Lampedusa disaster: what Australia can learn from Italy

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/08/lampedusa-refugees-italy-australia

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In high summer, the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa between Sicily and Tunisia is a Dante-esque nightmare: holidaying Italians enjoying bright blue swimming bays on one side, and a never-ending tide of human misery on the other.

Every day in the warmer months, an infernal scene is played out on the vast concrete wharf that dominates the port as scores of haunted faces, often clutching little more than each other or an empty plastic water bottle, hobble down the gangplanks from Italy’s rescue fleet. Once on dry land, there is no moaning, no wailing – just the blistering heat, cry of seagulls and a palpable wave of human gratitude and relief.

I spent a week on the docks of Lampedusa and later, days at sea with the Italian coastguards reporting on the dire daily work of their sea rescue crews. It was late August, a good 12 months before the first of the Arab Spring uprisings and already that year, an estimated 20,000 men women and children had risked their lives to enter Europe via the rocky islet.

Not a day passed without an arrival of refugees: a dozen people from a minuscule fishing boat at twilight one day, seven boats in a 24 hour period on another. At dawn on a Sunday, a yacht reported sighting a 15 meter wooden fishing boat listing heavily about two hours away from Lampedusa. Within half an hour of the call, my photographer colleague Penny Bradfield and I were boarding a rescue vessel loaded with water, medical supplies and a crew of seven, including a volunteer doctor and specialist nurse.

Under the baking sun, the trip seemed interminable. The only respite offered by the crew was gallows humor. When binoculars at last discerned two tiny spots on the horizon – the white sails of the yacht within discreet distance of the boat’s light blue hull – the mood shifted gear into frenetic activity. An aerial swoop by the coastguard plane radioed details, and the crew and medical back-up donned rubber gloves, sterile suits and masks. Once the boat came into view, a hush fell over the launch.

"Dio mio, quanti?" whispered a crewman, ("dear God, how many?"). His voice, discernibly distressed, can still be heard on my tape.

Up close, the sight was unforgettable, the smell imprinted in my mind forever: an acrid mix of sweat, urine and exhaustion. I described it in my notebook as a scent of hope in a stench of despair. In front of us, piles of wretched human beings seated on the roof, on the sides, hanging over rails, below deck and sitting on top of each other. Hopelessness was etched in their blistered faces, audible in their cries for water. When water bottles were thrown aboard, scuffles broke out. The coastguards, witnesses to far greater horrors, screamed orders not to move and waved axe handles and a wooden oar above the men’s heads in a distressing attempt to urgently restore order.

It would take another six hours for another vessel to help carry the 287 and 45 women, nearly all from countries in the Maghreb, to safety. They, of course, were the fortunate ones – if risking your life to try and find a better one can be called lucky.

On Friday, as Italy declared a day of mourning for the souls lost at sea and local fishermen threw wreaths into the waters, it struck me how much Australia’s heart seems to have hardened to the plight of those less fortunate. The event reminded me with clarity of the Italian crewmen’s compassion: one sat and sang songs in the baking heat of the front deck, amidst the stench and the sadness, to try and keep the men’s spirits up on the long, slow limp back to port. Another told me that his work gave his life meaning, adding proudly that his vessel alone had saved the lives of 2,000 people over the past three years.

I remember too my mortification when I described the Lampedusa arrivals facility as a detention centre –the director corrected me with palpable annoyance: “These poor desperate people come to us, to Europe to find a new life and to find succor. This is a centro d’accoglimento (a welcome centre)”. Concrete, armed guards and locked gates seemed less than welcoming but when we visited a few days later: the arrivals were rested, in clean clothes, smiling through their anxiety. More importantly, the Italian government and its agencies allowed us in, to report and photograph with openness and transparency.

Laura Boldrini, the centre left MP and speaker in the Italian parliament, flew to Lampedusa on Friday to express her nation’s condolences and declare solidarity with those who survived and those who rescued them. As she spoke, the humanity and potency of her political rhetoric expressed a rare, internationalist viewpoint that tries to see beyond national borders and past the notion of migration as a security issue.

Migration patterns, she argues, have never been static: they evolve and shift with geo-political change: this is the human face of globalisation. The overwhelming waves of refugees reaching many nations, whether it be Italy, Australia or anywhere between, must of course be tackled, with a determined focus on countries of origin – but not by punitive measures against those fleeing misery and violence. Boldrini is adamant that this kind of migration cannot be solved with criminalisation and repressive measures and that the language of leaders’ must express humanity: "It is unthinkable that someone who flees wars or death will stop in front of the hypothesis of a crime."

Boldrini is also a writer and an eloquent former spokeswoman for the UN’s high commission on refugees. It was she who facilitated our trip to Lampedusa to show Australia, first hand, what Italy has been trying to deal with for more than 20 years. Her voice appears to be that of a new style of politician, a truly global citizen moved less by nationalism and more by the common good.

If only she were not so alone.

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