Europe often claims to be the cradle of human rights. But is it? Not so, suggests Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) in its June report that details the European Union's "out of sight, out of mind" hotspot approach to migration.
When Camp Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos, the ground zero of European ignominy, was destroyed by fire on Sept 8 last year, European leaders were quick to say "No more Morias". Just as quickly, the EU started work on many more Morias.
As this Leader goes to press, European ignominy in the shape of a highly securitised open prison on the Greek island of Samos may be accepting its first unfortunate migrant "inmates".
If the open prisons constructed on the occupied territories of Palestine are really bad, the Samos detention camp is worse. Yet, the European narratives of the Samos camp and others being readied for occupation are about some promised land.
No narratives can turn hell into heaven. As pointed out by MSF, the humanitarian crisis that both the migrants and Europe are facing is entirely avoidable. Hotspot approach isn't going to work. Not for Europe. Not for the migrants. Here is why.
Start with Europe. This Leader has said it before and it will say it again: migrants will keep heading there until Europe stops messing with other countries.
Instances are plenty, but one will do. Consider Afghanistan. What reason did Europe have to invade Kabul? None. The World Trade Centre towers weren't in Paris or Brussels. They were in New York.
Even the United States had no business invading Afghanistan for the so-called "terrorists" didn't pose an "imminent threat" to the US as the United Nations Charter requires. Yet Washington, the factory of pretexts, invented the lie of Afghanistan being a hive of terrorists to launch its 20-year project of "nation-building", a codeword for hawking Western values and human rights.
Brussels foolishly followed. Our advice to Europe is this: if your example of human rights is the open prison of Samos, keep your values to yourself. With Moria-like open prisons dotting the continent, Europe can't be a cradle of human rights. Try grave.
It needn't be so. MSF has an idea. Instead of spending millions of euro on militarised border security, prison-like camps and processing centres across the Greek islands, Italy and North Africa, the EU should invest in dignified migrant reception and integration, write Christina Psarra and Stephen Cornish of MSF in an op-ed piece in Al Jazeera.
"Europeans could leverage their global leadership role in migration, meet their obligations under international law, and reap the benefits of a more youthful, multicultural, and healthy population, crafting the EU mosaic of tomorrow." We agree.
Europe's hotspot approach to migration — indefinite containment, appalling reception conditions, expanding detention, violent border controls and pushbacks — is also bad for the migrants.
For one, migrants are vulnerable people escaping from war and conflicts. Their journey to a better life is a desperate one. Often perilous. Placing them in prison-like environments only makes their situation worse.
"Fortress Europe", EU's policy of keeping migrants out of external and internal borders, isn't working. What will — both for Europe and migrants — is a dignified reception and integration system that doesn't violate the rights of the people seeking a better life. As MSF indicates, demonising and degrading people seeking safety in Europe is not a solution, but the problem itself. We could not have put it better.
