[Lucas] Hello and welcome
to another live discussion with DiEM25's coordinating team, featuring radical ideas
you won't hear anywhere else. This month saw one of the worst
shipwrecks in Europe in a decade. Up to 700 people drowned, including at least 100 children. when a refugee boat sank
off the coast of Greece on June 14th. It's another tragic milestone
resulting from the anti-migrant policies of governments like Greece
and of the European Union itself. Inhumane policies that were
given voice last year by the EU's Foreign Affairs Chief,
Josep Borrell: "Europe is a beautiful garden,"
he said, "that must be protected
from the surrounding jungle that's ready to invade it". Similar tragedies have failed
to bring enough public attention to the plight of migrants
in the Mediterranean. This time, though,
could be different. Survivors and NGOs
have accused Greek authorities of playing a role in the deaths. The Greek coast guard,
they say, watched the boats drift for hours without making
any attempt to rescue people and may have then contributed
to its capsizing. Tonight, we talk about
the latest developments in this crisis and ask:
who should be held accountable? And what needs to change
to make sure this senseless loss of innocent lives
in the Mediterranean stops, once and for all? Joining us for this vital conversation, we have our coordinating team
from all over Europe, including Greece, and for our guest Miguel Duarte,
a tireless migrants rights activist, who has already aided
in the rescue of 14,000 people, and for that, he's faced
the threat of prison. And you watching us live, if you have any questions
or comments, please leave them
in the YouTube chat and we'll tackle some of them
as we go. Miguel, welcome,
and I'd like to give you the floor to kick us off. Tell us a bit more about
your background as an activist and how you see this latest tragedy. [Miguel] Hello everyone and thank you for the opportunity
to speak about this most recent tragedy. So I've been involved in
the so-called refugee crisis since 2016, when I first joined
the sea rescue mission onboard the ship Iuventa. For that work,
less than a year later some of the crew of that ship,
myself included, had to face four years
of investigation for aiding and abetting
illegal immigration, which, according to Italian law,
could could lead each of us to up to 20 years in prison. And after an enormous investigation
about this, in 2021, four of us had to go to trial, and myself and five others
were arbitrarily acquitted. So many of us have decided
to return to the sea with other ships, because the Iuventa is still seized,
unfortunately, and proceed with the with
the life-saving work that all of these NGOs
in the central Mediterranean do. So it's been two weeks
since this enormous tragedy took place off the coast of Greece. It's possibly the biggest
in recent history in the Mediterranean. And significantly just yesterday, the newspaper Le Monde published parts of
a Frontex board meeting, in which it stated that twice
the Greek coast guard asked Frontex not to report
on the sighting of the boat many many hours before
the shipwreck took place. And when Frontex actually did that the Greek authorities adulterated
the given coordinates to a more "convenient position
from a Greek perspective", so they said. So much ink has been spilled
in the international press. about the details of this event, which actually get more horrific
and cruel the more we learn. But it is also our responsibility
as civil society to see beyond the narrow gaze
of the mainstream media that is necessarily both
limited in space and in time. We must see the events
that took place two weeks ago as only the most recent loud
manifestation of the violence of the European border regime, and actually only
its inevitable consequence. Just last year we saw
two major reports come out that put the spotlights
on the illegal and immoral pushbacks done by Frontex
and the Greek Coast Guard. One was done
by the European anti-fraud agency and resulted in Fabrice Leggeri, the executive director of Frontex, leaving the agency. And another one was put out by the independent investigation agency
Forensic Architecture, which documents 27,000 cases
of people that have been kidnapped by either Frontex
or the Greek authorities and put adrift in engine-less boats
off the coast of Turkey, many of them necessarily
to their deaths. This was largely ignored
by the media in many countries. I'm from Portugal, and in Portugal it was
barely talked about, but also in the international media
it was very silent, which, even after years
of looking at the consequences of the violent border regime
that we have in Europe, it still surprises me how little attention we pay to such
stark consequences of this. So I'd like to put this forth
for discussion and try to understand,
to see if all of us together can get a more accurate perspective
of what should be done on a Greek level, but necessarily, mostly,
on a European level, because this is not
a Greek phenomenon. This has been happening in Greece, but significantly in Italy,
in Spain, and in many other parts
of this continent. [Lucas] Thank you, Miguel. By the way, last year we interviewed
Miguel for our YouTube channel and it was a great,
wide ranging discussion. So if you want to watch that
which I highly recommend the link will be in
the YouTube chat, Let's go to Greece now with Yanis. [Yanis] Hello, Lucas,
hello, Miguel. Thanks for your introduction. We're coming out of a general election, a second one in quick succession. We have had the
- I wouldn't call it tragedy, it's worse than that,
it's a crime against humanity, what happened off the
coast of the Peloponnese I'm afraid that I'm going to fail to
