The Cruel Sea
Hard to imagine such a scenario as you rest your flabby western butt on a comfy sofa and tear your hair out because you can’t find the latest must-see series as recommended by The Guardian on Netflix, but what would you do if your idle idyll was suddenly brought to a halt because armed guerrillas were engaging in a pitched battle with government forces outside your window? Unless you spent the 1970s and 80s living in Belfast or Londonderry, it’s not the kind of crisis any resident of the British Isles has had to cope with in living memory. But just take a moment to visualise it.
You realise you have to abandon your home and all those precious possessions in it and you have to go right now, fleeing with little more than the clothes you’re wearing – every sentimental artefact you’ve gathered around you over a lifetime has to be left behind. And once you’ve been forced to flee, where the hell do you go? You can’t access any money because the cash machines aren’t working anymore; phone lines are down, as is the internet, so you can’t contact any friends; and you can’t get any food because all the shops are either boarded-up or have been emptied; the petrol stations are closed, so even if you’re fortunate to have a vehicle, you can’t find any fuel to power it and end up having to abandon that as well. You shelter in the ruin of a house already half-demolished by shelling, but it’s not safe. You head for the coast on foot and hope there’s a way you can be smuggled onto a ship, but the journey there is an obstacle course you’ll be lucky to survive – dodging snipers, vigilantes and bandits, as well as troops perceiving you as a looter with orders to shoot to kill. Then add a family to the equation – a spouse and a couple of kids; watching your own back is one thing; having to take others into account can only increase both the potential dangers and the urgency to escape.
Let’s face it, this doomsday vision is more familiar from post-apocalyptic movies and TV dramas set in a parallel present than real life; it’s too abstract a concept for our cosseted and comfortable existence to contemplate as a possible likelihood. But if it did happen, you’d be so gripped by desperation you’d probably submit to anything in order to get away, running from your homeland, culture and language to embark on an optimistic quest into the unknown because you have no other choice.
For thousands of people across the globe, however, this is no fantasy; this is really happening. This is their 2015.
Last week, more than three-hundred migrants drowned off the coast of Lampedusa, the largest of Italy’s Pelagie Islands – that’s three-hundred dehydrated men, women and children crammed below deck in the claustrophobic confines of a barely seaworthy, decommissioned cargo ship, with no room to lie down, no food or water, no space to expunge bodily waste, inhaling air infected by the sickly fumes of the ship’s engine as the ocean tossed them up and down. Slaves and sardines could boast of better conditions; even the passengers on board the train to Auschwitz had a smoother ride; but they were shepherded into those cattle trucks; the migrants who drowned last week flocked to their floating coffin because they thought it would take them to a better life. Can you imagine how bad things have to get in order to put yourself and your loved ones through such a horrific ordeal? Would you put yourself through it just on the off-chance of receiving state benefits from the country you’re hoping to reach? I doubt it and nor would anyone else.
In October 2013, another ship, this time carrying over 500 migrants from Eritrea and Somalia, sank off the coast of Lampedusa in which 300 also lost their lives. This tragedy prompted Italy to begin the joint military/humanitarian operation, Mare Nostrum, to rescue the migrants and arrest traffickers. The EU, however, was divided over the issue, with France regarding the arrivals as economic migrants, whereas Italy viewed them as refugees; Italy’s pleas to the EU for help housing the thousands crammed into unsuitable holding facilities along the Italian coast repeatedly fell on deaf ears and Italy eventually abandoned its commitment to the project when other EU members refused to contribute to the expense.
Responsibility then passed to Frontex, the EU’s woefully-underfunded border agency, which is ironically based in Warsaw, a city 160 miles from the nearest coastline; the same EU members that refused to assist Italy are now being called upon to help finance Frontex to patrol the massive Mediterranean, for Frontex has no equipment of its own. It has to borrow vessels as well as planes and helicopters from EU and Schengen Area states, with the likes of Iceland loaning coastguard ships. The problems with this system are obvious; when the SOS came in from Lampedusa last week, the two ships Iceland had loaned to Frontex were both in port and too great a distance from the tragedy to rush to the rescue.
The nearest country to Lampedusa is Tunisia, 70 miles away; Italy’s southernmost island has therefore become one of the key entry points to Europe for African, Asian and Middle Eastern migrants, and following the revolutions in Tunisia and Libya, the numbers have increased dramatically. Since the end of last year, over 19,000 migrants have made the rough journey to Italian shores and the paucity of resources Frontex has to work with is placing the lives of thousands more in danger. 29 were rescued from last week’s shipwreck when a small vessel managed to pull them from the sea, but hypothermia claimed them all before the ship reached land; doctors on the scene speculated their survival could have been guaranteed had a larger vessel been there to retrieve them.
The world has had to deal with a similar dilemma before, of course. With the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the harsh Communist regime of North Vietnam that then overtook the running of the entire country prompted thousands to flee Vietnam; their numbers swelled from 1978 onwards, many riding rough seas in small fishing boats not designed for the open sea. The Vietnamese Boat People were turned away from numerous neighbouring countries, and the lucky ones ended up in refugee camps in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand, albeit camps that rapidly became overcrowded. The humanitarian crisis provoked the United Nations into action and the US, Canada, France and Australia agreed to resettle many thousands of the Boat People.
