THEY'RE A SOLUTION, NOT A PROBLEM

Following a week in which an eye-watering 1,000 migrants are thought to have perished in the Mediterranean, European officials and observers are frantically asking 'What can be done?', as if it's a difficult question. But it isn't. If you want to stop these terrible deaths at sea, there's a simple solution: liberalise Europe's approach to immigration; be as open as possible to the arrival of these budding workers and aspiring citizens from Africa and the Middle East. That is what can be done, and must be done. [...]

We shouldn't demonise or infantilise these migrants. We should celebrate them for exercising their autonomy in very difficult circumstances and making a conscious decision to take a very risky journey to Europe. They want to come to this continent so badly that they're willing to trek across deserts and sail across vast seas, and how do we repay their burning aspiration to join us? By criminalising them or patronising them, negating their desire for citizenship in a new world by treating them either as demons or infants, in need of punishment or parenting. That's enough. We shouldn't pity these migrants; we should admire them, for using guile, gumption and perseverance to come here. They're precisely the kind of people sluggish Europe needs more of, an antidote to our students who can't even clap without having a mental breakdown and our new generation who think that being told to 'get on your bike' to look for a job is tantamount to abuse. Let's relax the borders and let them in to try their luck in our countries and see how they fare. If we do that, we'll put the traffickers out of business, end the deaths in the Mediterranean, and, more importantly, do our part to enable the aspirations of human beings who have committed no crime other than wanting to realise their potential in our towns, our cities, alongside us.

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