contain my depression and pessimism, because in response to Miguel's
question, what can we do? You will permit me to say at least under
the terrible influence of the verdict of the electorate here,
the answer is nothing. But please don't believe me
and carry on fighting with a good fight, but at least for a few minutes,
let's be honest with one another. We are facing a European
polity that is complicit and absolutely guilty of sustaining
the policies that are killing people, that are performing mass murder
in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. The outrage over the drowning
of hundreds of children and even more hundreds of adults
off the coast of the Peloponnese, that outrage and sadness
amongst the Greek population lasted no more than 10 seconds,
no more than 10 seconds. There was a very feeble, very low-key,
very badly attended rally an anti-racist rally, in support of
the right of refugees to life and limb. The Right-wing parties is that are
actively pursuing in the social media, a line of: they deserved it, they
shouldn't have gotten on that boat. Why did they invade our space,
our European space, fuck them kind of attitude,
excuse the French. They were out in strength
and they won, they increased their vote. We have four Ultra Right-wing
parties with fascistic tendencies, and parties that are making
no bones about it. They support the pushbacks. They support the fences, they support
the prison camps in Libya for people whose only crime is
the wish to escape a home that has become like the
mouth of a shark and I'm very much afraid that
this is universal across Europe. I don't think there are many
places around Europe which could not be
described thus. Since we founded DiEM25
in February of 2016, when we were in the Volksbühne,
during our speeches back then, warning Europeans that if
Europe is not democratized, that if we don't move away
from policies of austerity that are turning the majority of
our peoples into victims of plunder, on behalf of oligarchic capital,
that the people will be desensitized and this desensitization is going to
lead to a postmodern version of the 1920s and 1930s. When we know very well that
the deepening economic crisis and the deepening unease regarding
the capacity of the average family or person to make ends meet
is going to very easily turn into a ultra Right-wing
racist onslaught. We were warning about that in 2016 and we were saying that the reason
why we created DiEM25 was because of that prospect
and we failed. We put all our efforts into
changing Europe by 2019, the European Parliament elections. We didn't elect a single MEP. The Left collapsed, the Greens
turned brown or black, look at the German Greens
in government today, not a peep, not a word
about any of this, not a word about any of this, and the whole of the continent
is shifting to the Right and the parties that are winking
at the population saying: Okay, well, terrible thing that
these people drowned but there's no alternative to
allowing them to drown or no alternative to creating the
circumstances for them drowning because unless they drown,
there are millions back in Africa or Asia hundreds of millions,
who are watching to see whether these people
would make it to Europe or not. If they see that they
make it to Europe safe and sound,
then they will come too. So, the message of our establishment
of both the liberal center or if you want, the radical center,
people like Borrell, you mentioned, Lucas and the fascists, it's the same:
These people need to be sacrificed. We are going to put on a show of
fake crocodile tears when they die. That's what distinguishes the
liberal center from the fascists. The liberal center pretends
to cry over the deaths and the drowning of
these kids and adults. The fascist, don't even shed
crocodile tears, that's the only difference. They both think that deaths
in the watery grave that is the Mediterranean, is the only
policy to stop migrants from coming,
and they say so. I mean they tell me, they were
telling me in Parliament behind closed doors, there has
to be death in the Mediterranean to stop them from overrunning us. The White replacement theory
is alive and well. It is crap, of course, because you know
we are an ageing continent. We need people, we need
millions of people to come in because of our demographics. And you can see
that they know that, because when white Christians
flock in their millions like the Ukrainians did as a
result of that other inhuman tragedy, the war In Ukraine, they
open the doors, no problem. So it's pure racism, it's White
replacement theory and there is an explicit attempt
to use mass death to weaponize mass deaths
in the Mediterranean to build taller fences that maximize
the number of people who drown in the Mediterranean, because
when you build tall fences between Greece and Turkey,
then of course, they will bypass them with boats, and then
they will drown. Especially if you push
back those boats. We have at least 864 incidents
in Greece, of pushbacks. They've been well documented. Pushbacks are not only a
violation of international law, but it is a direct attempt
to get people to drown if not to drown, to get particularly wet
and end up back on the coasts of Asia Minor in a terrible state
so that they can send an SMS back home to Kenya, to Pakistan
to Afghanistan, saying: I didn't make it, in order to deter
others from coming and if they can drown, that's
even better because then the message becomes stronger:
Don't come to Europe! Now, that's the reality: we have a duty
not to window dress it, not to pretify it. Europe is an ugly continent
of stupid populations who vote hands down,
who vote enthusiastically and increasingly for misanthropic
policies which are detrimental to the soul of Europeans. It's not even in the interest
