Europe • Walls, with the dead as backdrop

I know, some say a col­umn by Mamie Eyan on Kedis­tan is like a con­ver­sa­tion in a tea gar­den. No polit­i­cal depth, and not at the required level.

But you’ll have to go on wait­ing before I take my final bow.

And speak­ing of depths, I would like to talk about sea depths. 

For once, I don’t want to grum­ble as usu­al against our Reis but against those who give him the means to shine in social set­tings: name­ly, the Euro­pean lead­ers. More specif­i­cal­ly, those financ­ing a new slave trade in Libya, after hav­ing financed the AKP regime for it to fil­ter the migrants com­ing from Turkey and war regions.

Even if we reg­u­lar­ly hear our min­is­ters com­plain­ing we’re not see­ing the col­or of the promised euros fast enough – the ones to finance our role as Euro­pean bor­der guards — it is obvi­ous that this agree­ment, reached a while ago already and nego­ti­at­ed by the same Dame Merkel who took in the great­est num­ber of migrants your coun­tries did not want, this agree­ment, I say, built a wall on the sea, start­ing on the Turk­ish coasts.

If you add to these the inner walls of barbed wire that have sprung up on your demo­c­ra­t­ic ter­ri­to­ries, some in Hun­gary, some in Aus­tria and else­where, and why not in your love­ly French Alps, you quick­ly under­stand why Libya has become the new migra­tion route toward Europe.

I’m not the one say­ing this, the asso­ci­a­tions defend­ing human rights are say­ing it, and with a stronger voice than mine.

In Euro­pean his­to­ry, there is the trace of a wall on the Atlantic, built by nazism to stop an Amer­i­can land­ing on the coast. Now your lead­ers are repeat­ing the exploit on the Mediter­ranean. But since we are now in the vir­tu­al era, Lafarge isn’t pro­vid­ing the con­crete, the Euro­pean Union is pro­vid­ing the basic require­ment, euros, for the new bor­der guards with their new equipment.

I did­n’t real­ly need a trans­la­tion when I saw this go by. It is igno­ble, inhu­man, and wor­thy of the high­lights of the 20th century.

And since I had seen the one about the slave mar­ket before, I did­n’t need much think­ing time to tie the two together.

Your wall on the Mediter­ranean sim­ply serves to let peo­ple die far from you by financ­ing their tor­men­tors, in order to safe­guard your inter­ests and, so they say, reverse the cur­rent unem­ploy­ment trend.

With Erdo­gan, Dame Merkel had revealed and nego­ti­at­ed the finan­cial aspects of the deal. This time, we don’t even know how much mon­ey is involved, such haste and shame being involved in the trans­ac­tion. But remem­ber, this is being done in your name: they say you are a major­i­ty “not want­i­ng them here.”

In the same way as you have des­ig­nat­ed the Kurds to get killed in your place against ISIS, and let Bachar tor­ture his peo­ple under Putin’s con­quer­ing gaze, you want to cre­ate your deten­tion camps out­side Europe, so fear­ful are you of the migrants’ bod­ies sul­ly­ing your lands. I had anoth­er idea of Europe…

I must have made the same mis­take as you did when you thought there was democ­ra­cy in Turkey pri­or to Erdogan…To each his own blind­fold to avoid see­ing real­i­ty and fight shame­less­ly for his own inter­ests. All this, in the heart of Nations.

At this point, con­trary to what some say about me, I think I’ve touched bottom.

They say you repulsed the ran­cid nation­al­ists of the far right and kept them out of the vot­ing urns. Frankly, seen from a dis­tance, you get the oppo­site view. Your Left drapes itself in the blue white and red of France, for instance, and your lib­er­als form alliances with the worst to trans­form migra­to­ry flows into mar­itime grave­yards or con­cen­tra­tion camps for new slaves…And all this to the sound of dec­la­ra­tions about “human­i­ty” from your mil­lion­aire politicians.

We, in West­ern Turkey, have aban­doned those in the East to a mas­sacre car­ried out by the forces of the Turk­ish State. Those who react­ed against it are now in jail or about to go there.

And you, what are you doing so that the walls erect­ed by the EU to pro­tect you don’t become the pan­els of the cof­fin to your human conscience?

I know, I know, no depth to my thinking…and I’m speak­ing to the wrong audi­ence, none of this is your fault…But at my age, sound­ing off pro­vides some relief, at least…

 What did you ask San­ta Claus for Christ­mas, a coast­guard outfit?

Français Europe • Des murs et des morts, en fond de décor Cliquez pour lire

Trans­la­tion by Renée Lucie Bourges
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Mamie Eyan

Chroniqueuse

Ten­dress­es, coups de gueule et révolte ! Bil­lets d’humeur…