In deciding who shall take care of refugees flooding into Europe there has been
remarkably little talk about those primarily responsible, namely, those who
created the present state of continuous war from which so many of the people
are fleeing. .
Surely the first responsibility should lie there.
If so, this leaves
all members of the European Union
with a problem ; we may not have caused
the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya,
Syria
and many other places but we did give our consent to them. Now we all have to
pay the price of what we consented to.
Those who create war know there will be refugees fleeing from it; they do not create
war in the naïve belief that it will be nice and clean and people will go back home when it is over. War is about
displacing governments and people.
European governments, and the American government still to
an extent, could in the past direct
wars fought on someone else’s
territory, they need not even see refugees.
Now all that is different and the results of our wars – our
wars because apart from a minority we either consented to
them or condoned them – have arrived on
our European doorsteps.
The image of a small boy dead aroused both horror and generosity, but we had had
the cold knowledge of what was happening
to people like him for years before that
heartbreak happened and
governments, media,
universities looked on as cold as an item in yesterdays newspapers.
Then discussion revolved around what could be done to limit the damage rather than to recognise
the causes of it and prevent it
happening again.
Whether we like it or not we are “the West”. So it is immaterial whether we personally approve
of NATO or not, it is immaterial whether we approve the renewal of a cold war
with Russia, it is immaterial if the
government that manages our affairs and our wealth spends
more than enough on nuclear and
other weapons and less than enough on nursing care , it is immaterial because
we can do nothing either to prevent one or help another. Eventually of course we
will be required to undo resulting
damage but we shall be given little part
in preventing it.
And there lies one of the many tragedies of governments to whom we give our consent, or whose actions
we condone : what should create the greatest benefit for the most people
becomes a means of channelling the greatest benefit towards the few who are
powerful enough to corral it for their
own advantage. And so war becomes not a painful necessity but a business like
any other.
Many refugees are coming from countries whose borders were
drawn up without respect for already existing tribal and other boundaries and
to meet the demands of
European governments who had the
power to do it. That has caused
problems ever since. In Northern Ireland we can understand
that. Northern Ireland is a political unit drawn up with great deliberation so that for
all time it could be governed only by a
single unchangeable political party. At the time, the first decades of the
twentieth century, this was not
considered unusual. Internationally it was tragically usual.
Our own experience – and history – should certainly help us to be generous in
relieving the distress of refugees
especially if we insist that
governments admit the real reasons for
it.
But those who want to reject a great flow of people into
European countries say it will mean that rates of pay will fall, because
immigrants will be willing to work for little because they have to live. It is
also very attractive for governments to welcome an inflow of people from abroad
who are well or highly qualified in medicine, law, teaching , engineering and
much else. If immigrants are filtered
through because of their relative value to the host countries’ economy what
will become of the rest ? This is one of the questions that could become more
prominent soon .
There was always a tradition of immigrant workers into
European countries. Countries enjoyed the benefit of an influx of workers
when their economy needed it, and they
could tell them to go home when they were no longer wanted. Because of this it
was possible for a country to boast it had a
low unemployment rate. It did, partly because once the migrant workers
had fulfilled their purpose they went home. Meanwhile working conditions and lack of dignified
living conditions gave many immigrants a
very poor life . It was hoped that the European Union would remedy some of
this, there would be free movement of labour and goods but decent living
conditions. But now international aggression
in which Europe is involved, whether Europeans
like it or nor, is creating immigrants of a quite new kind some of whom
will fare better than others, often for domestic political and economic reasons
.
Those who are concerned about human rights and dignity will
be watching to see whether generosity and intelli
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