The week Europe woke up

Wow. What a week this was for the crisis of the Mediterranean boat people.

I’m not sure I can recall an issue accelerating so quickly, with such a rapid high-level outcome. The last time I sat at this blog, a week ago, I mused that maybe, just maybe, the debate was reaching a tipping point.

Seven days later, it feels like we’ve talked about nothing else for months.

An emergency EU summit tripled its search and rescue operations budget, a growing list of states are promising to send ships and additional resources, and there is talk of an intervention in Libya. Marking its coming of age, the affair even earned itself a front cover in The Economist.

As the BBC reported:

This was a “something must be done” moment. Europe’s leaders could not accept that so many people have been dying, trying to reach their shores. And even the United Nations had urged the EU to “go beyond its present minimalist approach.” But will it be enough?

Will it? Well, of course not. The EU has just about reinstated the levels of Mare Nostrum, the rescue operation ill-advisedly abandoned last year.

It was struggling to cope with demand even then, and the numbers have since grown much higher.

Fundamental questions about the way we treat economic migrants, the resettlement of refugees, efforts to offer more opportunity in the countries the migrants come from, and the imperative to stem conflict in Africa and the Middle East all remain unanswered.

Nonetheless, it does feel like something profound has changed.

A topic politicians were running scared of a mere fortnight ago (only the Greens dared raise it during the UK election TV debate) is now being discussed 24/7.

Media that had relegated the crisis to second tier are now leading on it. Big questions about who we are and how we act when faced with the largest forced displacement crisis since World War 2 are on the table. This one is going to run and run. So what happened?

First, obviously, there were two major disasters. The drowning early last week of 400 migrants as they fled to Europe from Libya set off alarm bells. And then, over the weekend, a tragedy twice as horrific: killing as many as 850 people in the worst refugee shipwreck on the Mediterranean yet recorded.

This triggered several campaigns that had been bubbling away for months. The steady drip of advocacy by IOM, UNHCR, OHCHR, Amnesty and many others meant there was a solid bedrock of information, analysis and advocacy to build from.

And then, with impeccable execution, Save the Children launched its #restarttherescue campaign, which went gangbusters.

But even this might have not been enough, until the full horror of our political indolence was caricatured in one of the most jaw-dropping political columns of our times, a new low that genuinely shocked a nation.

Enter Katie Hopkins, the bogeywoman, Britain’s very own Ann Coulter, a pantomime villain who has risen to infamy through virulent opinionating. Even by her callous self-publicising standards she plundered a new low, advocating in a mainstream British newspaper that we turn the gunboats on migrants, and describing them as cockroaches and feral humans.

I scoured the web for more information. Was she some kind of secret Swift, penning A Modest Proposal for our times? Her words were so appalling, so reminiscent of the language of Rwanda’s genocide, that close to 300,000 people signed a petition on Change.org calling for her removal.

Not that The Sun seemed to care. Nor the London radio station, LBC, which gave her a 2 hour platform to air her vile views shortly after. (And earning its very own angry twitterstorm as a result.)

Unlike the drownings that preceded it, the vitriol expressed by this media monstrosity galvanised a frenzied flurry of high profile excoriations, including a full frontal from the country’s favorite celebrity rebel Russel Brand, who delightfully described her as “the pus emerging from the pimple of our policy.”

Even Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN Human Rights chief, weighed in.

This type of language is clearly inflammatory and unacceptable, especially in a national newspaper. The Sun’s editors took an editorial decision to publish this article, and – if it is found in breach of the law – should be held responsible along with the author.

One thing was clear. The country had woken up. Letting people drown in terror and laughing about it was simply not on, and it was time to do something about it.

Campaigns bloomed, iconic images multiplied. In Brighton, Britain’s progressive pagoda of seaside protest, dozens of campaigners lay in body bags on the beach.

Social media was buzzing, the chat shows on fire. People changed their facebook profiles to images of hands emerging from the sea.

In short, the crisis of the Mediterranean boat people finally broke through.

So where next?

First, the momentum for more search and rescue at sea needs to be kept up. In a triage approach to human suffering, this surely has to be the priority.

Our body politic cannot allow a tradition as ancient and fundamental as maritime rescue to fall by the wayside. If the threefold increase in funding makes the difference, great, but if it falls short, as many fear, more pressure will be necessary.

Then we must embark on the really difficult questions. How radically do we need to change our approach to migration to keep pace with this crisis?

I was struck by an interview with François Crépeau, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.

Millions of north Africans, sub-Saharan Africans and Turks came to Europe between 1950 and 1975 and no one died and there was no smuggling. Why? Because they took the ferry … for 50 francs and they disembarked in Marseille, took the train to Germany or Belgium or wherever else.

Everyone was recorded, everyone was controlled, but they could come. And if they came with a tourist visa and they found a job, they could easily transform the tourist visa into a work permit. And when they lost their job, which happened, they could go home with ease of mind because they knew they could come back. Mobility was the name of the game.

Maybe, as he suggests, the answer is not more control, but less: flexibility that releases pressure, keeps people alive, offers hope, and boosts European competitiveness in the process.

