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Europe has betrayed Lampedusa Man The EU is embracing its authoritarian neighbours

Human rights are no longer on the agenda (Ximena Borrazas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Human rights are no longer on the agenda (Ximena Borrazas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)


October 3, 2023   6 mins

When the histories of Europe are written, they will write at length about Lampedusa. This small Italian island has become not only the barometer for the permanent migration crisis which now defines the continent’s condition, it has become the metaphor for our political and ethical response to it — even a whole new era of migration.

What began as a trickle in the early 2000s had, by 2011, become a flood, when, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, tens of thousands of migrants arrived on the island. Lampedusa very quickly came to represent a sort of inverse Ellis Island: the unwanted arriving in a country from which millions had once left. So much so that Pope Francis chose to visit it in 2013 to show solidarity with the arrivals. Ten years ago, a Libyan fishing boat carrying more than 500 people sank off its coast. Last month, more than 12,000 migrants, twice the island’s population, arrived by sea. The decade has felt, to Lampedusa’s inhabitants, like a new chapter in history.

But how different is this chapter? In France, Germany or Italy, footage, often from Lampedusa, plays in the news studios.  There is a pattern to what happens next. The host then introduces his guests. After casting them as the Right and the Left, the pundits will then be pitted against each other, to answer a simple question: what does this migration mean?

Their answers are often the same. For those on the Right, the migration flows are a historical break — in their scale, nature and intensity. They require “Fortress Europe”. For those on the Left, they are nothing of the sort, but part of a long history — both colonial or gastarbeiter. It is fundamentally more of the same, requiring, if not open, then flexible borders.

A historical lens is more rewarding. It was in the early Seventies that the British literary critic John Berger understood that Europe was being remade by immigrant labour. Together with Jean Mohr, he wrote A Seventh Man, a psychological portrait of a gastarbeiter in continental north-western Europe. The title itself reflects the importance that migrants already had in the European economy: even then, one in every seven manual labourers in Germany was born abroad.

The first striking difference is the process itself. Berger’s migrants were recruited by government agencies — Germans seeking Turks — with their transport organised from the fringes of Europe to its centre. Control not chaos. The European state was in the driving seat. That is not how it feels in Lampedusa: here, the migrants themselves have driven the migration. The work of countless individuals — the officials call them smugglers — who have built up the routes. The European state feels as confused and powerless as to Berger it seemed strong.

But it is the different nature of the migrants that is most striking. Berger’s reporting led him to build an everyman in 1975 that is more reminiscent of a rural-to-urban migrant in 1875 than a passenger through Lampedusa in 2023. His subjects are uneducated rural men — from the village, clueless about the city, without words, politics or a worldview that will help them navigate their destinations.

Reading A Seventh Man and comparing it with my own recent reporting, I was struck first by the huge continuity in the scale of the migrant economy. Already, according to the statistics in Berger’s dispatch, some 25% of industrial workers in France, Switzerland and Belgium were foreigners. But then I was hit by the psychological difference. Because the hundreds of migrants I interviewed were not village boys.

If I were to construct, as Berger did, an everyman, a Lampedusa Man, he would come from the lower middle class that has emerged in Africa and Asia. They almost always speak some English. They have WhatsApp, a Facebook account and a smartphone — though they might have traded it on the way. They were born in the city. They have grown up watching Friends and The Simpsons. And they certainly have a politics: both a keen sense of their country’s exploitation at the hands of the West, but also a longing for the freedom they believe only Western institutions can guarantee them. The same applies whether or not they are refugees.

Unlike the men Berger and Bohr painstakingly photographed, there is no expectation, or even myth, of return. Those young men, in 1975, talked of feeling ripped from their natural environments — a premodern Turkish or Portuguese village. For the young man arriving on Lampedusa, it feels rather different. This 20-something Nigerian or Egyptian is as much a product of the internet as his European counterpart; entering the developed world is partially a homecoming.

Yet his destination is as changed by the internet as himself. The journey’s end of Berger’s everyman was the Fordist factory, and he liberally quotes Marx, Engels and the unvarnished words of Henry Ford himself to describe their conditions. The point Berger was making would have been obvious to his readers. The fundamental conditions of the industrial working class had not changed much since the late-19th century. They were still the proletariat, but of a different nationality.

This is not how our Lampedusa Man has come to experience Europe. Now, a few years on from his arrival in Paris or Berlin, he is to be found cycling for Deliveroo or delivering for Amazon. He has no foreman; there are no line workers; there is no weekly dance. He is alone, inhabiting a technological structure he cannot see and does not understand.

Berger spends much of his book castigating the trade unions for not extending solidarity to the gastarbeiters. This can only be read with a certain sadness today. The shoulder-to-shoulder life of the urban working class that Marx would have recognised — full of weak ties woven across the city and Christmas cards for the milkman — no longer exists. For Lampedusa Man, his experience of the city is provided by an app, which becomes more and more enraged as it hurries him to a door that eventually opens to no eye contact.

Above all this hangs Europe’s shifting geopolitics. It is true that, 50 years ago, there were already 11 million migrants in north-western Europe. It is also true that the migrant and his life have changed utterly. But the deeper change is about Europe’s position in the world.

When John Berger wrote A Seventh Man, he did so at the start of a revolution in public and political concern for human rights. This was part of a bigger trend, as the struggle for human rights around the world replaced class or national struggle as the great cause of a Western Left-liberals.

The same decade would see the breakthrough of Amnesty International, the organisation’s membership leaping from 15,000 in 1969 to 200,000 by the end of the Seventies. It saw both the group and the Soviet dissident Andrey Sakharov awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The two were intertwined: as political incentives to push human rights in the Soviet Union grew, it dovetailed with a growing public campaign which ended up reinforcing Western geopolitics. It drove an increasing radicalism in call and response, between the public and politicians, which fuelled interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and, of course, Libya.

Ten years on, Lampedusa confirms that this historical era is over; that the prioritisation of human rights and the priorities of European politicians no longer align. The recent visit of European Commission chief Ursula Von Der Leyen with the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stands in stark contrast with that of Pope Francis a decade ago. Their visit was part of a wider flurry of Mediterranean diplomacy with Tunisia — a neat distillation of a new geopolitics which has turned democracy on its head to try and curb migration.

Visiting Tunisia, European leaders have dangled more than €1 billion to support the increasingly autocratic leader Kais Saied, who, facing immigration pressure himself, has embraced anti-black rhetoric about “hordes” and “the Great Replacement” — supposedly of Arabs by Africans. This is a sharp shift from 2011, when European leaders welcomed a revolution in Tunisia and joined a US-led intervention in Libya. Today they are buttressing authoritarians. Where they once welcomed European pressure on North African autocrats, human-rights NGOs now decry Europe’s partnership with a regime which has practised desert “push backs”.

