The events of two summers ago, where more than a million desperate and desolate refugees from Syria, Iraq and Libya fled into Europe in search of safe haven, shook the very foundations of the institutions and principles of the European Union (EU). The political, economic and social bloc has its historical roots in the ruins and bombed-out cities and landscape — a horrific and scarring legacy of the Second World War. The EU was supposedly built on the principles of the free movement of goods, services and people — just as long as those people are not men, women and children fleeing violence and oppression in their homelands. Nor Muslim.
The refugee crisis showed the true colours of the mostly central European nations, who were all too quick to erect razor-wire fences and arm frontier guards to stem the flow of refugees. Most notably, Hungary and Slovakia — along with Poland and the Czech Republic — bridled against an agreed EU quota system to distribute 120,000 refugees across the 28-nation bloc. The memories are short in these nations. Polish refugees fled westward through their long decades of Soviet occupation, Slovaks and those from the Czech Republic were given sanctuary too when Soviet tanks crushed their Prague Spring, and tens of thousands of Hungarians were taken in across Europe and Canada when their own political revolt against the Kremlin crumbled.
Hungary and Slovakia turned to the European Court of Justice to try to opt out of the refugee quota system, and on Wednesday, it ruled that their case had no merit. They must take in their share of refugees or face political and economic sanctions from Brussels, though there is no guarantee in itself that any refugees who settle in these cold-hearted states would receive humanitarian treatment.
This ruling is a victory for those who have no voice, who left lives behind to find peace and a piece of this world where they might start anew. It is a ruling that is just, one that upholds the principles forged in the firebombed ruins of Dresden and the ghettoes of Warsaw and applies to those from Damascus or Aleppo.
It is a ruling though that is necessary only because of the anti-refugee and anti-Muslim sentiment that prevails across these states, one that is based on fear, ignorance and misunderstanding. It is a ruling that reflects Europe’s history. It is a ruling that reflects how that history has been forgotten — and now seem bound to repeat its mistakes.
