Tyrants, Terrorists, Refugees

"They said ‘where is your money?’ I said that I didn’t have any. Then they attacked me. My brother was shot dead in front of me – boom, boom – as well as two of my friends."
Sekou Balde, migrant from Guinea-Bissau, Lampedusa refugee center

"Everyone in Libya is armed now. If you don’t work for them, they shoot you. If you don’t give them all your money, they shoot you. Or they shoot you just for fun."
Djiby Diop, Senegalese, Lampedusa refugee center
"A time will come when Europe will be judged harshly for its inaction, as it was judged when it had turned a blind eye to genocide."
Joseph Muscat, Malta Prime Minister

A boat transporting migrants arrives in the port of Messina after a rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sea on April 18, 2015.   (Photo: Giovanni Isolino, AFP/Getty Images)

Migrants from Africa, from the Middle East and elsewhere have been flooding the coast of Italy for years, and Italy has begged the European Union for help, its pleas falling on deaf ears. The country launched its own, costly search-and-rescue operation and that action in and of itself had the unsought-after effect of increasing the launch of ever greater numbers of unseaworthy vessels crammed with refugees looking to find a home for themselves in Europe.

Most have no wish to remain in Italy, but are eager to transit the country to go further north, where opportunities they feel, abound, in wealthier European countries. Those aspirants to opportunity are likely more in the category of economic migrants and it isn't known how representative they are in total of the huge numbers that are coming through Libya to embark on those perilous sea voyages to presumed haven in Europe. Many come from Syria, fleeing the violence there.

There are Palestinians and there are Somalians, Ethiopians, Lebanese, a mixture of ethnicities and religions, but mostly Muslims seeking haven from violence committed against them by other Muslims who are 'radicalized' in the sense that they interpret their version of Islam as that of a conquering religion whose adherents are encouraged to use any and all means to achieve their jihad of violent reprisals and conquest.

The world looks on aghast at news of the death of up to 700 migrants in one collapsed ship alone in the Mediterranean, as hundreds of thousands of refugees swarm through to the Libyan coast after a long and perilous overland journey, to pay human smugglers to ship them off in unseaworthy vessels to an uncertain fate, one that may or may not convey them successfully to Italy or Greece or Malta, countries that have been overwhelmed by the humanitarian tragedy playing out on their shores.

The solution to the steady and unrelenting passage of vulnerable refugees hoping to find their future anywhere else than their countries of origin which have failed to offer them the most basic of human rights; security of their person and that of their families; shelter and food and medical treatment without fear of becoming a victim of conflict or a repressive government. The question is; how far can European hospitality stretch to absorb such a mass of needy humanity?

The question is, what must be done to secure a vulnerable coastline? Well, put a stop to the conflict that impels people to become refugees. How that can be done when a mass psychosis of terror has overtaken the Muslim world from Syria to Libya, Somalia to Sudan, Iraq to Mali, Yemen to Ethiopia and beyond is unknown-to-impossible; what precisely can be done to put a stop to the destruction of people's hopes for a future for themselves and their families?

No answer is in sight since the task is too gargantuan on too wide and large a scale for any kind of intervention other than that the countries in such dreadful turmoil themselves take back their humanity, take re-possession of their civility and decency and reject the bloody turmoil that has transformed them from societies under the influence of a sometimes-compassionate god, ruled by iron-fisted but relatively benign tyrants who will maintain order.

Until civil wars and terrorist-inspired conflict can be set aside for the greater good of suffering humanity, from Afghanistan to Eritrea, it simply is not possible for Europe to continue absorbing frantic migrants who risk death by crowding onto unstable vessels travelling treacherous waters hoping that fate will finally smile upon them for the merest instant it might take to arrive on a safe shore where they will be dependent on the goodwill of people speaking another language -- looking differently than they do, accustomed to other values and customs -- to tend to their psychical and physical wounds.

And the countries of the world who abuse their citizens will simply continue what suits them to do, while expecting more civilly, socially- and politically-developed parts of the world to continue sending them development aid and humanitarian aid groups enter to bring comfort to their afflicted, and scarce state funding is used to buy arms as playthings for the tyrants and abusers whose victims countries with conscience strive to aid.