Even so, it seems likely EU governments will be forced to hand over more money, as their voters demand hard borders and Africa’s population soars. It is easy, for instance, to imagine Meloni and Le Pen’s recent call for “a naval blockade” being succeeded by a demand for boots on the ground to enforce what North African border guards have promised.

But this is not the only way the pressure to disconnect human rights from foreign policy will grow. When it comes to China, in order to compete for influence, Western governments led by the US are also downgrading human rights. Consider Equatorial Guinea, led by the notorious Obiang kleptocracy, where, in order to prevent the installation of a Chinese Naval base, the Biden administration was forced to send a senior National Security Council aide to deliver gifts for its leaders, including a silver platter, with the US national deal. The same pattern can be seen from India and Turkey to the Philippines.

Meanwhile, decarbonisation, the geopolitical implications of which have yet to be fully understood, entails a whole new set of relationships in which Europe will be compelled to talk less about human rights. Essentially, pursuing Net Zero requires a global mining revolution for critical raw materials such as lithium and cobalt — and Europe, it appears, is poorly endowed in these. To ensure regular supplies, it will be forced to downgrade human rights while forming a whole set of new ties with emerging mining states from Indonesia to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There is, therefore, nothing inevitable about the centring of human rights in Europe. They didn’t precede our current era, nor will they succeed it. Perhaps, as we think of the rocky coves of Lampedusa, and the growing indifference to the thousands that land there, or who die trying, it is not a question of whether we will fail to see them in the future. Lampedusa is telling us we are already close to blind.


Ben Judah is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and the author of ‘This is London’.

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N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago

So anyone turning up on your land demanding “the right” to a better life can insist that you provide him with such or forever be condemned as selfish and inhumane. Sounds like moral blackmail to me. We shouldn’t cave in to this racket – no matter what our ever “virtuous” intelligentsia like to tell us.

Last edited 1 year ago by N Satori
Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

If you destroy the economy and social safety net with uncontrolled immigration, you are hurting everyone, even the refugees you purport to be helping.

Robin Westerman
Robin Westerman
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Quite so, yet the same applies to the countries they are fleeing from. We should not thwart young people’s aspirations. How about we address the issues in their countries for a win-win solution ?
I.e. try to undo all the damage of the Cold War and before.
Ben’s article is particularly good since he interviewed hundreds of migrants. This is the first time I’ve read that anyone concerned has actually spoken to them. Unsurprisingly, they want to escape bad things and try to do good things with their lives.
They want to be good citizens in a good country.
Wouldn’t it be great if they had a choice ? I’m sure that most people prefer their own country if it’s remotely tolerable.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

“How about we address the issues in their countries for a win-win solution ?”

I agree with this sentence above but not much else (partly because it’s sort of contradictory anyway). The difficulty is that as the article above remarks accurately, Europe is no longer the geopolitical behemoth that once possessed the clout to reform developing nations, and in fact will become a supplicant to some of these as global resource demand shifts and creates new balances of power.

But while cannot abide unrestricted immigration and have no time at all for the cultural relativism that leads to such political decadence in the West, I have never stopped believing that wealthier nations should be finding ways of accelerating the ascent of the developing nations. The lesson of the past few decades is that the best way to do this, apparently, is to make such nations open up to global trade.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

They are incapable of running their own countries and what ever efforts we make will be thwarted by corruption as they always have been

Alan Osband
Alan Osband
11 months ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Surely Saudi Arabia , keeper of the Holy Places , must be desperate to help the people to whom the Arabs spread the message of the Prophet Muhammed.

Colorado UnHerd
Colorado UnHerd
1 year ago

See below; accidental duplication. (UnHerd, can we get a “delete” option for our comments?)

Last edited 1 year ago by Colorado UnHerd
Colorado UnHerd
Colorado UnHerd
1 year ago

How about THEY address the issues in their countries, starting with unfettered procreation? Don’t human rights come with human responsibilities?

Kayla Marx
Kayla Marx
1 year ago

What the Western world is most guilty of, is sending medical workers into pre-industrial societies, and training local people to work in health and medicine. These workers decreased death rates by improving health, decreasing infant mortality, and increasing longevity, What they didn’t address was how to decrease the birth rate.Nor were they much interested in doing so. They believed, of course, in introducing birth control, but most people in pre-industrial societies welcomed having larger families, and couldn’t foresee the overpopulation this would cause.. It is only post industrialization that a country’s birth rate will spontaneously start dropping.

Andrew F
Andrew F
1 year ago
Reply to  Kayla Marx

Yes, if it was not for Western medicine, science and technology what is the sustainable population of Africa? 300 mln?
The same goes for Asia.
These people want Western standard of living while breeding like rabbits.
There is no realistic economic model that allows five fold or more population growth in 50 years and growing GDP per head.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

How about they address their own problems? The West has been sending trillions in cash and foreign aid in the form of doctors, engineers, teachers, volunteer organizations for decades, and what has been the result? Instead of making good use of all those resources, the corrupt leaders steal everything and continue horrific tribal wars against their neighbors.
The young men – and it’s largely young men – invading Europe aren’t coming to “do good things with their” lives. They spurn the culture, commit rape and other forms of violence on the native population, form no-go zones, and if you object, you are accused of being “anti-black”, as the author does in this article.
If tens of thousands of Europeans began pouring uninvited into Africa, would they be received with housing, welfare, and pleas for tolerance? Please. It only works one way.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago

I entirely agree.
If the invaders were largely young women between the ages of 16 and 26 we would have put a stop to it a long time ago

Kevin Dee
Kevin Dee
1 year ago

I think your right that fixing those countries should be a priority but in my mind given the levels of corruption that would need an effort that looks something quite like colonialism and there’s no appetite for that. A naval blockade (if that means shipping people back to where they started) sounds like the best short term solution but again I’m not sure there is appetite for that either.

Karen Arnold
Karen Arnold
1 year ago
Reply to  Kevin Dee

I think this is an important point, if Western Europe tries to help reduce the corruption it will be accused of colonialism, if it tries to keep their borders strong they are accused of racism. I think unfortunately things will get a lot worse, there will be conflict, the issue will be brought to a head and some ordinary people will get hurt in the collateral damage, however not the elites of Europe, Africa or Asia.

