On boat people: More SINNERS than saints
Cockroaches" and "a plague of feral humans" were the terms used to describe boat people earlier this month by Katie Hopkins, a British television personality. She proposed that nations "bring on gunships, force migrants back to their shores and burn the b
Naturally, her suggestions were widely condemned across the globe. But sadly, that was what actually happened – not in Southeast Asian waters against the latest wave of migrant Rohingya refugees, but in the Mediterranean, and carried out by European countries as part of their policy against migrants fleeing the war-torn nations off their borders. The Mediterranean Sea has now become a watery graveyard for boat people.
The European Union, in response to the exodus of refugees from Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip, has launched military operations using Apache helicopter gunships to drive almost all the migrants who survived the journey on the high seas back to from where they fled, and then destroyed their boats.
Then they placed the blame squarely on smugglers, whose murderous exploitation of refugees is merely a symptom of border and asylum policies that signal the resolute unwillingness of affluent nations to welcome strangers, most of whom are Muslims, to their shores.
Meanwhile, death and drowning are perceived as the most effective deterrents against the so-called illegal maritime arrivals.
United Nations statistics show that there are more refugees fleeing war and persecution today than at any other time since World War II. As an adjunct, it is fair to say that the refugee crisis, confined mainly to the Global South, is one of the lasting consequences of colonialism.
The Rohingya, for instance, had resided in Arakan, a semi-autonomous state before it was annexed and made part of Burma by the British colonial rulers after the first Anglo-Burmese War in 1826. The number of Rohingya refugees increased during the violence of India’s struggle for independence from Britain. When East Pakistan began its own violent evolution, more residents fled from what is now Bangladesh to Burma. The Rohingya population grew from a little more than 50,000 in 1827 to over a million by 2013.
The Rohingya are an indigenous ethnic group that has lived in isolation from the mainstream population. Their failure to mix with the dominant culture is one factor that led to their persecution, which has lasted from the Second World War until today.
Their plight is now being publicised worldwide as larger boatloads of Rohingya seeking a new home in the hope of safer lives have resulted in more refugee casualties. People smugglers, aided and abetted by corrupt officials, have exacerbated the human tragedy.
Calls have poured in from the West for all Southeast Asian nations to be compassionate and accommodating towards the Rohingya migrants. At the same time, Italy has been turning away vessels of people fleeing unrest in their homelands – that is, if they survived the treacherous sea voyage. The European Union’s border agency, Frontex, has stated that it would send back boat people as irregular migrants under its new rapid-return programme.
In a recent paper, the Montreal-based Centre for Research on Globalisation likened the EU’s current policy towards migrants and refugees to the treatment of another group of persecuted refugees prior to the Nazi Holocaust. At that time, Western nations not only placed quotas on Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution, but they turned away Jewish refugee boats. Many of those refugees ended up being killed by the Nazis.
Today, Israel refuses to grant asylum to non-Jewish refugees fleeing genocide in their countries. These refugees are detained and deported. The past is always conveniently forgotten and, in many cases, used to justify more, not less, human cruelty.
The Rohingya refugee problem, just like the European boat people crisis, is complex and cannot be easily solved by pointing fingers of blame. There is no simple answer, no single quick-fix. In addition, there is no place for self-righteous problem-solving, with the emphasis on the “self”, rather than the “righteous” solution.
Thai Premier Prayut Chan-o-cha should be commended for humanitarian resolve in proposing the idea of temporary shelters for the Rohingya in Thailand. He cautioned, however, that other issues, such as national security, economic and financial encumbrance, must also be taken into consideration. But his suggestion roused vehement opposition from local people – the usual “not-in-our backyard” mentality. It all hinges upon the bigger question of “now here and then what?” Where will they be relocated? Which third country would be willing to take them and how many? Will the temporary shelters be an “enabling factor” that brings more of them ashore? These are legitimate practical questions.
Meanwhile the Rohingya’s desperate plight continues to unfold in front of our eyes. For some, their quandary must become easier to discern with every passing day as we become more callous. Soon, we may prove true the notion that individually we are not heartless, but collectively we are without feeling.
