Club Med for Whiners
10th October 2015
You’re a poverty-stricken peasant in Eritrea. Someone tells you about the amazing deal you can get in Europe, where they give you everything you want and you never have to work again. So you pay an extortionate amount of money to a trafficker, cross the desert to Libya, and board one of the rickety boats loaded with “refugees” heading for Italy.
The boat breaks down fifteen miles out and starts to sink — they almost always do — but it doesn’t matter, because the Italian coast guard or the Swedish navy rescues everyone who might otherwise drown, dropping their charges at the nearest European port of call, which is usually the island of Lampedusa.
The migration agency puts you up in a clean bed and gives you three squares while you wait for your case to be processed. You’re there for two weeks, basking in the sun and enjoying the sea breeze off the Med. Then what do you do?
Why, you stage a protest, of course! What else?