Dying to be Safe, The Refugee Crisis

Since I wrote this piece the migrant/ refugee story has escalated into a serious crisis. Thousands of refugees are taking a risky journey on overcrowded boats which are not designed for this purpose.  They fled their homes due to the wars, death and destruction to unsafe, overcrowded and badly funded refugee camps. So flee again in search of stable safe and secure life. They have paid their life savings to smugglers  to get them to safety. The tragedies of hundreds of deaths, in the sea and on the European soil, including babies, children, men women and the infirm are piling up. However, this doesn’t deter desperate people as what they left behind is worse than perceived peaceful existence ahead. Instead what they are finding is razor wired fences, army/ police patrols, helicopters, baton charges and tear gas, etc. Thousands are being held in inhumane conditions in camps reminiscent of camps in the early 20^th century. Thousands are sleeping in the fields after Hungry closed her border. 

While the European leaders were concentrating on the hazardous sea journeys between Libya and Italy and the British were preoccupied by the migrants living in the “Jungle”, humanitarian crisis were developing in Greece. War wary refugees were landing in their thousands at the shores of Greece islands. Recession hit Greece but no one came to their help, they hired Ferries to move these people to land. These people then walked hundreds of miles on foot with their children, pregnant women, old and the infirm. However, one European country decided took upon itself to be the Guardian of the European Law and the Christian culture of Europe and decided to block their passage.

Only European leader who kept her head and showed compassion is the German Leader Angela Merkel. It is not the first time Merkel has shown leadership as she is the only European leader who has spoken out against neo Nazi hate groups such as Pagida and other anti immigrant and anti Muslim hate groups. On Wednesday 2^nd September came the news of drowning of a young Kurdish Syrian family including 2 year old Aylan Kurdi hit our TV screens and front pages. However, If there wasn’t a striking picture of the two year old Aylan’s body washing up on shore, this incident would have remained another one of those non important drowning of migrants. How insensitive it might seem to be but the image awakened the humanity which has been lacking for years. The problem has been the brainwashing of our population by our media which has been portraying migrants as spongers and benefit and health tourists. This propaganda continued unabated, despite clear evidence that the migration, recent and historic, has been good for the economy and helped UK and other European economies.

The treatment of refugees in Hungry and other Eastern European countries shows a clear divide between old EU and the new EU countries. In their desire to expand the European and US influence in these countries and to expand their influence in countries bordering Russia, they were fast tracked into the European Union and the NATO. No one considered that these countries, which had been separated from the European civilisation by not only walls of the cold war era but also the development of civilised society. And that they were clinging onto the old historic events with deep held prejudices.

Our politicians and journalists, who lecture their minority communities about integration and values of Europe, failed to educate new comer nations about the values of humanity, human rights and other European values. While old European Union allowed new Europeans to travel freely and showered them with Billions of dollars of aid, it took eye of the important issues and let the scourge of far right develop and spread through partnerships throughout Europe. These partnerships not only developed previous rhetoric of anti-Semitism and racism, it added Islamophobic  rhetoric to their hate programme.

It is this failure, to integrate and educate new members about European values, which is undermining the European unity, culture, and values, resulting in the human rights abuses. While Hungry, currently ruled by a far right party, is taking the lead in demonising Syrian refugees, other Eastern European countries like Poland, Check republic, etc are also refusing to settle some of these refugees in their countries. UK is also refusing to help these refugees, already on the European soil. Europe is clearly going backwards not forward. Only Angela Merkel is upholding the European values but her decision to accommodated hundreds of thousands refugees may also prove to be the most pragmatic.

The same people, who often complain about the economic power of Germans, are attacking her decision to give refuge to these often young, educated and ambitious people. They question her statements about Germany’s ability to absorb Hundreds of thousands refugees and to say Syrian refugees were welcome. Journalists ask Germans silly questions, such as are you welcoming migrants because of the guilt of what happened in the past. They can not comprehend the genuine humanity and compassion.  

