View from abroad: The unending migrant crisis

The tidal wave of refugees from North Africa and the Middle East is testing European unity and resolve in a way nothing has in recent times. The frontline states of Greece and Italy are demanding that fellow EU states do more to share the burden, but the UK is reluctant to accept any more asylum-seekers. And while some 270,000 have already entered Europe this year alone, Britain is determined to keep out the handful gathered at the French port of Calais in a bid to cross the English Channel. So far, the British government has committed seven million pounds to strengthening policing and fencing around the port to make sure these unfortunate refugees stay on mainland Europe.

But Germany has been far more welcoming: Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that any Syrians fleeing the hellhole that is their country will be given asylum automatically on arrival. Thus, it has lived up to its own constitution that makes it incumbent to welcome those fleeing war zones and disasters. This provision was included following the Second World War when millions were displaced by the horrors of that bloody conflict.

I have written about this mass migration before, and will no doubt do so again because this unfolding tragedy has gripped the attention of Europeans as few other contemporary issues have. This is due to the perception that this flood of humanity threatens their well-being and way of life. And although the sight of men and women carrying bundles and babies in the rain evokes pity, it also raises the spectre of jobs, subsidised housing, hospital beds and school places being lost to migrants.

Inevitably, there has been a backlash against this unending tidal wave of humanity. In Germany, hostels for immigrants have been set on fire. Hungary will accept only Christian refugees fleeing persecution and religious cleansing in Syria and Iraq. In Sweden, a group running on an anti-immigrant platform has grown to become the country’s most popular party. In France, the National Front, an extreme right-wing and rabidly anti-immigrant party, is poised to upset the mainstream parties.

Fortunately, saner voices are calling for a more reasonable approach. As the Economist has pointed out in its latest editorial, Lebanon has taken 1.1 million refugees, while Turkey has accepted 1.7 million. Tanzania has hosted hundreds of thousands of Congolese and Burundian refugees for decades. And Pakistan, of course, hosted three million Afghan refugees during the Soviet occupation. The editorial goes on to argue:

“Europe can and should do better. And not just for moral reasons but for selfish ones, too. Europe’s labour force is ageing and will soon begin to shrink. Its governments have racked up vast debts which they plan to dump on future generations. This will be harder of those future generations are smaller. Immigrants, including asylum-seekers, are typically younger and eager to work.

“So they can help ease this problem: caring for the elderly and shouldering a share of debts they had no role in running up. Africans and Arabs are young. Europe can borrow some of their vitality, but only if European governments handle all types of migration more sensibly, which will be politically hard…”

Sadly, such sensible voices are being drowned out by the hysteria and hypocrisy in the right-wing media. Scaremongering on a massive scale is brainwashing millions into seeing these desperate foreigners as a swarm of locusts threatening their prosperity. One problem, especially in Britain, is the conflation of Arab migrants with the hundreds of British-born Muslims who have left to fight for the so-called Islamic State. Many fear the arrival of yet more Muslims who can one day turn into a fifth column, just as other radicals have done.

The other day I got into an argument with an old English friend who is consistently leftwing and liberal. On the subject of the ongoing migrant crisis, however, she was surprisingly rigid in her opposition to letting more foreigners in. When I suggested that Western countries had a responsibility towards these unfortunate people because they had triggered events that forced them to flee their homes, she disagreed, even though she was critical of British policies in Iraq and Libya.

Basically, she thought there was a limit to the number of migrants a small country like Britain could accept and absorb without causing social and political problems. The subtext was that the UK had already proved incapable of integrating its Muslim population, and a greater number would only exacerbate the problem. This is a real concern shared by millions across Europe.

And so walls are going up. Various European countries are erecting barbed wire fences to discourage refugees. But according to existing rules framed under the Schengen treaty, once an asylum-seeker steps on EU soil and is registered there, he or she has the right to proceed to other destinations on the continent. Most head towards the more prosperous states of Germany and France, with many setting their sights on Britain. But they get stuck at the English Channel as the UK is not part of the Schengen arrangements, and can thus refuse to accept asylum-seekers and other migrants.

Many here recommend that Britain and other European countries should do more to settle these refugees in the countries in the region from which they are fleeing. Already, vast camps have sprung up in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey to house millions of Syrian refugees. But there’s no end of the Syrian tragedy in sight. And even if some political solution to the civil war emerges, the bloodthirsty madmen of the self-styled Islamic State are unlikely to pack their bags and disappear into the night any time soon.

Clearly, then, the refugee crisis is likely to last a long time, testing European hospitality and changing its political landscape.

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