Imagine, for a moment, that you saved someone from drowning. Chances are you’d be seen as a hero.
Now imagine you saved thousands of people from drowning. In Europe these days, you might just be labeled a criminal.
Take the case of thirty-five-year old German boat captain Pia Klemp, who personally helped rescue more than one thousand migrants in the Mediterranean — that deadly body of water protecting Fortress Europe from hapless humans seeking a better life. For her efforts, Klemp is now facing twenty years in prison thanks to the sociopathic machinations of the Republic of Italy, which has been at the forefront of criminalizing sea rescues and other humanitarian activity.
In 2018, fascist groupie Matteo Salvini — who serves as both Italy’s interior minister and deputy prime minister — closed Italian ports to NGO rescue boats, while also vowing to deport half a million migrants and refugees as part of a “mass cleaning” of the country.
Of course, it has always been perfectly fine for Europe to plunder Africa and other migrant-producing territories in any way it sees fit. Never mind, too, that the legacy of colonialism has more than a little to do with current migration patterns. The casting of the migrant as an apocalyptic menace comes in handy in corrupt European locales — ciao, Italia — where public attention must be constantly redirected from all the ways the state is actively fucking over the citizenry.
According to the official unhinged rhetoric, Klemp and her ilk are guilty of collaborating with human traffickers and of aiding and abetting illegal migration to Europe — namely, by guaranteeing invading migrants that they’ll be promptly scooped up from the Mediterranean and deposited on dry land with VIP service. But this argument, you might say, hardly holds water.
A recent press release from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) quotes Frédéric Penard, director of operations of the NGO SOS Méditerranée: “The reality is, even with fewer and fewer humanitarian vessels at sea, people with little alternatives will continue to undertake this deadly sea crossing regardless of the risks.” Penard continues: “The only difference now is people are nearly four times more likely to die compared to last year, according to the International Organization for Migration.”
MSF notes that, since Italy’s decision one year ago to block humanitarian vessels from its ports, “at least 1,151 vulnerable men, women and children have died” at sea, and more than ten thousand have been forcibly returned to the point of embarkation in Libya, an infamous hotspot for migrant torture, rape, kidnapping, and slavery. READ MORE AT JACOBIN.