Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Letters: Disregarded causes of the migrant crisis

These letters appear in the 21 April edition of The Independent

Monday 20 April 2015 18:38 BST
Comments

It is estimated that in 2014 about 218,000 migrants crossed the Mediterranean to arrive in Europe, with an estimated 3,500 dying in the attempt. So far this year 31,500 have arrived from Africa, with 900 dying. The influx of desperate people is blamed on local conflicts, civil chaos, criminality and religious persecution. The elephant in the room is over-population.

Consider the population growth in countries from which these refugees come. Libya: the population in 1950 was 1 million; it is now 7 million. Somalia: 1950, 2.4 million; now 22.6 million. Sudan: 1950, 8 million; now 97 million.

How can a 10-fold increase in such poor parts of the world not lead to local conflicts and mass migration? And who can blame the refugees? In part these problems have been brought about by Western charities who continue to lavish humanitarian aid programmes in these poor parts of the world without accompanying family planning programmes.

The influx of desperate people to Europe can only grow and it is difficult to see how Europe can afford to step up to its legal commitments to house hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers and find them gainful employment. The most likely scenario will be the rise of state-funded refugee ghettos in each major European city. The second generation offspring of these refugees, unemployed, marginalised and resentful, will then become easy prey to radicalisation.

Our European liberal democracies may prove incapable of overcoming their humanitarian ideals to take effective action. There is then every chance that they will be replaced by hard-hearted neo-fascist governments that will deal with the problem of asylum migration in a way bereft of moral scruples.

Alan Stedall
Sutton Coldfield

It is over quarter of a century since climate scientists started warning us that global warming would cause famine, conflict and mass migration. Four years of drought and failed harvests in Syria inevitably led to a rush of impoverished rural people to the cities, resulting in unrest, radicalisation, fighting and flight. The same pattern has occurred across the Middle East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa. It should come as no surprise that desperate people are drowning in the Mediterranean in the hope of escaping a living hell.

This is just the beginning; some of the world’s most important breadbaskets such as California, Argentina, Brazil and New Zealand are suffering extreme droughts while unheard-of April wildfires have been sweeping across Siberia and Mongolia. A mere one-metre rise in sea levels will see hundreds of millions fleeing low-lying countries such as Bangladesh. The flooding of a single city such as Miami will in effect eliminate the world’s insurance industry.

In the midst of this horrific reality we are holding a deeply surreal general election in which any engagement with this, the greatest threat in human history, is being deliberately avoided.

Aidan Harrison
Morpeth, Northumberland

Navies from many countries were mobilised to protect their worldly goods from Somali pirates, but the human traffic between Libya and Italy is not worthy enough. Traffickers go about their business without fear of being challenged, unlike the Somali pirates.

Stan Matthias
London SE1

Is it really beyond the wit of Cameron’s government, other EU states and North African parties quickly to designate an area in North Africa as a safe and protected zone, patrolled by the air force? Does Cameron really think that the billions he proposes, in pre-election mode, to spend on tax cuts, discounts and give-aways are morally justified when those billions could be used to provide urgently needed facilities, health, education, infrastructures, in such a protected zone?

Peter Cave
London W1

The influx of migrants to Italy was stemmed by the Libyan navy in 2010 under an agreement with the Italian government. In 2011 a military coalition, led by the United Kingdom, France and the United States, attacked Gaddafi’s forces, leading to his overthrow and death.

The intervention was hailed as a success for the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. Libya is now a failed state. Whose rights were protected?

Dr John Doherty
Vienna

Lib Dems were right on university fees

Lib Dems may be too embarrassed to defend the decision to increase university tuition fees because of that foolish pre-election promise (letter, 17 April), but there is a strong argument to be made on their behalf.

As the vast majority of people who go to university are (by income, at least) middle-class, having central government pay part of their fees is in effect a government subsidy for the middle class. So when Ed Miliband promises to increase taxpayers’ support for students, he wants to use working people’s taxes to support the better off. Hardly progressive.

As a university degree is likely to increase earning power throughout your working life, subsidising tuition helps to entrench the division between the poor and the better off. The Coalition’s current system, with its greatly increased support for the poorest in society to go to university, is fairer and more progressive.

No, it’s not popular, but the middle classes are notoriously noisy when anyone dares to take away the perks they get from the state. And yes, I did personally benefit from the old system; whether I deserved to or not is another question.

Oliver Wates
Kendal, Cumbria

Belsen’s horrors haunt us again

Seventy years ago, my Grandad along with many other brave British soldiers, liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He witnessed the horror of hatred in action, particularly to the Jewish people. I am very proud that he was there to end their awful treatment, even if we as a nation did not treat those refugees as we should have.

What is so sad to see today is that Britain is a nation where we see hatred in action towards the Jewish people. Not the horrors of a holocaust, but in an almost mirror image of Germany 10 years before. Shops being boycotted, property being vandalised and people being abused and attacked simply because they are Jewish. Too few people stood up for the Jewish people in Germany in the 1930s and the result was the Holocaust, where 6 million lost their lives. How bad does it have to get before we wake up here and in Europe?

Dave Borlase
Moreton, Merseyside

The ‘instinct’ to pass on wealth

David Cameron defends Conservative policy on inheritance tax by saying that it allows parents to pass their wealth to their children, which is a natural instinct. That statement makes the typical Tory assumption that money is a “good” in itself.

It is natural for parents to want to do their best for their children, but that does not necessarily mean handing them massive amounts of unearned money. If that is your instinct as a parent then, in many cases, if you truly have your children’s interests at heart, you will curb it. Often the quickest way to ruin youngsters is to hand them masses of money for which they have done nothing except choose the right parents.

Tony Somers
London SW5

Prudent political ‘housewives’

The misogynistic characterisation of the three female opposition party leaders as spoilt housewives by Brian Rushton (Letter, 18 April) is unfortunate. If a sexist image has to be used, opposition to austerity by the female party leaders is more akin to the wife asking the husband for household expenses to feed, clothe and house his children instead of spending the money on golf club membership.

Gavin Preuss
Balscote, Oxfordshire

Even backpackers avoided Lariam

Like Hallam Murray (letter, 17 April), I’m surprised that the Army still provides Lariam to its personnel. I’m also a little surprised that he took it in 2005.

In Goa in 2000, I met a lot of backpackers (English and others) who avoided Lariam on the basis of what they then knew about its side-effects, and this was a travelling community who weren’t very particular about side effects when deciding what other substances to take.

Marc Patel
London SE21

Wicked waste of champagne

Over whom the champagne is sprayed at the end of Formula One events (letters 18 April) is a much less pertinent question that why it is sprayed at all. There can be no good reason for such an appalling waste.

The whole business puts me off watching Formula One and is enough to drive me to drink. But it won’t be champagne when the manufacturers encourage the abuse of their product in this fashion.

Duncan Howarth
Maidstone, Kent

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in