Jerry K
Jerry K
1 year ago

Take a look at France who are really fraying at the edges thanks to vast numbers of refugees (many of them illegal and in receipt of deportation orders), police and judicial laxity encouraged by globalists who also wrongly assume the refugees are simply more similar potential workers brought up on the Simpsons etc. The daily effect of this influx can be seen on channels such as cnews.fr who are a lot more informative than the cosily blinkered French press in general. Most people agree we should have policies and budgets accommodating refugees, but no one seems to have the guts and common sense to discuss what will be done when the budgets are overrun! In the UK we can apparently no longer afford our doctors, the NHS, old age care, the military, HS2, climate change, etc etc. Yet again the overall picture is ignored in public discourse whilst discussions focus on the narrow likes of angels on pinheads while our future prepares to burn…

Andrew F
Andrew F
1 year ago

Why these low IQ savages flooding Europe do not fix their own countries?
There are no good citizens.
They are benefit scroungers at best.
Many are criminals and terrorists demanding that host countries accommodate their disgusting non cultures and habits.

Aphrodite Rises
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

One of the downsides to uncontrolled immigration and multiculturalism is that every cultural/ethnic conflict is also imported.

Last edited 1 year ago by Aphrodite Rises
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

One has to wonder whether the author is part of a group that is determined to destroy white Europe

William Shaw
William Shaw
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

There are many tens of millions waiting in line behind those that are currently flooding southern Europe. The numbers are more than sufficient to create an existential crisis that cannot be ignored. If North African countries don’t respond to European demands to deal with the problem the EU will be forced to act and democratic legitimacy will be the cast aside.

Andrew F
Andrew F
1 year ago
Reply to  William Shaw

Great post.
All the do goodies shouting for open borders forget that people tolerance has limits.
Sooner or later Europe will get leader, maybe without mustache and bad hair cut, who will deal with the problem.
You would not want to be non white in Europe then.
That is why sensible non white people are not that keen on mass immigration.

Andrew Stoll
Andrew Stoll
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

‘Lampedusa man’ doesn’t exist. Call a spade a spade and a ‘Lampedusa man’ an (uninvited & unwanted) ‘illegal immigrant’

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Stoll

You mean invader

Bruno Lucy
Bruno Lucy
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Now, a few years on from his arrival in Paris or Berlin, he is to be found cycling for Deliveroo or delivering for Amazon“
No…..he is not, at least for Amazon who operates a fleet of delivery trucks like UPS. The guy showing on my doorstep to deliver my parcel has nothing to do with the illiterate one that gets off the boat in Lampedusa. The unlimited right to come to Europe ends up Porte de La Chapelle In Paris, camping in squalid conditions totally destroying local resident’s quality of life built with hard work……..or begging on the motorway connecting with the Paris périphérique before being sent to some French village where nobody asked for them and nobody wants them.
I am sure the author wouldn’t think twice about taking a few hundreds on his plot of land.
Meloni and Le Pen are only asking for what Australians are doing……protecting their shores, their population including those who came using legal means and who want nothing more than integrate.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Millions more from whence they come, Ben. How will Europe deal with it? As a person whose forebears come from Europe and especially England…. You do not want me and create hoops around even a visit. England can F off. I will create my own future.

Right-Wing Hippie
Right-Wing Hippie
1 year ago

Europe has betrayed Lampedusa Man
Europe’s politicians’ first loyalty ought to be to their constituents, not “Lampedusa Man”.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

It seems to be other way round in the West right now.

John Solomon
John Solomon
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

it is cultural suicide by virtue signalling.

james goater
james goater
1 year ago
Reply to  John Solomon

Quite so. A process of “reverse colonialism” is underway and gathering pace.

Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago
Reply to  John Solomon

Is virtue signalling the term for cowardice?

Mikis Hasson
Mikis Hasson
1 year ago

An exercise in pious virtue signaling disregarding the rights of people. Common European people in favor of “exploited Africans” Woke drivel with fake sentimental twists. Why doesn’t the author invite twenty of them to lodge in his house and rummage his fridge?

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

Rubbing my eyes in disbelief! Is this on UH or The Guardian?
Couldn’t disagree more with every conclusion drawn by the venerable Mr Judah.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

Like the Guardian crowd, I bet this author stays in a neighborhood which is almost 100% white, has no immgrant riff raff around and full if like minded virtue signallers who are all for immigrants until (as democrat voting cities are demonstrating in the US right now) those immigrants land up next to their door.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

We call them “limousine liberals”.

Leonel SIlva Rocha
Leonel SIlva Rocha
1 year ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

Or Caviar Socialists…

Sayantani Gupta
Sayantani Gupta
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Agree. I have not visited the big cities of the UK in a while, but can personally testify to the phenomenon you describe, from a visit to NYC some years ago.

Harry Child
Harry Child
1 year ago

I got as far as ‘ And they certainly have a politics: both a keen sense of their country’s exploitation at the hands of the West’ and gave up with this one sided article. No mention of the billions of dollars, Euros and pounds that have been poured into African nations with little discernible affect in some of them, or to answer the main question, why is it any nations responsibility to take another’s surplus population when it has not asked for them?

Alan Bright
Alan Bright
11 months ago
Reply to  Harry Child

“And they certainly have a politics: both a keen sense of their country’s exploitation at the hands of the West’  – in fairness, the author doesn’t say that this ‘keen sense of… exploitation’ is justified.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

Congratulations on your century SGJ!

Sayantani Gupta
Sayantani Gupta
1 year ago

I hope my batsmen in the team replicate against England if the rains cease to bother!

Leonel SIlva Rocha
Leonel SIlva Rocha
1 year ago

Very true. Where are the Upvote and Downvote buttons for the Articles, Unheard?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

The CENSORSHIP on this essay is INTOLERABLE.

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Johanna Barry
Johanna Barry
1 year ago

While I would take a very different view to the author, I actually applaud UH for publishing and, I guess, paying for this article. We can read these views and shake our heads and think about his key arguments and why we don’t agree (or, it is possible, we might broaden our perspectives on the issues). When would a Guardian reader get that opportunity? Come to think of it how many Guardian readers would have the courage to engage with alternative perspectives? Knowing a few I would say a tiny minority.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago

I’m not really sure what this article was trying to say. The only thing I took away from it was the author’s complete lack of interest in or sympathy for the inhabitants of Lampedusa and the wider European population who are seeing their villages, towns and cities being changed beyond all recognition.

