A season of migration

“Give me your tired, your poor,    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.    I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”    Emma Lazarus   “The New Colossus” (1883) The old lady holding her light aloft in Emma […]

“Give me your tired, your poor,
   Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
   The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
   Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
   I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
   Emma Lazarus   “The New Colossus” (1883)

The old lady holding her light aloft in Emma Lazarus’ poem is still keeping watch, as anyone visiting New York would affirm. The lady with the light, cast in masonry,(the statue of liberty) still continues to urge people in “old” Europe, crisis ridden, war torn and buffeted by disease to come over to the new world of America where they can leave behind their battered lives and start afresh. Standing there at the windswept harbour of Long Island, New York, the lady with the light had served and still serving as  lighthouse to guide anyone seeking to break free from a battered and bitter past. A lighthouse in the old days was a signpost to guide ships, boats or people swimming to safety from wrecked ocean going vessels, to the safety of the harbour. The lady with the light therefore symbolises freedom, safety and succour. The mad rush to the new land which Emma Lazarus wrote about has not stopped-Mexicans, Salvadorians and other Latin Americans still undertake tortuous and treacherous journeys just to reach the United States. Many others from elsewhere do same, so much so that immigration has become an issue, and that for a country that prides itself as being a melting- pot where people can make a new beginning.
For the waves of people fleeing war, conflict and sectarian strife in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Eritrea, and many places in Africa there would be no light held aloft as was done for their forerunners. Long before the hordes of people now literally banging on Europe’s doors to be let in became a flood and a gale as being witnessed now, young men and women from North and West Africa have braved the scorching sun and the unforgiving heat of the Sahara desert to get to Europe. It started with many blindly plunging into the desert hoping that if their bodies and spirit hold, they would soon get to Libya, Algeria or Tunisia or anywhere where they can get a boat across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. A few lucky ones succeeded with the help of kind Tuareqs. But many others failed, first they lost track of direction in the ubiquitous sand of the desert. The bleak unremitting undulating sand dunes of the Sahara look the same everywhere you look, hence it is easy to lose one’s way. And so these young men and women without compass or maps go round in circles in the heat and scorching sun, get dehydrated and succumb to exhaustion, with no supplies of food and water they hallucinate and later give up the ghost in the desert. Tales abound of remains of  such hapless travellers being picked to the bones by vultures.
But such Sahara tragedies have since been mitigated as traffickers and middlemen have stepped in to ferry the migrants to the safe harbours of North African countries where those who can pay their way soon get stacked like sardines into some dingy, leaky and rickety boats across the Mediterranean Sea. Those not able to pay the fees of the traffickers get stuck where they are-in Libya, Algeria, Tunisia etc, to eke out a living as best they can. Meanwhile those able to pay their ways soon find out they are on a perilous journey of their lives. Many times the traffickers abandon the rickety boats and their cargoes mid-sea, knowing what would happen.  And when the boats flounder and capsize, their human cargoes are strewn into the salty waters that become their grave. Europe, always the bleeding heart and conscience stricken by the huge numbers of those losing their lives in the Mediterranean Sea rise as one to halt the sea becoming the grave of many migrants. Spearheaded by Italy, Mare nostrum-a notion that seeks the cooperation and exchange of cultures of countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea that had been latent was given renewed impetus, particularly after the shipwreck at Lampedusa where scores of immigrants lost their lives at sea. And so operation Mare Nostrum requires that the Italian government mount both military and humanitarian efforts to rescue immigrants dying needlessly at sea. And of course to also arrest the traffickers who exploit these migrants.
And so both the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea corridors have become relatively safer for migrants; as a result southern Europe has been inundated by all manner of migrants. Subsequently, after formalities of identification and registration for purposes of welfare and security they fan across Europe in search of abode and work. In the south, Calais -the French city closest to the UK has become a byword for those seeking to go across the channel. But if Europe could manage migrants coming across the Mediterranean Sea, the ones running away from senseless pogrom in Syria, the bitter sectarian fanaticism of Afghanistan and chaos of Iraq have tested the tenuous unity of Europe to the limit. The daily surge of people from these places landing at the shores of Greece, whose people are happy to receive them because they know soon the migrants would move on to more prosperous northern European countries; stand in sharp contrast to Hungary’s attitude whose authorities are jittery and frightened that their land is being overrun by foreigners. They are also happy that the migrants simply want to move on to Germany, Austria, Norway, Sweden, France, the UK and others.
For Germany, Sweden and others, many years of low birth rate has created not only an imbalance in their demography with the old and infirm outstripping the young, healthy and strong. They therefore do not hide behind any nebulous immigration niceties as they throw open their doors to anyone knocking at the door. France, for long a country of immigrants itself, finding its male population on the short side after the wars in Europe, it encouraged Arabs and other Europeans to come and fill the gap, just pretended all was well as the migrants streamed in and were herded to camps across the country. Only the UK hesitated a bit, with David Cameron making excuses of foreigners coming to take the job of Brits, glad to say that it did not take long before he also realised that with Angela Merkel being applauded for her leadership and showing the grace and generosity as Germany opened its doors for the immigrants, any hesitation on the part of anyone would not be edifying. Still, it must be said that the high walls and heavy security reinforcement erected in Calais to keep errant migrants from hiding in trucks bound for the UK are very much in place.
True, human beings since the dawn of creation have been a rootless and peripatetic lot-in search of safety, sustenance and curiosity. The latest spate of migration is certainly not different. Most are in search of security, their lands having been overrun by war and conflict. But how long would those providing homes, jobs and conducive environments continue to do so? Sooner than later immigrant fatigue would set in, and this can manifest in form of strains on the various economies which in turn could bring about a backlash of anti-immigrant attitude and even racism. It should not be forgotten that many of these European countries are hotbeds of ultra- nationalist sentiments. In France Marie Le Pen, the daughter of the elder, Jean Le Pen who founded the far right Nationalist Party – the Front Nationalist Party – has increased her party’s representation in parliament. In the UK, UKIP led by Nigel Farage (UK Independence Party) has also increased its seat in parliament  by 12.6%. Unless the issue of migration is handled carefully nationalist parties across Europe might exploit the situation to their advantage, which will not augur well for the immigrants.
Europe and the US would have to redouble efforts at seeking to end conflict situations wherever they occur and also continue to insist badly run governments are run well to ensure their economies become strong to dissuade people from fleeing and putting themselves in harm’s way.