Political dysfunction, economic stagnation, and civil strife on the Dark Continent are such that Africans will continue to risk life and limb to seek a better life. For, just as no legal barrier or risk of drowning in the Caribbean Sea has stemmed the tide of Haitian migrants setting off for America, no legal barrier or risk of drowning in the Mediterranean Sea will stem the tide of African migrants setting off for Europe.
(“Lampedusa Tragedy Highlights Europe’s ‘Haitian’ Problem,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 7, 2013)
It speaks volumes that not even £1 billion in resettlement aid from their former colonial masters could induce African leaders to resettle some of the migrants now swarming Europe.
The European Union has been forced to drop controversial plans to deport failed asylum seekers who do not have passports after African countries blocked the move.
European leaders offered more than £1billion in aid in a bid to persuade their African counterparts to take back tens of thousands of illegal migrants.
But a migration summit in Valletta, Malta, descended into farce after the Africans rejected the EU plan….
(UK Daily Mail, November 12, 2015)
Instead, African leaders insisted that they would use this aid to foster stability, promote economic opportunities, and manage migration, particularly in countries like Senegal, Eritrea, and Libya whence most African migrants are fleeing.
Except that this £1billion is on top of the £20 billion the EU wastes every year trying to help Africa redress chronic poverty, ethnic conflict, infectious disease, political dysfunction, and other such maladies that compel migration. So only a fool can believe this additional aid will do anything to stem the tide of African migrants washing up daily on European shores. Talk about throwing good money after bad!
That said, it shall redound to America’s eternal shame that it refused entry to Jews seeking refuge from the Holocaust in Germany.
By instructive contrast, it shall redound to Europe’s eternal salvation that it is trying to assimilate Africans seeking refuge from all manner of strife in Africa. Especially considering the even more heroic efforts Europe is putting forth to assimilate Arabs seeking refuge from sectarian wars in the Middle East. And, this salvation is assured notwithstanding some eastern European countries (like Hungary) building walls of xenophobic resistance.
Hence, it shall redound to Africa’s even greater shame that it is refusing re-entry to Africans needing resettlement. Never mind that shame is a corrective emotion Africa seems completely bereft of.
Apropos of which, I cannot overstate this:
I just hope the damning irony is not lost on any proud African that, 50 years after decolonization, hundreds of Africans (men, women, and children) are risking their lives, practically every day, to subjugate themselves to the paternal mercies of their former colonial masters in Europe.
“Lampedusa Tragedy Highlights Europe’s Haitian Problem,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 7, 2013)
This compels me to end by noting that, despite (or, dare I say, thanks to?) the centuries of slavery and discrimination our forebears endured, Blacks throughout the Americas cannot help but look on Africa today and say: There but for the grace of God go we
Related commentaries:
Europe’s migration crisis…
Lampedusa tragedy…
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