of Europeans to do this, not only because of the lack
of people in this continent and the desertification
of the continent and the fact that we don't
have enough labor, it's also the fact that they don't
realize that the moment you start treating human beings
with such contempt, the moment you instrumentalize
and weaponize the death of people, then you have started
very very slowly, but very firmly to sell your soul to the devil and very soon, you treat
one another within your family, within your neighborhood
like a piece of shit. And so, the result is that Europe now,
has won without any doubt the historic price of uncivilized idiocy
and I've very much failed. There's nothing we
can do about it. We will keep fighting,
but we will lose. There's nothing we can do when the
population of a country like Greece, which was very sympathetic to migrants
until a few years ago. After 750, people die off the coast
of Peloponnese, within 10 days, both of the parties that
celebrate those drownings. At that point, comrades, I throw
my arms up in the air and I surrender. I don't really, but for a few
minutes I feel like doing it and then, we keep struggling
and we will keep struggling until we're dead. But let's not be stupid and think
that we're going to win. There's zero probability of victory. Mass death and uncivilized behavior
has triumphed once and for all. I've never been so
negative in my life. I had to be 62 to reach that point,
apologies for their bleakness. That's all I have to say. [Lucas] Thank you, Yanis. Let me bring in Julijana now
from Germany, Julijana. [Julijana] Yeah hi
and thank you, Lucas. Unfortunately, I'm also
very pessimistic, because I think the development
in general in Europe right now is really devastating. I mean, in Germany yesterday,
the IFD, the fascist party, won their first election
in a region in Germany, and I saw an interview with
people of that region today. They interviewed the people
on the street and many of them really
argued about the foreigners, that there is a problem
with foreigners and that the IFD is promising
to get that under control and they talked about: They are getting
apartments and we have to work. So, you can really see that the right wing
and fascists are play... They got into the mind
of the socially weak of those who are in
existential crisis. It's the pensioners who are not
making ends meet. It's the people who are really struggling. And yeah, they tell them:
The problem are the migrants and I mean this is an old story. It was always, a huge topic of
fascists, to argue about migrants, but now with the refugees
- and I agree on that point - you can see that there is such
a relief for many people that they haven't reached
anywhere in Europe and they really believe that these
people are a threat to them. But, I think that the main problem
is why we see the IFD in Germany getting so much stronger. In polling, they're the second
strongest party right now. They come just after the CDU,
which is the conservatives. So, if there were elections
now in Germany, it would be a government
where I would say: I don't know if I would stay
in Germany, to be honest, that kind of of Right-wing government. I think the problem is that
there are no social policies, the last 10 years politics has been
really cruel to the people, poverty spread more and more. There are over 50% of people
who are not getting by, and so it's really easy to
play them out against refugees and against other people
who are also suffering. So it's like they're suffering
against the other suffering, and this is, I think, where the parties
like the IFD and the right wingers are really spreading the misinformation
on the internet through social media. As Miguel said, the press isn't saying
anything about what's happening. Many people don't even know that
there are pushbacks for sure. I just had an argument with
someone from my family about what happened
and the person said to me: Well, it was like,
700 criminal young men. and I was like:
What are you talking about? I saw it on social media. I was like: There were children
on that boat and even if it were 700 young men, but
to think that there are only criminals and I don't know what picture gets
painted about these people and what their motivation
is to come here, but there's so many lies that
get spread through the internet about those people and for us, it's
really difficult to fight against that. Then you have on top. the media,
who's not helping out very much, and you have the government
like right now, who's really fuelling the problem because
they are not taking care of the social issues of
the socially weak people, so they get pulled away from the
Right-wing and the fascist parties, because right now, the fascists are
gaining more interest in Germany, exactly because of those things,
exactly because nobody does anything to take care of all the crises that
are unfolding for many years now. So yeah, people are sitting at home
and they're like: Yeah, I'm sorry that they drowned,
but you know, my life's hard too. So yeah, it makes me look at the
future, also very pessimistic, because right now, I cannot see
how we can break this cycle. It's just a handful of empathetic people
who are really caring about the refugees and I feel like we are in
the minority right now. I hope it's just a feeling
to be honest, but yeah, that remains
to be seen in the future. [Lucas] Thanks Julijana. Judith also in Germany, although Judith
spent quite some time in Greece recently. [Judith] Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to add a quick
point that might be interesting to some people about this
election that Julijana mentioned. In Sonneberg, where the IFD was the
