A NEW GENOCIDE IN EUROPE

The waves of people looking for a better future

by Marco Borsotti

Twenty years ago, but perhaps even more recently, who would have thought that so close to Europe and even within its own borders, it would be seen again violent death of tens of thousands of people who have in common the dream of being able to enter the old continent in search of work and more security. Although it is not people who have a common race, religion or nationality, all are hastily categorized as illegal immigrants, people that only for that reason in our beautiful country (Italy) have already committed an offense that may be prosecuted.While at the end of August in Vienna the European political Elite met again to discuss, among other things, immigration in the International Conference on the Western Balkans, only 50 km from the Austrian capital was discovered a 7.5 ton truck parked in the emergency lane of the A4 motorway where investigators found the presence of 71 bodies at an early stage of decomposition; all died from suffocation, among them eight women and four children. I not even want to think about the horrible way in which these people were sentenced to die for lack of oxygen in the close space where they had been packed like sardines to maximize the profit of their executioners, kindly identified as the "people smugglers", those that facilitate switching to undocumented people from one country to another within the Schengen zone in Europe.

 

The paean of politics and power over immigration crisis

As soon as the news was circulated, it has been a chorus of voices condemning this new crime associated with illegal immigration in Europe. Listening to those words in me it was born a sense of revolt, disgust for the perfidy of those who were uttering. Just seeing all those politicians and heads of security in Europe talking, even without listening to what they were saying, I proved nausea. It was obvious, as everyone said, that those victims had met that horrible death because who locked them up in that van had done nothing for them to breathe. They were certainly the executioners materials, the killers of those seventy one intentional homicides. But those in front of microphones and cameras deploring this incident, well they were primarily responsible for these deaths and thousands of deaths more that year after year decimate those escaping from the hell in which they live, seeking a better future in Europe.

They and their predecessors generated the conditions for similar travel horror to happen. They are those who have intentionally underestimated what was going on for years at the borders of Europe. They are those who ignore the spirit of international treaties on immigration and refugee protection, and did not allow these desperate people to travel safely denying visas to enable them to use normal means of transport. They are those who have created the conditions for this exodus, until a few years ago, imaginable. This migration is the result of the wars they have promoted in the Middle East and Africa. They encouraged the worst possible exploitation of the resources of those countries from which these desperate people come, exploitation made by European and North American companies that they favorite. The exodus we are seeing is the result of having supported for decades murderous regimes in the countries of origin of immigrants, regimes interested only in the exploitation of their fellow citizens to reap profits, but very helpful to Europe in the international arena.

The political forces that govern Europe are responsible for having allowed and encouraged these events to happen. There would be no millions of people displaced and fleeing their country from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Eritrea, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Libya, Eritrea, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Liberia, Sudan, Afghanistan, I will stop here, but the list is still long, if the situation of those countries were not so horribly desperate.

I unworthy when I listen to experts who discuss the distinction between refugees and economic migrants, as if in fact the two things could be separated. Societies in the countries from which these people are fleeing have been disrupted at times by wars, at times for economic exploitation. Always, however, the living conditions for local people more socially vulnerable rapidly deteriorated, leaving those humans no other choice but to look elsewhere for a way to survive. They would remain where they were, they would be dead anyway, so the more daring have started the long journey of thousands of kilometers through deserts, areas infested by war, by armed gangs, crossing seas and rivers to reach Europe that they saw and continue to see as the only place to find peace, and work protection. For them there was no alternative.

Speaking as unfortunately many are doing for the forced return of the so-called economic immigrants with perhaps the exception of those from other European countries, alas even a position adopted by UNHCR, it ignores the reality of the facts in the places from which these people are fleeing and demonstrates the lack of all respect for the dignity of people since it assumes that people rejected can return safely to their countries of origin because in those places there are governments able to look after their needs. For this reason our world is anxious to give credit to crumbling governments such as those that exist in Libya, Somalia, to name a few examples, but the same can be said of the governments of almost all the places from which these desperate people flee. It is a cruel and shameful hypocrisy of politicians in Europe, but also of most of the written press and television that these lies cover and rise.

The war between the poor, the cruelty of ordinary people

I unworthy reading many of the comments that appear on computer sites where ordinary people unload their frustrations, their fears, their ignorance of the facts charging the blame for all that today does not work in our countries to immigrants. A few days ago I read a short note that illustrates better than words what is happening today: a banker, a worker and an immigrant are seated at a table on which there are twenty biscuits. The banker takes 19 immediately and then says to the worker: careful that the Moroccan wants to steal your cookie.Scoundrels, because just this they are, foment war between the poor spreading hatred daily through television and newspapers that give voice to their positions practically unchallenged.

