Is the management of migrants still an emergency?

06/07/15

Most national media forget to inform citizens of the approval of the law on the forced withdrawal of banks from private bank current accounts and continues to propose important problems in an absolutely distorted manner.

First of all the flow of migrants from Africa and the Middle East that continues to be proposed as "emergency" even if it is something that has been going on for months with almost constant flows.

It is therefore reasonable to ask ourselves whether we are dealing with incorrect analysis of the problem or rather with a targeted choice so as not to disturb the "maneuver". In fact, it is not possible to continue defining the emergency process that is now part of the almost daily routine to breach the collective imagination and to share otherwise impracticable institutional decisions. In an emergency, in fact, it is justified to improvise to face the unexpected and the unpredictable; "Modus operandi" is not possible in the management of a well-configured phenomenon.

Sound information should no longer present reality as an unexpected and sudden justifiable situation, perhaps months ago, rather to underline the lack of forecasting and planning that the reception solutions adopted highlight every day. A simple simulation based on concrete and consolidated data would help, for example, to plan and manage the problem rationally. Why is not it asked? The majority of those who should denounce these inefficiencies, however, are silent, preferring not to highlight deficiencies and often unjustified choices.

The facts show, on the other hand, that day after day we are faced with an improvised management carried out by the central and peripheral Bodies responsible for managing the reception of migrants who are about to land on our shores. "Mandates" now predictable and in any case announced by intelligence sources and by drone monitoring. It is undeniable that the flows are now predictable at least in large numbers and therefore it is not an emergency but a contingent fact that would deserve more careful evaluations and more careful management. Therefore, proposing them as unexpected events on most of the print and television media represents bad information and even an offense to the intelligence of citizens. On the other hand, criticizing the botched and confused management could urge those in charge to make a greater rational commitment and avoid sorting, for example, 40 migrants, in communities inhabited by 40 citizens.

What was once called the "fourth estate" is losing its original connotation, that of denouncing bad management even with provocative tones to solicit answers or clarifications from the institutions. On the contrary, most prefer to resort to circumlocutions rather than concrete nouns which, surely, could annoy those who are managing the problem. Choices for which everyone is responsible in terms of professional ethics and which I personally cannot share.

To define the recurrent landings of migrants on our shores as still an emergency in July 2015 means wanting to hide your head in the sand. Deciding to sort them in disused barracks, as is often stated, is a clear demonstration that those who are managing the problem do not know the reality of the territory and do not even bother to ascertain the current state, preferring words to deeds.

Most of the former military infrastructures are now dilapidated, absolutely not appropriate to guarantee the immediate reception of the desperate people without radical recovery interventions. Rather, it would mean ghettoizing these people in even worse places than the villages of sub-Saharan Africa or the sorting camps on the Libyan coast of the Mediterranean. Solutions at the limit acceptable in the face of a sudden natural disaster but not acceptable when it would be not difficult to plan less traumatic solutions.

Photographs of reality that are not proposed to public opinion, preferring to obscure them with the word emergency, certainly a harbinger of alibis for those who should face the problem rationally, even with a simple emergency planning to be adapted if necessary to the need of the moment . In Italy this is possible simply by resorting to the expertise of our military, accustomed to planning and consequently to finding adequate solutions to be prepared in advance. A professional culture demonstrated on a thousand occasions, abroad and in Italy when the population was hit by major natural disasters.

In this regard, in fact, it is incomprehensible why the task has not yet been entrusted to the specialists of the Military Engineers, located throughout the territory, to organize and urbanize large areas in a very short time, positioning housing modules, field toilets, water distribution and electricity and organizing the collection and disposal of waste. It is reasonable to think that there is no will to do so, perhaps for fear of giving prestige to a category that has been repeatedly mistreated by the political class and by many national media.

Instead, we prefer to hide behind the word emergency to justify what at present can only be defined as managerial and organizational deficiencies.

Abusing the term "unexpected" highlights the will to justify the effectiveness of any solution, as occurred over time in Italy after unexpected events, such as earthquakes and floods, still force many Italian citizens to live in housing modules, in Belice, in Irpinia rather than in Abruzzo and Emilia.

Is it therefore an emergency or institutional inefficiency?

Fernando Termentini