Hordes and hordes of men, women and children are knocking on the doors of Europe in a manner never before experienced. These are adjudged to be people running away from war thorn Syria, Saudi-shelled Yemen and the overall uneasiness characterising the Middle East at this very moment. This is even more so with ISIS expanding the frontiers of a new, resurgent Islamic state.
The policy of the West had a triggering effect, resulting in to the kind of humanitarian crises being witnessed today. The arming of rebels in Syria, the divided stance on the part of the permanent membership of the UN Security Council where one country supports the beleaguered Assad Regime while others support the rebels is a recipe for a protracted war.
One of the legacies of the Libyan war is an internal instability that has created a breeding ground for terrorists and lunching pad to the rest of the world. Libya now provides a window into Europe from an anarchical environment that is now the state of Libya.
With a policy that has consistently shown Africa as a jungle of disease, starvation, conflicts and failed states, it is little wonder that Africans increasingly become drawn to Europe. We have been inundated with stories of Africans ready to undertake the deadly journey across the Sahara desert into Europe. These dogged journeymen considered it far more dignifying to die in the desert or drown in the Mediterranean than to live in the throes of abject poverty. The allures of Europe is that attractive.
At the height of the Ebola scourge, ‘Ebola diplomacy’ was used to further undermine Africa. CNN ascribed numbers constituting those who lost their lives to the Ebola pandemic. Those numbers, affixed to west African countries, depicted a dehumanizing situation that was only expected to get worse, and the numbers bound to increase.
America was depicted as the great nation, whose citizens cannot be allowed to die in the disease-infested jungles of Africa. An SOS mission was launched and the American doctor who was cured of the ailment read a pre-scripted note while proclaiming his recovery ‘a historic moment’ for America and for himself. When Nigeria, with lesser drama and showmanship, surmounted the scourge, America ate the humble pie and sent emissaries to understudy the methods employed by the most populous black country in the world. The Ebola diplomacy failed woefully. But in the minds of those fixated with thoughts of the West as eldorado, the systematic diplomacy of persistently downgrading Africa has resulted into an inferiority complex that even a feat such as Nigeria’s defeat of Ebola cannot warrant any re-valuation.
Those that undertake the journey-of-no-return to Europe have lost every sense of rational thought that they wouldn’t bother to know that Europe today is dithering under great economic uncertainty. Just recently, David Cameron has embarked on foreign diplomatic shuttles to woo investors to the UK! By the year 2050, according to a recent PWC report, the UK would ease out of the World’s Top 10 Economies while Nigeria as one of the foremost world economy. It is really not surprising as close observers have since noticed the recurrent indices of an economy that is loosing steam on a number of fronts. This probably is the reason why Fareed Zacharia in an article in the Washington Post recently acclaimed that ‘the Great Britain has resigned as a World Power’. But our brothers and sisters that commit all they have including their lives to making it into Europe do not realise that it is far easier to be free on the shores of their ancestors than it would be elsewhere.
On the whole, the blame for the unprecedented scramble to European shores rests substantially on the West. Western policy often cast the rest of the world as either Third rate or Third World. Those who now want to make it at all cost into Europe are orphans of western policies. But it must be said that terrorist could also hide under cover of seeking political asylum to make to Europe thereby extending the frontiers of the Islamic State.
There is a scar on the conscience of the West, which ought to lead to a realization that the sooner a solution to the humanitarian crisis is found, the better it would be for the security of Europe and the world.
By Istifanus Yaro (public servant, researcher, writer and poet)
Views expressed are solely that of author and does not represent views of www.omojuwa.com nor its associates