The turbulent, unstable nature of the regimes that have followed the end of European colonialism in Africa and Asia have led to some of the most concentrated migrations of people seen in modern times; some argue the ex-overlords of these former colonies owe their one-time subjects a moral debt, whilst others claim the social structure of most European nations cannot withstand a constant flow of new citizens. Both are valid arguments, but neither solves the terrible conundrum facing the free world. What happened last week off the coast of Lampedusa was an appalling human tragedy that has already been downgraded to just another unavoidable incident in an ongoing saga involving people who don’t seem to count. We rightly recognise the inhumanity of the seventeenth and eighteenth century slave trade and applaud cinematic portrayals of its gruesome barbarity, yet we seem curiously indifferent to the fact that human beings sharing our moment in time are experiencing something equally ghastly. Then again, perhaps it’s easier to deal with distant tragedies because of their distance; historical sex crimes seem to have priority over ones that are being committed as we speak, for example.
I wish I had the answer, but I’m not in a position to provide it; and those that are don’t even appear to be trying.
Petunia Winegum
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February 17, 2015 at 10:03 am -
I don’t have the answer either, but dealing with the boat-migrants is merely treating the symptoms, not the root-cause of the problem.
The problem is failed states: states incapable of producing the sort of stable governance which enables citizens to have a standard of life compatible with what that nation’s GDP can provide. Just like most foreign and charity aid, it’s never aimed at solving the basic problem.
It’s desperately tough on those currently suffering but, unless the nettle is grasped to solve the root-causes, it will become a perpetual problem without resolution, or the resolution will be driven by increased discord within those nations accepting the mass of current unfortunates. -
February 17, 2015 at 10:13 am -
Colonialism? Tosh.
in 2011 there was a surge in migrant boats arriving from Tunisia, because of the Arab Spring uprising which toppled the country’s president. More than 64,000 Tunisians came ashore in Italy and Malta that year.
Between 1 January and 30 September this year, 30,100 migrants reached Italy on boats from North Africa, the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR says. The biggest groups were from Syria (7,500 in total) Eritrea (7,500) and Somalia (3,000).
The Tunisia emergency was followed by the Libya emergency, when thousands of African migrants fled the war which eventually crushed Col Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
I was hearing on the radio yesterday that the campaign to ban Quat from the west is going to cost Kenya £200M in it’s export market. Stand by your boats for the Kenyans next.
http://www.voanews.com/content/british-ban-may-hurt-kenya-khat-business/2438085.htmlHow did the song go? We only hurt the ones we say we love…..
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February 17, 2015 at 12:25 pm -
I did mention events in Tunisia and Libya; the colonialism angle was merely straightforward fact. It’s hard to think of one former European colony in either Africa or Asia that hasn’t experienced some form of revolution or repressive regime since gaining independence, something that is bound to provoke migration along the line.
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February 17, 2015 at 12:42 pm -
I had a friend at work in an immigrant area many moons ago. He had no skills that I ever noticed and had come to England from Mauritius! Quite mind-boggling. Why anyone should want to be poor in England when they could be poor in Mauritius I have no idea…
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February 17, 2015 at 10:17 am -
Stuff the lot of them! Sorry, but stuff the lot of them.
Let’s try going through this without all the po’ ol’ darkies and the weeping kiddies…..
1. Yes, we had slavery, we outlawed it nearly 200 years ago, would that they did that in Africa where it is still extant.
2. What part of ‘independance’ do these mutts not understand? You wanted free of all us wicked colonial oppressors, you got your wish, along with all the civil government, schools, hospitals, roads and industry we set up and you mostly wasted, ruined or destroyed.
3. These people are paying gangs to try and smuggle them in to countries they have nothing to do with, the leaky boats are not a problem but a feature as the idea is to compel we poor fools to rescue these clowns instead of simply turning them round. It is their own lot exploiting them, not us.
4. When these people turn up here, they do not in many cases come to assimilate, but set up their own ghettoes and keep all the tribal problems and thuggery they supposedly left these shitholes to escape. Charlie Hebdo ring any bells? How about Lee Rigby.
5. The countries these people are fleeing from are shitholes because of the people who live there, the murder, mayhem and general shitheadedness is entirely down to the populations in these places, they do it to themselves.
6. Funny how the close, easy to reach neighbouring countries close their borders to these people, but we are supposed to welcome them with open arms? No, sort your own problems, stop acting like rabid beasts, stop exploiting one another and we may well see something to welcome.I do not expect all or even most to agree, but all our tolerance of the last forty years has brought us, is a rod for our own backs.
Let the flame wars begin!-
February 17, 2015 at 7:23 pm -
Robert, I stand with you.
All you have said is very true but what we are seeing in the ‘civilised’ countries is the loony left liberals leaning so far forward that they hardly notice they are being shafted.
Leaving aid deployment to the bleeding heart NGOs is not the way to help, what the Chinese are doing is. The Chinese build things like mines and the infrastructure to support the moving of the mined products. In doing so they employ locals to work, which is a good thing because it means that the locals can now buy things they need. It also means that the locals learn skills and modern ways of doing things.
It would appear that our NGOs want to keep the the local people as subsistence farmers and such, which is not a good thing because they will never get what they need unless they leave their country and go to the source of the ‘gifts’ they are given, hence the self imposed rod for our own backs.
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February 17, 2015 at 7:41 pm -
+1. This over-crowded country of ours neither needs nor wants any more immigrants or ‘asylum seekers that pass through many a country to reach ours. We haven’t been unable to assimilate those already here(not all of them even want to!) and our infrastructure is under great strain. They are costing us a fortune – money that could be better spent elsewhere.
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February 17, 2015 at 10:17 am -
“I wish I had the answer, but I’m not in a position to provide it; and those that are don’t even appear to be trying.”