strongest party for the first time in a German election and even though
it's in eastern Germany, it's not your classic case of
an abandoned, neglected left behind community with large
unemployment and so on. They actually have very
low unemployment, just 5%, which is very low
for Eastern Germany. Usually you have more than 10%,
sometimes more than 20%. So, I think that we should not... Obviously, the the CDU's analysis
of what went wrong in that area is that there was too much LGBT
ideology and and climate protection, and so on, is what the CDU tells you,
and the Leftist part is of course saying that it's because of the
lack of protection because of high unemployment
and and so on, but I think it's a bit too easy to say that it is
because of high unemployment, because in this particular city
that elected this IFD, they don't have particularly
high unemployment and it's comparatively wealthy compared
to the rest of eastern Germany. I think this is a part where also
the politicians have to take some of their responsibility
in manufacturing this kind of conviction among people that
there is something deeply wrong with the other, obviously
with the politics. bringing in people into the mainstream parties
that are openly xenophobic, giving them a platform. And then, it's like Yanis said. people who are
more likely to vote for the original, rather than voting for
the CDU politician who is xenophobic, they vote for directly for
the xenophobic parties. But I think that this particular example
should occupy us a bit longer, outside of this Zoom, obviously
to just look at how exactly, people there got radicalized,
because it's not straightforward. [Lucas] Thanks Judith, That's an extremely
good point, and in Germany on the whole,
like Julijana, was also saying, it's a very concerning development,
so it's definitely not confined to Greece that we've seen this. Amir, Amir from the Hague,
our policy coordinator. [Amir] Thank you, Lucas. Those sentiments that we
just talked about in Germany, etc. are also, really felt here
in the Netherlands. The situation is not
necessarily any better. It's a bit further out, If you like,
from the front line of what's happening
in the Mediterranean. The general public support
is waning unfortunately. Even though Europe is not really,
necessarily the largest host of refugees at the moment, or in
the past few decades. I mean, 76% of the world's refugee
population, people in Europe in need of protection
as the UN defines it, are hosted in lower,
middle income countries. So, Europe is really, whatever Europe
is hosting is still is quite small. Turkey, 3.6 million, Iran, 3.4 million,
Colombia, 2.5 million, then you get to Germany, 2.1 million
and then Pakistan and so on, and so on. Of course we know, that the numbers
in Europe increased rapidly, given the war in Ukraine. The second issue here, of course, is somebody mentioned
on the chat about the UN. The UN is still being a bit more on
the toothless side of things and a lot of the support that the UN
is giving is actually on the refugee other host community level
in terms of cash support, if you like, or refugee camps,
and so on and so forth. But, it's had no real action on any
initiative for example, on the pushbacks or on the role that Frontex which,
we sometimes think of it as a front for executioners,
really in a sense, what Frontex is doing, allowing
just murder to take place. From a policy point of view and we're
gonna also share the link now in the chat as well. We're going to both what can be done
in terms of policy proposals in the short, medium,
and long term, not just for the refugee population,
but also for host communities who also in some places,
do need support, as well as the root causes of the
refugee crisis, if you will, be it climate change, unfair trade
relations, colonialism and postcolonialism, Western support for
dictators and of course, support for wars and more warmongering. This is also crucial for us,
because we see, as the the war drags
on in Ukraine, and further militarization of the
European Union, that this Is just going to keep on
escalating as we go, so it's important that
wherever we are, our activists... Like we had now, yesterday,
in Ireland who were protesting outside the Irish government's,
consultative forum, a forum which is basically aiming to
reduce and remove Irish neutrality. So there's very few bastions
left against militarism and we have to do everything
we can to protect it. [Lucas] Thanks Amir. Miguel, I'd like to bring you back in
and I'm sure you have a lot to respond to from the things that were
said here, since your introduction, but I like to throw another question
at you as well, if you don't mind. It seems to me, and I've
had this thought before, but the beginning of the discussion
only deepens it that one of the issues that we have here, is by and large,
society has lost the capacity, if it ever had it in the first place,
which I think we did, but we've lost the capacity to
see humanity in those people, those people getting in boats
and risking their lives to reach Europe. It seems that quite literally, most people
and that's not a conscious process, but most people don't really
see these people as human beings at the end of the day. A few weeks ago, before
this latest tragedy happened, there was this New York Times
investigation that proves with video evidence that pushbacks
were happening in Greece, right? I'm sure you saw that and you
follow that very closely and on DiEM25 social media,
we helped publicize that because it was so important
and some of the reactions that we got were stuff that I can't really
bear to to repeat. It's hard to be shocked
by people's reactions on social media
these days, but that really really
did it for me personally and I'm sure, for anyone who