Dr Anne Kelley
Dr Anne Kelley
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

The inhabitants of Lampedusa and the wider European population have no rights at all, according to this article.
It’s fine apparently if infrastructure and housing no longer function satisfactorily because of a rapid rise in population density, as long as we are fair to the millions of immigrants who seek a life in Europe. If all the millions who apparently wish to come here actually arrive they may irrevocably change that which they seek to enjoy.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dr Anne Kelley
Glynis Roache
Glynis Roache
1 year ago

In many ways, I found Judah’s views on the outlook of Lampedusa man the most significant and unsettling aspect of the article. With an app, and a Facebook account, and a deep appreciation of The Simpsons, Lampedusa man apparently seeks the freedom/culture that ‘only the Western institutions can guarantee’ at the same time as resenting the exploitation of his erstwhile homeland by the historical (or still extant) equivalent of such institutions. This does not strike me as a comfortable mindset for an immigrant. In fact, it sounds like the promise of trouble should the Western Dream not play out to his satisfaction. 

Peter Kwasi-Modo
Peter Kwasi-Modo
1 year ago

Even the title of this piece is wrong. “Betrayed” has two meanings: a person is betrayed to his/her enemies or a person’s true character is betrayed by his/her actions. Neither sense of the word applies to the irregular migrants in Lampedusa.
What about “Malmö Man”? He has turned Malmö into the Mogadishu of the North. Malmö Man’s actions have betrayed the true character of uncontrolled migration.

Last edited 1 year ago by Peter Kwasi-Modo
Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

“Lampedusa man” should refer to the Italian citizens of Lampedusa, not the invaders.

David L
David L
1 year ago

Let’s not forget Rotherham girl. What about her right to not be gang raped?

Mark Goodhand
Mark Goodhand
1 year ago

There’s some confused talk in this article about human rights.

There is no “human right” to live and work where you please.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

Never mind the EU embracing its authoritarian neighbours the article highlights how the EU has been authoritarian for decades in the sense of disregarding the interests and desires of its population in favour of the desire of elite industrialists for cheep labour. The drive of previous decades to interfere with the politics of its neighbours is similarly authoritarian in origin in the sense of wishing to impose ostensible Western ideals on foreign peoples.

The response to the current levels of illegal immigration is merely a cover for the continuation of high levels of legal migration that satisfies elite needs not the needs or desires of the existing population.

Michael McElwee
Michael McElwee
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Plato’s Republic teaches that the best political arrangements are beautiful but rare and terribly difficult to preserve, while the worst political arrangements are a horror but keep going as if on autopilot. The one world state will be, and can only be, gripping totalitarianism forever.

Last edited 1 year ago by Michael McElwee
Steven Carr
Steven Carr
1 year ago

‘Lampedusa is telling us we are already close to blind.’
The author might indeed be blind, but the rest of us can see what is happening.

Rob Britton
Rob Britton
1 year ago

Virtue signalling drivel! I gave up reading this after the first few paragraphs.

Jim Bocho
Jim Bocho
1 year ago

Europe is being invaded. Drastic action against the invaders is needed, not snivelling nonsense like this.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago

Interesting take on the issue. However, a mention of how migrants are now the weapons of choice for leaders like Lukashenko & Erdogan when looking for a way to pressure/blackmail Europe might have been relevant/necessary if we’re talking about conditions in this new era.
Also, to write that the migrants arriving on Lampedusa are Smartphone-owning members of the African lower middle-class but then saying that, in Europe, they inhabit a technological structure they can’t see and don’t understand…what? I find it easy to believe that life in Europe isn’t what a lot of them expected…but to say that they don’t understand the technological structures that prevail in European everyday life seems a bit wide of the mark.

Steven Carr
Steven Carr
1 year ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

‘Smartphone-owning members of the African lower middle-class’
I always was taught that they were refugees fleeing persecution, famine, drought etc.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Steven Carr

Well you’ve been ‘had’ sir!

Matt M
Matt M
1 year ago

Where have you been Charles? I haven’t seen you commenting for a few days.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Matt M

Driving across France with Jonathan Sumption’s final volume on the 100 Years War as my constant companion!

Matt M
Matt M
1 year ago

Good stuff! (Sumption was very sound on the ECHR in the Spectator the other day if you saw it).

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Matt M

Yes I saw that an outstanding synopsis of all that is wrong with the dreaded ECHR.

I hope it is reproduced on UH for those who would otherwise regard ‘The Spectator’ as an anathema.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
1 year ago

Yes I’d like to read his views on the ECHR here aswell, that would be a win for UnHerd.

m pathy
m pathy
1 year ago
Reply to  Steven Carr

That was the only truth in this article.

Matt M
Matt M
1 year ago

Both “human rights” and “net zero” are finished. Energy independence through fracking and then nuclear and support for any foreign governments that can hold back the travelling hordes will be the shape of the next 50 years.

Nationalism, protectionism, reshoring of production and a hard-headed attitude to defence of the realm will become the norm. Probably accompanied by shrinking populations, greater reliance on family bonds and a renewal of a patriotic and parochial culture.

Last edited 1 year ago by Matt M
Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago

The article is interesting for the light it sheds on the nature of the self-perception of virtue at various levels – individual (as in, the author at a personal level), national, supra-national, religious, geopolitical etc. The author it seems is committed to the concept of human rights. Call me a cynic, but I contend, the idea is a mirage cast by the light of prosperity. Take away that light and the chimera disappears. As such, the idea of human rights has only ever made sense to me at the level of the individual, and very specifically, individual actions by individuals which help others. The minute human rights as an idea is transferred into law, it is then at the whim of whatever moral fashions are prevalent. This happens because the projection of virtue has no individual cost – *you* are not on the hook for costs (at least not immediately, although you pay an unknown and likely huge price over time), because these are all coming from that big impersonalised blob called taxation. An example which I have given before is one I expect many have experienced for themselves: you walk into a country, say for tourism, where the true brutality of poverty is all around and constant. You hand over some money to the first child beggar who walks up to your taxi in chaotic traffic. And the second. And the third. And the fourth… Then you see the beggarmaster openly assaulting some little girl in the street because she fell when one of the cars she was begging at drove away. And your helplessness is laid bare. Will you keep forking out to the fifth, the hundredth, thousandth, millionth? Will you give up all you have and your career to try and improve the lot of the people who are begging? No, what you will do instead, is build the narrative in your head that this stuff should be dealt with at ‘geopolitical policy level’ – which allows you to preserve the cleanliness of the virtue within your self-perception.

