The Americans have their Department of Homeland Security. We have our “Border Protection Agency”, Frontex. Both terms make something look harmless. A year ago, I wrote an article about Frontex and the refugee situation between Africa and the EU. It was o January, 24th, 2010. Now, in February of 2011, this same article is more newsworthy than every. Lampedusa is practically being overrun by refugees.
The reason might be because a government was overthrown. Another reason might be that more and more people have to go hungry.
A few years ago, I went through Tunisia and twice through Morocco by bike. I cannot believe that the sort of prosperity we practice will ever be possible for the Maghreb or even the rest of Africa. It will not happen, because it is not possible.
So far, dictatorships held the systems in the Maghreb in a worse than bad way. Now, this seems to be over. Democracy (?) is to come. Yet poverty and misery will remain, or even get worse.
Of course, the economic refugees will want to emigrate to the EU. Where else could they go?
It should be a great and important task of ours to help them out. At the same time, it is a great chance for Europe. But what do we do? We finance the Border Protection Agency Frontex and build “border fences” (in former times called walls) like the Americans at the border between the EU and Turkey.
And what is worse: in our country, the very existence of a person with no documents seems to be a crime. Mind you, the economic refugees have a huge tradition in Europe. Except that at the time the Europeans were the refugees.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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