had the misfortune of seeing them. Also, I'm sure it wasn't,
as you know as well, it wasn't lost on anyone,
the sad irony of how different the reactions were to this
tragedy in the Mediterranean compared to the other tragedy
that happened with the submersible on that expedition
to the Titanic. Obviously, five people versus
hundreds of people, but five rich people, the story was
much more appealing, right, for newspapers, so that also helped
drive home the point that we've lost the capacity to really
connect with these people on a human level. Now you're someone who... you have helped
rescue these people. You have looked into their eyes
over and over again. How do we help society
recover that sense? Do you have any insights on this? [Miguel] Maybe allow me to be let's say, the optimistic
part of this conversation. I do understand the pessimism,
I really do and I've seen a lot of this tragedy, a lot of this European
catastrophe unfold before my eyes so, I really do understand
pessimism, believe me. When we talk about
migration in Europe. However, having had the privilege
of being part of the movement for migrants rights for
quite a few years now, let me tell you that the movement
has never been stronger in terms of numbers and
will to change things. I joined back in 2016, when the
crews were completely amateur. We didn't, but to be
100% honest with you, we didn't know what
we were doing there and between then and now,
so much changed, of course, there
was criminalization. I myself was was under investigation
for four years, a lot of us. Our case was just the first,
it was not the only one, right? So every single NGO that was
active in the central Mediterranean at some point, got in
trouble with the law. with preposterous claims
of human trafficking and aiding illegal immigration. Every single crew got
accusations of this sort and despite all of that,
despite all of those efforts, we've never had as many ships in the
central Mediterranean as we do now. So you see, there is a lot to be
pessimistic about for sure. The government in Italy at the moment,
although, let's not all of the blame in the far Right, because the Center Left
in Europe has a lot to well, there's a lot to be
said about them. I think they've done a lot more
to erode human rights in Italy than the far Right ever could, although
they certainly would if they could. I find hope there because,
it costs a lot of money and it costs a lot of effort to put one
of these ships on the Mediterranean, and it literally takes thousands
upon thousands of people every year, contributing to this,
not only monetarily, but with their ideas, with their efforts,
with their talks to spread the word with their hopeless conversations
with politicians, with their interviews in the media, there's so many
hours of work put into this, that it's not only the people, you see
stretching their arms to get somebody out of the water,
it's the thousands and thousands of Europeans, that stand
behind those people. To be honest, my perspective
from the front line that of course, criminalization has
never been stronger and the fascism hasn't been as
strong as it is now in Europe for many many years,
decades even. However, the response
is also very strong and from my perspective,
it's also never been stronger. So I'd say: let's have hope in that
as a way to change things, because it's only through
social movements and the strength of
social movements that we've ever been
able to have any change. Now, just to add something to Yanis'
perspective which was very interesting on the reasons and the consequences
for the construction of this European border regime. I would also like to add that it's not just deterrence I think that is the cause or
the main goal of all of the deaths in the Mediterranean and in
other borders in Europe. It's also the fact that the more
we criminalize migration, the more we create laws
that make these people appear as illegal human beings,
if there ever was such a thing, the more we justify
taking away their rights. I think this really plays into
the erosion of labor rights in the whole wide Europe. In Portugal, which is a very small
country compared to the rest of Europe, we have 10 million inhabitants
and 300 000 people that are working. They are migrants and
they are working, paying taxes in Social Security,
but have no access to citizenship, because they are not living
regularly in Portugal, right? This is the case in so
many countries in Europe and I think very significantly,
it was also pretty much ignored by most of the international media,
but very significantly in the beginning of the global pandemic
lots of countries in Europe closed their borders and
at some point in the beginning of the first summer of pandemic,
the Italian government or at first, the Italian agricultureists,
started saying that they had entire fields that would never be
picked of fruit and vegetables that would never be picked
and would just go to waste because they didn't have the
seasonal workers that would usually come from
eastern Europe. So what does the
government immediately do? They emit regularity,
so regular status, temporary for 200 000 migrants,
in one go. They just sign it off,
just like that, right? So, I do think that the establishment
and even the far Right know that we need these people, but they
prefer them without rights. [Lucas] Yeah, let me
bring in Johannes now, also from Germany. [Johannes] Thank you. I wanted to add one point about
what Lucas just asked Miguel before about how's that even possible,
all the hate that you can see on social media, but also,
in some of the interviews that Julijana mentioned
and also in the voting of people that Yanis referred to
recently in Greece, but, as we see in the polls
