According to an article by Patrick Kingsley in Guardian Newspaper, we are facing the world’s biggest refugee crisis since the World War two.
224,000 migrants and refugees have come to Europe in 2015. For those of you who can’t visualize the number, it is equivalent of four Arsenal Emirates stadium in London.
What could be happening in your home country that you could potentially risk your life to go somewhere else?
Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, could explain it quite clearly with his famous theory called Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
If you don’t have your basic needs met such as physiological and safety, then you can risk anything. And it is very clear that very basic human needs of these people are not being met.
These migrants are mainly coming from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Darfur, Nigeria and Mali and all these places are fighting with poverty, civil unrest or war.
What has Europe done for these people? Well – Current European leaders have failed in many ways in the recent years and migrant crisis is just another episode of their failure in the big European project.
To answer my own question; They haven’t really done much. Instead they avoided the problem and as the problem knocks their own doors now, they are murmuring…
When you crunch the numbers, Germany, Sweden and Italy have accepted highest numbers of migrants up until now.
….But I do not think that granting these people asylum, is the real problem solver.
Europe is the birthplace of renaissance and it brought humanism, art, development in science and policy, reform in education and self-awareness.
I would expect the same Europe to bring intelligence, know-how, education, sanitation, water, healthcare and other basic human needs to these countries.
Instead politicians are proudly talking of extra fencing, dogs and police officers. Unfortunately these measures were not really helpful and I’m afraid that they will not be helpful going forward as well.
By the way, EU has just approved EUR 2.4 billion aid for the current migrant crisis this week. Another short term symptom solving approach rather than digging deep into the problem.
The message, these people are conveying to us, is crystal clear…
“Instead of living in my home country, I rather prefer to be dead or live somewhere else!”
To our beloved politicians: If you really want to keep these people away from your own countries, you shall bring basic human needs to them to get them developed!
You should channel the money to your own NGOs instead of pumping money to their corrupted government. Some European NGOs are already on the ground for some time and they know the countries and their specific problems much better than anyone else.
Charities such as Wateraid and Oxfam can play more significant role than the governments.
Although I focus on European migrant crisis in this post, the problem does not only exist in Europe.
Migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh are trying to reach to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Australia whilst migrants from Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico are trying to reach USA.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the following countries are hosting the most refugees from Syria.
Turkey – 1,805,255
Lebanon – 1,172,753
Jordan – 629,128
In other words; Turkey is hosting 30, Lebanon 20 and Jordan 10 Arsenal stadiums size of people in their own country.
Imagine the congestion on the way to Finsbury Park station after an Arsenal game and multiply it by 30 to figure out the refugee population in Turkey.
Of course it is not easy when Europe is going through economically hard times but we still could help these people in a better way!
Empathy is a valuable virtue!
Our behaviours will set the scene for a future world war or sustainable peace just like it did in the beginning of 1900s.
Finally, I will encourage you to listen Gary Haugen’s TED talk to understand a bit more what could be the motivations behind migrants journey to Europe.
Next week, I will be focusing on China and its economic policies. Keep following and please register your email to my subscription list!
Best from Singapore,
Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan