For anyone studying development, security, government or simply following current events, it’s hard to miss the importance of recent migration waves, especially across Africa, the Middle East and into Europe and the United States. Amongst a host of possible authors, I picked up Peter Tinti’s. “Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior.” It was a good choice.
As a student of the above development, security and government combos, I’m used to reading detailed reports on a recent crisis with extensive suggestions for policy makers at the tail end. Peter Tinti doesn’t do that. Instead, the book is a fascinating research endeavor, absent emotional arguments (as was the author’s intent) leaving the reader a gaping, hungry hole where there is usually a scream for action.
In the wake of the current migration crisis that began roughly in 2012-13, Europe initially was open, showing sincere compassion through the droves of volunteers financially and politically supported by their respective governments to display well the kindness of the developed West. This was always a short-term solution, meeting immediate needs, but losing steam and patience as the crisis’ core was not only ignored but continued to worsen. Strict policies created the opportunities for bigger and fiercer smuggling networks, even becoming violent mafias.
Smuggling networks and European policy danced back and forth in a cat-and-mouse game where smugglers would take gross and dangerous advantage of policy efforts to save migrants from sinking boats but not encourage the flow to continue. Europe’s tone shifted, a reflection of growing nationalism and the perception, true but also sensationalized, of an emerging security threat. Certain parties focused on the miniscule minority of migrants that could possibly pack a colossal terrorist punch. In a matter of months, open borders were replaced by walls along a few Balkan state borders and aid ships in search of migrants were replaced by military and coast guard deterrence patrols throughout the Mediterranean.
It is perhaps not Peter Tinti’s intent but in the first half of the book the United States and Western Europe’s compassionate response to migrants is contrasted with the horrors, human atrocities and mass murders, in the transit countries like Libya and Niger and regions of intense conflict like Syria. In the most condensed cities and ports of transit, if bad policies create havoc, with lack of any policy at all fellow compatriots eat their own. But comparing the horrors of transit countries to the lesser evils of host countries is only a scapegoating politic hoping to pass the buck like any decent realist would do.
By Tinti’s calculation, the current crisis was caused by the lack of authoritarian controls on migration in places like Libya and compounded by senseless war in places like Syria. Authoritarian Eretria and Sudan contribute their own sizable numbers to the migrant waves but when Kaddafi fell in 2012, what was a manageable, albeit, lucrative method of political manipulation was turned over to the smugglers of the Sahara. I give credit to Tinti for a balanced description of the security situation across the Sahel. He avoids the conspiracy theories of Nick Turse and Jeremy Keenan (a few dozen book reviews ago). His judgement, instead, is saved for the migration policies themselves, which serve only to profit the smugglers, which is indeed the core subject of the book.
Smugglers come in all shapes and sizes. In many cases the lines are blurred between migrant, middle-man, temporary worker, informant, agent and smuggler. In Syria, the smuggler is ironically at the mercy of the capitalist system and comparative advantage where migrants have access to chat rooms and migrant reviews. Smugglers are challenged to keep up on all forms of social media, balancing their lucrative offers against the competition in an attempt to attract the middle-class war-torn population to their services. The opposite is the case in many Sahel networks where desperate migrants take smugglers at their word or lock themselves into indentured servitude to pay off transit debts; promises that turn in to slave labor or prostitution rings, or worse.
Alluded to by Peter Tinti but thoroughly explored by researcher Nimo Ilhan Ali, young Somalis select the services of smugglers who then hold them captive across the border in Sudan or Ethiopia until the youths’ parents pay large ransoms. In many cases, the youth know their fate and would rather force their parents to sell their house and belongings in an effort to reach Europe. More important than work and remittances however, is the possibility of citizenship with a more powerful passport; a passport that brings the greatest luxury of all: freedom of movement.
Anyone who has traveled to the places as Peter Tinti did, at some point realizes their massive fortune. I’ve worked in Niamey (Niger) and traveled to Agadez, Faya (Northern Chad), Tunisia, Alexandria (Egypt), Dakar (Senegal), Northern Cameroon before it was ravaged by Boko Haram and finally noted first-hand the tensions between Somalis waiting out the long war in Kenya. But in each instance, whether for work, research or leisure, I could always move freely when, where and how I pleased. The people I met and the families that Peter interviewed did not have the same luxury.
As the book explains, there are different categories of people moving towards Europe. Many migrants are seeking security from places like Syria, Libya, portions of Mali, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Others seek asylum from political repression from places like Syria, Eretria or Iran. Less in number but significant are the growing number simply seeking greater economic opportunities coming from countries across the Sahel, Ethiopia and Somalia.
While Tinti describes well the motives and laws that apply to these categories of migrants he clearly, 100 percent, supports their rights to mobility in each case. The book’s argument isn’t based on altruism or even legality. Instead, Peter Tinti argues that the latest migration wave is a reflection of a changing world system overall; a shift in global social and economic movements that no outdated political vision can restrain for much longer. Tinti, in a way, surrenders the current concepts of political boundaries to a pattern of globalization yet to be fully explained or understood.
On the other hand, “Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Savior” clearly describes the familial and ethnic boundaries that make much of the smuggling networks possible. Smugglers and clients still require a foundation of trust. Instead of relying on national identities migrants search for social cleavages in language, ethnic and sometimes religious parity. Explained well by authors like Judith Scheele (another few book reviews ago) vast smuggling networks across the Sahel are based on trade competitions between various Tuareg sub-clans, Toubous, Hausa, Fulani, Wolof and others. These ethnic groupings take advantage not only of political systems but mostly blood affiliation and diaspora networks. There are still lines and borders. Social networks just don’t fit neatly on a map.
The creativity within these networks and the strategies to which aspirant migrants adapt is impressive, as Tinti outlines. Border controls in Greece and Italy, confined to political definitions are not equipped to differentiate between a real Syrian and a Sudanese “imposter”. From Afghanistan to Morocco papers and identities can be faked. Visas and passports, legal or not, become a powerful currency.
Perhaps the most difficult reality to accept is that Europe, Western Europe, is the prime destination. Migrants leave peaceful countries and war-torn countries alike. They pass through stable countries like Morocco, Senegal, Niger, Ethiopia, Turkey, Indonesia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria, even Russia… all on the way to safe, secure, liberal, educationally superior and economically promising Western Europe, the United States and Canada.
Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon don’t want the migrants either. And to be fair, the latter two have already hosted their millions. But in the long list of non-European countries, migrants are rarely if ever given the opportunity to become citizens; actually change their life. The policies in place in developing countries from Morocco to Indonesia can be just as discouraging and discriminatory, if not more so, towards migrants than Western Europe. So, is the conclusion that liberal democracies should know better!? That seems a little condescending and a hard argument to swallow, whether you believe it’s true or not.
Walls and strict border policies are not even band aid solutions. If the global system of political boundaries does need a serious review according to Peter Tinti, then what next? Certainly, a long-term solution would be to build up capacity, development, education and economic promise the world over. But that’s a strategy for another book; one that is and will continue to be almost impossible to implement. Like I said, lots of challenges, not yet many solutions.
ISBN-13: 978-0190668594
ISBN-10: 0190668598
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