L’occhiolino di Alvaro e il cimitero dei migranti
Ci sono due articoli di cui vi raccomando la lettura. Uno del colombiano ‘Semana’ in cui si affronta la questione di come Uribe cerchi di condizionare il futuro politico del suo paese, l’altro è un editoriale del ‘Los Angeles Times’ cupissimo e tragico, sui seimila migranti messicani morti dal 1990 ad oggi mentre cercavano di entrare illegalmente negli Stati Uniti attraverso il deserto dell’Arizona.
But aiding desperate migrants who already are in the desert is one proposition, and offering assistance before they begin their trek is another. That’s why the creation of a new cellphone application that uses the global positioning system to guide migrants to caches of water that have been left for them is troubling. The Transborder Migration Tool, developed by three professors at UC San Diego and a colleague at the University of Michigan, will be installed on phones distributed by Mexican nongovernmental organizations and churches to those about to set out. Our concern is that the new technology will give migrants a false sense of security about the horrors ahead of them. What will happen, for instance, if the cache is found, but there is no water left because another group got there first? The best app would be one that warns migrants not to cross. It would tell them that when the temperature soars to 115 degrees, dehydration sets in within minutes. It would say that first the body stops producing urine, sweat, saliva and tears in an attempt to conserve water. Muscle spasms and nausea follow before the victim slides into a coma. It would say the body needs 1 liter of water an hour to survive. Already the migrants who dare the crossing often find that they have been deluded. A better way to save them would be to spend time, energy and resources on telling them the truth.