An example of what happens when human rights are enshrined in law, is the ECHR, the wording of which is unimpeachable but which has had a shifting policy meaning since it’s inception. It reached a zenith of some kind, probably of self-delusion, with the doors Merkel threw open in 2015/2016, and has been swinging back the other way ever since, with ever greater momentum. By the time it reaches the apex on the other side in a few years, I reckon Europe will pretty much be a fortress.

Last edited 1 year ago by Prashant Kotak
Simon Neale
Simon Neale
1 year ago

Some lovely high-flown theory and poetic abstractions here. But it means nothing to the indigenous population of the UK, who are facing unprecedented social change which they dislike in proportion to the degree that it impacts upon them. The government admit that some 18% of the population were born overseas; to that we can add all those who came here under the radar and all those from former migrant families who have failed to assimilate. That’s an unprecedented change, never before known on these shores. Let’s not pretend that wafty academic liberals are experts on this. The real experts are the people watching their land and resources being used up, and who have become uneasy strangers in the towns they were born in.
Open doors are for people who do not love their house.

Jerry K
Jerry K
1 year ago
Reply to  Simon Neale

Quite. Hospitality is something we must be able to choose whether to invite guests to partake of. It is not a right of any or all guests.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

Ten years on, Lampedusa confirms that this historical era is over; that the prioritisation of human rights and the priorities of European politicians no longer align.

Pax Americana is stuttering to a halt. Pax Europa is finding that policies of the good times are no longer suitable as policies for the bad times. Could it be that the previous worthy aspirations are too fragile to be sustained?
Contrary to the tenor of the article I’d argue that we are not close to being blind but close to having the blinders removed.

Mangle Tangle
Mangle Tangle
1 year ago

An interesting article. But is it against migration or for it? Not clear. Does it trump the primacy of ‘human rights’ (whatever that means in practice) over all else, or doesn’t it? Let’s see wisdom here. Wisdom sees that our settled, consensus-based democracy is under threat, not because another million or so migrants are bad people, but because it rocks the implicit bargain of our own democracy. This democracy we got through a combination of hard work, good fortune, and a lot of blood. It can easily be reversed. Uncontrolled economic illegal migration is a threat to this democracy. It’s got nothing to do with whether these migrants are better or worse than us (I’m perfectly happy to accept they are better, and braver, and more gutsy). As an aside, perhaps some of the more enterprising among them should stay put and work to make their societies better.

Alan Bright
Alan Bright
11 months ago
Reply to  Mangle Tangle

Yes – I wasn’t quite sure what recommendations the writer had.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

Surely this article should begin “after the EU colluded in the destabilisation of the North African littoral by jihadiat militias” and continie “people traffickers have been orchestrating waves of migrants to descend on Lampedusa”?

Because let’s be clear about this. The virtuous, posturing liberal left has no idea of the forces it is playing with. We will, in the foreseeable future be seeing forcible disposseion of householders by orchestrated mob violence – and the left will sip their lattes and smirk with delight. Until they find it is their turn….

D Glover
D Glover
1 year ago
Reply to  ben arnulfssen

Excellent post. I recommend Should we stay or should we go by Lionel Shriver.
In one of the chapters she imagines a future where illegals squat in older people’s houses and their ‘hosts’ are powerless to evict them.
Too far fetched? Well, a lot of things are happening today which would have been dismissed as fantasy a few years ago.

0 0
0 0
1 year ago
Reply to  D Glover

It is certainly happening in France. And not only to older people.

Sharon Overy
Sharon Overy
1 year ago

Funny how “Lampedusa Man” is someone from anywhere in the world except Lampedusa itself – the island’s inhabitants for generations are ignored and disregarded. Do they not have human rights?

Waffles
Waffles
1 year ago

The Pope showed solidarity with some immigrants. According to Google, the Vatican City has let in between 12 and 20 immigrants, and it is the 2nd most difficult country in the world to immigrate to.

https://getgis.org/blog/top-15-hardest-countries-to-get-citizenship

I’m sure they appreciated the solidarity.

Katalin Kish
Katalin Kish
1 year ago
Reply to  Waffles

Excellent point!

Mr Sketerzen Bhoto
Mr Sketerzen Bhoto
1 year ago

Africa’s population will soar to billions, maybe 5 billion, while Europe will drop by 2100. Even taking in 10% of that population will change Europe irrevocably while Africa will largely stay the same.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago

I’m not aware of any civilization in history who practically begged their invaders to enter the gates. The current wave of insanity is nothing short of cultural suicide.

JOHN KANEFSKY
JOHN KANEFSKY
1 year ago

It’s not Europe that has betrayed “Lampedusa Man” but the countries from which the economic migrants come, especially those of central and west Africa, who have done little or nothing to improve the lives of their young men and want them to stay and work there.

Jerry K
Jerry K
1 year ago
Reply to  JOHN KANEFSKY

Yes. After being colonised and exploited by foreigners, they have become independent but are being colonised and exploited by their own leaders…

Last edited 1 year ago by Jerry K
Keith Merrick
Keith Merrick
1 year ago

I have a strong suspicion that Ben thinks all people the world over are like his ancestors: high IQ, highly cultured and europeanised Jews arriving at Ellis Island in big ol’ pre-1920’s America prepared to make it on their own with no help from the state. Of course, these people are exactly the same as the low IQ, generally uneducated, un-europeanised people wanting to illegally break into crowded, welfare state Europe. And these people generally do want help, be it financial, with accommodation or otherwise.

D Walsh
D Walsh
1 year ago
Reply to  Keith Merrick

He knows Keith, they all know. Do you think George Soros doesn’t know. They hate us, they want to destroy our countries

Sue Sims
Sue Sims
1 year ago
Reply to  Keith Merrick

Not all the Ashkenazim who fled pogroms in Eastern Europe were ‘highly cultured’, and no one was measuring IQs in those days. (I should add, in case anyone thinks I’m being anti-Semitic, that all my grandparents came over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from Poland and Russia) The great difference between then and now is that there was no Social Security net to help immigrants: you joined your lantzmen in London, Manchester or Sheffield (or New York, Chicago or Boston), slept on the floor, got work in a sweat shop or a factory (or, indeed, joined a gang: there were major problems in the big cities with Jewish immigrant gangs, though one doesn’t hear much of it today) but the Government didn’t help you out at all. If the same thing applied to current immigrants, it’s unlikely that there would be millions clamouring to settle here: my forefathers did flee persecution, and were willing to endure great poverty because it was better than being raped or burned alive.

