The Inevitable Endpoint of EU Refugee and Border Policy Spells Genocide

There has been abundant reporting recently on the continuously ongoing exercise in inhumanity that is European Union refugee policy. Alas, the focus is often on singular incident, such as the recent tragedy of the sunken both that had at least 700 die of drowning in the Mediterranean (here, here, here). However, already several month ago, BBC reported that in the course of just a few months last year, over 2 200 people were estimated to have lost their lives due to similar causes in these deadly sea. A more recent report from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is cited by the same source as implicating an expectation of the number of people meeting similar destinies in the Mediterranean alone will reach 30 000 this year (also reported here), and other sources note that the number of refugee deaths in the Mediterranean is already 30 times higher this year compared to the same period in the former. A detailed map of all registered deaths since the year 2000 can be found here.

As dryly noted by well-known public health educator, and my countryman, Hans Rosling in a recent video – rhetorically answering the cynical question why refugees don't fly instead, as this is much cheaper and safer – the primary cause of this development can be located almost entirely in the inhuman border and refugee policies of the European Union and its member states:

 

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True to this essence of European policy in this area, in the 2014, the UK announced that it would cancel all further engagement in missions to rescue victims of capsizing refugee boats, leading to sharp reactions, e.g., from Amnesty International. In a similar spirit, the European Union has reacted to the more recent outcries, with a 10-point plan, most of which is nothing else than just more of business as usual, as noted by, e.g., Human Rights Watch. For the essence of EU border and refugee policy is to stretch its supposed commitment to international asylum agreements to its limits, bearing in mind that the right to ask for asylum starts at the border points of a country and keep the eyes shut to the devastating consequences of this sort of policy:

1. KEEP THEM OUT! 

"the EU's maritime patrolling operations in the Mediterranean, called Triton and Poseidon"

"capture and destroy vessels used by the people smugglers" 

2. PREFERABLY BY PREVENTING THEM FROM NEVER ATTEMPTING TO LEAVE!

 "EU will engage with countries surrounding Libya through a joint effort between the Commission and the EU's diplomatic service."

"The EU will deploy immigration liaison officers abroad to gather intelligence on migratory flows and strengthen the role of the EU delegations

3. AND IF THEY HAPPEN TO REACH THE EU, GET THEM OUT AS QUICK AS POSSIBLE!

"European Union's asylum support office will to deploy teams in Italy and Greece for joint processing of asylum applications."

"EU governments will fingerprint all migrants."

"EU will consider options for an "emergency relocation mechanism" for migrants."

"EU will establish a new return program for rapid return of "irregular" migrants coordinated by EU agency Frontex from the EU's Mediterranean countries."

At the same time, similar thinking is shaping this adaption to European Union border and refugee policy standards by Bulgaria (along its border to Turkey), which hopes to be admitted as full member shortly and therefore implements this perversity, apparently failing to note the bitter ironic link to its own iron curtain past (also here):

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This is the voice of three monkeys failing to register the complete unsustainability of their chosen path. Or, let me be more precise, this path is completely unsustainable as long as the European Union recognises the notion of its lack of rights to commit organised mass murder. For at the end of the day, this is the only conceivable endpoint that this policy can have.

The idea that capturing a few criminals, currently exploiting the desperate situation of refugees created by European Union policies, would somehow make said refugees stop attempting to finalise their escape is nothing but plain stupidity. Once these bands are dealt with, there will instead be the initiatives of others, not least refugees themselves and ordinary people trying to help them. For the need to escape is not created by these minor border bands of cynic criminals, those are mere symptoms of an infinitely more cynic and inferior way of responding to the ever present needs that have had refugees on their way across history and the world since the dawn of humanity. At that point, the EU will face the choice of continuing the policy and thus deploy the military and police forces referred to in its 10-point programme to start attacking the refugees themselves, besides anyone aiding them. Similarly regarding the idea to "engage with countries surrounding Libya" (and other bordering countries, as the need arises) and "strengthen the role of the EU delegations", effectively to have bordering countries set up concentration camps funded by the EU, to effectively lock the refugees up to stop further escape (a recent analysis by Doctor's without Borders of how bad the situation is in this respect already now is here). Again, the question then arises what will be the EU policy when these incarcerated people – as they have all reason and every moral right to do – attempt to break out. In both cases, the logic of current EU policy seems to dictate  nothing less than genocide. Whether or not it is performed by proxy or bona fide European armed personnel is, in this case, completely irrelevant.

