On Thursday September 3, 2015 “Syria”
became the most searched term on Google
in Canada with “how to sponsor a Syrian,”
the top related search. That day, an image of
a 3-year old boy from Syria, lying dead on
a Turkish beach, opened the eyes of many
people around the world to the tragic reality
of the refugee crisis in Europe today.
Unfortunately, this horrific photo and the
death of Alan Kurdi, whose brother and
mother also died attempting to cross from
Turkey into Greece, is only one of thousands
of refugee deaths in the Mediterranean in just
the past year. According to the International
Organization for Migration (IOM), nearly
2,900 people have died so far this year
crossing the Mediterranean for Europe and
somewhere safe to be.
Humanity is in exodus from the Middle
East and Africa, fleeing wars, occupations
and the complete destruction of their lives.
By the end of September 2015, 540,000
refugees arrived on the shores of Europe
through the Mediterranean crossing (which
includes crossing the Aegean Sea). Every
day an average of 5,000 refugees land in Italy
or Greece on overcrowded rafts and boats.
The United Nations High Commission for
Refugees (UNHCR) now estimates that 1.4
million people will make the perilous crossing
through the “sea of death” by the end of 2016.
No Other Choice
Refugees are risking their lives and leaving
everything they have ever known because they
have no other choice; no future in their home
countries and no end in sight to the wars and
occupations that have torn apart their reality.
Just under 50% of refugees landing in Europe
this year have been from Syria, Afghanistan
and Iraq, with the largest percentage, one-
third of all refugees, coming from Syria. This
is no surprise considering
that these countries have
had their basic social
fabric bombed to pieces by
imperialist wars, occupations
and foreign intervention. This
refugee crisis, the movement
of desperate people at a level
not seen since World War
II, is a result of the new era
of war and occupation. This
period of imperialist wars and
occupations began with the
2001 invasion of Afghanistan
and continues to expand
today, with the most recent attacks coming
in the form of the criminal and deadly U.S.-
backed Saudi bombing of Yemen.
One only has to read the news headlines to see
how this imperialist onslaught on humanity
has continued. Just in late September, U.S.
war planes once again resumed bombings in
Afghanistan, a country they have occupied for
the last 14 years.
For Syria and Iraq, the tragedy of imperialist
intervention has had no end in the last 12
years. In 2014 the U.S. and their allies began
bombing Iraq, and then Syria in the name of
fighting ISIS/ISIL terrorists. Since then, the
role of the U.S. and their allies in creating
ISIS/ISIL through their intervention and
meddling in Syria and Iraq has been exposed.
Today even US military officials are admitting
that no progress has been made in stopping
the extremist terrorist force.
In fact, the death and destruction in Iraq
and Syria has only expanded. The Western
fomented civil war in Syria and new
bombing campaign has displaced 40% of
the population of Syria, creating 12 million
refugees. Four million of these refugees have
fled Syria for the neighboring countries of
Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq, while the
rest remain internally displaced. On top of
Western bombs and the new war on their
country, the people of Iraq are also facing a
U.S. strategy to divide the country. This has
created more division and violence in Iraq
and ever-increasing humanitarian crisis for its
population, of which 8 million people are in
need of basic food and water.
Extend this level of crisis to Libya and
Yemen, and take into account decades of
increasing military and foreign intervention
by imperialist governments in Africa, and you
have the cause of the refugee crisis in Europe.
The new era of war and occupation is the
reason that refugees are escaping into Europe
in waves.
The Crisis Comes Home
As many as 3,000 people per day arrive on
the Greek island of Lesbos. With a lack of
adequate housing and resources, as many as
12,000 sleep on the streets as they await the
paperwork that they need to pass on through
Greece and then deeper into Europe. The
inhuman conditions that refugees are forced
to live in have created a tense and desperate
situation that has evoked a brutal response
from the police on the island many times.
This brutality is then repeated over and over
as refugees continue to flee, from the streets
of Italy to train stations in Hungary and the
Calais refugee camp in France.
For refugees escaping their war-torn
countries, the violence that they have endured
has not ended in Europe; it has only taken on
a different form. Shot with tear gas and water
cannons attempting to pass through ever-
changing police lines and fences, or locked
within stadiums awaiting their right to travel,
their experience is much more like
herded animals then human beings
guided into a safe and normal life.
Inhumanity and arrogance have
characterized the response of European
government to the refugee crisis.