Alan Osband
Alan Osband
11 months ago
Reply to  Sue Sims

Exactly the huge pull factor is the welfare state . The illegal boat people are even housed in what would have been grand hotels for the Victorian and Edwardian bourgeoisie in places like Scarborough, now often owned by migrants from Pakistan . Think how it feels arriving illegally in a country and being accommodated in such places . I’m not sure this happens in France and Italy , for example .
Even in pre welfare state times would not economic opportunity have been as much a factor as fleeing persecution .

Last edited 11 months ago by Alan Osband
Alan Osband
Alan Osband
11 months ago
Reply to  Keith Merrick

He doesn’t think that . I am from his background and can assure you left wing (even centrist ) Jews like Ben tend to think of themselves as being descended from people who broke in to an exclusive , racist Europe (or America) and they identify with the refugees/migrants of today because it enhances their liberal , progressive, self -image .

Last edited 11 months ago by Alan Osband
R S Foster
R S Foster
1 year ago

…a hundred years ago, most of these unfortunates were living in places run by Europeans…often, but not exclusively, British or French. Fifty years ago, our flags had been taken down amidst scenes of great jubiliation…
…and now, they will move heaven and earth, spend every penny they possess, and risk their very lives…and those of their children…to get back to places run by Europeans. Often British, or French if they can get here…
…were it not for the individual horrors they face…and the terrifying existential threat they pose to the places they want to get to, and the people who made those places…
…I would quite possibly choke with laughter at the irony of it all…

Douglas Redmayne
Douglas Redmayne
1 year ago

Immigration should only be permitted on a temporary basis to relieve labour shortages until automation catches up whereupon the migrant must return either voluntarily or by force.

Martin Johnson
Martin Johnson
1 year ago

Writing from Chicago, it is comforting to know that European elites are every bit as feckless and stupid and useless as are American elites.

No mention here of Merkel throwing Germany open ca. 2015 and a year later begging and bribing Erdogan to hold the migrants on his side of the Aegean. The prototype.

J.P Malaszek
J.P Malaszek
1 year ago

Interesting article. But when we hear the cry of ‘social justice’ in this context we must remember that the population already resident in receiving countries have to be treated justly also. Something all too often not mentioned.

Chuck Burns
Chuck Burns
1 year ago

Migration has been and is a natural part of being human. Throughout the eons humans have moved from one region into another. The migration of today is different. Migration today is driven by political agendas. Not the agendas of the migrants, they are pawns being used by the agenda makers. The migration, which is focused on the Western countries as the target, has gotten out of control and has reached critical mass. The Internet, the Smart phone, and open borders have fueled the migration into the West. The power hungry Leftist agenda makers have lost control. The result will be the ultimate demise of the West. The once land of milk and honey created by the Europeans will eventually be reduced to just another over populated third world cesspool of uneducated unskilled humanity. The ultimate result will be the end of the West as we know it, the extinction of the Europeans and their descendants.

Paul Thompson
Paul Thompson
1 year ago

It’s time, way past time, to tear up all compacts which allow asylum. About .1% of these illegals are legit asylum seekers. The rest are economic migrants from failed economies which are overpopulated. Either return them or blow the boats out of the water. Either is acceptable.

William Cameron
William Cameron
1 year ago

People can choose how their own country is run. If they choose to “elect” robbers they will have rotten societies.
Immigration makes the rich richer (cheap labour) and the poor much poorer (undercuts wage rates, fills housing and NHS etc)

Last edited 1 year ago by William Cameron
J. Hale
J. Hale
1 year ago

The German government was only technically in control of the guest worker program. The Turks who came to Germany never had any intention of ever leaving, and the government had no plan to force them to leave. They were not “guests” at all, but rather new, permanent citizens of an inadvertent, multicultural Germany. (Also note that multicultural Germany is an oxymoron.)

Last edited 1 year ago by J. Hale
Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
1 year ago

The EU (and UK) embraced Gadaffi to ‘manage’ departures from the North African coast until Cameron and Sarkozy poodled for Hillary.

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago

Didn’t the Romans offer citizenship to those who joined the legions for a period?
There is a part of the over-extended European project that needs soldiers at the moment.

Chris Bradshaw
Chris Bradshaw
1 year ago
Reply to  Dumetrius

A policy which contributed directly to its collapse.

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris Bradshaw

Contentious claim.

“It can be said that increasing reliance on foreign mercenaries was not the root of the declining fighting capability of the empire, but rather a reflection of it.”

(Derry Chen, Fall of Empires: Reexamining Roman and Tang Reliance on Foreign Mercenaries)

If anything, it may have extended the life of the Empire, given the longstanding unwillingness of natives to release their own staff, family and retainers for military service.

D Walsh
D Walsh
1 year ago
Reply to  Dumetrius

The Romans even paid the Goths to fight for them, then the very same Goths sacked Rome
Since we’re talking history, I suggest the Italians ask themselves, what would JC do, no not Jesus Christ, I mean Julius Caesar

How would Caesar solve this problem

We need to ignore Ben Juda and the rest of his tribe

Last edited 1 year ago by D Walsh
Leonel SIlva Rocha
Leonel SIlva Rocha
1 year ago
Reply to  D Walsh

Yes, and we know too well what Tribe Ben Judah swore allegiance to. It’s painfully obvious…

Last edited 1 year ago by Leonel SIlva Rocha
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  D Walsh

JC would have DESTROYED them.

In the spring of 58 BC, 250,000 Helvetii illegally entered Gaul. Caesar with six Legions brought them to battle at Bibracte*, killing or capturing 238,000 of them.

(Now Saône-et-Loire.)

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago
Reply to  D Walsh

I think the issue’s complicated by whether we’re talking about people individually made Roman citizens after long periods of military service, or deals made later to hire whole armies.

Which led to the military conquests later badged as Islamic. Why be a contractual pawn for the Persians or Romans when you can shove them both aside, and take over the whole chessboard?

I’d imagine the former scenario on citizenship is the one that might apply here. Tho, given the attrition rate in Ukraine, I doubt many would sign on.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Dumetrius

..

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Dumetrius

.

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Dumetrius

Not exactly. If you served in the non citizen ‘Auxilia’
on discharge after 25 years service you were rewarded with Full Roman Citizenship.
If you then married, as you were now entitled to do, your ‘wife’ also obtained the citizenship as did any ‘b*stards’ you may have produced together, as well as the said b*stards now becoming ‘legalised’, and thus citizens.

Only ‘citizens’ could join the Legions, hence the offspring of the above were eligible*. On discharge from the Legions after 25 years service they would receive a lump sum gratuity equivalent to 13 years net pay or 26 years gross pay.** A tidy sum that would see you through your last 8-10 years of your life expectancy.