Among leading social networks circulate films and brief comments that contribute to spread hatred and fear of immigrants. It fabled that immigrants are the privileged idlers who receive millions of public aid that are denied to national and then steal, kill, rape. The figures quoted are always false, movies which show that immigrants are evil, are nothing but fictions shot with actors who hold a part, but no one stops the circulation of these materials, nor the authorities that should protect the truth of what circulates in the networks, nor the managers of the sites in question. Obviously, when there is a suspected breach of copyright, regulatory bodies and operators are very quick to delete what is found in violation of intellectual property law. But not in this case even though there are laws in the Criminal Code that punish incitement to racial hatred or the dissemination of intentionally untrue materials. Nothing is done to remove this material and punish those who put them into circulation with the sole purpose of inciting racial hatred and xenophobia.

One thing that annoys me in particular way, is to see that most has been forgotten in our history. I am no longer a kid, I admit, but I remember when in my childhood and adolescence people who knew my family immigrated to look for work. Then circulated stories of exploitation and discrimination of Italians abroad and all repeated that those behaviors were uncivilized because it lacked compassion to people who did not want anything but earning an honest living by the sweat of their brows. Often, then, the Italians were accused of being criminals, loafers, of stealing jobs, to be molesters of girls of the place, in short all the charges today Italians accredit is fair to attribute to immigrants. I do not deny that then as now among immigrants you may also found people who did not hesitate to commit a crime, but this does not authorize to generalize as it is being done.

Certainly, if the information system work, spaces for such propaganda would soon be closed, denied by journalists who deserve this title demonstrating that the racist and xenophobic narrative is fundamentally false. Sadly, it is not so in fact, as demonstrated in the news headlines: Albanian gang specialized robbing houses, vanquished by the police or Congolese rapes a tourist on the beach, while no one can think using a similar title to describe who commit crimes when they are Italian and often they are. No one will dream never to generalize and write that Italian assault, rape or simply steal. These are the faults of the people and not the ethnic group from which these people come from.

Immigration is always really bad for those who receive it?

However it seems that we continue to talk and write about a phenomenon, immigration, as if it were something transient and mostly reversible. In my opinion, the immigration that we see today is not a phenomenon that can be stopped. Political behavior, social and economic impact of developed countries has certainly generated the initial push, broke the inertia, the static condition that makes human being basically sedentary, but once set in motion the phenomenon seems unstoppable and I go even to assert, thankfully!

Writing before about the guilts of European politicians, I was referring to the fact that for several decades after the end of the decolonization process, Europe has continued to take advantage of what had been its colonies without any administrative responsibility. The overseas territories have been subject of a real robbery, even worse than that which occurred during the colonial period. In fact, in those places they were and are raw materials and energy sources that were beginning to run low in the first world and that, in some cases, have never existed in Europe as minerals essential for the computer industry. All governments of the West even under the aegis of promotion of development favored that their national enterprises had access to those goods at the lowest cost possible. To do so, the same Western governments have often promoted the rise to power, almost always with acts of force funded by the same governments, people who promised not to hinder these plans in exchange for guaranteed absolute power in their country . In the sixties, the few political leaders who did not seem to adhere to this pattern were removed by force with the help of Western governments.

As part of the Cold War, the political leadership of each country of the third world was aligned with one or the other of the two blocks and received full protection. Sometimes, the Cold War became hot locally as happened in Korea, Vietnam, Congo, Mozambique or Angola, but this has not altered the overall scheme of things. The local tyrants were always welcome when they showed loyalty with their protector, the West or the Soviet Union.All this remained in unstable equilibrium, but still balance until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the USSR. Then insecurity grew enormously and changed the rules of the game. Wars neighborhood that previously would have been dormant, erupted. Internal revolts where rival groups trying to overthrow the oligarchies in power became the norm.

In many it had the illusion that the end of the cold war would open a period of peace and prosperity for the planet, but it was wrong. In all theaters wars and fights started and the Western world, including Europe, entered the arena to encourage candidates who guaranteed their economic and political interests. The previous situation was not a bed of roses for the inhabitants of what was known as the third world, but the vast majority of them lived in relative safety and without excessive fear for their future and that of their offspring. The generalization of the war put an end to that state of equilibrium.

