Migrants: “humanitarian” interventions generally make things worse
The interview that follows was first published in Boulevard Voltaire; translated from the French by Tom Sunic
Q: The photo of that Syrian child stranded on the beach is now in the process of turning a new page in European opinion. In our epoch of “storytelling” it evidently suggests that the migrant issue is a “human drama.”
Of course it is a “human drama.” One must have dry heart or be blinded by hatred if not recognizing it. Muslims threatened by jihadist Islamism, entire families fleeing the Middle East destabilized by Western policies — of course this is a “human drama.” But this is also a political issue and even an issue of geopolitics. Hence the need to figure out the relationship between the political sphere and the humanitarian sphere. Well, experience has shown that “humanitarian” interventions generally only aggravate matters further. The dominance of the legal categories over the political categories is one of the major causes of the impotence of the states.
The migratory tsunami which we are witnessing is adding up to a disaster. First, there was a calculation based on thousands of refugees, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands. As of now more than 350,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean over the recent months. Germany has agreed to accept 800,000 of them, far more than the entire registry of its own birth rates each year. We are way ahead of the interstitial immigration of thirty years ago! Faced with such an onslaught the European countries are asking themselves: “How are we going to welcome them?” Never do they ask themselves: “How are we going to prevent them from coming in?” Even the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius considers “scandalous” the attitude of the countries wishing to close their borders. Will it be the same way when the number of migrants’ entries is counted by the millions? Will the politicians be then more concerned about countless “human dramas” happening in the world right now than about the common good of their fellow citizens? This is the heart of the matter. Read more






