
Immigrants have been dying in hundreds and thousands. The Mediterranean became an open-air cemetery years ago. Yet, few seemed to care. Even of those who cared, many thought that the world (meaning the society they inhabited, the EU, the Mediterranean region, the economic and political system imposed on the globe, etc.), are fundamentally good as they are. We only need to educate some locals to be less racist and to organise events honouring those who survive the deadly journeys and everything will work out well.
That the whole saga has various political and economic causes that seem to escape the understanding of many. Many still seem to miss this fundamental fact even now.
Europe, including its political class, has now divided itself into the welcoming, the not so welcoming and those who believe in the sanctity of borders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who up to a few weeks ago was vilified by many on the Left for her role in the Greece saga, has become the darling of many radicals. While obviously preferring a welcoming attitude to the inhuman stance of those who want to ‘guard’ their borders at all costs, I am somewhat sceptical about this sudden positive approach.
Most of the immigrants are fleeing Syria. Why is it that at the earliest stages of the conflict, especially when the opposition to Assad was not yet dominated by Islamists, Europe did not attempt to bring the different parties together in order to trash out a possible peaceful solution? Why is it that it naively took one side (anti-Assad), even though with the benefit of hindsight given what happened in Libya, it could see what an ‘anyone but him’ attitude could lead to?
Why is it that an embargo on the sales of weapons by European companies was lifted when IS was already becoming the dominant group in the anti-Assad opposition? And why no one or almost no one, protested when it was lifted? Our foreign minister then said he opposed the lifting of the embargo, but still voted in favour of its lifting. Few seemed to be bothered by this logic or its consequences.
Syrian immigrants in many cases ended up in public spaces like parks and train stations. This did not only disturb ordinary business but created contact between locals and immigrants
Moreover, immigrants have been coming for ages. However, it seems that only Syrian immigrants might (I use the conditional) move Europe to do something in relation to their country of origin (and I am afraid they will do something in relation to Syria only).
I have a slight suspicion.
Contrary to what many think, African immigrants integrate well in European economies, though not in the societies in which they end up living (indeed many end up facing very harsh conditions). They provide cheap labour for both legal and illegal business and - a bonus to European fat cats - attract the ire of poor locals and prevent the latter from looking elsewhere regarding the causes of their hardship.
Moreover, African immigrants tend to end up in ghettos; contact between them and mainstream society will necessarily be occasional. They live in Europe, but in well-defined niches. Their contact with many mainstream Europeans will be sporadic. They thus end up being both visible and invisible; both ‘here’ and ‘not-here’.
Syrian immigrants on the other hand, in many cases ended up in public spaces (parks, train stations and the like). This did not only disturb ordinary business, but created contact between locals and immigrants, with many of the former seeing that the usual labels attached to foreigners do not fit.
It is easier to harbour myths regarding people who are generally out of sight. People (at least in some places) were moved and politicians had to do something.
Our politicians, who suddenly have shown they are sensible to the plight of people forced to leave their country, could try to be proactive in this regard. They, particularly the super-paid MEPs, could start by suggesting some measures at EU level, like: ban the sale of weapons by European companies to Third World countries; penalise European multinationals who exploit the Third World; provide diplomatic and economic investments to those regimes that are oppressing their people to stop doing so.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that Europe will be limiting itself to make the influx less disruptive and to distribute more efficiently the ‘burden’.