The open racism of the Hungarian government, which Nigel Farage described as moderate, shouldn’t be a surprise as 64% of Hungarians hold anti-Semitic views. Now it has become clear that they also hold serious Islamophobic views too. Nigel Farage and Hungarian Ministers say that these refugees aren’t destitute and are from the middle classes, as though only poor classes are affected by wars. Yes these people seems to have the means to pay the people smugglers to reach place of safety but that shouldn’t detract us from the fact that they are fleeing war and struggles they are enduring to reach place of safety. Because these refugees are educated, middle class, UKIP is unable to use the rhetoric of spongers and attraction of the Benefit systems, so they resort to attacking them for being middle class and false claims that it would dilute Christian culture. The reality is that even if 250,000 are accepted in Europe it will only add 0.05% to the existing 3.5% Muslim population of Europe.

People like Nick Cohen and other Eutsonites, Maajid Nawaz, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and other so called Liberal Left, should be pleased that their Islamophobic rhetoric has much in common with the Far right Anti-Semitic Hungary and other Eastern Europeans. They also have a commonality with the hate spreading messages of Douglas Murray of the Henry Jackson Society and the Gatestone institute. It seems that these champions of Human Rights, Freedoms including Freedom of Speech, Secularism, etc agree that 0.05% addition to the population of Europe threaten European culture and values. I must add that these people, from time to time write about the misery faced by the refugees/ migrants but then go on to support the Government line on this issue. The media including BBC uses suspect surveys to show that majority of the public is against helping the refugees/migrants

Another “liberal left” journalist David Aaronovitch has written about the plight of the Syrian refugees but then he uses this crisis/ tragedy to make a case for intervention. One thing for sure that he is a consistent in his warmongering agenda. He talks about 200,000 deaths in Syria conflict but fails to admit that half of them are caused by the forces opposed to the Assad regime. Furthermore, further military intervention will not only increase the death toll, refugee crisis, it will turn Syria into Libya like lawless country. The only solution is a negotiated settlement but these warmongers don’t want any role by Turkey, Iran and Russia. They previously opposed and undermined UN’s efforts to find a negotiated settlement through Ban Ki Moon’s envoys, Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi.

The right wing media and people like Nick Cohen, Maajid Nawaz, etc use red herrings such as why aren’t Gulf states taking in the refugees. The same rhetoric was repeated by the English Democrats leader, who was given platform by the BBC’s Andrew Neil, on the daily politics show. These are the same people who constantly attack these states for alleged human rights abuses but, because these refugees happen to be Muslim, it is ok for them to go there. In any case majority of Syrian, Afghan and other Muslim refugees are being hosted by the neighbouring Muslim countries. In any case these refugees have spent years in warzones and refugee camps where lives have been stood still. Their children’s education has stalled and often these children are forced to work to earn to put food on table.

Soon headlines and breaking news about refugees will disappear from the front pages and our screens. It is paramount that we keep telling our main stream politicians and governments to show humanity and to put in practice the values they like to talk about. They should show leadership and, as Jeremy Corbyn said, stand up to the menace of far right, hidden right in the cloak of Liberalism and racism and find a European solution to these humanitarian crises on the European land. They should also work to find a peaceful negotiated settlement of the conflicts and they will find many of these refugees will return to rebuild their country.              

Pesky Migrants knocking on our shores

Once again the lead story on all news channels is the migrants. Today it is the turn of the Calais and all of the TV crews are there. Due to the strike of the ferry workers, desperate humans fleeing from conflicts like in Syria or poverty, tried to board trucks and cars to escape the inhumane conditions. Our TV crews were there to film their desperation. Our politicians talked tough and the PM promised more resources not to help or feed but to prevent them from entering. These included sniffer dogs, scanners and personnel. Everyone is claiming that it is not their responsibility to help and it should be UNHCR or the first country these people had entered. In the meantime these people must live like animals in shanty town in the jungle, where there are no facilities or basics such as food or water.

These desperate people are often dismissed as economic migrants as though search for better life for themselves and their families is a bad thing. However, not all are economic migrants and have escaped with their lives from conflicts, wars and natural disasters. Yes, some of them have also been victims of the traffickers, to whom they may have paid money. But that only makes them victims of greedy and often cruel and brutal criminals. These criminals do not hesitate to torture and even kill for their own protection.   