and voting all over Europe and that is I think,
one main reason for this and I will follow up with
an example from Germany, is the dehumanization
of these people. I think most people wouldn't
really be able to hate migrants or anyone so much if you see
them as an equal human being. So one thing that is very important
for the political actors that want to profit from that is to dehumanize
those people, criminalize them, as Miguel also said
and how does this work? I think we also know, of course,
there's a lot of, you know going on, on social media,
a lot of fake news going around, a lot of the stories being twisted,
as we also heard before in this call. But I think also, that one main reason
for this is mainstream media in Europe, playing a really important role in this
and transferring this right-wing frame of the 'criminal migrants' to everyone and to every house,
to every TV in people's homes. You can for example,
look at it in Germany, where the migrants coming
in 2015 after the Syrian war were always portrayed
as a big wave, and there was a
big fuss about some. There were some problems with
of course, taking so many people in that you should rightfully talk about,
but then also, every case of one of those many people
actually may having a criminal act or something else getting blown
completely out of proportion in media. This 2015 wave as the main frame
also was, is still looked back in a lot of the mainstream
media as this really... But there were problems in 2015,
and this stays in the collective writing and saying
in all the TV stations, and now, we had the war in Ukraine
and we also had a lot of refugees, especially last year, and we were
rightfully taking everyone. When you actually
look at the numbers, the numbers were
higher last year, but there was almost no talk
about this being a problem with some of those coming maybe doing
criminal acts or something like that, which is completely normal,
that a small portion of every society or every group of people doesn't
always act in the right way. There are many reasons for that. But if you look at how the media
portrays these two migrant years, where a lot of people came to Germany,
it's just black and white and of course, one needs also
to think that it has to do with it, with the yeah, the color of the skin
of those people coming. I think this is one
of the main reasons and also one thing that is, of course,
very hard to work against, but I think we should try and try
to tell a different story about those people coming
because I think also one of the... I remember one of the
leading Right-wing people in the Right wing party in Germany
has once in an interview, that I saw, really said that he thinks
it's very important that their voters, their members... Most people in Germany don't even
get in touch with the migrants coming because there would be the fear
of them actually being seen as human beings which they are
and then, I think the hate would fast go away,
thanks. [Lucas] Thanks, Johannes. Daphne, Daphne based in France,
originally from Turkey [Daphne] Hello. I have to admit, I'm also
very pessimistic and very legitimately terrified
of the situation in general because the failure to address not only
the issue of safe passage for migrants, but the wider issue of not only
regional or national inequalities but, global inequality that is
driving this migration force this emptying out almost of the
third world, of their resources, of everything and geopolitical
instability, threat of war, ongoing conflicts and not only,
let's say, some attempts to address these conflicts
and remedy them, it's exactly the opposite. It's almost kind of like
the climate crisis in a way which of course, is
another source of refugees. It's just like this denial and
the markets will fix it or like the aid models that
have clearly failed will fix it. This is just the complete continuation
of the global race to the bottom. This is one of the consequences. I think the worst thing is,
that people... As Yanis said that
there is no alternative, nothing can ever be better,
nothing can ever be fixed. What we can only hope
and expect from politicians is to protect us from these people
who are even more desperate and they're coming to get us
and invade us or whatever. I don't think, there's ever been
a time for me, where the famous Rosa Luxemburg
"socialism or barbarism" quote has meant more. When I was a younger person,
I didn't quite understand. I thought it was just like a
moralistic metaphor. I didn't really understand
at the time that she was referring
to this escalation, this acceleration towards
this very violent kind of politics. It's very terrifying. I can't remember who said it, but somebody said
when people are afraid they elect monsters, thinking that the monsters
would protect them, but the monsters, they thrive on fear,
they feed on fear, they get bigger
the more fear there is. It's really terrifying. And it's terrifying,
the real level of racism and anti-migrant sentiment
in Turkey as well, for where I am, and the politics that
is developing around it, not only the conditions... So, like now, there's lots of
people, migrants, that have already
safely reached Turkey, they're being exploited, There's a really terrible rise
in deaths in workplaces of Syrians, for example, and child labor, which has always been
a problem in Turkey. There's constantly more
and more news of Syrian children illegally working on construction sites
and falling and dying - and this is really terrible. And like, no sympathy:
"They shouldn't have come!" And, of course Erdoğan wants,
under the political pressure, he wants to send back
the migrants to the 'empty' Kurdish territories, which is messed up in all number of ways