(*At least until circa 140 AD.)
(** From Octavian/Augustus onwards, say circa 30BC.)

Citizen Diversity
Citizen Diversity
1 year ago
Reply to  Dumetrius

According the Greek, Zosimus, the Britons evicted their Roman elite from the British Isles because of the attentions of the ‘new peoples’. Evidently, there was no longer any advantage for the Britons in being a citizen in the later Empire in the west.
The skills of the new peoples were in demand for policing after the departure of the legions from Britain. The guest workers of the 5th century.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

Surely this article should begin “following the EU’s enabling of thr destabilisation of the North African littoral by jihadis and terrorists” and continue “people traffickers orchestrsted successive waves of migrants, such as the 2000-plus who arrived in Lampedusa in a single day in over 200 craft”.?

R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago

The only takeaway I got from this is that giving the Internet to Africans was a catastrophic error.

Morgan Watkins
Morgan Watkins
1 year ago

This is just silly now.

Last edited 1 year ago by Morgan Watkins
Justin Clark
Justin Clark
1 year ago

A Nation that does not control its borders is no longer a Nation… Precisely the plan…

andrew.iddon
andrew.iddon
1 year ago

The adoption of a human rights policy, which removed and supplanted the previous democratic civil rights that underpinned established nations, is the issue. The Human Rights approach is wrongheaded and overly simplistic.

Last edited 1 year ago by andrew.iddon
D Walsh
D Walsh
1 year ago

No. Neo, I’m trying to tell you, that when you’re ready, you won’t have to

Su Mac
Su Mac
1 year ago

The pigeons of liberal “human rights” Western exceptionalism are truly coming home to roost.
I find this article telling in what it leaves out. A balanced reference to the sheer, unsustainable volume of migration now underway?
A recognition of the cynical socialist dogma dating back to the Blair years, of diluting white Western culture to cure our “superiority complex” with it’s NGO funded cheerleaders today?
Or an actual examination of what “human rights” actualy means in this immigration context.
Pretty weak. The most affecting bit is the photo at the top.

Amelia Melkinthorpe
Amelia Melkinthorpe
1 year ago

This article is utter codswallop.

0 0
0 0
1 year ago

Your comparison with the situation at the time of Berger’s book omits a very important point. Whereas the immigrants in the Seventies still came in large part from European countries and, even when they did not, were willing and able to integrate in the societies that received them, this is no more the case.
Tens of thousands of arrogant young men from violent and patriarchal cultures have brought perhaps irreversible havoc on european countries.
Is it surprising that the people of Europe are saying that want to put a stop to uncontrolled immigration?

Last edited 1 year ago by 0 0
Katalin Kish
Katalin Kish
1 year ago

Australia imported entire African tribes whose members are urged to adhere to their superior culture instead of assimilating into the Western culture that built, defended and maintained the Australia capable of importing entire African tribes.
So we learned terms like machete, home invasion, store swarming, mugging, knifing, etc. and police educate our children on how to respond in order to minimise physical injury when their belongings are requested on their way home from school.
Meanwhile, a poster I saw about Santino Yor, who was wanted by police in connection with a fatal stabbing in late 2022 did not include “African appearance” in the description of the man wanted. Santino Yor’s African appearance in Melbourne is his most striking feature.
Youth crime gangs menacing sleepy suburbs have members as young as 10-years-old (1).
All this chaos is evidently a welcome smoke-screen for Australia’s traditional organised crime gangs.
Drug trafficking became so lucrative in Australia, cartels divert their shipments from North America and Europe to Australia to maximise their profit (2).
Australia never had functional law-enforcement.
Crime statistics are kept low via crimes never investigated = crimes never happened. Our corrupt police silence crime witnesses and victims whatever it takes. In Australia all crime victims are assumed to be responsible for the crimes committed against them.
Crime-victims are left to their own devices at best. I found this out in 2009 when a stalker IT Helpdesk Assistant coworker at the time added me to his already extensive list of concurrent targets, because I became an e-commerce world champion in my postgrad studies while working as a Business Analyst at the Victorian Electoral Commission. The stalker’s crimes are ongoing. Last bikie visit to my home less than 2 hours ago, last break-in less than 48 hours ago, last cyber-crime likely in progress.
The stalker is a MEEHAN.
The stalker had (still has?) unrestricted access to information e.g. where to find people in witness protection via his job since 2007. He is evidently trading stolen information for Crimes As A Service. Crimes against me were delivered with production-line efficiency and consistency from the very start in 2009, and range from physical bikie violence to tech capable of breaching a Faraday Cage. This feat was made memorably spectacular in 2022 in my own home. I had to give up trying to earn a salary in 2017 as the stalker’s crimes against me spill over to people and entities I interact with.
Bikie criminal Victoria Police officer accomplices openly participate in the stalker’s crimes in broad daylight. Some of these bikies bragged about their exploits on Facebook, hence I learned the names of Graeme MAYNE and Mario MARCUCCI in addition to M.A.A. “Purana Taskforce” MEEHAN. In addition to unbridled vulgar bikie brutality delivered to my home 24x7x365 in a million $ home suburb of Melbourne, the MEEHAN/MAYNE/MARCUCCI crime gang have access to government-grade crime tech capabilities from surveillance to remote physical harm evidently risk/cost-free and on-demand (3).
I never even dated the stalker, I never mixed with criminals.
I am an MBA workaholic former refugee from the communist Hungary who paid an enormous price for the privilege of living in Australia.
I have owned my own home in a Melbourne suburb of million $ homes since 2001, and I still own two well-maintained investment properties in the same suburb. Both investment properties have been vacant since 2021 due to ongoing break-ins, sabotages, vandalisms, etc. and my tenants’ rent payments, their Internet access and electronic communication sabotaged – by white Australian bikie Victoria Police/government insider criminals with access to tech via Australia’s participation in Five Eyes, AUKUS, etc.
I stopped trying to report any crimes in 2018.
There is no point.

