Europe: the dangerous rise of xenophobia & racist discrimination

Xenophobia is becoming a serious threat for Europe, as the brutal attack in Norway has shown. Human rights groups and experts warn that far-right political parties have played an important role in bringing the threat posed by extremist groups to the extent it has reached today.

Norwegian police believe a 32-year-old Norwegian suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, is to blame for the attacks on Norway’s government headquarters and a youth retreat that left at least 93 dead. Breivik was described as a fundamentalist Christian and Muslim-hater.

He had connections to the Norwegian far right, was a member of a Swedish neo-Nazi internet forum and hailed the anti-Islam PVV movement of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands as “the only true party for conservatives”. According to sociologist Hikmet Aydın, the educational system in Europe and the attitude of governments towards Muslims in recent years have created a fertile ground for the emergence of vicious killers like Breivik in Norway.

In a report titled: “Islam, Islamism and Islamophobia in Europe,” the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) noted last year -- with deep concern -- that in many of the Council of Europe’s 47 member states, Muslims feel socially excluded, stigmatized and discriminated against, stressing that they have become victims of stereotypes, social marginalization and political extremism because of their different religious and cultural traditions.

The report lambasted some member states where far right-wing parties have changed their traditional hostile campaign against immigration and foreigners and now exploit the public fear of Islam. The PACE report underlined: “Their political campaigns encourage anti-Muslim sentiments and the amalgamation of Muslims with religious extremists. They advocate the fear of Europe being swamped by Muslims.”

The rise of populist, xenophobic, nationalist far right parties in Europe and abroad is alarming. It's about 10-15 percent of the populations in many countries of Europe. Far-right parties gained seats in recent elections in Hungary, Belgium, Netherlands, France and Finland. Politicians started to capitalize on the fears of people, hoping that such a strategy will deliver them votes.

The populist parties emerging in Europe differ from traditional neofascist parties in that they have garnered a much broader voting base. The parties are able to do so by playing off the fear of rising immigration levels in their countries. The group found that “in some countries, they have even established themselves as the second largest party with around 30% of the votes, sometimes denying their rivals a governing majority.” These parties are quickly gaining momentum, which threatens the security of immigrants across the continent. Even those currently in power are actively participating in discrimination against immigrants and minority groups.

Far-right rhetoric is used not just by the extremist parties in Europe but by the mainstream parties as well. A negative attitude developed by Sarkozy at the heart of Europe was reflected on the streets. People started look for someone to blame for the all ills of the economy. They put the blame on new arrivals to the country and immigrants. It is a gross injustice and many immigrants now feel threatened and unwelcome, and rightly so.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Congress of the Young Christian Democrats said that, "This [multicultural] approach has failed, utterly failed." These sentiments echoed by various politicians and pundits throughout Europe raise the heat on a plethora of issues, from immigration and minority rights to Islam and the Roma. The sentiment among many now is that Europe, once a beacon of hope for many foreigners and a rich, vibrant cosmopolitan society, is reverting back to nationalist sentiments.
According to the BBC, many Europeans feel that immigrants and Islam are attacking valued principles, mainly secularism and the notion of the unified, indivisible state and citizenry who are able to assimilate in the nation. The flash-points of these movements and the mobilization against foreigners are occurring throughout Europe.

France has been on the attack. According to the BBC, the National Assembly and the Senate approved a bill banning the Islamic full veil in public, a measure supported by a large portion of the population and the president Nicolas Sarkozy. The riots of 2005 caused by youth dissent also highlighted the race and immigrant relations, as well as the fear of Islam and immigrant communities by many in France. France has a vibrant far right party, the National Front. The party is nativist, protectionist and traditionalist, alongside being blatantly racist and downplaying the holocaust. According to PBS, in the presidential election of 2002, Le Pen received 17 % of the vote for the presidency. This may not seem like a large number for a national election, but the sole fact that 17 %of the French electorate would vote for an imbecile like National Front leader is beyond comprehension.

