The so-called migrant crisis with Belarus offers Lukashenko and Putin an opportunity and EU politicians tools to fearmonger and score brownie points with voters.
Isn’t it odd how one-sided the news is about the refugee crisis at the Belarus border? Most of the opposition politicians, especially from the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), believe that harsh words, threats against vulnerable people and children, suggestions of building a 1,340 km fence on the Russian border will help us continue burying our heads in the sands comfortably.
The anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)* are in an extremist league of their own. Even so, Kokoomus MPs sound like bullies out for a fight against vulnerable women, men and children.
Media coverage of the crisis is pitiful. I’m surprised that our media calls these desperate people “immigrants” when in fact, most, if not all, are fleeing war, political instability, poor economic prospects.
Thanks to Jussi Jalonen, an article in Al-Monitor gives us an in-depth view of the people trying to enter the EU via Poland and Lithuania.
Writes Al-Monitor: “Many of those at the border are from Iraqi’s Yazidi community, an ethnoreligious group long persecuted for its religious beliefs. ‘I haven’t eaten in three days,’ he said on Nov. 11 and claimed that two children died that day.'”
The article should sober you and help drive away some of the politicians’ hubris, racism, and poor and superficial media reporting.
Does the EU care?
As we know, it has allowed thousands of people to drown in the Mediterranean while trying to get to Europe.
The crisis at the Belarus border exposes, once again, the hypocrisy and toothless policies of the EU.
