Forced Migrations and Refugees in the Mediterranean Basin and the MENA Region

Book excerpt: "In the past migrations opened the world to knowledge, science, and understanding among peoples, but increasingly migrants are viewed with disfavour and even hate, especially in the Mediterranean Basin and the MENA Region. I had published with two other scholars a book intended to promote the rights of migrants in 2015, but today the situation has become so much worse, particularly in our chosen area, that I believe the time has come to re-examine the situation. A number of issues conspire to render the fate of migrants truly desperate, as they are forced to leave their lands that, due to the increasingly grave effects of climate change, can no longer feed and support them and their families, while the ongoing conflicts in the area render their situation truly unlivable. In addition, in the last few years, extreme right-wing political parties in Europe have conspired to treat people of different colour, ethnicity, or religion as unworthy of the respect due to all human beings. In 2019 a further disaster struck the whole world, a pandemic that imposed particularly harsh conditions to migrants, who were clearly unable to practice social distance and who found themselves in situations where testing, medicines and even sufficient food and water were not available. There are important aspects of this work that have global applications beyond the focus area we have chosen, such as the spread of racism, the fostering of conflicts to advance the interests of powerful countries, the dangerous spread of populism with fascist tendencies, and the spread of imperialism. Most of all, there is a lesson to be learned: walls to exclude and separate people provide no solutions for any of the grave problems we all face. Such problems can be solved all together or not at all; what is needed is a concentrated effort to acknowledge our need for each other, as only a belief in the true brotherhood of all can help"--