European reaction: a mixed bag

Is Europe right to shut its doors on refugees whose displacement has been caused by policies of Western leaders?

The European migration crisis has brought out both the best and the worst in ‘civilised Europe’. Never before since the end of the Second World War has Europe faced such a dilemma — refusing to accept refugees fleeing their countries and yet being acutely conscious of repudiating the humanitarian norms and values that a ‘democratic Europe’ has espoused and championed for the last 200 years.

The migrant crisis has split Europe politically and on grounds of morality. The European Union’s (EU) Dublin Declaration clearly stated that the first country of entry for people fleeing persecution would be under an obligation to register and look after such displaced people until a more durable solution has been found. That is seldom practised. Instead, European countries have started hurling accusations and blaming one another, as helpless refugees wander from place to place in search of shelter. There are countries which are more focused on the humanitarian dimension of the tragedy-stricken people and have expressed their determination to extend help to the migrants. Germany heads the list of such countries. Then, there are those which simply refused entry or in case of refugees having illegally entered their territory, pass them on to other countries. Macedonia and Hungary fall in this category.

The travails and agony of people, who were forced to leave their countries, have shaken the world’s conscience. Thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean or on the small islands off the coasts of Greece, Italy and Turkey. There are moving stories of how desperate people are, hanging on to anything in order to reach any destination, at any cost, as long as there is hope for finding an abode that does not endanger their lives.

The death by drowning of a Syrian toddler and his five-year-old brother has caused widespread outrage. The tragedy has caused remorse, shame and bitterness against the inhumane attitude of many politicians and leaders of Europe. Their indifference, bordering on hostility — as if the induction of a few thousand displaced people in each country would wreak havoc on the institutions of these countries — has caused consternation amongst rank and file Europeans

Europe has not been able to create, at a time of such huge displacement, a unified vision that takes care of the many displaced people — sick and starving men, women and children — in an organised and dignified manner. It has failed to evolve mechanisms to distribute the fleeing refugees among the various EU countries on the basis of an agreed formula that could incorporate such factors as the size of the hosting countries, their resources, the number of displaced persons already living in each country and so on. The continent has been overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenge and its institutions have not been able to respond to the problem in a manner that would be compatible with Europe’s values, norms, technology and the material progress it has made over the last many decades.

Also, the fact that the West bears a tremendous responsibility to the displaced people because of its military interventions in countries like Iraq and Libya has been completely overlooked. After all, the Iraq of Saddam Husain — admittedly a despotic ruler — had never seen such a spectacle of human misery and suffering until such time the West attacked the country on the basis of fabricated allegations of Baghdad having weapons of mass destruction. It was the weapons of mass destruction deployed by the West that destroyed that nation. The March 2003 invasion of Iraq was a criminal act that was neither sanctioned by the UN nor by any yardstick of ethics and principles. Post-invasion Iraq created an environment for such barbaric outfits as the Islamic State to emerge and fill the vacuum created by the destruction of Iraq’s army, police and other state institutions by the US military.

Libya, Afghanistan, Syria suffered the same fate.  Routing the systems and institutions — in whichever form they existed — was a cardinal sin that created a vast and bewildering vacuum that ended up being filled by gangs of criminals, thus destabilising the countries of the region and creating a deep sense of insecurity among the people, which in turn caused them to flee to safer destinations. The West, including Europe, is thus clearly culpable in the gory dramas that are enacted on a daily basis in Syria, Iraq, Libya and other countries of the region.

Is Europe, then, morally right to shut its doors on helpless fleeing refugees whose displacement has been caused by the policies of Western leaders? After all, what caused the dislocation of more than four million Syrians over the last four years? Granted that the principal reason that drove people out of their villages and towns was factional fighting, but who created conditions for such chaos to erupt in the first place?

Perhaps, this region where the forces of loot and plunder have been unleashed, where peace and security have become major casualties, would never be the same again. But Europe would be haunted for years to come, by its indifference and the inaction it has shown to the hundreds of thousands of those who abandoned their homes in the face of utterly intolerable conditions and sought refuge in other countries, which they felt could provide them with safety and security for themselves and their children.

The migration crisis has revealed a facet of Europe’s hypocrisy on the one hand, and on the other, it has also shown the more benign and humanitarian dimension of the European identity. Hundreds of volunteers assembled in Germany, Sweden and across the continent to render whatever help they could to the fatigued and helpless refugees. These friends of humanity set up a splendid example of providing help to people who desperately needed food, shelter and, in many cases, medical treatment. This fine humanitarian intervention will be remembered as an act of those who love mankind and who can rise above political, class or ethnic considerations to work as servants of humanity.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 17^th,  2015.

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