The migrant crisis is a challenging topic, as it involves a wide range of factors of different nature, not only political but also sociological, societal, psychological, demographic, economic; and therefore, it is able to inspire a wide range of reflections, some of them unpleasant, others more encouraging: what can I – as an ordinary citizen – really do in order to help refugees? What future could they ever have, if we cannot even assure them a roof over their heads?
I am aware that the issue is one of the most complex, and giving an answer is not my job, and I do not even have the competence to do that. What I can do is, at least, reflect on it, be mindful of what it is happening, have my own opinion about it.
Reading and listening the interviews we made, one striking aspect has drawn my attention. There is a « fil rouge » that underlies the words of all the people interviewed: one the one hand, the sincere solidarity that has led people of every sex, religion, age, economic condition, to start to help the refugees and to get involved in ParcMaximilien; on the other hand, the absence of political actors. And that is the common pattern for all the interviews: we tried to go deeper into the managing of the crisis, and the answers to our questions about the role and the interactions with the political world have always been « absence, inefficiency, incompetence, indifference ». Bruno told us about the attempts made by the association in which he works to arrange meetings with the Belgian government, and all the refusals they received; Chloé spoke of the incapacity of the municipality of Brussels and of the federal government in taking the responsibility of being the interlocutor of the volunteers working in the park; AbdelHak reported the total absence of the political sphere; and even in the case where there was a dialogue with the government, the promises made have not been respected. And this is only to cite few of the voices listened.
At the end of this project, the bittersweet thought that I have in my mind is that the solidarity and the desire to help, to do something useful for other people – starting from giving them a croissant to ear so to provide them with a psychological support – is not enough, if the political authorities themselves ignore and avoid, or are unable to cope with, this overwhelming phenomenon which the actual migrant crisis is.
Because even if at its very beginning the mobilization in Parc Maximilien did not have any political connotation, it is inevitable that politics get involved. And the Belgian – and European – politicians have shown that they are not able to be involved in an efficient way. I am aware that many pages, and articles and critics have been written about this incompetence, but what I would like to do is to put myself in the volunteers’ shoes, witnessing the sense of powerlessness and loneliness felt by them.
The initial impulse of solidarity that gave birth to the mobilization in Parc Maximilien made possible that, where the State was absent, it was replaced by groups of people ready to spend their time, their energies, their competences, their good will, in helping, getting involved in something bigger than them and bigger than their efforts. Such sincere solidarity soon clashed with the huge extent of the crisis while the lack of support from the state fostered a sense of powerlessness. The park was a temporary arrangement, that soon became an unbearable situation. It became clear that the simple desire to do something useful is not enough if it is not supported by a more decisive and solid structure, that structure that a government should provide.
The Parc Maximilien’s experience showed – in a smaller scale- some of the weaknesses of the Belgian government and these weaknesses, transposed into a bigger scale, depict the present situation of every government in Europe. The journey of refugees does not end when they cross the European borders, instead their journey is still long and unpredictable. However, this bitter reflection does not impede gestures of solidarity as the one that made Parc Maximilien possible. On the contrary, the uncertainty of their situation should encourage an increasingly number of people to mobilize, protest, help.
Silvia Siddu