By Gianluca
Mezzofiore
A demonstrator walks
along part of the Berlin Wall. (Getty)
The dawn rises on
another year's celebration of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. As part of
the 25th anniversary, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in then East
Germany, said the fall of the wall "showed us that dreams can come true".
"We can change
things for the better," she said. "This is the message for...
Ukraine, Iraq and other places where human rights are threatened".
Peter Gabriel sang a
version of David Bowie's Heroes, and 8,000 helium balloons perched on poles to
match the height of the wall and stretching for 15km, were released one by one
by to the sky.
But the hangover
should jog everyone's memory that new European walls have taken the place of
the Berlin monolith, effectively cementing the borders of "Fortress
Europe" against all unwanted migrants in the name of empty sentences like
"security" and "internal protection".
"These phrases
are reminiscent of those the GDR [German Democratic Republic] once used,"
points out Josefina Salomon on the blog of Amnesty International, the human
rights organisation that battled for the release of more than 5,000 political prisoners
in the GDR until 1989.
Fortress Europe is
made of real walls, just like the 7.5 mile-fence in the city of Melilla that
separates Spain from Morocco. Thousands of African immigrants living illegally
in Morocco try to enter Spain's enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta each year, hoping
to reach Europe. Spain's Interior Ministry said 2,000 migrants have made it
across Melilla's border fences in roughly 60 attempts this year.
The irony is that the
fence started as a simple 2.5 metres tall structure that was then reinforced
year on year by Spanish authorities, as Europe steadily closed in on itself.
A picture which is
all too obviously emblematic shows African asylum seekers stuck on the razor
wire fence behind white-clad golfers teeing off on an immaculately manicured
golf course.
A golfer hits a tee shot as African migrants sit on
top of a border fence between Morocco and Spain's north African enclave of
Melilla, on October 22, 2014 (José Palazon/Reuters)
Mare Nostrum, Triton and Frontex
But Fortress Europe
is also made of subtler, invisible walls. Last year 500 African migrants died
off the coasts of Lampedusa, prompting Italian officials to launch Mare
Nostrum, a sea and rescue operation that saved an estimated 138,000 people's
lives.
Italian authorities
were forced to shut down Mare Nostrum because it was unsustainable and replace
it with a "border protection" operation named Triton and managed by
Frontex, the European border agency.
In a Kafkaesque move,
the UK recently indicated it was preferable to let illegal migrants drown than
rescue them, for fear of encouraging an influx. It announced it would not
support any future search and rescue operations to save migrants from the sea.
The new Foreign Office
minister Lady Anelay said: "We do not support planned search and rescue
operations in the Mediterranean," adding that the government believed
there was "an unintended 'pull factor'".
"The government
believes the most effective way to prevent refugees and migrants attempting
this dangerous crossing is to focus our attention on countries of origin and
transit, as well as taking steps to fight the people smugglers who wilfully put
lives at risk by packing migrants into unseaworthy boats," she said.
Europe is the
deadliest migrant destination in the world. In 2014 so far, 3,073 migrants have
died in the Mediterranean Sea. The International Organisation for Migration
estimated that since 2000, 22,000 people died during their journeys to Europe.
Refugees from across
Asia and North Africa, including Afghans, Somalis and Eritreans are forced to
take perilous, illegal routes to seek asylum in European countries that have
generous policies towards them - such as Sweden. Stockholm announced in
September 2013 that it would grant permanent residency to all Syrians seeking
asylum. But it is almost impossible for them to reach the country without
travelling dangerous routes or being stopped by border authorities.
Coffins of victims
from the Lampedusa shipwreck are seen in a hangar of the Lampedusa airport in
2013 (Reuters)
After they reach
Europe, migrants are confined by the Dublin agreement, which states that an
asylum seeker must stay in their initial country of entry. Obtaining a visa for
Europe is almost impossible for people coming from Africa and the Middle East.
Countries such as
Italy and Greece - which erected a 10km fence along its border with Turkey in
2012 - are criticised by human rights activists for their treatment of asylum
seekers, but they complained that they are left alone in bearing with such a
mass-scale problem.
Frontex's annual
budget has declined from €94m to €89m, which is paltry compared to the €10m
spent monthly by Italy for Mare Nostrum. As reported by Sarah Wolff on the LSE
blog, a campaign called Frontexit has lobbied for the suspension of Frontex
activities.
"Based on
testimonies of migrants and an analysis of Frontex legal obligations regarding
asylum-seekers' rights, such as the principle of non-refoulement, this NGO
platform has rightly criticised the lack of progress on human rights and the
opacity of the agency. Research has indeed shown that Frontex is suffering from
a lack of legitimacy. It is also difficult to ignore the role played by the
agency in the diversion of migration routes, making them more dangerous."
Wolff argues that
Frontex must become a real European Corps of Border Guards "with more
resources, independence and democratic control".
But it looks
increasingly unlikely that divided European countries will agree on that.
On the Bride's side
A scene from Io sto
con la sposa (On the Bride's Side)Marco Garofalo/ GINA Films
Sweden is the final
destination country of an Italian film and project looking to defy European
walls of security and fear of the foreigner fuelled by radical populist
parties, such as Greece's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn and Nigel Farage's Ukip in
Britain.
The film-documentary,
entitled Io sto con la sposa (On the Bride's side) and entirely crowd-funded,
follows the true journey of five Syrian refugees who stage a fake wedding to
try and cross Europe without being stopped by border authorities.
It all started when
Palestinian-Syrian asylum-seeker Abdallah Sallam met by chance Italian
journalist Gabriele Del Grande, who runs the blog Fortress Europe and has been
reporting from Syria since the start of the civil war. He heard him talking in
Arabic to an Arabic poet, Nassiry, at Milan's Central Station and asked them
about an unlikely direct train to Sweden.
Sallam was one of the
survivors of the 11 October 2013 shipwreck, and was looking for smugglers to
help him get to Stockholm.
"Thousands of
people fleeing the war in Syria come every day to Milan via Lampedusa.
Sometimes, we receive them before they leave for Sweden with the help of people
smugglers. We wanted to help, but no one knew how to do that," Del Grande
told France 24.
Finally, the
journalist and a couple of friends conceived the wild idea of faking a wedding
to dodge immigration authorities across Europe. The reasoning behind the idea
was as crazy as do-able: who would ask for a bride's immigration documents? And
the idea worked well.
During the journey,
Del Grande risked arrest on the spot for aiding and abetting illegal
immigration. They faced up to 15 years in prison if they were caught helping
undocumented migrants crossing European borders illegally.
"In 1989, east
Europeans showed that walls can be torn down. A quarter of a century on, we
should cast our minds back to our own experience of the bitter consequences of
war. We should meet refugees with a humane asylum policy instead of building
new walls and possibly driving them to their deaths," writes Josefina
Salomon.
The film, which was
presented at this year's Venice film festival, will be screened at UCL on 19
November.
10/11/2014