that I can't even get into now. But I want to also say, to just point out how global
this phenomenon is, and it really does
I think, exceed some of the easy stereotypes
we have about it. So in France's poorest department,
it's a department called Mayotte. It's an island, it's an ex-colony. Lots of poverty,
a 95% Muslim population. Lots of poverty,
lots of crime related to poverty, But Mayotte is still part of France,
it's French territory. And it is not far from another Island
which is not a French territory, which is I think called Comoros, which is an even poorer Island
than Mayotte, lots of people from Comoros
are coming illegally by sea to Mayotte. And Marine Le Pen, in this very ex-colony,
95% Muslim, department in France, got 42% of the votes. So I'm just putting that out there. So another thing I want to say is that, next to migrants fleeing, there's another issue
of brain drain, which is more desired immigration
by the West: 'Oh, we want the qualified. We don't want your tired and your poor,'
as Americans would say, and this has also a very big effect. Now, like 32% of college-educated
engineers and medical personnel are saying they want to leave Turkey. And this is also, I think,
linked to austerity. I will say how: I recently saw a deconstruction of
the NHS staff and how much of the
NHS staff is foreign born. I can't remember the numbers now, but it's really striking. And meanwhile,
Tunisia and Romania, their hospitals are in crisis
because they don't have enough doctors. And at the same time, the British interior minister is saying
that they won't remove the caps because they cap the schools
for medical school students and nursing schools. So they won't remove the caps
because it's "too expensive," to form nurses and doctors. So it's like this austerian
horrible mindset that we won't spend
and what we lack we'll just get it from other countries with the 'desired,
acceptable immigration' and then, who cares
what happens to those countries that they use their taxpayers
to form these personnel and doctors and now, they're in dire need
of those doctors, and the problem continues. And you know: middle class,
educated professionals, engineers or doctors, they're also a big part of a tax base
of a country, isn't it? Especially at countries
like Tunisia and Romania. So the way we reproduce and
re-reproduce these inequalities and hollowing out and
stealing of every kind of resource instead of investing
in people everywhere, is just so disgusting
and it really makes me... I'm a bit emotional, I almost want to cry now. So, I'll stop now,
thanks. [Lucas] Thanks Defne. Ivana, Ivana from Serbia. [Ivana] Thanks Lucas and thanks to everybody
who spoke before, because basically everything
that I wanted to say, is 'covered from so many aspects
and what concerns me the most is exactly this lack of humanity
and empathy that everybody mentioned. If you remember in 2015, when the influx of Syrian
refugees started, there was this photo of
a Syrian boy drowned on a shore of Bodrum in Turkey,
which is a Turkish Resort, and that was the point
that, that photo was on every cover of every newspaper
I think in the world, and that was the peak of empathy,
at that point. Afterwards, and also
I think it's important to take this into consideration
psychologically, that people do build mechanisms
of defense and that if something is all the time
in front of your eyes and you can also see it with war
and gamification of the war and the people thinking it's a game
and you have joysticks, you no real people,
and so on. So it's detaches people from
the human aspect of of the refugees or anybody who is suffering,
really. And also, we are using different terms
a lot here for migration. There are migrants, and we already know
who are the migrants: they need to swim to the shore
and if they survive and so on and so on, they will make it. There is this Eastern European migration, which is a cheap labor force
and half of Europe would collapse economically,
as Miguel said, if there is nobody to
pick the crops and so on. So on one side, it's reinforced. On the other side,
there is a strong message that they sent if people drowning
in the sea every day and unfortunately, I believe that
this is just the biggest number that was caught. And that it's happening every day. And it reminds me a lot of... We have a poem from the end of
the first world war, while the Serbian Army
was recovering in Corfu and when they didn't have anywhere
to bury them anymore, they would throw them in the sea, and it was called Blue Sea Tomb. I remember when I went to Corfu, It was very spooky to me, and I saw people on the beaches
swimming in that sea and because we have deep
historical connection with this poem and historically,
with this period of time, it was unimaginable
for me to swim there. So also, I would like to you know,
hold the conscience of people that they're going to
their summer vacations, enjoying the Aegean Sea, to think about what
is the cost of that. And also, what the Left
or we as DiEM need to consider is: the real concerns of people and that our policies should not
just, quote unquote 'just', address freedom of the movement, but also, the real problems
in the society that are piling up, because nobody is doing anything
to integrate migrants into society. It appears like the Left is sitting
there saying 'Let them in!' and then when they are in they're sleeping on the streets
of Athens or Brussels or Berlin, and so on and so on. So, I think that this these policies,
or, for example, something that our META,
Center for Post-capitalism did, workshops with children, refugees teaching them a craft, it was photography,
concretely in this case, but anything that can connect
people to people. Because, yes, fear is the biggest tool