Similarly, some people are beginning to ask: does our concept of refugees still make sense? Are our definitions too strict? Is it right to differentiate those fleeing economic hardship and refugees from war; does all the paperwork and waiting do more harm than good?

I am no expert here, but I suspect there is still a strong case for distinction. The political reality is that Europe will not be opening its doors any time soon. There will be some form of quota, and there will be competition for places. If we treat all migrants the same, do we not risk sending thousands back to their deaths?

Granting asylum from conflict goes back to the very dawn of nations; and we should not dispense of it lightly. In a BBC piece a decade ago, Ruud Lubbers, a former High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote:

The practice of granting asylum to people fleeing persecution in foreign lands is one of the earliest hallmarks of civilisation. References to it have been found in texts written 3,500 years ago, during the blossoming of the great early civilisations in the Middle East. The Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians and ancient Egyptians all recognised the need to protect refugees.

What would be the consequences of abandoning this concept? Severe, I suspect.

Yet, if we do wish to keep it alive, we must acknowledge the system we have in place is no longer adequate.

Alexander Betts, from the University of Oxford, this week issued a clear and eloquent warning to the New York Times.

The Syrian crisis places the entire humanitarian system at a crossroads. It requires us to radically rethink how we protect and assist such large numbers of displaced people.

This is no small question, and will demand considerable attention over the coming months. It will be caught up in wider questions about economic growth, security and international development.

But for the moment, at least, the conversation has finally begun. And for that, we can allow ourselves a small degree of satisfaction.

Is the Mediterranean boat crisis finally breaking through the wall of disinterest?

A few days back, I asked a journalist why the grim tick tock of migrant death on the Mediterranean wasn’t a daily story. Surely there was enough drama in it? His reply: “it’s the same thing over and over”.

Yet the revelation that 400 migrants had drowned this week as they fled to Europe from Libya seems to have struck a new chord.

The story went global, and even my alma mater, the Financial Times, not particularly known for its social justice campaigns, felt impelled to run an editorial.

The shame of Europe over migrant boat people

The steadily increasing flow of migrants and asylum seekers attempting to reach Europe via the Mediterranean represents one of the biggest challenges confronting the EU.

Public anguish in many EU states over immigration makes the problem in the Mediterranean difficult to resolve. Still Europe’s response should be condemned for what it is: inadequate and inhumane.

About time too. Maybe, maybe, this particular episode will spark the debate so sorely needed to wake Europe from its torpor.

IOs and NGOs lined up to sound the alarm, including IOM, UNHCR and Save the Children.

Amnesty International said “European governments’ ongoing negligence towards the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean has contributed to a more than 50-fold increase in migrant and refugee deaths since the beginning of 2015.”

Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU’s commissioner for migration, described “the unprecedented influx of migrants at our borders, and in particular refugees” as “the new norm“, and said “we will need to adjust our responses accordingly.”

More than 1,100 writers, including the recently deceased Günter Grass, sent a letter to the European Parliament calling for greater protections for refugees.

The EU could start by reversing its decision to cut its search and rescue operations, and the UK should rethink its disgraceful position that people should be left to die at sea pour encourager les autres.

The trouble is, we have been here before. Interest spikes whenever there is a particularly terrible incident, and disappears shortly thereafter. As the writers suggested, the drowning of more than 300 people near Lampedusa “had no impact on refugee policies”.

Temporary outrage only goes so far. To change this picture and the EU’s response, more focus is needed on the other side of the coin: empathy.

The challenge is to show people that the boat people aren’t some mysterious outside force, a horde of numbers, but potential neighbours, invested in finding peace, and making their new homes more prosperous.

This is no small challenge.

Pew Global last year polled seven European countries, and found the majority wanted less immigration – with the highest opposition in Italy and Greece.

“Roughly seven-in-ten Greeks and Italians say immigrants are a burden on the country because they take jobs and consume social benefits.”

Those countries also happen to be front line states in the Mediterranean boat crisis.

In the UK this year, the general election debate has been dominated by immigration, with even the Labour Party forced to harden its stance, amid a surge in populist opposition.

Until this perception shifts, efforts to galvanise public opinion against deaths at sea will struggle.

To that end, those campaigning for more sympathy might take a leaf out of a smart new campaign currently creating some buzz in Britain.

Monday saw the official launch of the #iamanimmigrant campaign, which started as a crowdfunded idea to put posters on the London Underground, and which has since expanded throughout the UK and is beginning to harbour international ambitions.

The brainchild of the Movement against Xenophobia, set up in 2013 to end the increasing toxic political rhetoric against immigrants, it resonated with people tired of the vilification of newcomers as the source of society’s ills.

The media responded enthusiastically, enjoying a fresh counter-narrative during an election campaign dominated by negativity.

What #iamanimmigrant so cleverly does, with the help of photographer Philip Volkers, is to put a compassionate human face to the people being vilified, revealing them to be as much invested in their adopted homeland as its other inhabitants.

This is something the Mediterranean boat people campaign could do more of. To complement the shock horror incidents and rising numbers (too big to do anything about!) with human stories, appealing to empathy as well as outrage.

