Europe must act
Congratulations to the European Union! To the European Commission! To the European Council! Congratulations also to all the European citizens for your 70th anniversary of alliance. We, however, are not able to celebrate and participate in your jubilation, as your crises and differences have left us behind, alone with all our difficulties and the unbearable conditions of our lives.
Yet we live in the same land as many other European citizens, in the land of one member of the European Union: Greece. We have never thought that, in a country of Europe, we will face such a fate that human dignity itself loses its meaning and that human freedom is ignored, forgotten.
12 golden stars in your flag surround our life and imprison our freedom.
27 country members keep silent, no matter how loud and how desperate our calls for help are.
Our children are suffering hunger and we are all facing absolute deprivation, condemned not to ever live a peaceful and normal life. We are denied education, health care, housing, employment – all those things a citizen rightfully expect.
“Dinghy” may be a noun, but we put our lives in one and came here. We were lucky. So many others lose their lives in such dinghies. Nobody knows their names, they are just numbers counted by coast guards and authorities.
Since all members of the European Union are responsible to solve this crisis, why are we totally alone? Why are our lives becoming toys in economical games? Not only our lives suffer from those economical games; the lives of local people are equally affected. We are not the only group of residents suffering. Like us, local people, see their lives, their dignity, their humanity given less importance than the economy. Unlike them, however, we are also denied freedom. It makes no difference whether we live in the streets, under tents, in hotels, in constructed facilities, in containers, in homes. Even a castle becomes a prison when you don’t have freedom.
When I was at school, we learned, from our books, that freedom was inseparable from Europe, that where Europe was, there was freedom too. Yet what I experience here, in this European country, is totally different from what I learned from my books, back in my country. Freedom is just an adjective for Europe, it carries no meaning, no essence. In order to achieve a peaceful life, we escaped from our countries and our homes, but in doing so we lost our dignity.
If we are in prisons; if we are in danger; if we are in need; if we are in deprivation; Europe must act!
If we are trapped; if we are vulnerable; if we are forced to silence; if we are discriminated;
Europe must act!
If we are totally alone; if we are kept far away; if we are struggling; if we are asylum seekers;
Europe must act!
If we are human beings; if we lost our dignity; if we lost our self-respect; if we live like prisoners;
Europe must act!
Europe must act because our fate and our problems are an inseparable part of Europe.
Europe must act because if we lose our dignity, Europe will lose its own too.
Migratirygirl(Parwana Amiri)
