A new strategy is being developed here in Europe to make African people think twice before starting the dangerous odyssey of illegally trying to enter the formerly-kown-as-paradise part of the world.
Yes, they are still building walls, patrolling the sea, monitoring the African coasts in costant search for small boats full of desperate people, possing a threat to the stability of western civilization.
But, in a new turn of the screw, now the approach is to convince them at home that hell rather than heaven awaits on the other side.
Even with help of some Non-governmental Organizations that provide the material to show in remote villages of Africa, intended to be a counterbalance for the TV influence. Showing the rough part of the story. People being treated as second class citizens. The coast guard rescuing undermined bodies from the sea or simply recovering the dead ones from the shore. Testimonies of unsuccessful experiencies with a sentimental touch here an there to make them more impressive.
To me this is like telling the father that is watching his son drowning in the sea, not to enter the water because it is cold. It is not knowing the reasons why an inmigrant is an inmigrant. As strange as it could seem to us, people usually wants to live where they were born. If you give them a chance, they will stay. You can call it a kind of mother love for your land. Because once you grow up there it inpregnates your soul in a way even the best detergent is not capable of removing it.
The reason they come here is what they left there. A incomprehensible wish to come back and share with the ones they love the fruit of their hard work wherever hard work is available to be done. And I say incomprehensible, because that is what we think of it. If we ask a western person where he would like to live, it would be amazing for us how many of them would choose places like The French Riviera, Monaco, the exclusive Chelsea of London, Monaco, Geneva... A lot of them resigning from their own homeland, trading people for glamour.
I don´t think the same stands for poor people of other continents. They would decide to stay at home but improving services and live conditions in general, but not even to the standard level assume as reasonable here but to that minimum to live without the constant threatening of starving or diseases.
Let not missunderstand this. I am not saying that a man living in a shanty town wants to remain there for the rest of his lifetime. I say they want to build their own land, not "steal" ours.
Meanwhile we keep on spending so much money to stop the unstoppable tide, not realizing that the solution is somewhere else and perhaps cheaper than we think.
