May 20, 2021
If the West relies on external shocks to border up, Covid may be falling the test of criticality. If anything, the pandemic is exposing Europe's southern frontier as shockingly porous. As many as 8.000 migrants, predominantly Moroccan, have illegally reached the EU enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla over a record span of two days, swimming around the 20-feet, barbed wire fencing that Spain built in the 1990s to prevent stampedes, or walking the same route at low tide. The Spanish right cries out invasion whilst accusing Moroccan authorities of stoking the inflow. The southern neighbor's failure to police its side of the equation through beefed up patrols is arguably a riposte to the treatment for Covid at a Spanish hospital of a militant leader from the Western Sahara. This strip of flatlands on the Atlantic was hurriedly evacuated by Spain’s military upon the death of military strongman Francisco Franco, with the militant group POLISARIO rising to claim independence against the heavily militarized grip of Rabat, which also stakes historical claims over Ceuta and Melilla. Unsettled as the backstory may seem, the images of young men erupting by the hundreds on Spanish beaches are already reminiscent of the refugee crisis six years ago. Though Europe’s overall intake is still nowhere near 2015 levels, the migrant routes connecting North Africa to the continent are realigning eastward to Spain, with inflows into the country reaching 20-year highs. No guests on the show this week—just a detour into the latest flashpoint in Europe’s unremitting migrant crisis by yours truly.
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