COMMENT
The world has a migrant and refugee crisis and there is no
solution. The European Union, Greece and Italy in particular, is
grappling with thousands of desperate arrivals on its shores from Africa
and the Middle East.
As always happens when there is no solution, the blame
game is quick to be played.
Europe, it is argued, is the author of many of the crises that migrants
are fleeing from, a case in point being the Nato bombing of Libya and
the country’s descent into chaos. African countries stand accused of
mismanaging their resources and allowing ethnic wars to drive millions
out of their homes to seek refuge in distant lands.
Whatever the cause, tens of hundreds of lives continue to
be lost in the unforgiving Mediterranean Sea. Migrants will continue to
head out into the big blue in the hope of reaching the promised land.
The possibility of drowning is not a deterrent. For many, the lives they
are leaving mean certain death.
The allure of possibly crossing, of making it to London’s
streets, that lawmakers there recently warned are not paved with gold,
makes many take the risk. That strong warning from MPs will not stop
migrants. They will keep coming. Stationing majestic ships on the sea
will not stop the tide. They will come in droves. They will keep coming
from Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Turkey and Eritrea and many other
lands for as long as they are pushed.
Last week, a boat off the coast of Libya sent out distress
signals. The rescue arrived too late. An estimated 200 people lost their
lives. No one really knows the number. There is no record of those
boarding the illegal boats that are sometimes just rafts. In April a
boat, estimated to have had 800 migrants on board, went down. Only 28
survived the horror.
The International Organisation for Migration estimates that 2 000 have died at sea this year alone.
Migrants are also not deterred by the EU stopping its
support for Operation Mare Nostrum, an Italian rescue programme that is
credited with saving 100 000 lives last year. The EU argues that the
rescue effort actually encouraged migrants to take a chance. That
programme was stopped last October. Nothing will deter those in search
of a better life.
The European plan to relocate 16 000 migrants over a
two-year period is too little. So far this year alone, 124 000 migrants
have arrived on Greece’s shores. Britain won’t participate and Hungary
may roll out a 4m-high fence along its borders. The crisis is
international, and it needs an international approach.
Refugee Nation Last week, property
mogul Jason Buzi suggested that land be found and a state be created for
migrants. “Refugee Nation” he called it.
It is a bizarre-sounding idea – and not a new one – but in
the face of few solutions, perhaps the time has come for Africa to
debate this from an African perspective.
Those advocating for such a state suggest that land that is
not in use be pooled together perhaps by nations in a region sharing a
common border and that refugees be allowed to be a start-up state.
It’s an outrageous and complex business to think about
starting a state from nothing. It also borders dangerously on treating
refugees as the “other”. Separating them from “normal” others would
perhaps make them objects of unending pity and perhaps even targets of
extreme forms of “othering” such as violence.
The first prize in dealing with the flood of refugees would
be ending the crisis refugees are emanating from. This is easier said
than done because most of the states at war have degenerated into failed
states where finding resolutions and roads to recovery will be
protracted and painful, taking decades and, in some cases, may not be
possible at all.
The most basic problem about a new refugee state is that
refugees are not stateless people. They belong somewhere. They left
their homes, their support structures, their land, and they therefore
cannot be treated as “new citizens” of nowhere and be given a new
national identity because they already have an identity. Placing
refugees in a new state could in effect strip them of their citizenship
unless a framework is put up to prevent that loss. But a nation-state
needs citizens.
How would refugees be moved? Refugees have rights and
freedom of choice, just as anyone else has, and they should not be
forced to move.
It is hard to conceive how nationhood will be built in the
new state. In spite of attempts to put refugees in single camps,
problems of integration arise because cultures are as diverse as the
north is from the south.
Africa is not a country; African refugees cannot be lumped
easily into a new state. Already many a war on the continent can be
understood to come down to ethnic tensions. The ability to create a
state with so many ethnic differences united only by displacement will
be an enormous challenge – but an opportunity, too, to show ethnic
integration is possible, just as it happens already in many African
countries.
Although refugees and migrants around the world have shown
resilience and often a willingness to work for below the minimum wage,
this is generally because they are there illegally and this status keeps
them away from trade union activities. A new state can be an
opportunity to give migrants a space where they are free from unfair
labour practices and abuse.
However, this will mean the new nation state has to be
supported financially. Without economic stability and a financial
attraction, refugees will simply keep pouring into Europe. These are
bigger issues for regional unions such as the African Union and the EU
to explore.
But perhaps a refugee state offers displaced African
peoples a chance to stay on the continent. Many Africans are deeply
rooted in Africa, the land of their ancestors. Those who leave only do
so because there is often no other choice.
Many who make it to Europe feel alienated there and would
rather be in another African state – even one that is not so rich but
offers the opportunity for reasonable economic activities and is
a peaceful place where they can raise their children.
On last week’s migrant boat on the Mediterranean that
killed more than 200 people, a man and his wife risked drowning their
19-month-old baby. All they wanted was a peaceful place in which to
raise their daughter.
Massive challengesA new state also
brings massive challenges of how to stay stable in the long run in terms
of its own policies for continuing migration. No state has a totally
open-door policy as a result of rising security concerns around
terrorism. But it would be hypocritical for a refugee nation to shut out
other refugees. A middle-of-the-road approach needs to be explored.
People under threat in death zones will continue to move in
search of better livelihoods. The creation of a refugee state is a
radical idea that raises many questions on the treatment of refugees.
Other countries have employed a policy of integration, such as in South
Africa where there are no refugee camps but rather refugees fend for
themselves and integrate into society.
But it must be confronted that in some places the policy of
integration has not always worked, as shown recently by xenophobic
attacks in South Africa. Refugees the world over complain that one major
challenge is they are always treated as the “other” not just by
citizens but also by state institutions. The failure of integration is
evident in Europe, with a sizeable number of countries openly refusing
to accommodate more migrants.
Integration should be continued and encouraged where it has worked. But its failure cannot not be ignored.
It is the duty of civil society to begin a new radical
debate and canvass governments and regional bodies about a sustainable
plan that is done in a human rights framework.
The growing numbers of those seeking refuge in other nations dictates that debate has never been more urgent.
Teldah Mawarire is the Mail & Guardian’s Africa Editor