Ditto and I’m fairly sure IF there was an easy answer or any kind of answer, it would already have been answered. Pretty sure thought that the decision to no longer turn boats around but to ‘rescue’ the refugees, whilst totally understandable in the context of countless bodies of children washing up on the shores in glorious technicolor, has only made the problem worse.
I also can’t forget the lambasting a Radio4 reporter got for observing “africans can’t swim”…oh the moral OUTRAGE!
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February 17, 2015 at 10:31 am -
Ahh yes, the famous African Rockfish!
The Australians have the right idea, turn up illegally and get sent back PERIOD. Threaten to throw your kids overboard if you aren’t rtescued? Fine, their your kids! Internment camps on desolate forbidding islands with bare sustenance until you can be sent back.
Result? Illegal have slowed to a trickle, while those with something to offer go through the channels and are trated with great consideration.-
February 17, 2015 at 10:34 am -
If they have any regrets later they can always work it into their National Sorry Day.
http://www.nsdc.org.au/
Bonzer.
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February 17, 2015 at 10:27 am -
Summed up perfectly, Petunia. And like you I don’t have a ready answer. There can’t be an open door policy for everyone who suffers the vicissitudes and injustices of the world, or simply wishes to better their lot. I truly believe that would cause the collapse of western European civilization, partly because the economy and infrastructure cannot cope, and partly because it would undermine common and shared values such as the rule of law and respect for civil society and freedoms which, frankly, are not so deeply ingrained in other parts of the world: which is one of the reasons there seems to be an endless cycle of death across large parts of world, not least the Middle East and North Africa – hence part of the problem. At the same time, what is going on is deeply distressing and a calamity. I have no answers, but you rightly highlight the EU’s incompetence!
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February 17, 2015 at 10:35 am -
It’s not so much incompetence I feel as a realisation that the only workable solution is to blockade the ports these people are leaving from, so they CAN’T leave, or to have a policy of returning all boat people to their originating countries immediately, no exceptions, no delays.
The problem being of course, that to all the hand-wringers and bleeding hearts, we look like the bad guys.-
February 17, 2015 at 11:04 am -
What are people actually bothered about? That we won’t let them in? Or that they drown? If it’s the latter then stopping them setting out on their journey is the most effective strategy. if we want to let them in, then open the settlement centres in their country and start the immigration process in an orderly fashion. Like Ellis Island.
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February 17, 2015 at 10:41 am -
Even when these people reach a “promised land”, they are harassed and harried and not given the chance to integrate. There is anti-immigration graffiti in Catania, carabinieri in their cars surrounding any public area where a number of Africans might congregate. Africans wandering the beaches of southern Italy trying to sell tat to get by. Africans jumping successive trains to get somewhere to get a job or a life. The immigration process is a bureaucratic purgatory. So people will do what they need to do to get by.
As everyone does here. We tell the French to keep everyone out of our country in a camp at Calais. Yes, I’m sure the French want them as much as we do. We don’t see them as people, but as burdens, “other”, not the same as us, invaders. How lucky we were to be born into the 20th Century UK, 5th richest country in the world. But those same people underwent the same thing in WWII, except then they were white and often Eastern European and we gave them sanctuary or help. What would we have expected from, say, the Americans had Hitler’s forces actually invaded us? Imagine our horror to have been told “We don’t want you here. We got away from your sort in 1776.”
Some people in this country even resent us trying to help other countries via aid, which might want to stop some potential emigrants coming here if their lives there were more amenable.
Robert the Biker says they should “stop exploiting one another “. If I could have a word with them, I would tell them that they would still be exploited here and find life no better really. Every society has its hierarchies and they would be at the bottom.
Yeah, just liberal hand-wringing I suppose. But I think we can do more and we should do more. I see people when I watch those pictures of corpses – not Africans.
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February 17, 2015 at 10:50 am -
Don’t mention the war!!
wikileaks:
Operation Keelhaul was carried out in Northern Italy by British and American forces to repatriate Soviet Armed Forces POWs of the Nazis to the Soviet Union between August 14, 1946 and May 9, 1947.[1] The term has been later applied – specifically after the publication of Julius Epstein’s eponymous book – to other Allied acts of often forced repatriation of former residents of the USSR after the ending of World War II that sealed the fate of millions[2] of post-war refugees fleeing eastern Europe.[3]-
February 17, 2015 at 11:06 am -
Didn’t know that. Thank you. I thought we were slightly more benign but then again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abandonment_of_the_Jews-
February 17, 2015 at 11:10 am -
My mum knew two German POW’s after the war as they awaited repatriation. One went to the west in due course and she had a letter from him once afterwards. The other one came from the east and he really didn’t want to go back; when he did mum never had a letter from him.
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February 17, 2015 at 11:32 am -
That’s be ‘Wikipedia’ rather than ‘Wikileaks’, Moor. Which is quite a shame, really, given that…
“Outlining the plan to forcibly return the refugees to the Soviet Union, this codicil was kept secret from the US and British people for over 50 years.”
And even now no one seems to know exactly why Churchill agreed to such an act (many were delivered to a regime that would treat them no better than the Nazi regime treated others). A clue here, perhaps:
“The chief American negotiator at Yalta was Alger Hiss, later accused of being a Soviet spy and convicted of perjuring himself in his testimony to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. His espionage was later confirmed by the Venona tapes.”
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February 17, 2015 at 11:11 am -
Or, just possibly, we don’t want Frances leavings….. lets at least try to face a few facts here, if these were brain surgeons or top flight engineers in Calais, we couldn’t get them off the froggies under any circumstance.
