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There is no avoiding the fact that, in recent years, the number of migrants on the move has been on the increase.
A combination of war, civil unrest and abject poverty have pushed many thousands to take enormous risks in the hope of finding a better life in another country.
The problem is that, rather than being welcomed with open arms, most of these people are instead faced with hostility from their hosts.
In many countries, they are treated like criminals, locked up in detention centers while the authorities examine each case. Suddenly, these people go from being members of society to mere statistics.
According to human rights organization Amnesty International, there are more than 110 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, along with more than 35 million refugees — that is from a world population of just over 8.1 billion.
And yet, Amnesty International says “many people feel overwhelmed by the numbers and see people moving across borders as a global crisis.”
A few weeks ago, the British Home Office admitted that, of 5,700 people facing deportation to Rwanda, the whereabouts of just 38 percent of them (2,145) have been identified and they continue to report to the authorities — the rest remain lost.
Britain and its European neighbors are not overwhelmed by foreign nationals, there are no statistics to back up that claim
Peter Harrison
If found, all will ultimately be taken out of the country to accommodation in Rwanda as part of the British government’s effort to, as it says, “stop the small boats” crossing the English Channel.
But at the time of the story breaking, the UK government’s response was to say it did not know if these people posed a threat to the country — they were immediately labeled as criminals, rather than victims going into hiding, fearing what would happen once they are taken to Rwanda.
But the suggestion that such small numbers are the problem is nonsense, says Amnesty, and instead the “unrealistic ways” that politicians handle the issue is the problem.
Indeed, Britain has long politicized the issue of migration — its tabloid press regularly writes of “illegal immigrants,” an oxymoron of the very worst kind.
Firstly, it is likely these are mainly law-abiding citizens forced from their homes — they are teachers, lawyers, builders; they are like any one of us.
And many immigrants are people who were legally allowed into a country.
Britain and its European neighbors are not overwhelmed by foreign nationals, there are no statistics to back up the claim that they are.
For most of us, life is about working for a living. We keep a roof over the heads of our family members and put food on their plates so they can eat every day — the basic needs of most people around the world.
Meanwhile, our children go to school, where they and their friends learn. The teachers generally do a great job making sure our children have a bright future, despite the often-limited resources.
For most of us, life is quite ordinary, and ordinary is fine. In fact, it is better than fine: ordinary provides us with stability while we get on with our lives as everyday human beings, with identity and purpose.
We all have ambitions to a varying degree, whether that is to start a business or to simply make sure that we provide a home for our loved ones or live out a life’s dream — these are all valid reasons to be driven and it is what makes us who we are.
This is best summed up in psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, in which he placed our very identity at the top, followed by our sense of achievement, then relationships and our ability to feel safe. Finally, he says, we need food, water, warmth and rest — our physiological needs.
Take these basics away and we start to suffer the consequences — a vulnerability to the very core. Yet that is precisely what people who have fled their homes feel every single day.
In recent years, there has been an ever-increasing amount of people prepared to risk everything by fleeing their home countries, particularly places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Their dignity is stripped, their identity as individual human beings replaced with case numbers — there is no compassion
Peter Harrison
When they arrive in a new country, they are subjected to interrogations by the local authorities to establish their motive. Some are sent back to their home countries, where many face an uncertain future, including the risk of torture and execution.
These people lose their very basic rights to freedom, safety and security. Their dignity is stripped, their identity as individual human beings replaced with case numbers — there is no compassion.
And yet, when war appeared on the doorstep of Europe as Russia invaded Ukraine, Western Europe opened its doors. British households were offered financial incentives to house those fleeing the front line.
While there is some level of humility associated with being offered a space in someone’s home — especially that of a stranger — it is surely preferable to those who are arrested and often detained for months while they are processed, like cattle being imported across a border.
The problem is that few countries are prepared to take the humane route. With elections coming up, no political party wants to be seen to be increasing the intake of refugees, so instead they hope to pass the burden on to any country that will take them.
Xenia Tourki this month wrote in Philenews.com that, while some European countries were prepared to accept a combined 13,830 individuals, most opted instead to pay money for each migrant they refused to be relocated to a third-party country.
These countries are not handling what they claim to be the migrant “crisis,” they are merely sweeping it under the carpet, the cost in human suffering increasing with every rejection, every interview.
So, while the sons and daughters of the migrants who run these Western countries enjoy the safety of the likes of the UK — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak springs to mind — the refugees they treat as pawns in their electoral manifestos will continue to suffer and these people’s skills as doctors, teachers, farmers and builders will slowly go to waste, despite the serious skills shortages across the Western world.
And it seems that humanity will continue to fall by the wayside while politicians try to claw back votes.
- Peter Harrison is a senior editor at Arab News in the Dubai office. He has covered the Middle East for more than a decade. X: @PhotoPJHarrison