U.S. actor and philanthropist Richard Gere, known for his defense of human rights, urged on Thursday to address the root causes of migration and to approach this phenomenon from a moral perspective, instead of limiting it to restrictive and security policies.
“We often talk about migrants as if they are different from us. As if they belong to another category of human beings,” he said at the launch of a migration initiative of the Center for Fundamental Rights of the Hertie School and the Gere Foundation in Berlin.
However, no one lacks a family story in which someone has traveled “in search of security, opportunity, dignity or simply a better future,” said the Hollywood star, who recalled that several of her ancestors traveled aboard the ‘Mayflower’, a ship of the English expedition that reached North America in the 17th century.
The interpreter recounted his experience when in 2019 he visited a ship of the Spanish rescue NGO Open Arms which the Italian authorities would not allow to dock in Lampedusa and where he heard the account of the atrocities from which the passengers had fled.
“Migration is often discussed through statistics, border policies, quotas or election campaigns, or outright racism, manipulation. But before any of these things, it is a deeply human story. It’s about people. About dignity,” he argued.
Gere, 76, a Buddhist since 1978, stressed that all major religious traditions call for helping those who suffer, even if they do not share the same appearance or language as oneself, especially when the necessary resources are available.
However, to find a lasting solution, it is necessary to examine the original causes of migratory flows, as they did not emerge “in a vacuum,” said the Spain-based actor, who pointed among others to the impact of colonialism.
“Admitting this history is not about blaming current generations (…). We cannot change history, but we can decide whether to ignore its consequences or help confront them,” he said.
Richard Gere and his focus on the causes of migration
Therefore, Gere urged to take into account structural problems that are key to the migration phenomenon, such as the lack of opportunities and human rights, conflicts, the effects of climate change, demographic problems or corruption.
“However, our policies often prioritize short-term political objectives rather than long-term solutions,” he said, describing a vicious cycle in which development aid is increasingly conditional on migration control and “outsourcing border management to third countries becomes more important than institution building.”
Therefore, he said, the initiative presented on Thursday aims to examine these dynamics rigorously to find “a better way”, identifying formulas that work and success stories and proposing “alternatives based not on ideology, but on evidence and not on fear but on reality”.
It will be led by Spanish academic Violeta Moreno-Lax, director of the Center for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School, who stressed that 30 years of European migration policy have shown that deterrence does not work and must be replaced by an empirical approach based on human dignity.
“Deterrence does not end with displacement,” said Reem Alabali Radovan, the German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, who stressed that reinforcing social stability is a common interest, reported Agencia EFE.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.