of manipulation and if we don't get to know each other, if we don't hear each other's music, if we don't taste each other's food,
and so on, we won't understand
that we are all human beings. So on one hand, it gives me hope, because the human race
was never very kind to one another. On the other hand, there is a lot of work to do
in integrating refugees, migrants, expats - call them as you wish -
into society. Thank you. [Lucas] Thank you, Ivana. Let's go back to Julijana. [Julijana] Just two little things
I want to add, and one fits to a comment,
I guess, in the chat, about capitalism, which, I think this is also the point
that people believe that there's only so much cake
and that people can take away something from that cake
that I'm fighting over all the time. You know, and I think what
Miguel also said - and I think it's very important - that we also should criticize
the Left and the center Left, because I think there were
really big mistakes in how we approached the topic. Also Ivana mentioned it. Just to think naively that it's about
saving people and everybody would be on board and be like: yeah I see the disaster,
so let's save them, and to not take account
that many might reject such a thing and that not everyone is having
the same feelings toward the same disaster,
in any case. I think it was a bit a beacon of hope
to see how many people also in the mainstream media
in Germany called out this hypocrisy of having news
for over one week over the submarine at the Titanic,
and what happened. There was some mainstream articles
which said: is this okay? Is this actually not wrong
to have this imbalanced coverage of news, where I had to laugh
because the same newspaper that brought the article was the same newspaper
who had no coverage over what happened
in the Mediterranean Sea! But I think we have to evaluate
as Left how we're approaching the topic and how we can act on many levels. One is to go by empathy, but it's only also to present
real solutions that people understand, to take fear away. And the last thing I want to say
is that I just remembered this one explanation of Žižek, which points to the fact that Europe
itself has a hierarchy of looking down at each other. He said like for Great Britain,
the Balkan starts at France, and for France,
the Balkan starts at Germany, and so on. That we still also within Europe, we have a lot of resentment
towards each other. We have second class... Not just the Balkan
and in Western Europe, but it's also amongst France
and Germany. Every nation has some some issues
with some other nation, and I think that we are still
in that state of mind in Europe towards each other, makes it not easier
to open our the minds of the people for people from other continents. So, I think there is still
a big racism problem within Europe that needs to get pointed out,
I think. That was it. [Lucas] Thanks Juljiana. Let's go to Danae now,
also in Greece, to close. [Danae] Thank you, Lucas. So, while I was also
very depressed and I didn't feel like talking so much
and everyone has covered many aspects and that has been great but Ivana reminded me of something
that happened in Greece and I just wanted to close with a beautiful phrase that I heard. It was in 2015 when it this boy's picture
that was all over the press and I had at the moment been starting
to create an art installation in Eleusis, which is a very poor industrial area, which had mostly been empowered
in the industry, I mean by refugees having come
from Turkey at that time in the early 20s,
or 1922, around then. And I had blocked that image
and all that wave of refugees coming from Syria back then had just blocked me completely. I then watched a documentary
that had been filmed in that area in Eleusis for 15 years, and there was this character
who was a homeless man, Moonstruck as they say, and the film director had been
following him for 15 years, and this man was always running,
hiding under his coat from the camera, and he was collecting ancient stones
and leaving them outside the museum. But at some point in the middle
of the film, that obviously he had become accustomed
with the director. The director asks him:
Panagiotis, that was his name, "Where do you live? Where is your home?" And he turns around astounded
and he looks at the camera and he says upon this Earth
under the clouds. And this phrase sort of unblocked me and I felt that's true
we all have this, we are all the same and and it unblocked me and then I managed
to work on this project and I called it 'Upon the Earth
Under the Clouds'. So I just wanted to finish
with this phrase. I found it so moving. And thank you for giving me
the space to say that. [Lucas] Thank you, Danae,
for the hopeful closing to this discussion. We're gonna stop here. I think stopping this large-scale
extermination, frankly, of migrants in the Mediterranean, is, as we've heard,
from so many speakers, a very tough fight,
but it is the only fight. And that's true for many other,
but pretty much all the other big issues that we face today. If you would like to
join an organization that doesn't shy away
from those big fights, no matter the odds, then please join DiEM25. The link will be in the chat, it is diem25.org/join Please also donate. We're completely powered
by small donations by common people like you
watching us. And if you're not already,
please subscribe to our channel and turn on your notifications, to make sure that you don't
miss any of our upcoming videos. See you for another live discussion
with this coordinating team. I want to thank also our guest,
Miguel Duarte here for joining us, and giving his very powerful perspective. And also thank him for the amazing work
that he's done over the years. And we'll see you,
two weeks from now.
