Dying to get to Europe
- By Heiko Khoo
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E-mail China.org.cn, April 21, 2015
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Pope Francis warns European Union that the Mediterranean risks becoming a 'vast migrant cemetery.' |
Pope Francis' recent warning that the Mediterranean Sea was becoming a vast cemetery certainly came to pass last week. Some 700 Africans drowned off the coast of Libya on Sunday, April 19, and another 400 drowned a few days before.
Every year hundreds of thousands risk the deadly trip from Africa to Europe in search of a better life. Last year over 3000 drowned. This year 1700 have already drowned. The numbers attempting to cross are rising and at the same time as resources for rescue missions have been slashed after European politicians came under pressure from a rising tide of anti-immigration sentiment.
Prime Minister of Malta Joseph Muscat said, "If Europe, if the global community continue to turn a blind eye to what is happening, we will all be judged in the same way that history has judged Europe when it turned a blind eye to the genocide of this century and last century."
The anti-immigration camp claim the boat is full and Europe cannot possibly cope with thousands of African migrants arriving every day. And, with high unemployment, sluggish growth, and deep economic crises affecting much of Europe, it appears that we are witnessing a horror story that will just keep repeating itself.
When the Iron Curtain and its most symbolic feature - the Berlin Wall - fell, European leaders and their U.S. allies hailed this as the definitive proof of the failure of communism and socialism and the victory of capitalism. When Germany reunified on October 1, 1990, 17 million East Germans were welcomed into the European Union (EU) overnight. In 2004, Cyprus and nine East and Central European countries joined the EU, adding a population of 74 million. Romanian and Bulgarian accession added a further 27 million in 2007 and, in 2013, 4 million Croatians became members. But the crisis in Greece and elsewhere indicates that EU expansion may soon be followed by contraction.
Capitalism is based on private ownership of the banks and dominant sectors of the economy. Investment is driven by profits, so it develops the world in an unplanned and uneven fashion. Capitalism develops enclaves of magnificent affluence, even out of the deserts in Dubai and Saudi Arabia but it also impoverishes hundreds of millions of people in countries that are naturally endowed with bountiful agricultural potential.
Just as surely as birds, fish, mammals and insects migrate to meet their needs, so human migration is an automatic response to circumstances, but nations, borders and passports restrict free human movement. Of course an exception is made for the rich, as the personification of capital, they can come and go as they please.
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