A short-sighted Europe stands in front of the desperate path of thousands of people towards the hope a new life. A Europe built on national governments selfish interests which continue to postpone every practical solution in front of this enourmous tragedy. Between reception pronouncements, opening and closure of borders, trains blocked and motorways closed. Walls, always and only walls.
The Hungarian Government , a EU member state, is in a rush to finish its wall, images of barbed wire, Hungarian prisoners have been forced to work to finish the wall on time. But on time for what?And why does the EU allow that?
In burocratic cavils there will be support for it, as it is possible to find justify the closure , even if temporary, of the borders. But how much burocracy, how many papers, dossier we have to wait for a EU reaction? How many brutal violations of human rights we still have to see? How many sandwiches thrown in cages? Do we have to continue with videos , articles, reportage? I have the impression there are already plenty of news and documentation on the subject. It is now time to act, there is no more time for academic researches, meetings, conferences , cocktails and lunch meetings.
Keep on this , the EU does not work any more. Because keepping on this way it is depressing even those who still believe in Europe. There are EU administrators who amuse in kind conversations after work asking theirselves why a father put at risk the lives of their sons and families choosing to sail and not to take a safe flight and why refugees do not remain in Turkey or Tunisia. They seem to be ignorant of refugees conditions. I don’t expect that all the administrators working in the EU institutions are experts on immigration , but there are NGO and citizens who have been making pressure since years asking for safe humanitarian corridors to ensure a way for migrants escaping from wars and persecutions. The answer must come from the EU institutions, governments, not from women and men, from fathers and mothers who are running away with their kids by crossing many countries and seas to be then arrested, humiliated, offended, expelled. And quite often they die.
Last days in Brussels there was the EU Home Affairs ministers summit, that failed the aim to recollocate 120 thousands of refugees and the quota numbers espeacially because East countries opposition. At the sametime, under the EU institutions a Syrian refugee arrived in Belgium three years ago, was telling to manifestants that he escaped from the army when he was 19 years old. he was in prison twice because he did not want to kill to live. Mohammed reminded that where there is at least a little hope there is life and where there is life there is hope. That’s why refugees escape from their own countries, not because they are unconscious, if it is still necessessary to explain that.
The current hope in Europe it is represented by those individuals, citizens and journalists who choose to leave the camera to hug and carry a Syrian child, volunteers like in refugees camps like in Brussels, where they manage everything of the camp in the EU capital. People who understand that now it is the time to act in first person, to pretend the respect of human rights and EU values on which Europe is built. We still want to believe in that Europe.
Yesterday 10 thousand of refugees were arrested because they illegally entered in Hungary , in the refugees camp in Brussels EU representatives do not seem have visited it yet, even if it is not so far from the EU insitutions. They of course have lot of work to do, but the EU administrators are not so few. According with Unicef data two millions of children are refugees in Turkey , 110 thousands of children asked asylum seekers status in the first six months of 2015 : one asylum seeker out of four is a child, one on twenty-five is unaccompanied.
We still wait for the extraordinary EU Council on 22nd . We expect some concrete answer.
A short-sighted Europe stands in front of the desperate path of thousands of people towards the hope a new life. A Europe built on national governments selfish interests which continue to postpone every practical solution in front of this enourmous tragedy. Between reception pronouncements, opening and closure of borders, trains blocked and motorways closed. Walls, always and only walls.
The Hungarian Government , a EU member state, is in a rush to finish its wall, images of barbed wire, Hungarian prisoners have been forced to work to finish the wall on time. But on time for what?And why does the EU allow that?
