The sentence passed by quickly at the
bottom of the screen, a headline from the
New York Times
“60 Million People Fleeing Chaotic Lands,
U.N. Says” and it was gone, followed by
other news. This staggering number of
refugees is the equivalent to the entire
estimated population of Italy. Yet, it is still
only a portion of the world’s displaced
people, only those refugees fleeing their
countries due to war and persecution, not
due to poverty. The movement of 60 million
people is nearly impossible to imagine.
It is even more difficult if you imagine
the ways that these refugees are forced to
flee their homelands. They move by sea in
overcrowded and dangerous boats and rafts,
through deserts in the back of semi-trucks,
their fate determined by smugglers and
criminals, or by a sudden rainstorm.
Refugee Crisis - a Crisis for Humanity
In April of 2015 over 800 people died
when a single ship carrying refugees from
Libya to Italy sank in the Mediterranean.
This horrific incident created a mass outcry
that finally brought international media
attention to the devastating pace that people
were drowning in the sea en route to find a
better life in Europe. In only the first four
months of 2015, over 1,850 people had died
in what became known as “the sea of death.”
What was the cause of this increase in the
loss of human life? As was written in “The
Human Crisis Made By Imperialist Powers”
(Fire This Time, Volume 9, Issue 5), “There
are a few reasons for this increasing death
rate, including
the criminal
policies of E.U.
[European Union]
governments
towards people
fleeing persecution, poverty and death.
This includes cuts to rescue operations,
following the backwards thinking of
British Tory Minister Baroness Anelay,
who claimed last year that rescue operations
were actually encouraging more refugees to
cross the Mediterranean. This is a ridiculous
claim, given not only the rate of refugees so
far this year, but also the estimation of the
UN International Maritime Organization
that nearly 500,000 refugees will make the
perilous journey this year.”
Following international condemnation,
E.U. governments scrambled for a solution
to the crisis at hand. Quickly they decided
on a short-term strategy, in what was
described by Amnesty International as a
“face-saving, not a life-saving operation.”
The E.U. strategy largely only included an
increase in funding for “Operation Triton,”
a boat rescue operation run through the
E.U.’s border security agency Frontex,
which is only mandated to operate within
50 miles of the European shoreline. Their
plan didn’t even offer a solution for the
40,000 refugees already accepted for asylum
in Europe.
It is now three months after the tragic death
of those 800 refugees and it is even more clear
that the E.U. was not interested in saving
human lives, only in calming the outcry.
Not only have people continued to lose
their lives in the dangerous Mediterranean
crossing, but the crisis has further
overflowed, in much the same way as cracks
spread in a breaking vase continuously filled
with water. According to the UNHCR (the
United Nations Refugees Agency), from
January to June 2015, 137,000 refugees
crossed the Mediterranean to Greece, Italy,
Malta and Spain. This is 83% more than in
2014, evidence that the Middle East and
Africa are further plagued by imperialist
intervention, wars and occupations.
Most of the people that make it safely to
the shores of Europe, only do so after being
rescued at sea by fishing boats or government
and merchant ships. Unfortunately, once
their feet touch dry land, their crisis
continues. The struggle for refugees begins
over again, this time on European soil, as
they are forced into unsafe and unsanitary
detention centres to be processed as asylum
seekers and refugees. Camps in Southern
Italy and Greece are especially overcrowded,
and refugees are once again forced to live in
inhuman conditions often similar to those
they have fled, as they wait for European
officials to decide their fate.
In the Amnesty International statement
“Greece: Humanitarian crisis mounts as
refugee support system pushed to breaking
point” they state, “Tens of thousands of
vulnerable people making the perilous
sea journeys to escape war or poverty
arrive on these islands only to be met by a
support system on its knees. The majority
of new arrivals have limited or no access to
medical or humanitarian support and are
often forced to stay in squalid conditions
in overcrowded detention centres or open
camps.”
The statement continues “An Afghan
refugee held with his wife and two
small children on Lesvos told Amnesty
International: ‘My children slept with wet
clothes...nobody came to check us. The
situation is bad here, my children are ill, we
are ill....We need a doctor and clothes.’”
The humanitarian crisis continues beyond
the Mediterranean sea. Take, for example,
a camp located outside of Vienna, Austria.
The Wall Street Journal reported that this
camp is housing twice as many people as it
has space for, and more than 2,000 people
are sleeping outside.
If the refugees are finally accepted as asylum
seekers, they are left to fend for themselves
on the streets of some of Europe’s most
impoverished countries. Once unable to
find jobs or means of life in countries like
Greece, many refugees are forced to travel
illegally to other parts of Europe, as current
laws govern that they are only granted
asylum in the country where they first
landed in Europe.