But, of course, my point is that this analysis demonstrates the complete unsustainability of current European Union border and migration policy. Especially pondering that current refugee and migration streams are in fact nothing compared to what may be expected in the future due to the effects of climate change and other environmental problems (also effecting economic and social instability and war in their aftermath), one can easily see that it can end up nowhere else than in massive genocide on desperate people fleeing destitution or other dire circumstances. Pondering the constitutional backbones of the EU, such as the European Convention of Human Rights (not to speak of EU member states' uniform commitment to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide), this should effect careful consideration of the increasingly apparent folly of the current policy path among European policy makers and high officials. Is this how you want to end up; as mass murderers on a grand scale – is that what Europe and the European Union is about? This is the question that those three monkeys desperately seek to avoid.

David Cameron Loses It over UK Riots: Totalitarian Ideology and Collective Punishment

The riots in various cities of the UK during the last weeks are not easy to comment intelligently upon and, frankly, I have some sympathy for the panicky way that the UK government and police is responding. It has to be admitted that this came "from nowhere" (which is not to say that there aren't explanations, I'm talking about predictability here). And riots are exactly that: chaotic outbursts of collective and unsystematic violence where the worsts sides of human beings come to the surface; order, moderation, common sense and logic is simply not to be expected - on either side. However, society and the state bears a responsibility which the uncoordinated collective of rioters does not: It is one, organised institutional agent, committed to uphold certain basic standards and values. Among these are, of course, public order and peace, legal security, justice for victims of crime and – in the wider frame – a society where people are generally content to live (and thus not very prone to rioting). These are elementary building blocks of any well-functioning society that everyone should be able to agree on, whatever other political or ideological leanings you might entertain.

But the response of the UK government, in particular as expressed publicly by prime minister David Cameron these last few days are in this respect quite worrying. Rather than finding inspiration in the long and strong tradition of English liberal democracy, Cameron seems to turn to surprising sources for inspiration.

First, we have the notion of restricting access to internet and wireless communication – especially social media (here, here, here, here) for a rather ill-defined collective of people (those suspected of plotting riot activities). While not amounting to closing down mobile phone networks or the internet á la Syria or North Korea, it does come close to the thrawling of internet and wireless traffic in the hunt for potential dissidents and the barring off of substantial parts of the internet championed by the People's Republic of China. Now, I would not have had much complaint if all that Cameron wanted to do was to have the police use the analysis of mobile phone and internet traffic as a part of preparing arrests and prosecutions. After all, those people who have been causing mayhem during the riots are indeed criminals – and it has to be admitted that the criminal acts they have committed are made more serious due to the context of a riot. But Mr. Cameron obviously wants to go to greater lengths than that, creating a legal loophole (which some legal experts indeed claim is illegal, see the links above) for law enforcement to act proactively against a large mass of people, many of which are perfectly innocent.

Second, yesterday Cameron announced that he wants to see the entire families of (convicted?) rioters who are living in public housing estates to be evicted from their homes (see also here) as part of the punishment of the rioters. Now, here's a novel concept, to say the least, for a political conservative of a Western liberal democracy: collectively punish not only those convicted of crimes, but also their parents, their siblings and their children. This is a sort of tactics that we know from the most draconian of totalitarian societies: Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China and North Korea come to mind. What is more, even if the assault on freedom of information and speech involved in the measures against social media could, with some good will, be squeezed to fit into the frames of a minimally decent liberal democracy, to punish people who have done nothing against the law for the criminal actions undertaken by other people cannot. Period.

Neither will making large masses of people homeless help to secure that people in the future will not be very keen on rioting. Making people end up in a situation where they have nothing to loose is never a good recipe for upholding public order and peace. Causing such outcomes in a way that violates basic tenets of legal security and responsibility will hardly help either.

Now, parallel to this, Cameron is facing some harsh criticism for his (let's be honest) ranting in TV about how the police should have been acting tougher (see also here). Criticism, it should be noted, that comes from the police itself. Apparently, those that actually know anything about law enforcement also know that escalating spirals of collective violence is never an effective strategy in the long run for securing the standards and values of a decent society. Let's just hope that this spirit will prevail and that Mr. Cameron will revisit the basics of his political beliefs and come to his senses.