So you may have seen that the EU's plan to the migrant crisis in Greece is to send them back to Turkey in a plan that is controversial on so many levels, including the treatment of Kurdish refugees and what the EU is willing to concede to Turkey in response for this deal. However, for me, the worst aspect of this deal is probably the part that the EU officials feel is probably the best. We can solve the embarrassing humanitarian crisis on our doorstep by getting someone else to deal with it and thus being able to happily turn a blind eye again. Of course some EU countries have taken their fair share of the burden during the past 18 months of the migrant crisis, such as Greece, Germany and Sweden, but too many EU members shrugged off any responsibility for these desperate people.
The past week I have been in the quaint fishing town of Obock in Northern Djibouti. For those who don't know, Djibouti is a small ex-French colony tucked in between Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia in the horn of Africa. It has long been a strategic point for Western powers, and was France's answer to the British port of Aden across the Red Sea in Yemen, with both powers trying to control this crucial shipping lane and the route to the Suez Canal. However, more recently Djibouti has been a major conduit for refugees fleeing the Yemeni civil war, with Obock being the town where these migrants first land after escaping the dire situation in their homes. Some of the refugees I met this week may eventually end up in the UK, where they will be most likely greeted with a cold reception and no-one will really want to take responsibility for their protection.
Cameron on a recent visit to Saudi Arabia - from The Independent
If we decide to put the moral arguments for why we should protect fellow humans aside, you could quite rightly ask, why should we take any responsibility for fleeing Yemeni's? This week we learnt that the UK government may have to answer this very question as it is being held accountable for selling billions of pounds worth of arms to Saudi Arabia who are a major player in the continuation of this particular crisis. So, yes we are partly responsible here, as we are in the continuing Syrian crisis, where various foreign powers are at loggerheads allowing the the civil war to continue. And of course, lets not forget the long history of European influence in the Middle East and Africa from colonial times, cold war political meddling and numerous unfair trade deals, which continue to deprive these countries of their resources and destabilise their societies.
Of course the Saudi's and others are also to blame as well, but pointing fingers doesn't solve problems. And getting back to my issue with the EU's most recent policy, shelving the problem onto someone else and looking the other way doesn't solve the issue either. Turkey is suffering some hard times at the moment, with today's suicide bombing in Istanbul being another worrying sign as the country destabilises with its ongoing issues with Kurds, the Syrian war on its doorstep and increasing religious radicalisation in its politics and civil society. What will the long term implications of this deal be? Will Turkey really be able to cope with such a high concentration of migrants? I don't think anyone really knows, but until we all start to take collective responsibility for current issues and try and solve them with that attitude, I have feeling that history will repeat itself. We need to stop pretending that these issues are not our problem, because we really are in this all together, whether we like it or not.
Sunset over Obock, where thousands of refugees are arriving from war-torn Yemen
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