"Silent invasion"; is the name that right-wing political forces have given to the arrival, let's admit it, "massive", of people from Africa to the Canary Islands in pateras. An arrival of emigrants that has been assumed as the most numerous, along with the one that occurred in 2006, in the history of emigration to the Archipelago.
The situation is so visible and with such important consequences for the normal coexistence of residents in the Canary Islands that many on the islands, even those who consider themselves to be of left-wing ideology, are positioned against what they consider passivity on the part of the Spanish Government. So much so that they also question the humanitarian motives of those who risk crossing the 200 kilometers between the black continent and our coasts with serious risk to their lives in flimsy boats, whether they are Maghrebi or sub-Saharan.
From Vox, the situation is described, as I said before, as a "silent invasion"; in the manner of what in terms of military strategy is called a "fifth" column, an expression used to designate, in a situation of war confrontation, people who have managed to infiltrate among the population so that at the time of the invasion with military troops they could collaborate in different ways before the "invaded enemy";.
In order to document myself in this regard, I turned to the opinion of a retired Spanish military commander. This commander in the reserve understands that "the presence in the Islands of the African tsunami"; (Maghrebi, from the Alawite kingdom and sub-Saharans) is due to the "political shift expressed in certain political parties";. And, on this, he considers that "it could well be a fifth column launched on purpose in view of the characteristics of these groups: young and strong people, of acceptable presence, with high-tech means of communication and even with tattoos with anagrams of military units of that continent";. For him, "observer infiltrations that mix with minuscule groups to go unnoticed and whose mission is all kinds of strategic information about the Islands. Be it military presence, communications, lifestyle, nerve centers, etc.";. All this, according to my informant, who, it should be said, is of right-wing ideology, "taking advantage of the regrettable political situation we are going through."
In my interest to contrast this whole theory of the "silent invasion";, which frankly seems to me a novel theory, I wanted to talk to someone who knew it firsthand and who had lived the experience of that migratory leap with risk to their life. To this end, I tried to speak with a Guinean who arrived in the Canary Islands about 30 years ago, already established in Lanzarote, married with children and with a fully legal employment contract. My surprise was enormous.
For this Guinean, the people who arrive on the islands are "riffraff". Thugs who do not come with the intention of working "honestly". According to what he told me, they come with money in their pockets, good clothes and high-end mobile phones. Moreover, he told me that the well-organized mafias that facilitate their trip, after paying significant amounts of money, manage false passports for them in the Peninsula and send them to them so that they can travel to the continent with them.
However, Televisión Canaria is broadcasting these days an extensive and documented documentary report in which spokespersons from national and international NGOs, Gerardo Mesa (former president of the Red Cross in the Canary Islands in 2006) or Arcadio Tejera, magistrate occupied in the matter of the Africans who arrive to the islands illegally and former Deputy of the Común; see it differently. They consider, without reservation, that although organized mafias manage, after paying amounts that are around 1,500 euros, the transit of emigration, the motivation is in "the misery and lack of opportunities. The poverty of the African continent";. This is despite the certain risk to their lives.
For experts in the situation and for people active in the actions of support to immigrants who irregularly arrive to the Canary Islands and therefore to Europe, emigration, which they consider a universal right, has its justification in that Europe has plundered African resources and that in the emitting countries the general situation is of extreme poverty. For all of them, what moves all those people to make the leap to the Canary Islands, with risk to their lives, is the "European dream".
For Juan Antonio de la Hoz, member of the Canary Association of Solidarity with the Saharawi people, in Lanzarote, and defender of the self-determination of the Sahara, regarding sub-Saharan immigration "it is as Gerardo Mesa and Arcadio Tejera say";. But "I suspect that the Moroccans who come may be paid by the Moroccan State for a silent invasion and to create opinion for the independence of the Canary Islands";. And he reminded me that in a book by Emboirik Ahmed, "Grito de Zemla", which he lent me on one occasion, ";it speaks of that is the same thing they did with the Sahara. They brought in Moroccans who created political parties in favor of the independence of the Sahara and then invaded it with the "Green March". And then the Moroccan State gave money, land, material to build a house and every Saturday a truck distributing meat, so that the Moroccan settlers settled in the occupied Sahara".
Having said all of the above, the truth is that the great avalanche of pateras that is arriving to the islands, together with the delinquency of the “Moors” in the islands, be it punctual, all of which is opportunely amplified by the most conservative ideologies, is generating in the population of the Canary Islands, even in people of left-wing thought, a feeling of insecurity that degenerates into feelings tending to xenophobia and racism.
Concluding. Apart from trusting that the Spanish intelligence, as is its obligation, is aware of the theory of the "silent invasion"; and of the possible "fifth column" that Morocco could be wanting to arm in the islands, and that the Spanish State knows and is able to provide us with sufficient troops to ensure sufficient security to which we are entitled, both objective and subjective; the undeniable existence of mafias that enrich themselves with the transit of immigrants to our islands, be it sub-Saharan or Moroccan, we should not allow all this to harden our hearts to the point of losing the virtue of solidarity with our equals, although with a different color of their skin.