They are trying to get here because our social welfare is easy to get on and looks after you better than most places.
The terrible Carabinierri? I have lived and worked in Italy, France and Germany, that would be Milan, Paris and Munich btw. Guess what? In all of these places the vast increase in ‘street crimes’, rape and trafficking of drugs, is down to these poor misunderstood Africans who are only here to better themselves. Oddly enough, elite police units have better things to do than hassle the poor innocent darkies, but someone has to keep a lid on it. They hassle the people who cause the grief, the hairy foreigner (me) was left alone after they found out that I was there to work.
I didn’t get hauled into ’36’* while in Paris because I didn’t give people a hard time, how hard is that?*36 Quai des Orfevres is the headquarters of the Police Judiciaire, yes, it really exists, just like in Maigret.
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February 17, 2015 at 11:25 am -
Erm, that’s the point I was making when I said: “So people will do what they need to do to get by. As everyone does here.” If you don’t allow people to integrate, what are they expected to live on? Air? And I’m not say the carabinieri are “terrible” – it is just very blatant and noticeable that black people are seen as a problem, rather than other humans.
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February 17, 2015 at 1:19 pm -
We don’t allow people to integrate? When did that happen? But yes, you have to have something to offer the majority native culture, such as respect for their laws and customs. Hint going “allah says I don’t need to respect your laws” doesn’t cut it.
Now I’m apparently a racist for observing that the (overwhelming majority) of people on these boats are Black, and that they are giving a lot of grief to their ‘host’ countries; well, tough titty on that one, shouting racism, racism doesn’t shut down debate here! It’s not my fault that many of the people trying to get smuggled in have precisely nothing to offer the host country, that is mostly down to their cultures which they have no desire to change and, quite frankly, to an ever increasing army of enablers who seem to think we should change to suit them. Yeah, let’s do that, third world shithole, here we come.-
February 17, 2015 at 1:41 pm -
Where have I used the term racist?
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February 17, 2015 at 12:29 pm -
‘I see people when I watch those pictures of corpses – not Africans.’ Precisely.
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February 17, 2015 at 6:11 pm -
I’m reading Mungo Park’s “Travels into the interior of Africa” at the moment and it is striking how free of racial prejudice the book is. He clearly regarded the people he met as human beings, and says relatively little about their physical appearance, certainly nothing derogatory or anything to indicate that he felt superior. This was late 18th century and he mentions seeing slaves on the march, so it isn’t as if he couldn’t have taken a different view, perhaps even a 21st century one.
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February 17, 2015 at 6:24 pm -
As most British colonies grew from trading posts rather than military invasions, I think the attitude was more respectful in the beginning; it changed when the public schools began training their head boys to be colonial governors in the 19th century, and they viewed the natives with the same superior condescension and contempt as they viewed every Englishman who hadn’t attended a public school. The days of Brits in India taking Indian wives and absorbing the culture were over!
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February 17, 2015 at 6:26 pm -
Going native is so just not on.
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February 17, 2015 at 8:49 pm -
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February 17, 2015 at 10:47 pm -
You must be proud to have such an ancestor!
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February 17, 2015 at 11:26 am -
Also, not just Italy:
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/video/italys-mediterranean-mass-grave-europe-or-die-episode-44
with reports covering Greece and Bulgaria.
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February 17, 2015 at 11:45 am -
I find it quite refreshing to read some of the comments above, especially the analysis given by Robert the Biker, I totally agree with all he says. I’ve been arguing for a very long time that Africa has the potential to be the wealthiest continent on the planet – it could be an absolute paradise on Earth. I’ve also put forward the argument that the descendants of British slavery are, for the most part, far better off living where they are now than if they’d been born in Africa. I could go on, but I won’t – I think for me Robert the Biker has pretty much nailed it!
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February 17, 2015 at 12:10 pm -
Sobering stuff, Petunia. One wonders if the answer – at least in part – isn’t staring us in the face.
The two big reasons why there is so much humanity on the move, I think, are because so much of the Arab Spring ended in failure, and because of the rise of extreme Islam, the latter exploiting the former without scruple. (Ukraine is a third big problem – but at least we’re trying to address that one, even if Russia won’t go away as a threat whatever the outcome.) Using the benefits of hindsight, we got it right in Afghanistan; when Muslim extremists attacked the West (Al Quiada shielded by the Taliban), we went after them. Afghanistan is now no longer a haven for terrorists, and is slowly intergrating into the wider world – their cricket team is competing in the current World Cup. (Let’s hope we haven’t made a mistake by leaving Afghanistan too soon.)
I think that, sooner or later, the West will have to ‘go after’ extreme Islam – assuming they don’t come after us first. Before doing that, we will have to make common cause with moderate Islam, as they have as much to lose from the rise of extremism as the West. This will have to come from countries like the USA and the UK, since the UN is at best a talking shop, and the EU is inward-looking and preoccupied with its own internal problems. Extreme Islam thrives by promoting and exploiting instability in the Middle East and Africa, so it’s in our interests to promote stability. So far, we’ve been singularly unsuccessful. Ultimately, diplomacy and air-strikes can only take you so far, and the answer can only come with boots on the ground. With reasonable security and stability, the ballot-box, democracy and the rule of law (whatever form that might take in different nations) has a chance, and so does humanity.
If your country is not being torn apart by strife, and you have hope of a better future, you don’t need to flee. It’s almost win-win for the West too – a more peaceful and stable world means more trading opportunities, and fewer refugees. I say almost because there will be an inevitable price to achieve this – military operations, and all that that entails.