Every time there is an international
outcry for a humanitarian response,
whether it is the suffocation of 71
refugees discovered in the back of a
semi-truck in Austria, or the drowning
of 3-year old Alan Kurdi, European
governments are once again forced to
respond. And what do they do? More
fences, more brutal police and another
“European summit,” of course!
Their Response and Our Response
The latest summit resulted in an agreement to
relocate 120,000 refugees in Europe, bringing
the total number of refugees that they have
negotiated to relocate to 160,000. This is a
disgustingly low number and a completely
inhuman and brutal reaction to a human crisis
for which the US, Canada and their European
allies are responsible. Not only have over
500,000 refugees landed in Europe just this
year, but we are also now entering into the
coldest and most miserable time of year.
Although European governments arrogantly
claim they are doing their best, in reality they
are doing nothing, especially when compared
to the countries bordering Syria. Nearly 2
million refugees from Syria live in Turkey.
In Lebanon, 20% percent of their population
is now made up of refugees (a country 100
times smaller than Europe). Iraq, which has
3.6 million internally displaced people and
is facing a new U.S. led war, has become
home for 250,000 Syrian refugees. The total
number of refugees that have fled to Europe
in 2015 represents a tiny 0.01% of the Europe
population, and suddenly the rich developed
nations of Europe are claiming they don’t
have the resources for
refugees?
More than that –
European governments
are spending resources
on measures that attack
refugees, making their
hurried and frantic
journey through Europe
more perilous. In
Hungary, a country that
is en route from Southern
Europe to Germany,
the government has just
completed a 13 foot
high, 109 mile long fence along its border
with Serbia. Crossing this razor-wire fence is
punishable by 3 years in prison. Hungary has
also legalized the use of the army to defend
the border with “pyrotechnics, tear gas, and
‘net’ guns.” (Reuters)
History has shown us that higher fences and
tighter border controls do nothing to prevent
refugees from travelling through Europe, they
only cause more death, pain and humiliation,
and force refugees to rely more and more on
high cost human traffickers and the criminal
underground for their passage. Hungary is
only one example of many European countries
with plans for new fences and increasingly
militarized and violent reaction to desperate
refugees.
The response from the U.S. government, the
government most responsible for the new era
of war and occupation has also been disgusting.
In the first four years of the civil war in
Syria, fomented by U.S.-led intervention
and meddling, the U.S. only accepted 200
refugees from Syria (Washington Post). In
response to the refugee crisis in Europe, the
U.S. government has completely avoided
its responsibility in any sense, saying only
that they will increase with total number of
refugees admitted into the US by 20,000 in
the next two years. Instead, the US Secretary
of State, John Kerry, has responded with
racist and Islamophobic excuses for their
callousness, claiming “budget constraints and
vetting requirements established after the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks limited the scope of
the response.”
As working, poor and oppressed people in
Canada, it is also important for us to recognize
that the hands of the Canadian government
are also bloody when it comes to the refugee
crisis and the new era of war and occupation.
From the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, to the
bombing of Iraq and Syria today, Canada has
committed itself to joining in the imperialist
assault on oppressed people around the globe.
During this election period all three major
political parties have formulated
their careful, yet completely inhuman
responses. Prime Minister Stephen
Harper has said that the Conservatives
will accept 10,000 Syrian refugees
in the next year, with Jason Kenney
adding that “the government must
put the security of the country first.”
The Liberals have said that they would
resettle 25,000 refugees by the end
of this year, and the NDP proposes
accepting 10,000 refugees this year and
46,000 in the next 4 years.
This is an immoral and bankrupt
response given the responsibility that
Canada has in creating the crisis, and
also the capacity of Canada to accept
refugees, as the second biggest country on
the planet. The Conservatives say that their
refugee proposal will cost $25 million over the
next two years. They have also pledged $100
million in additional dollars in humanitarian
assistance for refugees in countries
surrounding Syria. These numbers pale against
the modest estimate from Canada’s Defence
Minister Jason Kenney that Canada will have
spent over $500 million in the war on Iraq and
Syria by September of next year.
However, beyond the cold calculations of
the US, Canada, the UK and the European
Union, there is also the response of people
around the world. As the refugee crisis in
Europe has unfolded over the last few years,
some people across Europe have shown
concerns, but in contrast to the arrogance of
European and imperialist governments, there
has also sympathy and solidarity developing in
working, poor and oppressed people
for the hundreds of thousands of
refugees escaping onto the shores
of Europe. Those that plan rallies
to welcome refugees into Austrian
train stations, or hold “Refugees
Welcome” banners in German
soccer games have not bought into
the xenophobic and racist lies and
deceptions of Western governments
and the corporate media.
