Mass immigration from poorer countries to Europe continues to make daily headlines and to bolster membership of the far-right parties of our continent.
It saddens me to think that those poor migrants risk their lives, day in day out, just to reach our shores and the promise of a better life.
From trying to hitch rides in or even under heavy-goods vehicles on the Ceuta-Spain ferry crossing, to attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea in makeshift dinghies, the human tide of despair continues to pound the coast of Southern Europe.
"I have no choice" replied a sub-Saharan young man when asked why he risked his life to get to Europe.
Another man said " If I fail tonight I'll try again and again. I'd rather die trying than go back home and wait for death"
It would be good if the whole world took action to help the central African countries that are in disarray, plagued by war, famine and poverty. I know corruption in those states makes it almost impossible to get aid to the needy, but ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away. The West can only stem the tide of African migration by helping those same countries to prosper and to offer their populations a way out of abject poverty.
A way to help would be to offer more lucrative incentives to European and multi-national companies to set up businesses and production in Africa, as China has started doing recently, albeit for ulterior motives, but that's another story.
Another way would be to provide more direct aid for education and health. Healthy and educated populations are much less likely to be enslaved by harmful religion and much more likely to embrace democracy and justice.
Poverty really is the root of all evil.
And the only winners are the far-right parties whose inadequate and unsympathetic answer is to build more walls, more segregation and more inequality. Same old rhetoric.
Extremists of all persuasions, especially those on the far-right, have a knack of never learning from history. For if they did, they'd see the futility of their ideology.
I'd like to ask a neo-Nazi what is the appeal of worshiping someone such as Hitler. A leader who ruled by fear, murdered with impunity and became one of history's biggest losers. He not only lost a war, a country and his wife, but even managed to lose his own life!
Almost the same question I often ask God followers.
:)
