“Every day I had to make the hardest decision anyone could ever face -- who to save from drowning. [...] We tried to save them [children] first. When we pulled them out of the freezing water, their feet were the coldest feet I have ever felt in my life.”
This is what Manuel from Spain experienced every day on Lesbos. He, and others like him, worked tirelessly for months, not for the medals nor the publicity but to help other human beings.
Instead of being celebrated as a hero, Manuel and others like him are being punished. Because EU countries choose to interpret the act of offering life-saving humanitarian support to someone who doesn’t hold the “right” papers as human smuggling. In just over a month Manuel and his colleagues, who so boldly answered the call of duty to rescue human lives in the Mediterranean, will be tried in a Greek court for their “crimes”.
People like Manuel have shown that there is another face to Europe -- the Europe of community, of giving, of solidarity -- a Europe that our governments are trying to stifle.
But we can fight back. Through an official European Citizens’ Initiative, we can compel the European Union to respond to one million Europeans demanding the freedom to directly offer better futures to those who need them. When we demonstrate that Europeans overwhelmingly want to have the option to directly sponsor refugees, our leaders will have to make a choice to determine on which side of history they will stand. To achieve this, each one of us must stand up. Are you in?