England has also been in the news for their increasing reactionary movements and parties. According to the BBC, the British National Party has increased in popularity over recent years, taking over half a million votes (an increase of 1.2 percent) in the UK national election in 2010. According to the BNP website, the policies they support that set them apart from the other parties are, "the threat to our security posed by Islam and the danger of the European Union to our sovereignty." Along with the rise of the BNP is the energetic English Defense League, whose goal is to prevent the "Islamification" of Britain.

According to MSNBC, Germany's chairman of the Christian Social Union, Horst Seehofer, has reaffirmed the need for strong immigration policies denying any more people from "alien cultures." The Netherlands have Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician who claims that there is no moderate Islam and that anyone who is a Muslim will one day be radicalized. According to The Guardian, the ultraconservative Sweden Democrats received 6% of the vote in the national election in September, meaning they will get 20 Members of Parliament. The Guardian also reports that this party, which has support from Skinhead groups, bears the slogan "tradition and security," and is against Islamification. They too seek to crack down on immigration.

With the Swiss referendum in 2009, Islamophobia has become institutionalized, sanctioned by the constitution drawing an analogy to anti-Semitic sentiments of the 1930s.

The Roma people are under enormous pressure in many nations around Europe. There have been expulsions in France, Italy and attacks against them in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

Many Europeans have forgotten the lessons of the past. The Holocaust, along with the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina to name a few, were a direct result of these nationalist, intolerant and racist beliefs.

While this occurs in Europe, it is also stirring movements in the United States as well. According to The Guardian, the English Defense League and Tea Party have forged ties, mainly against Islam and the supposed rise of Sharia law in government. These vivacious and populist parties are spewing their venom of hatred and propaganda and attracting many into their flock, including countless youth. We must stand up, voice our concern and let the radicals know that we will not allow them to take control. Do not be apathetic but show your care and concern for the poor, oppressed and minorities.

Never forget the words of Pastor Niemoller, who said that the German intellectuals had failed to speak up against Nazism. When the Nazi party attacked group after group and finally came for clergy members. "Then they came for me," he said, "and by that time no one was left to speak up."

PHOTOGRAPHING THE EXODUS - JUAN MEDINA

A would-be immigrant crawls past sunbathers after his arrival on a makeshift boat on the Gran Tarajal beach in Spain's Canary Islands May 5, 2006. Some 38 would-be immigrants arrived at the beach on a makeshift boat and some 39 were intercepted on a makeshift boat off Spain's Canary Island of Fuerteventura on their way to reach European soil from Africa. In 2007 & 2010, 2 photography was been censured during exhibitions in Canarias and Valencía.

AIRCRAFT CARRIER LEFT US TO DIE, SAY MIGRANTS

From The Guardian,

Boat trying to reach Lampedusa was left to drift in Mediterranean for 16 days, despite alarm being raised

Dozens of African migrants were left to die in the Mediterranean after a number of European military units apparently ignored their cries for help, the Guardian has learned. Two of the nine survivors claim this included a Nato ship.

A boat carrying 72 passengers, including several women, young children and political refugees, ran into trouble in late March after leaving Tripoli for the Italian island of Lampedusa. Despite alarms being raised with the Italian coastguard and the boat making contact with a military helicopter and a warship, no rescue effort was attempted.

All but 11 of those on board died from thirst and hunger after their vessel was left to drift in open waters for 16 days. "Every morning we would wake up and find more bodies, which we would leave for 24 hours and then throw overboard," said Abu Kurke, one of only nine survivors. "By the final days, we didn't know ourselves … everyone was either praying, or dying."

International maritime law compels all vessels, including military units, to answer distress calls from nearby boats and to offer help where possible. Refugee rights campaigners have demanded an investigation into the deaths, while the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, has called for stricter co-operation among commercial and military vessels in the Mediterranean in an effort to save human lives.

"The Mediterranean cannot become the wild west," said spokeswoman Laura Boldrini. "Those who do not rescue people at sea cannot remain unpunished."

Her words were echoed by Father Moses Zerai, an Eritrean priest in Rome who runs the refugee rights organisation Habeshia, and who was one of the last people to be in communication with the migrant boat before the battery in its satellite phone ran out.

"There was an abdication of responsibility which led to the deaths of over 60 people, including children," he claimed. "That constitutes a crime, and that crime cannot go unpunished just because the victims were African migrants and not tourists on a cruise liner."