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February 17, 2015 at 12:35 pm -
* I think that, sooner or later, the West will have to ‘go after’ extreme Islam *
Better to let the Egyptians do it though.
I daresay the Grauniad will be complaining of how undemocratic they are soon enough however and we should bomb THEM instead.-
February 17, 2015 at 12:57 pm -
I think the Egyptians have got the right general idea. However, it’ll take a lot more than a bombing raid or two to remove the scourge of exteme Islam.
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February 17, 2015 at 1:21 pm -
I always remember watching footage of a Taliban Training Camp in Afghanistan last century on the beeb or whatever. It appeared to be in a post-apocalyptic landscape somewhat akin to the moon, but brown rather than grey. If ever there was a time and a place for one of those low-yield tactical battlefield nuclear weapons my taxes had been paying for during the previous twenty years, to be tested, this seemed the perfect time and the perfect place; but what Lyse Doucette would have had to say, god only knows.
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February 17, 2015 at 1:57 pm -
As soon as you use WMD against an enemy that doesn’t have them, you lose the moral argument. Besides, I’m not sure that ISIL, Boko Haram and their dubious mates are really such a strong military force. If we had the willpower, we could defeat them militarily in fairly short order using conventional forces, as we did in Iraq. Where we went wrong in Iraq (apart from attacking it in the first place) was in the non-military parts of the operation. So, to avoid a catastrophic repeat, we need to make common cause with the moderate peoples of mainly Islamic countries, and support them as we did in Afghanistan until a rather stronger and more secure civil society takes root.
I suspect that the longer we leave ISIL, Boko Haram and similar, the stronger they’ll get militarily – and I further suspect that if they could deploy WMD, they would. Makes sense to sort them out before they develop any, I think.
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February 17, 2015 at 2:23 pm -
Aha. The moral argument. Great stuff. That’ll be why Shock & Awe bombed so badly then.
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February 17, 2015 at 2:59 pm -
Well, in all honesty, ‘Shock and Awe’ as part of the military strategy worked. However, it was the non-military actions afterwards that didn’t work (and as stated, we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq at all).
I hadn’t read this when I posted my original comment, but it would appear that I’ve reached about the same conclusions as the Telegraph’s leader writers. Whether that’s a a sign of sound thinking or not, I really don’t know.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/11416107/The-lessons-of-Libya.html
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February 17, 2015 at 4:22 pm -
Seems to be a drift into the idea that when war doesn’t work what we need is more war, and if that doesn’t work even more war, just so long as we don’t kill too many people of course and lose the moral argument. Where is our Machiavelli when we need him. Good time to be a Russian if you ask me.
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February 17, 2015 at 4:57 pm -
I think there’s a contrast between Afghanistan (long stay, attrition against the Taliban, chance for civil society and security to take root), Iraq (shouldn’t have gone, didn’t stay long enough to sort out the problems when we did go in) and Libya (prod with a long stick from a safe distance and hope the gangs with guns all become best mates post Gaddafi). Which turned out best? (Well, best so far, anyway.) Maybe that’s the lesson we should learn from recent history.
Makes you think that in some respects, colonialism wasn’t so bad, either. At least it more or less kept the peace for a century or so.
Agree about Putin, though. That thug will be quick to take any chance he can. Especially if we keep cutting defence spending.
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February 17, 2015 at 5:40 pm -
The secret of Putin’s overarching appeal is actually quite simple: If you hate America’s dominance in global affairs and all that goes with it (liberal economics, gay rights, endless reruns of The Simpsons), you’ll probably find something to love in the operative in the Kremlin. Chinese Communist Party? Too dull. Iranian ayatollahs? Too religious. The Venezuelans, the Belarusians, the Sudanese? Not serious. But Putin’s Russia is big, mean, and heavily armed — nicely spiced with trashy pop culture and a dose of neo-fascist swagger. What’s not to like?
Perhaps most importantly, Vladimir Vladimirovich is never afraid to take it up a notch. Though he likes to play the sober statesman, he’s also happy to don other roles when it suits him. He’s described himself to biographers as a “punk” in his youth and has had himself photographed hanging with leather-clad bikers. He’s a bad boy who can sneer about Hillary Clinton’s femininity and make jokes about rape. It’s a sad fact of human psychology, but there are plenty of people out there who find this sort of thing sexy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/13/new-model-dictator-putin-sisi-erdogan/
The state-run media in Cairo fawned over the Russian president. Putin’s portrait adorned the streets of Cairo, and one newspaper even printed photos of him with his torso bared. (Not exactly good Islamic style, one might think.) President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi visibly glowed when his guest presented him with a state-of-the-art Kalashnikov assault rifle as a gift.Commentators duly noted the realpolitik behind the visit. Yes, of course, Sisi’s budding dictatorship has been getting the cold shoulder from the Americans, so he’s out to show that he can find friends in other places if he wants.
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February 17, 2015 at 6:45 pm -
I think we’ve all been rather badly let down by America recently. Withdrawing from world affairs might please some on the American left, but it leaves the world a more dangerous place.
Some of the more isolationist Democrats could reflect on whether the world would be a better place with America as it’s policeman, helped by the likes of the UK, Australia and Canada, or whether a vaccuum filled by Russia would be more beneficial generally. (China doesn’t seem to want to take much part in world affairs – at the moment.) Whether they like it or not, being Top Nation brings it’s responsibilities. Especially if they want to stay Top Nation.