In Canada, Fire This Time
demands that the government of
Canada immediately accept 50,000
refugees, and grant them full legal
and human rights. In the next year
the government of Canada must,
at a minimum, accept 150,000 additional
refugees. 200,000 refugees in the next year
represents only one-third of one percent of
the 60 million refugees in the world today.
This is the least that a developed country like
Canada must do.
Open the Borders Now!
The New York Times reported on a recent
visit with refugees in Germany by U.S.
Secretary of State, John Kerry. During this
visit, “Syrians, asked by Mr. Kerry
why the surge of migrants had been
so great in recent weeks, said they
had despaired of being able to return
home and that life in refugee camps
was becoming harder as food rations
were cut back...’The reason people are
coming now is because they gave up
hope completely,’ one woman said.”
The fight for life for refugees and
people facing wars, occupation and
imperialist intervention is not getting
any easier. By this time next year it
is estimated that there will be 4.7
million refugees attempting to get by
in overcrowded camps, or slum neighborhoods
in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. With no end
in sight to the continued US-led bombing of
Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the Saudi bombing
of Yemen, and imperialist intervention in Africa,
there is no doubt that refugees will continue to
risk their lives to flee to Europe.
The only solution to this crisis for humanity
is to open the borders immediately. Everyone
forced to flee for their lives from the Middle
East and Africa must be given a safe place to be,
and granted full legal and human rights where
they choose to live. Whether for the hundreds
of refugees from Eritrea that travelled in an
overcrowded boat to Italy, locked below the
deck against their will, or the 200 children a day
that arrived unaccompanied in Greece in the
month of September, there is no other human
solution. In just the last two years, nearly 7,000
people, many of them unindentified, have
drowned escaping through the Mediterranean
for Europe (IOM). Every single one of these
deaths is a needless death. If the borders are
open, and the passage made safe, no more
refugees have to die. For poor and working
people around the world, defending refugees
is our human obligation. We cannot sit idly by
as our brothers and sisters uproot everything
they have ever known and risk their lives to
escape complete death and destruction.
As people living in Canada, we must also
understand that the wars, occupations and
foreign intervention that the government
of Canada is complicit in are responsible
for the refugee crisis and the new era of war
and occupation. Opening the borders is not
a long term solution to the exodus of people
from the Middle East and Africa. The long-
term solution is ending wars, occupations
and foreign intervention committed by the
US government and their allies like Canada.
The destroyed lives of refugees are evidence
of the atrocities and criminality committed
by the governments like Canada and the
United States abroad, our support for refugees
is our opposition to these criminal wars and
occupations.
We must unite to stop this new era of war and
occupation and defending refugee rights is
part of this fight!
Imperialist Hands Off the Middle East and
Africa!
Open the doors to all refugees now!
REPORT BACK:
Successful Forum in Vancouver
Discusses the Roots of the Refugee Crisis in Europe
As of the beginning of September, 2015, the refugee
crisis in Europe had made its way into the hearts
and minds of people across Canada. Out of a great
human feeling of support and solidarity, people
across the lower mainland had been speaking out
to ask how the government of Canada was going
to respond to the hundreds of thousands of people
escaping to Europe. However, what was missing
from the dialogue was any discussion about the very
roots of the refugee crisis and why so many people
are fleeing their homes and countries.
In response to this, on September 29, 2015 the Fire
This Time Movement for Social Justice organized
a public forum and discussion “Humanity Denied:
Who is to Blame for the Refugee Crisis in Europe”
At this forum, held in East Vancouver, Alison Bodine,
from Fire This Time editorial board addressed this
question, placing the responsibility squarely on the
shoulders of imperialist governments responsible
for the new era of war and occupation;
governments like the U.S., U.K. and Canada.
She described how U.S.-led wars, occupations
and foreign interventions in the Middle East
and Africa have created a situation that is
completely unlivable for people in the region,
who are left with no other option but to
escape to Europe.
The forum also included news clips and
videos about the refugee crisis. The evening
concluded with a lively and impassioned
discussion, which had many participants in the
forum speaking about their own experiences
coming to Canada and questioning the government of
Canada’s lack of response to the refugee crisis.
Fire This Time organizes regular public forums and
discussions.
Please visit the website www.firethistime.net to find out about the next one!
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