ONE of the stories which has dominated newspaper headlines in Europe for long is the spike in African migration to Europe, especially after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in late 2011. According to the International Office of Migration, since 2000, over 40 000 people from Africa have lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe illegally. In 2013 alone, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, about 63 000 managed to cross the sea, the bulk of them landing in Southern Europe, especially on Italian islands of Sicily and Lampedusa. A lot of debates on the causes of this influx of refugees from Africa are raging mainly in Europe right now and also beginning to gain traction in Africa itself. These debates touch on a range of underlying causes, including the often cited poverty and conflict in Africa, endless wars, bad governance, bleak employment opportunities etc. As usual Europe never runs out of explanations on African issues! During these debates the anxieties which dominate European thinking are barely hidden, especially the fear that this kind of influx is likely to create more political space for right wingers whose political agenda is dictated by their fear of racial contamination of their white identity by black races. What is missing in all these European debates, however, is a broader framework within which to understand this migration as an historical phenomenon that has been taking place for a long time all over the world. Accordingly the observations below are meant to broaden the framework of that ongoing debate so that we do not see this migration as a dramatic and recent phenomenon confined to Africans alone as most recent debates in Europe seem to suggest. First: We need to recall that the so-called discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492 was followed by a long period when thousands of European emigrants voluntarily flocked to that continent for a number of reasons which included, among others, famine in Ireland, poverty and religious discrimination in England, religious intolerance in France, and limited economic opportunities in some parts of Europe. In some cases people left for reasons related to social mobility! In other words, causes which one can cite for such massive migration from the old European continent are limitless. The only racial group that did not opt to migrate to America, but was forced by the Portuguese, Spanish, French, British and Dutch slave traders to do so are Africans. Why? Because they were required to provide free labour which after four centuries laid the economic foundations of modern Europe and America! Some scholarly reports suggest that between 20 and 30 million Africans were captured and forcibly shipped to America, much to the eternal shame of Europe which up to this day has adamantly refused to pay reparations to all affected blacks! And this is notwithstanding the fact that Europe, including some of its leaders such as David Cameron, continue to benefit from the proceeds of slavery up to this day! Adding insult to injury is that the same un-repentant Europe, (together with the USA) has unilaterally appointed itself judge over alleged human rights abuses in post-colonial Africa! Second: Although Britain became an industrial power as early as the 1760s and played a leading role in the industrialisation of Europe, a large chunk of its population opted to migrate to New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the USA from the 17th century right up to the end of the 19th century. Some British people opted to migrate to some parts of Africa such as Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe which, like those countries cited above, soon became part of the British Empire. If our understanding of world history is correct, most of those British people who opted to leave Britain for good were, among other reasons, mainly economic migrants in search of a new life and better economic opportunities, however misguided and deluded they might have been. Similarly the same motives which drove Europeans to abandon their continent for an uncertain life overseas are more or less the same motives driving a tiny fraction of the African population of 1,1 billion to risk everything, including their lives, to go to Europe in search of a better life. In other words what those Africans are doing has always been done by other races and other nationalities for a long time. Third: To acknowledge the long standing patterns of human migration all over the world is not to condone the tragedy that is unfolding across the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea; it is also not to deny that Africa is not providing the best home for most of its people! There are genuine reasons why some opt to migrate as there are illusions as well that life in Europe is a happy ever after story! It is important for Europe to acknowledge how deeply implicated it is in the migration tragedy that is unfolding off the coast of North Africa. For instance, no one can deny the fact that Europe fought an unprovoked and unjust war against Libya in 2011, reduced one of the most advanced countries to rubble and toppled its government led by Gaddafi! Why? Because Libya possessed huge reserves of oil and fresh water which Europe wanted to lay its hands on. Libya’s wealth became its curse, just as Iraq’s huge oil reserves have become the source of its current misfortune! It is not a secret that in both cases, Europe and the USA have dutifully acted out their roles as proverbial vultures! By destroying the state of Libya and not taking responsibility for its reconstruction, Europe created a power vacuum in the country which human traffickers, criminals and extremist groups are taking advantage of to the full. That unjust war waged by Europe on Libya in 2011 opened up a pandora box. Almost the whole of North Africa and some parts of West Africa have become destabilised, including countries such as Mali, Nigeria and the Central African Republic etc. Put differently, Europe acted in a short-sighted manner in 2011, in the process creating the kind of instability that is the immediate cause of the increased human trafficking that is taking place. The extraordinary level foolishness displayed by Europe in 2011 is now coming back to haunt it as thousands now turn up on its shores almost every day! And it is not surprising either that Western media is uniformly quiet about how Europe waged an unjust war on Libya and how the outcomes of the same war has made it easy for many to smuggle people to Europe itself! It is as if feelings of embarrassment and shame which Europeans are entitled to in regard to the unwise decision taken by their governments have been embargoed by tightly controlled Western media! The unjustified Libyan war of 2011 is the big elephant in the room which no one in Europe is prepared to mention, but they all know it!