Crisis is bigger than EU’s refugee problem

The European Union is facing an existential threat. The refugee crisis of today hits not so much at the economic framework of the EU as it does its raison d’être and moral fibre as a civilisation, which are under siege from an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. A large arc of disquiet has been building up over the years in the Middle East, northern Africa and southern Mediterranean, leading to this exodus of hapless humanity fleeing wars and repressive regimes.

The only direction they can go is towards western Europe now because there are no safe places for them in the decolonised world around them that dissolved mostly into tinpot dictator regimes. The picture of the Syrian toddler washing up on a Turkish beach went digitally viral to uniquely touch the conscience of the world, but the issue goes far beyond the sealing of borders and the formal calculations of how many refugees each European nation is willing to take.

What we are seeing today is a stark failure of the politics of the West. Dragged into one of West Asia’s many versions of the Sunni versus Shia wars by George Bush, the US is to blame the most for poking its nose in other people’s business or civil wars. And the major European powers were standing alongside the Americans as they bombed the daylights out of Saddam Hussain’s Iraq. America’s Syria policy, its arming of the opposition moderates ranged against Bashar al-Assad only to see those weapons go on to the Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda associate, and the startling growth of the IS, possibly masterminded by remnants of Saddam’s Army and which fights on the other side of the Syrian civil war now, has led to a boiling point that is challenging the world.

The destabilising policies of the West caused this problem whose dire consequences the world is experiencing. To offer sanctuary to a few millions is not beyond Europe’s economic and social capacity, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has given voice to the call of conscience to invoke the defining ideals of respect for universal human rights. If a percentage of the refugees also comprises people looking for a better life rather than strict sanctuary, their plight also forms part of the larger human experience.

While the refugee crisis is for Europe to solve, the bigger issue is a reminder that the United Nations must wake up to the wider meaning. The US cannot remain a silent spectator either. If the world must find some solution, the Russians would have to cooperate too. If Syria is not tackled, the world will pay a bigger price. What we are seeing now in terms of the dispossessed knocking on their neighbours’ doors is only the tip of the iceberg.