This year's political turmoil and military conflict in north Africa have fuelled a sharp rise in the number of people attempting to reach Europe by sea, with up to 30,000 migrants believed to have made the journey across the Mediterranean over the past four months. Large numbers have died en route; last month more than 800 migrants of different nationalities who left on boats from Libya never made it to European shores and are presumed dead.

Underlining the dangers, on Sunday more than 400 migrants were involved in a dramatic rescue when their boat hit rocks on Lampedusa.

The pope, meanwhile, in an address to more than 300,000 worshippers, called on Italians to welcome immigrants fleeing to their shores.

The Guardian's investigation into the case of the boat of 72 migrants which set sail from Tripoli on 25 March established that it carried 47 Ethiopians, seven Nigerians, seven Eritreans, six Ghanaians and five Sudanese migrants. Twenty were women and two were small children, one of whom was just one year old. The boat's Ghanaian captain was aiming for the Italian island of Lampedusa, 180 miles north-west of the Libyan capital, but after 18 hours at sea the small vessel began running into trouble and losing fuel.

Using witness testimony from survivors and other individuals who were in contact with the passengers during its doomed voyage, the Guardian has pieced together what happened next. The account paints a harrowing picture of a group of desperate migrants condemned to death by a combination of bad luck, bureaucracy and the apparent indifference of European military forces who had the opportunity to attempt a rescue.

The migrants used the boat's satellite phone to call Zerai in Rome, who in turn contacted the Italian coastguard. The boat's location was narrowed down to about 60 miles off Tripoli, and coastguard officials assured Zerai that the alarm had been raised and all relevant authorities had been alerted to the situation.

Soon a military helicopter marked with the word "army" appeared above the boat. The pilots, who were wearing military uniforms, lowered bottles of water and packets of biscuits and gestured to passengers that they should hold their position until a rescue boat came to help. The helicopter flew off, but no rescue boat arrived.

No country has yet admitted sending the helicopter that made contact with the migrants. A spokesman for the Italian coastguard said: "We advised Malta that the vessel was heading towards their search and rescue zone, and we issued an alert telling vessels to look out for the boat, obliging them to attempt a rescue." The Maltese authorities denied they had had any involvement with the boat.

After several hours of waiting, it became apparent to those on board that help was not on the way. The vessel had only 20 litres of fuel left, but the captain told passengers that Lampedusa was close enough for him to make it there unaided. It was a fatal mistake. By 27 March, the boat had lost its way, run out of fuel and was drifting with the currents.

"We'd finished the oil, we'd finished the food and water, we'd finished everything," said Kurke, a 24-year-old migrant who was fleeing ethnic conflict in his homeland, the Oromia region of Ethiopia. "We were drifting in the sea, and the weather was very dangerous." At some point on 29 or 30 March the boat was carried near to an aircraft carrier – so close that it would have been impossible to be missed. According to survivors, two jets took off from the ship and flew low over the boat while the migrants stood on deck holding the two starving babies aloft. But from that point on, no help was forthcoming. Unable to manoeuvre any closer to the aircraft carrier, the migrants' boat drifted away. Shorn of supplies, fuel or means of contacting the outside world, they began succumbing one by one to thirst and starvation.

The Guardian has made extensive inquiries to ascertain the identity of the aircraft carrier, and has concluded that it is likely to have been the French ship Charles de Gaulle, which was operating in the Mediterranean on those dates.

French naval authorities initially denied the carrier was in the region at that time. After being shown news reports which indicated this was untrue, a spokesperson declined to comment.

A spokesman for Nato, which is co-ordinating military action in Libya, said it had not logged any distress signals from the boat and had no records of the incident. "Nato units are fully aware of their responsibilities with regard to the international maritime law regarding safety of life at sea," said an official. "Nato ships will answer all distress calls at sea and always provide help when necessary. Saving lives is a priority for any Nato ships."

For most of the migrants, the failure of the ship to mount any rescue attempt proved fatal. Over the next 10 days, almost everyone on board died. "We saved one bottle of water from the helicopter for the two babies, and kept feeding them even after their parents had passed," said Kurke, who survived by drinking his own urine and eating two tubes of toothpaste. "But after two days, the babies passed too, because they were so small."