With so much personal drama, the potential is huge. Imagine a refugee girl in Syria, fleeing for her life across the border to Lebanon, encountering rising hostility, struggling to make her way to Libya, throwing her life into the hands of  criminals and boarding the boat of death.

These are epic journeys in every sense, as gripping as any TV fiction.

If we want to change Europe’s mindset about the Mediterranean boat crisis, we need to appeal to people’s natural attraction to a strong story, their connection to tales of overcoming adversity.

To end this crisis, we need to make it a lot more human.

Does asking #whatwouldyoutake generate empathy for Syria’s refugees?

One of the toughest challenges for humanitarian communicators is facilitating a relationship between the audience we’re reaching out to, and the people we’re trying to help.

This needs to be done accurately, with dignity, and yet also be compelling enough to inspire action. Timing, the internet’s insatiable hunger for the new, support from influencers and that je ne sais quoi that taps into the zeitgeist can all determine success. But one element seems essential: establishing a sense of connection, and common cause.

The BBC Magazine ran a piece today called The Special Shoes.

In 2009, two years before the start of the Syrian revolution, a young man called Huthaifah saw a pair of shoes at a shopping mall in Aleppo. He bought them, but decided not to put them on – he would only wear them when he saw his mother again.

Huthaifah had not seen his mother for six years. She’d been living in the UK since 2003, and there was no chance of Huthaifah getting a visa to visit. For his mother to travel to Syria was unthinkable. Thirty years earlier, she had fled the country carrying nothing but Huthaifah – then just a few months old – wrapped in a blanket.

In the summer of 2012 Huthaifah got a call summoning him to report to the military security headquarters in Aleppo. That same night, he got a warning from a friend: “Don’t go. They know you’re working to help the doctors treating injured protesters. You have to get out of Syria.”

Fifteen days later he drove to Turkey with his wife and her mother, his baby boy, Zaid, and his Zara shoes.

The piece ends with an appeal:

Tweet the one thing you would take if forced to flee your country, using the hashtags #whatwouldyoutake? and #Syrianjourney

Please include images and/or video – these may be used in a follow-up report.

Prima facie, this seems like a compelling ask: put yourself in another’s place, make that leap of empathy, imagine what you would take with you if  you had to flee, and share.

To underline the idea, the BBC piece included another tale:

“The only thing I brought with me from Syria was a whistle,” writes Firas. “I trained as a sports teacher in Damascus. My coach, who was also a great friend of mine, gave me this whistle in 2008, when I qualified. It reminds me of my first day at work when I was young and happily employed. It also reminds me of my coach. He was kidnapped in Damascus and later killed, even after his family paid a ransom.”

Here’s something a wider audience might relate to, a middle class sensibility – a beloved tool of your profession. This seems like a theme pregnant with possibility.

I headed off to twitter, typed in #whatwouldyoutake? and had a look at the response. Hmm. It seemed rather slow.

One person posted a photo of their kindle, another suggested they would take their family pictures, and, just as I published, one rather attractive post of someone’s fiance.

But that was about it. There were a couple of retweets asking the question, but not providing answers of their own. ie, people seemed to like the question more than the exercise of announcing what they would take.

Maybe it was a twitter mechanics thing. I decided to check #whatwouldyoutake instead of #whatwouldyoutake? (Perhaps the question mark was putting people off). 

Aha! A couple more empathetic tweets appeared… except, um. “A piano.” “A few guns.” Not quite the expected response.

Maybe I was searching wrong. Could any tracking services shed some light on the matter?

Hashtagify.me was fairly brutal on the subject. #whatwouldyoutake was causing barely a ripple, it would seem, with a popularity of 4.3 (on a scale of 1-100). By comparison, #refugee was at 48.5. Hashtags.org suggested a slightly more rosy picture, suggesting a spike at around 8 am GMT, but that was based on a tiny sample. Tweetreach.com and Keyhole.co were less compelling.

So much for armchair analytics. I think it’s a safe bet that this hashtag isn’t taking off right now.

Going back in time, it appears the hashtag had a few other outings. What you would take if your house was on fire, or if you went to the jungle. One related to a poignant photostory on Buzzfeed from late last year.

The most important thing she was able to bring with her when she left home is the set of bracelets she wears in this photograph.“The bracelets aren’t my favorite things,” she says; “my doll Nancy is.” May’s aunt gave her the doll on her sixth birthday. “The doll reminded me of that day, the cake I had, and how safe I felt then when my whole family was together.” The night they fled Damascus, Nancy was somehow left behind. May says these bracelets are the next-best thing to having her in Iraq.

But overall, the uptake has been pretty thin. Why?

One guess is that it might simply not have been supported enough. A more consistent campaign with more promotion by key influencers could have a very different result. Perhaps the phrase #whatwouldyoutake is insufficiently obvious (especially with the question mark), and a little too clunky to get traction.

Another possibility is that the appeal to ‘put yourself in a refugee’s shoes’ is not a compelling one. People might not really want to take that journey, and make that effort. They have enough problems of their own.

And then, perhaps there is another reason.

I checked back to the feed before posting this, to see if anyone else had used the hashtag. One person had, it turned out, with a simple chilling message:

Ouch.