Angela [in the photo published in www.repubblica.it, Palermo edition] was born on 19 April 2011 in Lampedusa, south of Sicily, immediately after the arrival of her mother on the island. V. (Angela’s mother) is 23 years old. She is Nigerian but lived and worked in Libya in the past years. She has left Libya about 2 days ago on board of an old fishing boat together with 760 other people, predominantly sub-Saharan Africans escaping the country. Mother and daughter have been transferred to a Palermo hospital and are doing well.
T. is a young Tunisian man who lives in France. He has emigrated from Tunisia 3 years ago, without papers. He then arrived in Lampedusa and made his way to Lyon where he found a job and through family and friends obtained papers. He is now in Lampedusa seeking his brother, with the hope of having him released from the ‘welcome centre’ (which is actually a detention centre) and taken with him. But he fears this will not be possible as Italy has started, as of 2 days ago, massive repatriations to Tunisia by chartered aircrafts. At least T. wants to briefly see his brother, give him some clean clothes, give him a hug too.
These are just two of the many stories of the more than 20,000 people who have arrived in Italy (mainly trhough the island of Lampedusa) in the last 3 months. The Italian government has been trying to deal with the emergency by opening more ‘reception/detention centres’ and distributing the people arriving in various Italian regions, despite the inimical and racist reactions of several Lega Nord politicians and mayors of northern Italy. The government has also started talks both with Tunisia (where 90% of the people come from) with a view to obtaining cooperation on massive repatriations in exchange of development aid and investments; and with its fellow member states, France in particular, asking for cooperation and burden sharing for facing this crisis.
Interestingly although France is at the forefront of the military operations now led by the NATO command in Naples, it is much more reluctant to spend resources in facing the humanitarian aspects of the crisis. the explanation is clear: bombing Gheddafi and his troops wins votes for Nicolas Sarkozy but admitting irregular migrants or asylum seekers wins votes for the extreme right wing party Front National.
Talks are held today in Brussels with regard to the possible revision of the Schengen acquis in relation to handling such crises. The questions raised include: should the no internal border zone be revoked and border controls re-introduced if one of the member states is facing exceptional migration pressures due to external factors? should there be in this case also an obbligatory distribution of the arriving migrants and asylum seekers among member states so that they share the burden?
The answers to these questions however should take into account not just the narrow issue of border controls and irregular migration but the wider issue of Euro-mediterranean relations and the EU’s role in the world.
In the last few months, EU member states (together with the USA) have been eager to export bombs (and perhaps soon troops too!) to North Africa as well as their values (democracy, freedom, these are the values that the bombs are supposed to defend – but then what about solidarity, respect for human life and dignity). In the past they have also been eager to export their multinationals and their high skill staff in oil industry, construction, tourism and they look forward to continue such exchange when the new regimes (whatever these may be and whoever may be in power) in Egypt, Tunisia and later Libya will stabilise. Thus, political, military, economic and even value ties between the two sides of the Mediterranean are strong and should grow stronger. BUT people should not move! or rather they should move in one direction only: from North to South. South to North movements are not desirable for Europeans! While capitals, goods, ideas, values should circulate. People should not!
One wonders is this a viable strategy? is it possible that everything else circulates excepts people? when it is people who are behind capital, ideas and even weapons! will today’s talks in Brussels grasp the magnitude of the challenge and the necessity of a global response or will they remain (as usuall) tied in the narrow considerations of “how much money can we spend more to close our borders?” “how can countries further north and west seal their borders and leave the southern ones pick up the pieces?”.