Far-right turns, the West mask of civility falls off, By Owei Lakemfa

The CNN American Presidential Debate showed humanity is in a catch-22 situation while the European high speed far-right turns on the cliffs, threaten to plunge humankind into an uncertain world.

The far-right turns have been taken in countries like Switzerland, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Serbia, France and to some extent, Germany.

The only light visible at the end of the European tunnel is the British elections in which the Labour Party is set to end rudderless Tory rule. The British Conservative Party rule has been so chaotic that it has in the last 14 years produced five Prime Ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Despite this welcome change, it is difficult, to distinguish the migration policies of the main British parties. They follow the emerging pattern in most of Europe where the policies of the far-right, right-wing, centrist, liberal, labour and left-wing parties on migration and commitment to a common humanity are blurred.

In fact, some European governments have lost all sense of humanity in dealing with the issue of migration as they deliberately ensure that migrants are drowned in the seas, or they do the drowning themselves.

The British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, in its documentary of Monday, 17 June titled ‘Dead Calm: Killing in the Med?’ provided irrefutable evidence of Greece deliberately forcing migrants to their death in the seas or intentionally drowning them.

The BBC, which analysed 15 such cases, reported that: “In five of the incidents, migrants said they were thrown directly into the sea by the Greek authorities. In four of those cases they explained how they had landed on Greek islands but were hunted down. In several other incidents, migrants said they had been put onto inflatable rafts without motors which then deflated, or appeared to have been punctured.”

In one of the cases, a Cameroonian man, and his fellow travellers, Didier Martial Kouamou Nana and Sidy Keita from Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire, were hunted down by Greek authorities after they landed in September 2021 on the island of Samos.

They were beaten and thrown into the sea without life jackets. The first two drowned while the survivor managed to swim to shore.

A Somali migrant who was caught in March 2021 by the Greek army on arrival on the island of Chios, was handed over to the Greek coastguard. The latter zip-tied his hands behind his back and tossed him into the water. Luckily, one of his arms broke free and he swarm to safety. But the other three victims, tossed into the waters, died.

One of the most heart-wrenching cases the BBC verified, occurred in September 2022 when a boat carrying 85 migrants had its motor cut out near the Greek island of Rhodes. The Greek coastguard which responded to their May Day call, loaded them onto a boat, then put them in life rafts. Survivor Mohamed said the raft he and his family were given had not had its valve properly closed, so they began to sink. He said: “We immediately began to sink, they saw that… They heard us all screaming, and yet they still left us.” Seven or eight children had died before the Turkish coastguard arrived.

One year before the BBC report, the most criminal case against Greece occurred on 14 June, 2023 off south-western Greece. A fishing trawler crammed with over 700 migrants sent a distress call the morning before. The Greeks merely sent out an helicopter to circle the ship. It was only at 11pm, a Greek coastguard boat arrive. Three hours later, the ship sank claiming over 600 souls.

Survivors claimed the ship capsized when the Greeks tried to tow it while the Greek Government claimed the vessel refused assistance.

Italy might be worse than Greece. While the latter ensures that distressed migrants at sea die out of deliberate neglect, Italy backs its actions by law. Its Piantedosi Act of 24 February, 2023 makes it a criminal act for any vessel already having rescued migrants on board to rescue other distressed migrants at sea even if they were seen drowning.

As we might know, the policy of the current British government is to round up alleged illegal migrants, fly them to Rwanda and dump them in camps.

Given these official policies and acts, physical attacks on migrants in some European cities and a consensus towards a far-right swing, Europe might be losing its soul.

In the case of the USA, not a few were alarmed by the lacklustre performance of a clearly tired, slow and uninspiring 82-year-old President Joseph ‘Joe’ Robinette Biden in the 27 June CNN American Presidential Debate. After 36 years in the Senate, eight years as Vice President and four years as President, Biden should have given way to a younger, more energetic and mentally alert Democratic Presidential candidate. But a caucus, desperate to cling on to power, has pushed him to the point where four months before the Tuesday, November 5 Presidential election, questions are being asked whether Biden is mentally and physically fit to run.

It is not that some of us who are worried are Democratic Party or Biden supporters. We are just concerned that the road is being cleared for the return of his predecessor, Donald Trump, a mercurial character convicted on sundry cases, including “hush money” paid to porn actress, Stormy Daniels. We are worried that a narcissist adult who does not seem capable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood and, openly tried to carry out a coup against the American state, may be sworn in next January as the president of ‘God’s Own Country.’

But it is debatable whether Trump would have been worse than Biden in the ongoing genocide in the Palestine. Biden poured $12.5 billion aid into Israel even when it was obvious that what is afoot is genocide against the Palestinians. To collectively punish the Palestinian populace, he stopped US aid to the UN Peace and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.

As the Palestinian casualties rose, Biden said: “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed.” So for him, the issue is not the massacres, but that the figures might not be high or high enough. Thrice, the Biden Presidency vetoed the UN Security Council (UNSC), resolutions calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Palestinian War. Finally, as worldwide protests mounted, he submitted a ceasefire agreement to the UNSC to which he claimed Israel had agreed. It turned out that this was false.

The far-right swing in Europe, and the threatened Trump return might mean that the West is defining its own humanity and that its mask of civility has pulled off.

Owei Lakemfa, a former secretary general of African workers, is a human rights activist, journalist and author.