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February 17, 2015 at 7:06 pm -
It remains a generally forgotten fact that Bush 2nd had a largely isolationist platform, as a reaction to Clinton’s adventures abroad, protecting humanity and democracy. I still donlt fully understand what led him to Iraq. Some analysis a while back put it down to the liberal Left who were appalled that a tyrant such as Saddam could remain in place. Certainly a Labour supporting friend of mine recently said to me that Bair’s peiod left some good things and then to my astonishment he said, “Do you agree that the world is a better place without Saddam” as if this justified everything. I ordered another beer to avoid answering in depth. At the time of course, the Lefties were banging on that Iraq was all a right-wing comspiracy to steal the oil. More real-politk and less politicking would make us all better off.
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February 17, 2015 at 7:33 pm -
Some truth in Bush 2’s isolationism, though he got it right with Afghanistan, I think. Maybe he picked the wrong fight with Iraq – arguably the world was better off with Saddam than with what came after; he was pretty much contained, after all, post Iraq-the-first-time-round. Sadly for all of us, however, Obama would rather make a fine speech than do anything positive. You don’t face down bullies and thugs by turning the other cheek, sadly.
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February 17, 2015 at 1:59 pm -
Neutron bomb! We ship a couple out on a fighter to ‘decommission’ them, the pilot has a minor fumble with the controls, ‘Oops’ very sorry!
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February 17, 2015 at 12:25 pm -
I’m surprised that Malta has only be mentioned once here, and then only in a comment by Moor Larkin. When myself and Mrs Raite honeymooned there in 2008 the country was – for its small population (400 thousand) – receiving a disproportionately high influx of illegal migrants. They did not, however, to be causing significant problems, probably because of the firm handling and restrictions placed on them as to where they could live (primarily a camp at the former RAF Hal Far) and work, more akin to Australia than teh rest of Europe. This was probably only possible because it’s a lot harder to lose yourself on Malta or Gozo than in mainland European countries. As a last treat before we have kids, Mrs R and I will be returning to the island this summer, so it’ll be interesting to see how things are now.
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February 17, 2015 at 12:32 pm -
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February 17, 2015 at 1:46 pm -
I’m not THAT young, but luckily Mrs Raite is!
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February 17, 2015 at 2:44 pm -
“I’m not THAT young, but luckily Mrs Raite is!”
Then you are to be congratulated, old man.-
February 17, 2015 at 3:00 pm -
I’m not THAT old, either!
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February 17, 2015 at 1:21 pm -
Surely UN military and economic intervention, largely provided from the west, in the wretched countries these desperate people are fleeing from would be ultimately the only effective, humanitarian way of stemming the flow? But as it would involve substantial transfers of wealth from the west there’s little chance of it happening and we must just go on wringing our hands ever more compassionately. What a good job the Mediterranean is so far away from us!
After Hiroshima I used to think our world would end in a bang, but perhaps we’re just as likely to go out with a whimper.
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February 17, 2015 at 1:42 pm -
Here’s a radical idea, how about the West not being asked to keep digging into their pockets for every waif and stray in creation, how about the rich muslim oil nations give some of their unearned wealth to these poor muslim migrants and maybe even get off their fat arses and help sort out some of the problems their lunatic wahabism created.
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February 17, 2015 at 1:43 pm -
It would be even better if we stopped arming them.
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February 17, 2015 at 1:54 pm -
Who’s this ‘we’
Most popular weapon out there is the AK, followed by the RPG.-
February 17, 2015 at 2:30 pm -
Yes, of course. That’s why Blair stopped the fraud investigation into BAe. Just because others do it, does not mean we have to. And where is one of the world’s biggest arms export fairs held? London, at the Excel arena, 15 – 18 September this year if you’re interested in seeing what we’ll flog to whoever has the cash if the price is right.
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February 17, 2015 at 2:36 pm -
Yes, I did measure that Aden gunpack up to see if it would fit on the bike, but they got a bit uppish about it
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February 17, 2015 at 2:49 pm -
Luckily for me?
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February 17, 2015 at 2:59 pm -
I was thinking more of these idiots who think that cutting up bikes is ok because they’re smaller than you. I’ve often thought thathaving the car come off worse would result in much increased civility on the roads
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February 17, 2015 at 4:46 pm -
I once sold a Gold Wing outfit to a chap in the midlands. He took the side out of a car with it, doing the bike and chair little or no damage. My, how we laughed!
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February 17, 2015 at 2:01 pm -
We’ve been making economic interventions in many of these places for donkey’s years. Success has been, to put it mildly, patchy. If extremists can get their hands on flows of Aid, they’ll have them. It won’t work without removing the extremists first.
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February 17, 2015 at 1:38 pm -
Splendid post as ever Petunia.
“The turbulent, unstable nature of the regimes that have followed the end of European colonialism in Africa and Asia have led to some of the most concentrated migrations of people seen in modern times; some argue the ex-overlords of these former colonies owe their one-time subjects a moral debt…”
Who caused the end of ‘European colonialism’, and why; shouldn’t they hold some responsibility? The KGB, CIA, and all other variants of ‘politics by other means’, have purposefully fomented regime changes by well funded schemes of scientific socio-psychological subversion. The turbulence and instability preceded these regime changes, because the nature of subversion works by destroying any incumbent culture. Have you ever heard of a ‘spontaneous’ uprising fuelled by conservative principles? Radicals are funded and advised by agencies of regime change; contented people are never engaged.
