Yorgos Karahalis/AP/Press Association. All rights reserved.Although the Turkey-EU agreement over refugees has attracted
a global human rights outcry, the deal has been put into operation. The
agreement is fraught with political, ethical, humanitarian and legal problems.
While the refugees do not want to go back to Turkey and showcase this nolleity
with their placards of “No Turkey”, Dikili society is also reluctant to see
Dikili as a point of return for refugees.
Saluted by neither side, the
agreement was signed by Turkish and European leaders in order to deter human
trafficking. The official reasoning behind the agreement is to allow only those
with official asylum applications to pass, while deterring others from risking
their lives while crossing the Aegean Sea in inflatable boats.
As warm and fuzzy as the official humanitarian reasoning
may sound, the deal is in fact about human trade. It is yet another shameful moment in history
to watch Turkish and European 'leaders' seeing that they can legitimately decide the fate of millions of people without even consulting them. While discussing the applicability, justness and legal conformability of
the agreement, very few actually considered what refugees want in their own
life and why these people prefer one thing over another.
Syrian refugees are
well aware that their homeland is in a desperate situation as they search for a
new permanent home. Trying to escape in very perilous conditions, they are not
risking their lives to travel to Europe only to leave the next day. They are in
search of a new life, and this is quite understandable if one has some empathy.
According to Eurostat, the number of people seeking
refugee status in Europe came close to 1.3 million in 2015. This represents
only 0.2 percent of total EU population. The threat of an immense 'refugee wave' claimed by the politicians and big media corporations illustrates the piteous state of humanity today. Humans are afraid of humans, and they feel 'threatened'
by each other’s existence. However, in most of these countries, it is possible to buy citizenship by 'investing' if one has the resources.
The mawkishness of this situation is reflected in
negotiations between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the EU officials Donald Tusk and
Jean Claude Junker. During their talk, both sides humiliate and hold each other in contempt. They bargain using refugees as a threat, and trade them like
cattle. Even putting aside the fact that Tusk and Junker openly revealed that the EU
chose to postpone the announcement of
Turkey’s progress report after the November elections, helping Erdoğan’s AKP, it is still impossible to solve any problem with the derogatory attitude
of these so-called 'leaders'.
If this deal is considered legal, then the entire international legal system should question what legal means.
This agreement, regardless of how many countries have
signed on, is not legal. If it is considered legal, then the entire
international legal system should question what legal means. Even within today’s
mostly unjust international law structure, the application of this agreement is
problematic. Although Turkey has ratified the 1951
Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, it has a substantial restriction:
Turkey grants refugee status only to Europeans. In addition, due to a
change in domestic law in 2014, it offers temporary protection to Syrian
nationals.
This limited ratification means that Turkey does not have to treat
non-European refugees in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and that non-Syrian
refugees do not even have the few entitlements provided to Syrians. This is evident
in the increasing arbitrary detention of Syrians in Turkey and physical
violence against asylum-seekers both in Turkey and against those who try to
cross the Turkish southern border. There is already news about Turkey sending
back some of the asylum-seekers to their countries.
This
shameful context is compounded by growing discontent among Turkish citizens
towards Syrian refugees. The protest in Dikili against ships carrying refugees
from Greece clearly illustrates this disgruntlement. It is also visible in some authors’ critiques
of the agreement as "unjust,” since the agreement makes Turkey a detention camp
and forces the country to welcome the bulk of the refugees.
While it is true
that the agreement is unjust, it is unjust not for Turkey, but for
refugees. Nobody has asked these people where they would like to live, what
languages they want to learn, and what type of a future they desire while
formulating this agreement. Under such conditions, the responsibility of Turkish
citizens is to welcome the refugees in the best way possible while protesting against
the injustice of the agreement.
Turkey has the capacity and
the humanity to welcome all refugees if necessary, if they would like to stay
there. Their choices reveal, however, that Turkey is not a preferred
country due to its authoritarian regime, weak education system, unequal living
conditions and insecure daily life. This gives Turkish citizens yet another
reason to protest.
There
are three ways to meaningfully deal with the inhumane situation of refugees, and the first two are quite easy to implement. The first is
to immediately stop financing the civil war in Syria and all other wars around
the world. The second is not to create any proxy wars ever again. The third and
most permanent one is to address unequal living conditions in different
parts of the world.
Unless there is mobilisation to provide a better
life for those in underdeveloped parts of the world, the 'problem' of people's desire to migrate for a better life will always persist.