While it is impossible and indeed unnecessary to debate humanitarian values, the problem-solving formula (something like infinity divided by 28) put forward by Brussels is far from incontrovertible. According to the European Commission, such a formula is the only morally adequate response to the phenomenon of mass immigration. However, in terms of security policy, this would quite possibly bring about a new Europe-wide humanitarian catastrophe. The challenge created by mass migration in the early 21st century puts pressure on the relief organisations, political leaders and member state organs of national security alike. All concerned need and want to find a solution, but their standpoints are often irreconcilable: their respective attitudes to migrants are different. The main problems arise when security officials are blamed for their lack of humanity, or when security risks are brought up with respect to shipwrecked migrants saved in the Mediterranean.
Those who contend today that the recent mass migration may bring about serious security risks are making themselves very unpopular in Brussels. We are at a loss when trying to determine what we are facing. A refugee problem? Mass migrations? An organised terror campaign against Europe? A by-product of globalisation?
Finding a professional and objective approach to the problem of migration is of vital importance for our continent. Tasks and competencies should not however be commingled. While secret services are accountable for security by minimising dangers threatening the citizens of Europe, governments have to maintain stability, and humanitarian organisations have to provide assistance to the destitute. Failing a mutual agreement, they will be held responsible by future generations for social catastrophes caused by the mass migrations of the early 21st century.
Every historical event has its causes, and the current turmoil accompanying the movement of large human masses is no exception. Considered by many a refugee problem, today’s mass migrations have in fact been brought about by the inconsiderate financial and economic globalisation of the last hundred years or so. Led by the United States, the Western world brought under its control the underdeveloped regions, mainly those of Africa. (Their attempts failed in Asia because of the resistance of the four-thousand-year-old civilisations of that continent.) Africa and the Near-East were systematically depleted, while the strategic position of their populations was forgotten. Nobody cared about the means needed in order to sustain the life of millions of people in those countries deprived of their mineral resources, or the natural catastrophe triggered by transforming a whole continent into a gigantic scrap heap. The ultimate blow was dealt by the forced export of Western-type democracies to countries built on tribal structures, needing strongly centralised powers to maintain social stability. The wastes of the so-called “internet revolution” are not capable of giving the right orientation to thousand-year-old customs and practices. At the same time, the net reveals to the population in despair of these societies in acute crisis that people in Europe live in incomparably better conditions. Naturally enough, they yearn for similar living conditions.
Whether this chaos was planned or not will have to be judged from a historical perspective. It is a fact however that large human masses are heading for our continent while Europe (but not the United States!) is wrestling with its own sense of guilt.
This political blindness labelled as “a matter of conscience” foreshadows a new catastrophe, this time for Europe. This exodus hasn’t been a humanitarian problem for a long time. We are forced to see that Brussels is entangled in serious lies: it tries to avoid social panic by declaring that the immigration wave will not be followed by an increase in terrorism. Even the chaos resulting from the arrival of masses of migrants has had a destructive effect on the life of the Europeans. The French are more scarce in Paris; the denizens of Vienna avoid entering certain districts of the capital; London is becoming a perfect Babel, where chaos will soon be seen as “normal”.
Politicians are lying about terrorist organisations, and secret services respecting the rule of secrecy cannot uncover the effective risks. The latter do not claim that every migrant is a potential terrorist; they only point out to decision-makers that there can be no terrorist organisation that would not exploit this mass migration wave and would not cooperate with networks of refugee smugglers. If European politicians continue to stick to their present ostrich policy, they will inevitably become “instigators and indirect promoters of terrorism”. The directors of the British, German and French secret services drew this eventuality to the attention of the governments of the member states, and that is why most governments are opposed to the introduction of a uniform EU immigration quota. The terrorist acts of the last months have demonstrated plainly that Europe will have to face a hitherto unknown threat. The decision of the Brussels bureaucrats to divide an infinite number of immigrants among the member states on the basis of a uniform formula is only a theoretical response to an empirical challenge. The only possible explanations are either that in the absence of an EU secret service there was no one to inform them about the strategic and security threats menacing the continent, or that they deliberately take no notice of the risks they themselves create.
Who will believe that the pundits on both sides of the Atlantic will not have wilfully caused the catastrophe and that their actions were dictated by mere inanity and their intention to clear their conscience?
But what is then the solution? Should we close the borders so that parents carrying their little children be stuck on no-man’s land? Or should we arrest everybody in order to put all potential terrorists behind bars before they commit their murders?
With respect to innocent masses, this would be pure nonsense. Moreover it’s not the refugees themselves who are accountable for the present situation. They left their homes for a world alien to them. They have to adapt to a different culture, a different language and different social practices. For a time, aid will save these people from starvation. But this is obviously not a promising perspective either for the host countries or the migrants.
The solution is trivially simple: everyone should remain where their forebears lived. But this requires good living conditions. Having destroyed their living space and having tried to force its will upon them, the developed world should withdraw. It should give up exploiting economically these countries by using “slave labour”. Anyway, the world of the rich cannot keep growing any more; it’s time for them to repay what they got from there. Instead of realising more and more extra-profits, investments on the African continent should aim at creating the conditions of a future prosperity for those living there. At the same time, Brussels should advance the sums allotted to migrant aid to the countries people left in the hope of a better life. The change won’t be rapid or spectacular, but things will make a turn in the good direction, and Europe will avoid the flux of refugees while gaining moral benefits.