Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/195525
13 Interview maltatoday, SUNDAY, 20 OCTOBER 2013 Malta has often complained of a lack of European solidarity vis-à-vis its own migration issues. But human rights activist Neil Falzon argues that European solidarity has been forthcoming… only not of the sort we had in mind PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD not as we know it familiar to us: it's on the news every day. Which means it is also in our living rooms every day. When you see with your own eyes what situations these people are fleeing, it becomes difficult not to sympathise. The issue with most African asylum seekers is however different. Their conflicts, the problems these are escaping… we never get to see any of that." As an example he refers to Eritrea: a country about which very little is actually known outside its own borders. "The situation in Eritrea is unbearable – it's one of the world's worst military dictatorships, with human rights agencies reporting unthinkable atrocities. Yet we never hear anything about it on the news. Which raises the question: on what basis do the media pick and choose which conflicts to report, and which to ignore? I'm not saying they shouldn't report on Syria… but why so little coverage of civil wars in Africa?" Falzon is confident that if people were more aware of the root causes of immigration, their attitudes towards migrants would be different. And perhaps, he argues, so would the attitude of other European countries towards Malta's constant demands for 'solidarity'. "It's a question of how you perceive the problem," he says in reply to the quizzical look on my face. "So far the emphasis in local discussions has been on how many migrants coming to Malta have been relocated to other EU countries. Anyone would think the overriding issue, from a global perspective, was actually Malta's own immigrant population, and not the millions of refugees in camps all over the world… Falzon argues that this discrepancy may also explain the evident communication problems between Malta and Europe on the same issue. "Some European countries have from the outset shown a willingness to offer support. It's just not the sort of support people here evidently expected." So what sort of support are we talking about? Falzon replies by pointing towards the thousands of refugees relocated from actual refugee camps on the borders of the world's trouble spots. "The trouble is that when we talk about a 'solution' to these problems, we tend to think about our own problems, which are not necessarily viewed as a number one priority by other countries. But when human rights agencies talk about the same problem, they will be referring to the most vulnerable groups imaginable – and these people will not be found in Marsa or Hal Far. They will be found living in terrible conditions in camps in Jordan, Lebanon, in Sudan and in Kenya." EU member states, he adds, recognize the urgency of helping these people – but when they look at our own asylum seekers they don't see them as urgent cases at all. "Life in Hal Far may not be perfect… but for all its faults it remains infinitely better than a refugee camp in Jordan, on the border with Syria. Any human rights NGO will automatically give priority to those refugees, and not to the ones whose asylum applications are already being processed." Fair enough, but this doesn't address the issue of hundreds of people drowning as they try to reach Europe. Surely that is Europe's concern, too? "It is, yes. This is why Europe also has to change its attitude towards immigration. Part of the problem is that there is no legal channel for bona fide asylum seekers to reach Europe without risking their lives. It is impossible for these people to fly in because no country will give them a visa. It is time we start talking about humanitarian visas… about creating channels through which people can safely avail of their right to seek asylum, in a way that is organised and properly planned. This is the sort of debate human rights agencies would like to see… not just individual countries complaining about their own problems."