The beginning of the exodus

Initially, population movements were inside the same country or at most to neighboring countries, but it was not to be a genius in space science to figure out that it was only a matter of time before these human movements would start to move forward to distant areas. I can write and discuss this because in those years I was working in development cooperation of the United Nations, where many tried to illustrate these points to Western countries, donors from our point of view, insisting that they would have to invest far greater sums than those invested for stabilize the internal situation of the countries of the third world if they wanted to avoid those problems arrive at the threshold of their homes.

In those years, it made sense to invest in places where people lived. The conditions to bring to fruition those investments were still present in the territories that hardly knew war and destruction. Today, especially where prevails war, talks like this make no- sense. We ourselves would not accept stays in places where you can never predict when the next attack shall occur. In fact, the same bands of fighters who are in those areas, with the passage of time, have become increasingly cruel, prone to surrender to violence without respect for anyone. I remember Somali teenagers, all illiterate, all dedicated to the consumption of the chat (an amphetamine vegetable), ready to kill, rape, torture, without showing to really understand the pain of others, aware that perhaps tomorrow would be their turn, so why worry.

Further complicating the situation, in the Middle East scenario, where the greater the interest in the control of energy sources, Western powers for several reasons, the main one being to promote the national defense industry, began direct military campaigns, justified internally as fight against terrorism, in one case, or as an effort to bring freedom and democracy where there were only dictatorships, in another case. While continuing to fight making use of intermediaries, proxies, armed and trained to fight their enemies, Western countries started to make direct use of regular troops, real occupation forces, that those sending them to the front expected, they should have, due to their strategic superiority and logistics, solved quickly in favor of the West wars in which they were involved.

Today we all know that these expectations were not only vain, but these wars eventually became a humiliating defeat for the Western troops, having superior military capacity, but lacking the knowledge and tactics, I would say, also motivation to succeed in their aim. To this we must add that the local forces allied, often proved unreliable or even worst enemy of the West than those against whom they had been armed and trained to fight. The Taliban in Afghanistan, or the forces of Al Qaeda or IS (Islamic State), fundamentalist Muslims, are the product of these wicked choices and, ironically, circulating on the net, there are pictures of their leaders received with full honors at White House or in other presidential residences of the West.The use of these troops, however, also caused an exponential increase in the level of destruction and death. The general use of aviation for bombing, sometimes even making use of illegal substances such as white phosphorus or enriched uranium, and armored vehicles, heavy artillery and armored troops, pushed the forces that were opposed to Western troops , to combat techniques increasingly lethal and indiscriminate attacks such as suicide bombing often with the use of high explosives in areas with high concentrations of civilians. The civilian victims of these clashes, especially among women, children and the elderly are calculated now in the tens of millions of deaths. The tyrants that we wanted to oust had never even remotely caused a similar level of suffering for the noncombatant populations.

 What is happening is no longer containable

The result of so much killing spree commissioned and financed by the West has been the setting in motion of a massive exodus of people, now all interested in trying to achieve what they think is relative security, to be able to settle in Europe, particularly in countries in northern Europe where they expect to find better protection. The latest report of the UNHCR (2014) indicates that only last year about 60 million people were forced to flee for their lives. Estimates forecast in another 200 million the pool of potential refugees in the coming years. Movements of such size are not containable without going to use brute force which I hope the Europeans are not prepared to accept.

Europe is co-responsible together with other powers of the Western bloc to have created the conditions that have set in motion these people, but, unlike the United States, Canada or Australia that can only be reached crossing the oceans that require long voyages, Europe is relatively accessible by land and its its labor market continues to require manpower. Certainly the demand is there, above all in the area of low qualification jobs, where social and labor covers are virtually absent, but he who manages to reach its destination and enter the world of work, often in a relatively short period will find how to improve.

Europe population is aging, all countries have reproductive rates well below the threshold required to maintain stable population. In this context, the arrival of young people provides a response to the shortage of working-age people, lack that begins to be felt in many sectors of the economy. This is certainly a challenge for the countries that receive immigrants because to address this phenomenon is positively necessary that instead of continuing in the obtuse policies groped to contain or reject immigrants, government get involved in designing programs of integration.Many countries in the world have faced and are facing the same problem for which there are many experiences on how to direct the efforts to maximize the results. Of course, the first step is to set aside the conviction that newcomers must assimilate all of the world in which they will live, losing their indigenous cultural heritage. In the history of the great migratory movements this has never happened and I do not see why one should expect that to happen this time. The new cultures interact with the cultural models in force, giving way to new synthesis that will take into account the traditions of the place and of those who arrived.

