Ashes in the wind

Neither the pandemic has stopped the migratory exodus, nor has it managed to put fear into the body of a host of people - of all ages - so that they remain in the place where they were born; perhaps it was hoped that the irruption of SARS-CoV-2 would serve as a container for human displacement.

This has not been the case, nor have the barbed wire fences, the walls, the guards armed with dogs; the sea, the desert, the dangers, the mafias, the rapes, the gangs, the armed groups, the organ traffickers... hunger is even more powerful than all this horror.

Scenes showing mothers and fathers leaving their children behind to see if they can at least carve out a better present and future for themselves are chilling in the face of a dead, selfish and indifferent society.

It is in the DNA of human beings per se to move from one place to another: they were born nomadic and hunger led them to move in search of food, and it was only when they found a way to satisfy that food source that they became sedentary... when they ploughed, sowed, harvested and even domesticated animals.

We have reached the 21st century without knowing how to address, manage and solve the problem of human mobility generated by migratory flows, which, I insist, will not be stopped even by a pandemic.

At present, there are many world leaders interested in updating and modernising several of the international organisations inherited from the Second World War and which require a new vision, given that international relations in the Digital Age and the Information Society are increasingly complex; and it is necessary to include aspects which, of course, were not present fifty years ago and which are now present in our reality.

The UN, which has often been called into question, urgently needs to be reconfigured in such a way that it has more power in the area of migration, so that there can be strong global legal commitments regarding how to deal with illegal migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons.

A major international migration policy as important as the Climate Summit in Paris or the International Treaty on Pandemics, the idea of Charles Michel, President of the European Council, which is being promoted among the countries in order to reach a consensus and be signed by all.

The wrong thing to do would be to continue ignoring the fact that the illegal migratory drama (and here I include refugees) is the other pandemic, to ignore it so as not to confront it and allow the problem to continue to grow to such an extent that it is society itself that is tying the noose around its own neck.

Neither Carla, nor María, nor Zaida, nor Lupe, nor Poncho, nor Abdel and so many millions of others who leave everything to risk their lives are ghosts or less human than you or me; they have had the misfortune of being born in the wrong place.

I have always wondered how many great talents we are missing out on, because they will surely have something to contribute to society, of course if society gives them a chance in terms of education, training and employment.

But selfishness and absurd policies are the main reasons why governments do not want a call effect, on the contrary, these grotesque images of children and young people, without a horizon and abandoned to their fate, standing in line waiting for someone to provide them with at least some water or a snack. What if they were our family? What if we were the ones who, for various reasons, only had the option of escaping from our homeland?

Violence and hunger are the two main factors that drive people away, the fear of the mafias, of being kidnapped, co-opted and forced to belong to a criminal group makes many families leave in terror, in the belief that this will save their children, so they decide to leave; the damned violence that displaces millions of people from Central America to Mexico with the aim of reaching the United States.

This violence displaces millions of people from Africa, desperate to reach European lands, as if they were arriving in paradise and what awaits them is a lack of opportunities and hunger, but hunger in freedom.

Old Europe needs a lot of people, labour and professionals, to sustain its future pension system in a continent with a low birth rate; statesmen know this and so do the politicians who govern, but there are too many prejudices nested to be open to give a better humane and decent treatment to illegal migrants who only want to work - like you and me - to have an income, prosper and raise a family. In the end their dreams are just ashes in the wind....