The Human Crisis Spreads Throughout
Europe
It is at this step in the perilous journey
for refugees that we encounter the latest
flashpoint making international headlines.
In the first seven months of 2015, 37, 000
people have been stopped attempting to
cross through the Channel Tunnel that
connects France to England. Eurotunnel,
the private company that runs the tunnel,
also revealed that in the month of July, nine
people had died trying to make the crossing.
In the week following the announcement,
videos showing recently deployed and
armed riot police fighting against refugees
have appeared all over social media. It is
these videos that have displayed clearly
for the world the callousness of European
governments towards desperate people that
have been forced by imperialism to flee
their homelands.
In response to this human crisis, David
Cameron, the British Prime Minister,
has likened refugees to swarming insects
and called for the violent tightening of
the border between France and England.
On July 29, 2015 he arrogantly responded
to questions about the Channel Tunnel
crossings with, “This is very testing, I accept
that, because you have got a swarm of people
coming across the Mediterranean, seeking
a better life, wanting to come to Britain
because Britain has got jobs, it’s got a
growing economy, it’s an incredible place to
live....But we need to protect our borders by
working hand in glove with our neighbours
the French and that is exactly what we are
doing.”
There are
currently
about 10,000
refugees
living in
Calais,
France, an
area located
near the
Channel
Tunnel
crossing.
The camps
in Calais,
located on the
site of a former chemical dumping ground,
are also known as “The Jungle.” Graffiti on a
wall in Calais reads in Arabic “Calais is the
hell of immigrants.” For people that have
travelled the 2,500km from Southern Italy
to Calais, escaping hell the entire way, it is
no wonder that they would be willing to
once again risk their lives to make the final
journey on to the UK.
Capitalism and Imperialism are the roots
of the Refugee Crisis?
Now that the stories of refugees are once
again making international headlines, and
in the case of those crossing from France to
England, disturbing the ability for trade and
travel between two prominent European
countries, European leaders are once
again scratching their heads about how to
respond. What are the solutions that the
European governments are offering? We
only have to look at the last three months
of their failed immigration policies to see
what kind of “progress” has been made in
providing a human solution to refugees.
European governments have nothing to
offer but more and higher fences and check
points, nothing but increased humiliation
and death for refugees.
So what is it
that European
governments
and big media
are leaving
out when they
discuss the
refugees in
Europe today?
We only
have to scroll
through a few
mainstream
Western
media articles
about refugees
in Europe to
realize that
they pretty much all have the same content.
They all talk about the grave crisis facing
Europe, and they even go as far as to discuss
the reasons why an unprecedented number
of refugees are making the dangerous
journey. But they stop before even asking
the most fundamental question - why have
the homelands of these refugees, largely
from the Middle East and Africa, been
plagued with endless wars, occupations and
devastation? Until this question is answered
there is no solution to the refugee crisis, a
crisis for humanity that is only expected to
grow in the coming years.
The importance of this question, and the
gross hypocrisy of European governments,
is clearly seen by taking a closer look at the
countries from where these refugees are
fleeing. According to a UNHCR report,
the majority of the refugees arriving in Italy
and Greece from the Mediterranean Sea
are from Syria. The second-most common
country of origin is Afghanistan. Over the
last 14 years, both of these countries have
been completely destroyed through foreign
intervention, war and occupation.
Syria is a country devastated by over four
years of a brutal civil war fomented by the
U.S. and their imperialist allies, including
France and the U.K. More than four
million people have been forced to flee
Syria. As these war refugees run desperately
to neighbouring countries, they are finding
life to be nearly as difficult as in Syria. This
means they must continue, moving through
Turkey beyond into Europe. The story of
Sami, a Syrian refugee, is common. In an
interview with the Irish Times, he explains
“Every day, every hour, people were dying.
Two of our daughters’ friends were killed.
Our youngest, who is 12, would not talk
for a week. Their school work suffered.
They were crying so much that they would
not open their copy books for weeks...
The economy has collapsed. I tried to find
work in Lebanon, where I registered as a
refugee. But there is no work there either
and accommodation is so expensive.” Now,
the U.S. and their allies are taking the crisis
in Syria even further – dropping bombs on
the country in the same of “fighting ISIS/
ISIL terrorism.”