Culture is never static, dynamic always offers opportunities for progress. Closing to innovations generate only the risk that the thrust of the cultural evolution is paralyzed giving rise to periods of stagnation and bigotry. For this it is important to start perceiving immigrants as a cultural richness also. The whole cultural tradition of the West is the result of these integrations and symbiosis that have gradually led to assimilate under one model traditions also very different. It amazes me that in front of this xenophobic delirium, intellectuals do not raise voices to explain that the european culture of today is nothing else than the synthesis of different traditions that over the centuries merged to form our present cultural identity. The winning model, in the end, will never be static, extending the same way of being, the same values in the future, plastered in rules that prevent the development. Progress has never crystallized what exists, but flow to the new, building up on the existing for the emergence of something richer because the result of many more experiences.

The deaths in the Mediterranean, the reception camps that are now real concentration camps, assaults at the border, xenophobic and racist rhetoric, all this continues to keep the immigration issue on the front pages of newspapers and prime time in television news. In TV talk shows, then, there are only noises that often encroach into the fray and the verbiage of people talking about things of which they know nothing except what they read in the newspapers superficially.

There are no certain figures on the price in lives for what is happening, but I feel to assert that every year thousands of people die while trying to reach their dream to find in Europe a sanctuary of safety. In fact, newspapers speak of the dead near or inside our borders, but no one will ever know how many perished in attempting to cross the desert or at the hands of gangs that are rampant in those regions. There is talk now of several million people who were able to complete this journey finally coming to Europe and we all now understand that behind them there are several million more who are preparing to leave. Faced with what is happening, the response so far was only to use military force, to try to stop them before they cross the European frontier, fight organizations that exploit them, arrest as many as possible between those who were able to enter before they manage to regularize their position with permits to expel them to their countries of origin, build walls that can contain them. Everyone knows that these efforts have not served much.

If you try to think differently

For the moment, sadly, the debate on immigration is monopolized by nationalist groups that have made their flag of fighting immigration getting electoral results that are encouraging for them. In fact, it would seem that between a fifth and a third of Europeans are fundamentally against the reception of these immigrants. In Italy, it has even coined the term "doing good (buonismo)" to mock and disqualify those who try to propose different solutions to the practice of zero tolerance for illegal immigrants.

The political parties, all, are responsible, some because they married in full the claims of the nationalists, others because they have not been able to argue convincingly for different choices from rejecting or deport. The latter are lost in ethical discussions about the morality of hospitality, argument shown to have no weight with people proved by the current economic and social crisis which, those who created it, find useful to download on immigrants, as claimed by the example of twenty cookies described above.

The press has repeatedly proved, alas, as on many other occasions in recent times inadequate in order to inform and analyze. On some magazines there are valuable articles and essays, but the circulation and distribution of these materials has always been in the thousands, too limited to counter the spread of xenophobic and racist opinions. Large media give space only to sensationalism without providing insights quality.Intellectuals, at least in Italy, are all taken into squabbles of the corrupt political system and on this issue have not given the attention it deserves.The political debate at European level does not come out of the box of the useless attempt to protect Fortress Europe from the attacks of the barbarians. It seems to be in the last years of the Roman Empire, besieged by forces that were penetrating from every side and not the less unable to formulate any strategy, an intelligent response, even only to negotiate terms of surrender that would be not unconditional.

Personally, I think that immigration is far from being the monster that it is paint. Immigration can and should become the motor for a renewed Europe projected into the future. I do not think immigration can be stopped. Even if you come to use unlimited military force, I do not think there are objective conditions for thinking that the Europeans would be prepared to fight hand to hand to defend their privileges. The European welfare does not seem to have generated a population of warriors capable of exterminating those who seek to enter the continent. Among other things, too many by now have already come and I would not count on their loyalty to those who do not have or are dealing with very decently.

For this, it seems to me that it would be logical to look to immigration as an opportunity. Demography says that the European population decreases and ages. Young immigrants would serve to reinvigorate the population. Those who come have their roots in countries of strategic importance for us for the resources available. With immigrants who bring with their roots and contacts with countries of origin, it could be possible to set aside the exploitation model implemented until now to set up a system of more balanced and sustainable development between our countries and those from which they originate. Such a choice would also have the effect of reducing and eventually satisfy the many reasons of conflict which have been the spring to this exodus of people. Finally, our cultural model would result enriched for the comparison with other forms of thought and life.

I would really think that this could happen, but instead I fear that in the end shall prevail hatred and fear, and this mass phenomenon, such as those that have preceded it in history will only give rise to violence and possibly to the collapse of what now we consider Europe.