Consider: Somalia has a gdp of about $226; whilst its neighbour Djibouti, which is about 85% Somalian ethnicity, has a gdp of $2,874. Guess who was visited by uncle ‘democracy’ and comrade ‘equality’; and guess who was left alone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia
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February 17, 2015 at 2:40 pm -
“Consider: Somalia has a gdp of about $226; whilst its neighbour Djibouti, which is about 85% Somalian ethnicity, has a gdp of $2,874. Guess who was visited by uncle ‘democracy’ and comrade ‘equality’; and guess who was left alone?”
Excellent point but I think you mean ‘PPP’ not ‘GDP’?
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February 17, 2015 at 4:47 pm -
Oops, well spotted. I hate acronyms… and economics… and socialists… and…
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February 17, 2015 at 1:42 pm -
And Greece is bust.
But it still does this:
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/2/13/syriza-and-the-immigrants-of-greece.html
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February 17, 2015 at 2:46 pm -
*Must resist the temptation…must resist the temptation….must not insert a Grecian Urn joke*
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February 17, 2015 at 6:43 pm -
You’ve both lost your marbles…
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February 17, 2015 at 6:52 pm -
Let’s hope they both steer clear of what makes a Venetian blind.
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February 17, 2015 at 1:52 pm -
Do not be TOO disingenuous here:
There is anti-immigration graffiti in Catania
they are harassed and harried
We don’t see them as people, but as burdens, “other”, not the same as us, invaders
except then they were white
Some people in this country even resent us trying to help
it is just very blatant and noticeable that black people are seen as a problemYou don’t have to say a thing to say a thing.
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February 17, 2015 at 1:53 pm -
Was addressed to Windsock
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February 17, 2015 at 2:36 pm -
Robert, I presume that is in reply to my question of “where have I used the term racist?”.
Did you notice my comments were about Italy, the subject of Petunia’s original post? You have experience of that country, obviously, as have I, and you’re honestly not telling me that Africans (specifically, although Roma too) are not seen as a “problem” by some Italians? And when I say “we”, I am referring to the vast majority of commenters I see on various sites.
Not everything is about you.
What on earth happened to you to make you so angry?
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February 17, 2015 at 2:54 pm -
Well, part of the reason the Italians see the Africans and Roma as a problem, is, guess what, because they’re a problem! Vast increases in ‘street crime’, shanty towns springing up overnight, a general feeling that your country is not yours anymore, a policy of ‘don’t say that, X might get offended’. We’ve had immigration into this country, as has all Europe, for centuries; The Hugenots assimilated, the Jews assimilated (ok, it took a few goes) the Italians assimilated (many became Costermongers in Victorian London). We’ve had all sorts, but recently the ones coming in have decided they want our country to become like their country, and their country is a shithole!
Angry because I just saw my tax bill for payment in July-
February 17, 2015 at 4:34 pm -
” The Hugenots assimilated, the Jews assimilated (ok, it took a few goes) the Italians assimilated (many became Costermongers in Victorian London)”
Infact British Borgism goes back waaaaay further, every village named ‘thorpe’ in Ruralshire testifies to an assimilation , the Normans (basically french borgs themselves) took a few hundred years but by C14 the Speculum Vitae could declare “Alle vnderstonden english tonge.”. The Romans came over here with their central heating, orgies and wine and within a few hundred years of constant rain had assimilated into having hot water bottles in their beds instead of sex with nubile young slaves.
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February 17, 2015 at 4:58 pm -
These day’s we’re encouraged to have sex with our hot water bottles.
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February 18, 2015 at 2:23 am -
Re tax bill.
I can recommend a little known tax efficient management company; The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation’s Swiss office. Ask for Noah, and mention my name, he’s a little eccentric and is building some sort of boat as he seems to think that he’s about to be engulfed. I do hope this helps with your anger management, they have done wonders for mine. P.S. Not for the Landladies attention (all that Legal Beagle stuff). -
February 18, 2015 at 4:15 am -
My grandchildren are small, so small that they are vulnerable. When crossing the road I clutch their hands and caution them. Most of the time they roam freely in our fields, on the local beaches and plunge headlong into swimming pools. They are not yet at school. They are encouraged to be adventurous intrepid and independent. I’ve never wept, although I’ve screamed in terror. I recall my Mother shooting one of Makarios’ EOKA terrorists when I was a boy. Subsequently I saw a succession of violence as I was trapesed around the globe. Randomly one of the small people put their hand up and catches my hand. Some times because they need stabilising but, occasionally, to be reassured. Were I tasked with turning round these boats I would have little practical difficulty in so doing……….until one small hand caught mine.
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February 18, 2015 at 8:24 am -
Indeed, the frail and shrivelled elderly make suckers out of all of us.
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February 17, 2015 at 6:55 pm -
“some argue the ex-overlords of these former colonies owe their one-time subjects a moral debt”
Those one-time subjects were also one-time oppressors. More Europeans were slaved to Africa than vice versa. Anything up to 1.5 million according to the research of prof Robert Davis.
Given that the the Ottoman Caliphs have been out of business for a few years, I’m not sure where they would send the invoices. Could try forwarding it onto their putative successors – grand Caliph Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIS; I’ve heard they have bundles of money.
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February 17, 2015 at 7:26 pm -
Sounds as if most of these countries would have been better off staying colonies. I remember reading about a book written by a black American who went back to where his ancestors had been taken from as slaves. When he said he was eternally grateful this had happened the PC crowd descended on him for being a traitor to his race.
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February 17, 2015 at 7:32 pm -
I once got into a chat with the Indian owner of my local corner shop and he was adamant the British did good in India; doesn’t really fit the contemporary ‘all colonialism was evil’ agenda, does it?