Travel to the camp at Calais and you will
hear a similar story of desperation caused
by imperialist wars and occupations. In an
interview with the Telegraph newspaper,
Raihan Jan, a young refugee, described the
situation in his home in Afghanistan. “Life
in our villages is very difficult, we can’t live
there. I lost an uncle and we lost all our
property and home in the war, everything
was destroyed. I heard that it is also difficult
there in the UK but we will try.” As this
young man prepares for the dangerous
journey through the Channel Tunnel to
England, he is travelling to find refuge
in the same country, which alongside the
U.S., invaded Afghanistan
in 2001 and carried out
a brutal and devastating
occupation. This occupation
left Afghanistan one of the
poorest countries in the
world, where the current
unemployment rate stands
at 40%. Even today 100,000
foreign private contractors
remain in Afghanistan
to serve the interests of
imperialist governments.
Together refugees from
Syria and Afghanistan
make up 27% of all refugees
landing on the shores of
Greece and Italy (BBC).
The majority of other
refugees come from other
parts of Africa, a continent
robbed and devastated by hundreds of years
European colonization, the North American
slave trade and continued imperialist
intervention. The British Empire, France,
Belgium, Portugal, Germany at one point
all held colonies in Africa, robbing their
natural and human resources. Colonization
also brought with it the re-tracing of
borders in Africa in ways that have led to
continuous violence and conflict, further
propagated by the legacy of divide-and-
conquer tactics used by imperialist powers
to keep their colonies under control. In the
last five years, the African continent has
continued to face the battering of U.S. and
European bombs – from Mali to Libya.
With this legacy it is clear that the policy
of European governments towards refugees
is not only anti-human and hypocritical,
but also completely soaked in the blood
of millions of people in the Middle East
and Africa. It is clear that the European
countries, rather than erecting razor-
wire fences, have the obligation to give
conditions for life to the refugees fleeing
towards their shores.
No to Imperialism! No to Capitalism!
Open the Border to All Refugees!
The so-called solution to this human crisis
offered by the European governments that
has now been offered is no solution at all.
Although 6,000 refugees were rescued at
sea in the beginning of June, the fact that
there were still 6,000 refugees that have
taken the dangerous journey is evidence
enough of its failure. This is not to mention
the horrible conditions and prospects that
refugees continue to face if they are lucky
enough to be rescued at sea. Furthermore,
increased border security has forced more
and more people to make the deadly
Mediterranean crossing, as land-crossings
become more difficult and refugees
continue to be collectively expelled back
across the land border, an illegal practice
known as “push-back.”
The only immediate solution to the
refugee crisis is for all European countries
to open their doors immediately. The
needless deaths of the world’s most
vulnerable and devastated peoples must
be stopped. All refugees must be accepted
unconditionally and must be granted legal
status immediately. These refugees must be
trained and educated for a new life, for a
new future. Imperialists and specifically
European imperialist countries are the
reason for this pain and misery therefore
they are primarily responsible for providing
decent shelter and life for all refugees.
The only long term solution to the refugee
crisis is to put an end to the causes of so much
misery and bloodshed in the Middle East
and Africa. This means ending imperialist
intervention, wars and occupations and
ultimately putting an end to the system
driving this devastation – capitalism. The
unstoppable thirst of the capitalist system
for more and more natural and human
resources in the quest for more and more
profit is what brings about imperialist wars
and occupations.
On August 1, the Telegraph newspaper
printed and opinion piece titled “Migrants
think our streets are paved with gold.”
This
piece was written by
Theresa May, the U.K.
Home Secretary and Bernard Cazeneuve,
France’s Minister of the Interior. In it they
state, “The nations of Europe will always
provide protection for those genuinely
fleeing conflict or persecution. However, we
must break the link between crossing the
Mediterranean and achieving
settlement in Europe for
economic reasons.”
No, it must be argued, no, Mrs.
May and Mr. Cazeneuve, it
is not possible to distinguish
between refugees “genuinely
fleeing conflict or persecution”
and risking their lives to come
to Europe for “economic
reasons.” It is imperialist,
capitalist governments like that
of the U.K. and France that
have created so much human
misery, that have forced people
to leave everything behind
and make a run for it just to
achieve the basic necessities of
life. And it is your governments
that must take responsibility for
the human crisis that you have
created.
Today we are living in a world characterized
by the new era of war and occupation. A
world, that as is stated at the beginning of
this article, has created an unprecedented
number of displaced persons, a world
where 2.2 billion people live on less than $2
dollars a day.
The crisis of refugees in Europe can be seen
as an overflowing cup. Destroy the land,
water and basic infrastructure for millions
of people around the world, and they have
no other choice but leave in search of a
better life.
Imperialist Hands Off the Middle East and
Africa!
Open the Doors to All Refugees!
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