Adonis Diaries

Boat immigrants: Scapegoat in European political discourse?

Thousands of “illegal” immigrants are trying to reach the Western European “heaven” for various reasons.

They are mostly young people capable of confronting the hellish hardship trips through deserts, closed trucks, locked up compartments, open boats crossing in open seas, for many months in desperate human conditions.

Many of these wretched people die in their attempts to flee their country, society, political instability, and famine for the chimeric hope of a better alternative life that fast communication, internet, and satellite cables are dangling in front of their mesmerized eyes.

French President Sarkozy has jumped in the band wagon using the case of immigrants for short-term political gains and never minding if the constitution of Republic of France is trampled “All citizens are equal before the laws“:

Sarkozy is ready to remove French citizenship to any French immigrants (of non-French parents) if his judiciary record is not satisfactory.  Moslems are particularly targeted: The minister of the interior focused on polygamy and the custom of removing female clitoris.

Most dailies in the US, Germany, Spain, the European Union agency for human rights, and African States of former French colonies have been lambasting France policies as anathema to the concept of Republics: “How are we to be able to discriminate among, citizen, legal immigrant, and “illegal” immigrants if nationality is no longer a stable right?”

Sarkozy is targeting also the European minority of Rom (gypsy or Tzigane) fleeing Romania and Bulgaria to France; many of their camps have been dismantled. It is to be noted that Sarkozy is an immigrant, his parents are immigrants, and his new wife is Italian.

Every year, around 700 new boat immigrants land ashore the tiny island of Malta (part of the EU) coming mostly from Libya.  Their prime objective is to reaching a Western Europe State such as Italy, Spain, or France; but these States don’t want of them and Malta has to arrange to keep them for one year is various types of refugee camps.

Immigrants from eastern Africa States (such as Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya…) enjoy easier and lenient standards to obtaining “humanitarian” immigrant status: they get work permit for one year and are displaced to “free” camps where they can get out and seek work. They are allocated a stipend of about $150 per month with restrictions:

First, you fail to return to assigned camp three times in a week and the stipend is cancelled;

Second, you fail to show up on roll call and your allowance is reduced by $40;

Third, you get a steady job but if you are fired later on then, your stipend is no longer valid.

Thus, you better not take that change of finding a steady job.  Anyway, individual and small entrepreneur in Malta prefer to hire” immigrants with no work permit” in order to scalp them and not pay them for work done.

Open boat immigrants from western Africa States (such as Mauritania, Tchad, Mali, Ghana, Burkina Fasso, Niger..) have hard time obtaining the humanitarian status and are forced to live in supervised camps.

Citizens of Malta feel that the boat immigrants are time bombs to their internal security if Europe insists on closing its doors.

The famished and desperate immigrants have a certain level of containing their rage and violent activities and mafia type commerce might spread in the tiny island. (To be continued)