On 10 April, the boat washed up on a beach near the Libyan town of Zlitan near Misrata. Of the 72 migrants who had embarked at Tripoli, only 11 were still alive, and one of those died almost immediately on reaching land. Another survivor died shortly afterwards in prison, after Gaddafi's forces arrested the migrants and detained them for four days.

ASYLUM ISN'T A CRIME, RIGHT ?

Two decades of dictatorship had led us into economic stultification and costly. Suddenly there was democracy, or at least a plausible possibility of it. The success of North African’s revolutions was not inevitable. There was a significant period of political instability, social unrest and economic dislocation, and there were even efforts to hijack the revolution and take the country down an anti-democratic path.The political and financial support extended to Tunisia, Egypt or Libya by international community is important. UN mobilized is essential to our countries overcoming these challenges and succeeding in building a modern democracy. Like Portugal in the 1970s and Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, North Africa is today experiencing epochal change.

The revolutionaries of Tunisia and Egypt have been lauded for the transformative potential they represent. But this time the response from Europe has been grudging and meager. Most of the debate has not been about how to support democracy, but how to keep out those who risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean by boat. The democratic transitions in Tunisia and Egypt are critical to the fulfillment of democratic ideals and long-term prosperity in the region, and to global peace and security. These are reasons enough to support Tunisia and Egypt after its revolution, but there are more. Tunisia and Egypt have received the overwhelming majority of the nearly 740,000 people who have left Libya since the crisis began in that country in February.

They have done so in a very generous way — opening their borders, homes and hearts. At the Tunisian border, I was moved to see local poor families sharing what little they had with the newcomers. Most of those leaving Libya were migrant workers — and most have now been repatriated to their countries of origin by their own governments, or through the massive humanitarian evacuation undertaken jointly by my organization, UNHCR, and the International Organization for Migration. A significant proportion of those leaving Libya, however, cannot return to their home countries. These are refugees and include, obviously, many Libyans, but also Somalis, Eritreans and others residing in Libya.

Tunisia and Egypt need Europe’s support as they deal with the crucial international protection needs of these people. In light of the libyan situation, we have been particularly concerned for the safety of refugees from this region who are vilified by association.

Imagine how traumatic it is for a Somali refugee already displaced by war and now forced to flee again, with no realistic prospect of returning home. To their credit, European countries have respected their obligations not to return refugees from Libya to their home countries against their will.

Indeed, Italy, in two cases, has gone beyond its legal duties and carried out rescues of Eritrean refugees trapped in Tripoli. But only about one percent of all those leaving Libya have actually come to Europe. In part this is because it is an extremely hazardous travel. In a single incident south of the Italian island of Lampedusa on April 6, at least 220 Somali, Eritrean and Ivorian refugees lost their lives. Hundreds of others are believed to have boarded boats in Libya bound for Europe and may have perished.

Refugees fleeing conflict and persecution have so far been only a small proportion of the people crossing the Mediterranean to Europe. The vast majority have been young Tunisian migrants. Overwhelmingly male, single and in their 20s, they have sought to take advantage of their sudden liberty to pursue brighter prospects in Europe.
This is understandable. And it can be argued that Europeans’ self-interest is best served by allowing them to remain, given the need for migrant workers in Europe and migrants’ remittances to families bolstering the economies back home.

But in the end, European states have the right to define migration policies and manage their borders in a responsible manner, provided they do so consistent with their international obligations, namely in respect with refugees. It is my hope that they will be guided by their enlightened self-interest and not by narrow, short-term interests driven by fear or populism.

If the situation in Libya deteriorates further, there will be more refugees. Most will continue to go by land to Tunisia and Egypt and the other countries neighboring Libya. There is no reason to believe the receptivity and generosity of these countries will diminish. The protection of people in need is a central element of Arab and Islamic traditions. For those fleeing by sea to European states, the European Union possesses specific legal and financial tools to ensure that people seeking refuge are received with dignity and humanity, in full respect of their rights.

