A massive operation is under way to find and save a stricken vessel and its passengers. As time passes, anxious families and friends wait with growing fear. The US coastguard, Canadian armed forces and commercial vessels are all hunting for the Titan submersible, which has gone missing with five aboard on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic in the north Atlantic. The UK’s Ministry of Defence is also monitoring the situation.
It is hard to think of a starker contrast with the response to a fishing boat which sank in the Mediterranean last week with an estimated 750 people, including children, packed onboard. Only about 100 survived, making this one of the deadliest disasters in the Mediterranean. Greece and the EU blame people smugglers, who overcrowd boats and abuse those aboard them. But both have profound questions to answer about their own role in such disasters. Activists say authorities were repeatedly warned of the danger this boat faced, hours before it went down, but failed to act.
On the same vein it would be very easy to say that media, the Guardian included, almost never report on the (weekly or even daily this time of year) rescues that the Greek (and other) navy does successfully carry out. Nor, of course, are the effects of the migration wave ever discussed with appropriate nuance except a one liner under a picture of a local saying “Mr Spyros the baker said he feels for the migrants but he dislikes what’s happening to his neighborhood.”
They only find space on their front page when they can point a finger at some huge disaster with a tragic photo to illustrate and shock normal people.
Pelt me with stones if you must. I am Greek and live in Athens. The amount of people that have come here and are going around downtown and everywhere else with basically nothing to do in their lives and getting by with benefits if they’re lucky (and very often resort to crime as poor people will do anywhere) is unsustainable. If you read opinion polls there is now a very large majority of the population that think this. Even those who vote left have completely come around in the last years. So don’t be too hasty with your conclusions. This is not about lacking empathy or humanity. It’s just realizing the objective reality that has taken shape around you.
Greece has been blamed for this recent tragedy because the land borders are guarded, which presumably leads to people smugglers sending more people on ships to Italy. But what are we even supposed to do? Just let the country become an open air camp of no prospect poor people, while destroying our society in the process? How does this help anyone? Does anyone think Greece, the recently bankrupt economy, can magically provide for millions of destitute people? Or that if the EU for whatever reason decides all are welcome and thus implicitly invites literally millions, it will not result in widespread social unrest? We already see far right gaining almost everywhere. Here we had literal nazis in parliament and they are currently regrouping after being put in jail.
And there are other questions on this whole issue. Look at UN statistics and see that the majority of people arriving here are not fleeing from Syria. They’re from Pakistan and Afghanistan among other places. Why is the answer to those countries’ problems to settle their populations in Greece and Europe? Why is no other place on earth willing or expected to help them? How realistic is this as a solution when the number of people who would like to move to Europe (from Asia, Middle East and Africa) is larger than the population of Europe itself? Also, is Saudi Arabia for example only able to house Cristiano Ronaldo? They have resources and are closer geographically and culturally to a lot of these people.
This is just one person’s opinion (although very common) but uncontrolled migration can yield even worse results (nightmarish in fact) in the long run than what we’re seeing right now. And what we’re seeing right now is already terrible. I wish there was a more viable solution than the people stay at home and make those places better to live in, which is just unlikely.
The so-called “refugee problem” would not exist if countries with means would actually deal with the root causes of people fleeing countries without means. In the US it’s much the same with Mexico and other countries south of us.
Their countries are going to shit because of the accumulated circumstances of centuries of colonialist exploitation, and people there are forced to take their lives into their own hands and try to go somewhere else, because staying isn’t an option for them anymore.
Refugees are just a symptom. We need to address the illness itself, or it will never go away.
Sadly, the symptoms make for an easy political wedge issues to score cheap points, and so it remains beneficial for certain politicians to continue ignoring the illness.
Nah, I do agree it’s a much more common take than people realize. Another POV I’ve seen was on the other end of this spectrum, when Malaysians actually offered to open up their borders to refugees years ago and the refugees…refused lol. Apparently they prefer to get into South Korea instead. I’ve never seen a faster 180° change in opinions regarding refugees like that time.
Everything you’ve said pretty much exactly describes the homeless situation in Seattle, in that there are so many with great needs, but only so much one city can do. Meanwhile, the people living in Seattle and paying taxes are seeing their city deteriorating around them.