#ididnotstaysilent

(1)
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-victoria/kids-as-young-as-10-caught-up-in-terrifying-youth-crime-surge-in-victoria/news-story/34a9e1d3cc64f5569656a6be2e9b41b4
(2)
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/narcos-on-the-front-line/how-overseas-drug-cartels-make-billions-from-australians-high-on-coke-and-ice/news-story/fb0740d1f621d8831ff0b31aa297dd7d
(3)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/perfect-crimes-y-australia-katalin-kish

Katalin Kish
Katalin Kish
1 year ago
Reply to  Katalin Kish

PS to my comment: in 2015 I accepted a young Sudanese couple as housemates in Melbourne Australia without asking any questions in the spirit of paying forward as a former refugee myself.
I didn’t know that the 20-year-old boy was a homeless apprentice car-mechanic at the time of me accepting the couple as housemates. I didn’t know either that he was driving a BMW. His girlfriend proudly told me she got the car for the boy for his birthday. The girl had worked for little more than the minimum wage, likely always in a legal administrative job. The car may have been an old model, but it looked new and I never saw it broken down.
Both the girl and the boy had high-end tech devices I could not afford, even though I was earning an excellent salary as a Business Analyst until a stalker ex-coworker’s crimes robbed me of my ability to earn a salary at all in 2017. I had earned well above the Australian average for almost 20 years by 2015.
How were my young new African housemates able to afford all that?
I treated the young African couple as family.
I was invited to some of their tribal events in return, which I treated as a great honour.
As an increasingly devastated crime victim by 2015 I was desperate to see good things around me, to collect new, happy memories to escape when a stalker’s crimes plunged me into despair.
The tribal events I was invited to seemed to have hundreds of participants each time, appeared to happen quite frequently and lasted each for hours. Participants appeared to try to look their best, and tried to impress each other also. Venues were in outer suburbs of sprawling Melbourne, so getting to/from these events took hours by itself.
Against this background the girl’s achievement of gaining a university degree and working full-time was impressive indeed.
I wondered how anyone with these obligations can ever hope to integrate into a Western society, how can tribe members commit to jobs, look after their houses/streets etc.
During these tribal events I also observed that while the adults were sharing meals, children  roamed without any adult supervision as soon as they could walk.
Parents did not check whether the children had anything to eat, or what they were doing. If parents were even facing in the direction of children roaming around, it was only because sitting around tables some had to be sitting in that direction. Respecting their customs I resisted the urge to divert my eyes from conversations around the table to watch the children. As a parent myself this was uncomfortable, and caused a fair amount of anxiety to me.
This gave me some clues why those skeletal toddlers sit on their own in the dust covered in flies in advertisements seeking donations though, how mothers holding toddlers dying of starvation in dramatic TV footages about Africa’s endless conflicts rarely appear to be starving themselves.
At least one cyber-crime was indeed in progress while I was writing the above comment last night. Cyber-crimes have been ongoing this morning also, but no bikie visit in the last 11 hours.
Australia never managed to control crimes, only crime-witnesses and victims.
I guess the number of crime witnesses/victims for Australia’s corrupt police to silence will be increasing significantly as time goes by.

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago
Reply to  Katalin Kish

Would you care to go into a little more detail?

Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
1 year ago

Lampedusa man should be reverted asap to shitholeistan, Judah
The title is wrong, unfortunately Europliticians still want to help Lampedusa man instead of having a more Ukrainian approach to invasion.

Last edited 1 year ago by Emmanuel MARTIN
Mark Kennedy
Mark Kennedy
1 year ago

At the risk of seeming unsympathetic both to migrants and an interesting, persuasively argued historical comparison, I think we have to ask ourselves to what extent we have a “right” to impose ourselves on people who don’t want us. More generally, how ethical is it to solve one’s problems by knowingly creating problems for others?

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

I bet the author has a manbun and a sleeve tattoo.

Citizen Diversity
Citizen Diversity
1 year ago

As far as one can judge from her statements, at least the Bishop of Dover, the ‘Bishop of the Boats’, is fully aware of the like nature of the Simpsons-watching migrants as ‘our brothers, sons and mothers’. They could easily understand Lizzy on their smartphones and unleash their ‘inner conservative’.
The British Isles are in the Mediterranean. Listening to Suella is like listening to the Delphic Oracle. Only gone one better. The Oracle answers truthfully and now in such a way as to allow the enquirer to deceive themselves truthfully.

Bruno Lucy
Bruno Lucy
1 year ago

„Now, a few years on from his arrival in Paris or Berlin, he is to be found cycling for Deliveroo or delivering for Amazon“
No…..he is not, at least for Amazon who operates a fleet of delivery trucks like UPS. The guy showing on my doorstep to deliver my parcel has nothing to do with the illiterate one that gets off the boat in Lampedusa. The unlimited right to come to Europe ends up Porte de La Chapelle In Paris, camping in squalid conditions totally destroying local resident’s quality of life built with hard work……..or begging on the motorway connecting with the Paris périphérique before being sent to some French village where nobody asked for them and nobody wants them.
I am sure the author wouldn’t think twice about taking a few hundreds on his plot of land.
Meloni and Le Pen are only asking for what Australians are doing……protecting their shores, their population including those who came using legal means and who want nothing more than integrate.

Maansson Hansen
Maansson Hansen
1 year ago

COMINGN UP SOOM: – AI… The europeans will in at close future be out of work themselves.

Last edited 1 year ago by Maansson Hansen
Margie Murphy
Margie Murphy
1 year ago

Thus is by design. Funded by billionaires using their footsoldiers in the Well funded NGOs to destroy the western world and its capitalist, Christian and indiviualist traditions. Eliminate borders and allow free movement of people and capital that will serve the elites,, the banks and the corporaates who will also be served by a compliant, demoralised and ground down serf class. Europeans and white people in general have been groomed and fed of diet of self hate and hatred of country with the resultant self flagellation.

Michael Anderson
Michael Anderson
1 year ago

“And they certainly have a politics: both a keen sense of their country’s exploitation at the hands of the West, but also a longing for the freedom they believe only Western institutions can guarantee them.” And what about their exploitation by their kleptocratic politicians and ruling class of businessmen since independence? That famous gravy train stopped just long enough for the colonials to get off and the indigenous ruling class to get on. Lot of good that did the indigenous poor.

Shrunken Genepool
Shrunken Genepool
1 year ago

and…..

David Collier
David Collier
1 year ago

Yes Ben Judah is right, the concept of Human Rights is under strain by the sheer number of people who come and want to make use of it. Large numbers of people all trying to do the same thing always create a strain on the thing they’re trying to do. It’s like a cruise ship going to Venice. Though more difficult than that, for Venice can always ban a cruise ship. But I rather doubt that erosion of human rights laws in European countries would make the slightest difference to the number of people landing on Lampedusa. It may be an inevitable outcome, but does little or nothing to deal with the problem.
And Judah has omitted to point out that the migrants don’t stay on Lampedusa for long, they’re shipped to the Italian mainland from where large numbers of them try to make their way further north, many losing life or limb in the process as Judah points out in his book This is Europe.
Can kind of see what he’s saying though don’t see what solutions he offers if any.