Countries in Europe and elsewhere can go beyond their legal obligations to protect those fleeing Libya by supporting the U.N. refugee agency’s global resettlement initiative. This provides refugees, primarily from sub-Saharan Africa, with the opportunity to relocate from Tunisia and Egypt to third countries in the developed world. Europe’s commitment to the success of North Africa’s democratic transformation will be measured first and foremost by its willingness to meaningfully invest in the economies and institutions of the countries of the North African Spring. But also by the humanity it displays toward those whose struggle has brought about such dramatic change. I believe that the protection of people in need remains a core value of the Continent’s history and traditions.

Refugees & Photography

May 3, 1999, Kosovar refugee Agim Shala, 2 years old, is passed through the barbed wire fence into the hands of grandparents at the camp run by United Arab Emirates in Kukes, Albania. The members of the large Shala family were reunited here after fleeing Prizren in Kosovo during the conflict. (The grandparents had just crossed the border at Morina). The relatives who just arrived had to stay outside the camp until shelter was available. The next day members of the family had tents inside. The fence was the scene of many reunions. When the peace agreement was signed, they returned to Prizren to find their homes only mildly damaged. There were tears of joy and sadness from the family as the children were passed through the fence, symbolic of the innocence and horror of the conflict.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning photo was taken by Carol Guzy in 1999 for The Washington Post.

Solidarity in Europe - more borders, more controls

When Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi announced plans to weaken passport-free travel in Europe this week, many onlookers concluded that the EU's most tangible achievement, the Schengen zone, was going the way of the single currency.

This is unlikely. Like the euro, the Schengen area, where passport checks were abolished in 1995, and which created a freedom to travel not seen since before the first world war – depends on each country managing its own affairs well and behaving sensibly during testing times. That is where the analogy ends. Under Schengen, countries have been able to reintroduce border controls for up to a month in an emergency. The euro has no such safety valve.

What the French and Italian leaders want is the right to define an "emergency" in looser terms. Schengen's border code should be changed, they say, to allow checkpoints to go back up when large numbers of destitute migrants overrun a neighbouring state. The danger is that Schengen-area governments might claim emergency situations all the time, breaking the notion that one can travel from Faro in Portugal to Narvi in Estonia without hindrance. But those pronouncing on the strange death of liberal Europe should consider a few realities first.

For starters, both leaders will have to jump through several hoops to get the rules changed. Only the European commission can propose them. Next, a majority of the other 23 Schengen members would have to agree to them. At least 11 are countries whose people look about the freedom to travel unhindered as the final laying to rest of a fascist or a communist past. Finally, the European parliament needs to approve. But MEPs spoke out against France's arbitrary deportations of Roma in 2010 and lamented Italy's morally bankrupt deal on immigration with Muammar Gaddafi.

And what does rewriting the Schengen rules do to alleviate the crisis Italy claims it faces from Tunisian immigration? The "reform", which would take a long time to become law anyway, would presumably make life harder for the Italians as France, and perhaps others, would be free to close the border more often. Berlusconi has been too taken in by the emotional rhetoric of Roberto Maroni, his interior minister. Maroni, a politician with Berlusconi's coalition partner, Lega Nord, believes fewer migrants would come if they thought Italy could no longer be counted on to be Europe's gateway. This assumption is almost certainly wrong.
The Sarkozy-Berlusconi summit was more about political theatre than serious policy reform. Both are fighting for their careers: Sarkozy faces what looks like an increasingly serious challenge from Marine Le Pen of the hard-right Front National; Berlusconi relies on the virulently anti-immigrant Lega Nord to stay in power. For them, the chief aim of the meeting was to shock and, in the process, steal the clothes of anti-Schengen politicians at home.

None of this is to say that the Schengen area has a clean bill of health. Some members cannot, or will not, control their border to the required standard. Greece, for example, joined in 2000 but has remained subject to passport checks in other member states due to its hugely challenging border, bad public administration and poor system of refugee protection. And there are no sanctions for countries that act erratically – hence Italy's cynical move to nudge Tunisian migrants onwards to France with residency permits issued contrary to Schengen rules.

For now, though, the story is that two Mediterranean leaders had a spat over immigration; they made up by agreeing it was someone else's fault. They announced initiatives that made them feel better but ignored the difficult issue at hand. The end.