With the prominence given to the coverage you would think there are tens of thousands of migrants waiting to invade our island country. The fact is that there are only 3000 people who are living in the shanty town in the Calais. Compare that to the tens of thousands arriving in Italy from Libya, via the Mediterranean sea. So far this year approximately 60,000 people have been rescued from the sea. The rescue only started after incidents of drowning including drowning of 800 in one incident. So where are these 60,000 people? They are obviously in Europe but not in the UK. Clearly, other European countries are doing their fair share of helping these people except the UK.

It is often said that we are an island nation and we can’t help everyone. The reality is that we are not the only island nation as every country considers itself to be an island within their borders. No country has flexible borders which expand or contract according to rise or reduction in the population. Even Australia, a country of whole continent, claims to be an Island.

 A recent report by the United Nations said that there are nearly 60 million displaced people in the world. When this figure is mentioned politicians and pundits often say that Britain can’t take 60 million people. They miss the point that majority of these people are internally displaced in their countries, due to war and natural disasters. Others are mainly living in the neighbouring countries. Like Syrians in Turkey and Afghans in Pakistan, the two countries with highest number of refugees in the world.

The reality is that the vast majority of refugees stay in or around their country. Same applies to the economic migrants that they tend to stay in the neighbourhood. Only a small number venture far afield and they mostly do that on the invitation of the host countries. There is a myth that there are vast numbers of illegal migrants. Often it is assumed to be migrants from non white countries, in reality there are probably Austarlians, Newzelanders, Americans and Canadians but raids are mainly carried out on non white businesses and areas. Fact is that there is no concrete evidence of the kind of numbers banded about by the media and the politicians.

Unfortunately, immigration discussion has taken over the previously common topic of weather. Furthermore, colour, ethnicity, race and more recently religion has become a factor in the migration debate and policies in Australia, EU and North America. Those presenting the endless programmes and debates on the immigration do not bother to look behind the headlines. There are no explanations given beyond the recent past. As I stated earlier that even the economic migrants prefer to stay in the neighbourhood. No one is willing to say what’s gone wrong, why are these migrants risking life and treasure to travel to strange lands.

We need to look back and consider what has changed. What happened to the economies of the regions from which these people are fleeing from? What happened to the jobs previously available to migrants?

If we look back, in 1992 Iraq employed more than a million foreign workers. Libya at the time of western intervention employed as many as 2.5 million foreign workers, a vast majority from Africa but also from South Asia. Libya also provided economic support to African nations in the African Union. Syria, while not employing as many foreign workers, nonetheless had thousands of domestic workers. Syria had also hosted Palestinian refugees and Iraqi refugees during the Iraq occupation. The sanctions in Iran, which also hosts a sizeable community of Afghan refugees, meant Iranians seeking work elsewhere while they could have been providing jobs for the foreign workers.

Clearly the wars and conflicts in the Middle East and Africa and natural disasters such as famine, droughts have had a devastating effect on the local economies. Millions of Jobs have disappeared from the region. No wonder desperate people are risking all for work, better life and security. The remaining economies of the Gulf region could pick and choose labour and get away with low wages and unsafe and unhealthy conditions for workers. Israel, “the only democracy in the Middle East”, refuses to accept African migrants but continues to invite well off westerners to settle in the country. The rich are also welcomed by the western economies. While rich are good for the economy and growth, you need people to fill jobs created by such investment.

The fact is that many of the people knocking on our shores are educated and professional people. Like the Syrian teacher, interviewed by Krishnan Guru Murthy of channel 4 news. He was English Literature teacher in Aleppo. Now he is living in the Jungle in Calais in France. He unsuccessfully tried to get on to a lorry yesterday and alleged that he had been beaten by the French Police. There was also a 65 year old man who got injured while being removed from the lorry; he had previously worked in the Middle East and now desperate to find a job.

The reality is that Europe needs migrants for economic growth but political considerations come in the way. It is time to have a sensible immigration policy to assess status of migrants and to recruit foreign workers needed to grow our economy. Such a policy will stop exploitation and misery of fellow human beings. It is time to stop talking about humans as statistics and to start seeing them as human beings.

The media, which criticises other countries for mistreatment of migrant workers, should start providing public information about the real factors behind immigration. It should also stop giving false myths that the immigrants are only after benefits. Helping immigrants with sensible and thought through policies, without consideration of their colour, race and religion will be mutually beneficial. It will also return Calais to what it should be, a day trippers haven for purchase of booze and fags.  Find Update Here