People as cheap weapons

At the border between Belarus and Poland, thousands are stranded. At night the temperature dips below freezing. Those who are stranded have little to eat, some have been hungry for days. Wet wood is all they have to burn to stay warm. Parents are giving their little children their own sweaters and jackets, and making do with whatever little they have left. Some of the stranded people have weak tents available to them, while others are making tents out of their own sleeping bags. Many are without any shelter whatsoever. Journalists and aid workers are not allowed anywhere near the stranded. Leaked reports reveal that some people have already died due to exposure to bitter cold.

None of the people barely surviving in the inhospitable forest at the border are from Belarus or Poland. They are mainly Kurds from Iraq, and some are from Afghanistan and Syria. These are people who are worried for their lives, down on their luck, frustrated by the injustice in their societies and easy prey to smugglers. Belarus, in the recent past, made it incredibly easy for potential migrants to come to the country, and then provided them with state-owned transportation to reach the EU border. The country worked with willing travel agencies to create a whole ‘package’ that included flights into Minsk (capital of Belarus) via Turkey or other countries in the Middle East. The package also included a couple of nights at a state-owned hotel. Military buses then brought these people to the EU border (BelarusPoland and/or Belarus-Lithuania border). On the way, the Belarusian military provided the migrants with wire cutters to cut the border fence and enter EU. Poland, on the other side, is not the most welcoming country either. The conservative politics of the country has pushed hard against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. It has fortified its border and is pushing the migrants back into Belarus. Belarus, in turn, has made it almost impossible for the migrants to reach Minsk. The message is simple: move forward or die. This most recent episode of evil has been orchestrated by the Belarusian president who wants to punish EU for its sanctions against its country. He has figured out an important lesson of our time: vulnerable human beings are far cheaper and available aplenty than any weapons. Another man, and his fragile ego, is feasting on the poor and destroying lives and families.

As expected, some have already pinned the blame on the poor and the victims. These people — who are privileged and have never seen abject poverty or extreme injustice — are ready to sermon why the poor want a better life, and why they are risking everything. These great minds often forget that the people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are poorer today because of the policies crafted in high-walled compounds of the glitzy capitals far from these countries. I am disturbed that this humanitarian crisis has not registered on the scale of attention in our local press. The domestic news aside, our papers are happy to report other international news of dubious significance. The entertainment section brings us the latest Bollywood and Hollywood gossip and lately our press has been interested in Portuguese laws about bosses contacting their workers after hours. The plight of fellow humans — in yet another man-made crisis — is perhaps irrelevant for us.

Given that nearly all the migrants are Muslims, I do wonder about our global advertisement to protect the rights of all Muslims. Or do we care only about the richer ones, or the ones that are politically valuable? As we continue to ignore our humanity, and feign ignorance when little kids die in the cold, there is now little to separate us from those who weaponise the innocent for vile political point scoring.