Introduction supportive; and the family who are of

Introduction1.

CharlotteMcDonald-Gibson has been reporting on almost every aspect of the Europeanmigration crisis, and her book CastAway offers a rare and a detailed glimpse into the life, dilemmas and the choices the refugees had to make at each stage of their agony. An eye-opening, shocking, meticulously reportedand very well told account of five refugee families converging on Europe in thepast five years. She puts their incredibly precarious journeys and stories intothe context of movements in their own countries and in Europe that add up to aglobal refugee crisis. 2.         This collection of true stories takes placestarting in 2011 with the European Refugee Crisis. African and Arabian civilwars, oppressive dictators and deportations force these people into refuge status. They main characters are: a formerly wealthy orphaned from Nigeria; a doublyeducated Syrian; a man avoiding Libya military conscription; educated newlywedsdeported from Ethiopia to homeland Eritrea where employment is limited andoften not supportive; and the family who are of Palestinian descent and had acomfortable life in Syria.

The wealthy and marginally employed both findthemselves imprisoned, cheated by smugglers, abandoned, terrorized by unsafeboats, repeatedly turned away from paid-for flights, forced into refugee campsand most horribly for the families separated with little communicationavailable. An amazing aspect was how they all seemed to be able to find asource for forged documents, and money to pay for them. This is also the storyof how the European Union struggled with the situation. Some of their ideasbackfired, some worked. Various Pds: Salient Aspects & Relevance4.         Thebook can mainly be divided into three periods  thehighly emotional stories of the individuals undertaking these desperate journeys; the background that gives you a much better understanding of the set ofcircumstances over the 2011-2014 period that has resulted in individualsundertaking these journeys and of course,  Europe’s mismanagedresponse to one of the largest humanitarian crisis of our times. In other wordsthe periods can be illustrated as follows:-(a)        Hopefor a better life.

(b)        Thejourney across the Mediterranean.(c)        Theunwelcoming shores of Europe. 5.         Hope for a Better Life.       It’sincredible how one should have to ponder whether it would be safer for them tocross the Mediterranean or remain in a country devastated by war (or dictatorship).

The increase in the refugees is a direct consequence of 2011, the year of theArab Spring, hailed by the EU as a revolution against oppressive regimes. And these refugees have names, and they have stories to tell that deserve to beheard. And this is what this book proposes itself to do. “ For decades,” writes the author,” hopes of a better life had pushed people to Europe’s unwelcoming shores,” somewere in the expectation of finding employment and others wanted to escape the confusedconditions of civil war or to avoid military conscription. They see Europe as giving them peace andsecurity to raise their families. Many of them had good jobs in their homecountries – in computers, teaching, engineers.

It surely takes courage touproot and go to Europe, into a new culture with new languages to learn likeSwedish or German (both of which were accepting migrants/refugees at the timethis book was written). 6.            The Journey Across the Mediterranean.              The book provides an eye-opening view at what refugees go throughfor a chance at a life free from war.

We read of desert routes through the Sahara, of peoplesmuggling, of flimsy boats and the reasons why so many have turned to dingys. Thisis the story of small towns who, having lost their own ways of life through variousreasons, have turned to the lucrative business of people smuggling. Migrantsare not, of course, always refugees. They are not all Syrians fleeing war; manyare people looking for a new future, a better future, away from religiousextremism, corrupt governments and poverty. It is also a story of corruption, bribery and profit and of the scale of the migration and of the futility oftrying to curb it from Europe when it is evident that no one has any interestin stopping it from the places that the migrants are leaving from. 7.         The Unwelcoming Shores of Europe.

Theincrease in the refugees is a direct consequence of 2011, the year of the ArabSpring, hailed by the EU as a revolution against oppressive regimes. Yet “ whenit came to helping the victims of this noble pursuit of democracy, their theEuropean countries’ response did not match their rhetoric”. Europe doesn’tseem to remember its own dark days, it has not learned anything from history. And it’s indeed the EU’s fault if the smuggling industry has grown to itscurrent capacity – through extortion and exploitation – because there was nolegal avenue to apply for asylum. The treatment of many refugees in Europe has been dishonourable, remarkably their illegal confinement in unfortunate conditions in severalcountries, but this is not akin to the dangers they faced before arrival. Afterreaching Europe, McDonald-Gibson’s case studies incline towards stories ofgreater or smaller success in gaming immigration laws in order to reach themore prosperous EU states.