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February 18, 2015 at 1:16 pm -
The Brits in India deposed a lot of petty princes of the religion of peace persuasion, so perhaps we did some good apart from planning their railways – the longest outdoor lavatories in the world.
What irritates me sometimes is that Gandhi is a bit of a hero for ridding India of at most 100,000 Brits lost in a sea of Indians, whereas we have millions of them now in a tiny country with a smaller population, and to even hint that they should go back to where they came from (including their decendants) is hailed as racist. I’ve been reading my history books to find the British grooming gangs raping Indian kids, but so far, no joy Perhaps I should re read my Kipling.
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February 18, 2015 at 1:36 pm -
That’s another Muhammad Ali quote. When he went for his rumble in the jungle he was asked for his views on Zaire.
He was succinct.
“Thank God my Great Grandpappy got on the boat” ….
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February 17, 2015 at 7:58 pm -
“doesn’t really fit the contemporary ‘all colonialism was evil’ agenda’ does it?”
No, it doesn’t. I remember the huge communal riots and carnage that happened when we left. Of course there were incidents in our colonial past that were deplorable and remain a disgraceful blot on the British record, Amritsar and Hola for example, and the neglect that led to the deaths of Boer women and children in British “concentration” camps in South Africa, to name just three. And we were much too slow in promoting higher education and in preparing colonial people, and domestic opinion, for self-government. But we took law and order to territories across the globe which, on the whole, I believe we governed reasonably well by historical standards, and generally in the interests of their inhabitants. Doesn’t that deserve a pass mark at least? I wonder how those territories would have fared under, say, the Germans. Look at what happened to the Hereros and to the Belgian and Portuguese territories after their colonial masters had scarpered.
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February 17, 2015 at 9:36 pm -
February 18, 2015 at 12:18 pm -
I spent one afternoon at the Imperial War Museum listening to a 1995 audio recording made by a crew-mate on the second of my grandfather’s ships to be torpedoed and sunk. This was in the Mozambique channel, not long after they had picked up a cargo of coal from Lourenço Marques. He described the loading:
“Anyway, we was there weeks – must have been there three weeks at anchor. And we got alongside, and these blacks came aboard, you know. And I thought, well there were no derricks, what’s going on here? And they had platforms from the wagons, fill the baskets, coal, on their shoulders, and throw it in the hatch! Well, I was stood at No. 2 hold, and I thought we’ll be here forever! They just carried the coal. Didn’t use the derricks, just carried the coal from the wagons over the platform into No. 2 and No. 1 and No. 3. There was hundreds of these blacks. And the Porteguese weren’t very kind to them, either, with rhino whips, you know?”
That last sentence, delivered with Yorkshire understatement, carried more emotion than further detail ever could, even after fifty years.
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February 18, 2015 at 12:32 pm -
Family legend is that my grandad, who was in the British Army on the NW Frontier after WWI was put on a charge for causing a fracas with some of his fellows over their beating the locals with sticks when the wallahs didn’t do their work fast enough or satisfactorily. Apparently these sticks had a special name (not swagger) but I’ve forgotten it just now. Anyhow he thought there was bullying going on rather than keeping order and protested that there was no need to hit them – cue falling-out. I’ve noticed in vids much more recently that the Indian police whack folk with big sticks in public disorder situations so I’ve wondered if the British Army just adopted a local practice. Of course it might be the other way around and the Indians have perpetuated the tradition but I’ve wondered if beating with sticks was a habit for the British elsewhere; I’ve not come across it especially.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/02/26/article-0-0D578E91000005DC-489_634x431.jpg
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February 18, 2015 at 12:24 am -
The loss of life is horrifying. I agree that there is no easy answer. The main problem with allowing “uninvited” immigrants in, is that their successful entry is just going to inspire two more people to attempt the trip. Not long ago it was hundreds, now it is thousands per week. And the truth is, There are far more Africans than Europeans. If a small percentage of Africans successfully emigrate to Europe, lets say 10 million of them, Is Europe going to become a better place? Or will Florence become more like Mogadishu? Having lived and worked all over Africa, it is my opinion that with the natural resources and vast size of the continent give it the potential to be a powerhouse of industry and agriculture. I wish that I had the answer, but I think that nothing we are doing presently is helping.
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February 18, 2015 at 11:39 am -
When I first saw the expression Arab Spring my heart sank into my trainers. I thought that this is no Spring it is the winter of discontent and utter nastiness. So it has proved to be. I cannot understand people allowing themselves to be drawn into such goings on as in Syria and Egypt. They put up with dictators for donkeys years, then suddenly decide to overturn them. Every time it has made things worse or no better!The West has interferred disastrously too. Italy has a lot to bear with from these seepings of who waste their money on boarding leaky old tubs to foreign places which are not very welcoming. All this ‘Spring’ has done is give the unscrupulous the chance to make on money out of drowning refugees and war on everybody who is not them. Iran had the sense to stamp on this nonsense, then moderate itself a little. Putin was put there to keep us guessing. Russia needs a strong man. Most countries do if their people will tolerate their rule. Anything is better than the men in black battering in your door.
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February 18, 2015 at 11:50 am -
I recall that when the Czechs and the Slovaks couldn’t get away from one another fast enough after the wall came down, I was thinking, Thank Christ we DIDN’T go to war in 1968. What a futile gesture that would have turned out to be…
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February 18, 2015 at 12:24 pm -
Yeah, but at least they managed to do it amicably!
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