The Great Dilemma of Globalism

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The Great Dilemma of Globalism

By Fr Bobbie Gilmore SSC

"GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR,
YOUR HUDDLED MASSES YEARNING TO BE FREE,
THE WRETCHED REFUSE OF YOUR TEEMING SHORE"

It is hard to imagine the well of emotion and wonder that stirred in the immigrants hearts on seeing the Statue of Liberty as they entered New York harbour after an ocean crossing of days and weeks to begin a new life in a new country. Here they knew that they had reached a destination that both wanted and welcomed them. America took them, tired, weak and seasick. They would always be appreciative, patriotic and happy to be Americans. When I was in Jamaica I asked a local Rastafarian artist who himself had been an emigrant to depict an emigrant’s arrival in a new country. He painted a man and woman, their young daughter linking arms with them, looking towards a distant shore. On what seemed to be a Statue of Liberty, instead of a torch he put a cross. I asked him why the cross? He answered, "it’s what we know that guide us."

Between 1890 and 1920 sixteen million Europeans emigrated from the deprivation, famine, wars and persecutions of Europe. The majority intended to settle down and make a life in America. Four million had other plans and returned to their homelands to marry and settle down having saved up some money. As their companions brought ingenuity and energy to America those returning also brought energy, ingenuity and resources home with them. The immigrants who settled and those who returned were appreciated both at home and away.

It is difficult to describe the scenes of departure and arrival when distance was an outward journey into the unknown with little hope of return. Maybe they are best observed and stored in the discs of one’s memory.   The hustle and bustle one sees at modern airports as immigrants arrive, go through immigration, claim their luggage and then walk free to look for friends and acquaintances in the waiting crowd gives a microwaved insight into how immigrants experienced departure and arrival down through the ages. But even in an age when distance is dead and communication is instant the human heart experiences loss and change.

In the old days there were two journeys. The outward journey was slow and cumbersome in a ship’s hold. The people intermingled on the way, formed a common bonds as all were bound for the same destination. It was after arrival that the inward journey began in trying to cope with the loss of home and the familiar, the loneliness of the new and unfamiliar. Presently, with the demise of distance there is only an internal journey. Here one has to tap into an unfamiliar well of one’s own mental and emotional resources. There are few courses on how to leave home and arrive at a new unfamiliar destination.    

In the age of arrival at Ellis Island immigration offices were there to enable arrival. Immigration officials were there to facilitate entry. The poem by Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty set a tone that those arriving were officially welcome even if poor, tired and tempest-tossed. That has changed.

Today, immigration offices and officials are present at borders to keep people out unless one is a tourist or a high skilled, security-cleared immigrant. The new border points at airports and docks are the Iron Curtains and Berlin Walls of the twenty first century. The message being sent out by modern governments is totally opposite to the message of Emma Lazarus.

Governments are saying; send us your highly skilled, your educated, your young talent-keep your poor, your tired, your huddled masses, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Governments of origin are saying; stop stealing out brains, our talent and our energy. But since they cannot stop the haemorrhaging of talent they tacitly encourage their unskilled to leave by whatever means through personal adventure and a plethora of agencies legal and illegal. The hope is that the unskilled abroad will be agents of remittance, while at home they would unemployed and a danger to the political and social cohesion of the status quo.

Of course business is always happy to get cheap unprotected, undocumented labour knowing that it will be the immigrant that gets apprehended, prosecuted and deported. Business has access to the corridors of power. Immigrants are excluded. They bear the brunt of negative reporting that equates them with criminals, terrorists and drug runners. 

And really this is the great dilemma of globalism. On the one hand there is a national security driven anti-immigration attitude defined by the landscape of the nation state. On the other hand there is the world-wide scramble for highly skilled immigrants, the new-found effectiveness of immigrant remittances in international development and the perceived sharing of skills through the circular migration of new guest-worker systems. The planners of nation state migration policies seem to ignore this contradiction in their promotion of globalism and the constraints of nation state borders. For example the official voice of the nation state seems to have little difficulty with economic, military and security decisions made outside. However, in dealing with and debating migration the same official voice reverts to the safe haven of the border of the nation state in defining the outsider and the insider. Is capital, goods and services both legal and illegal defined by nation state borders? Does the European Union police dubious investment and investment services in the countries of immigrant origin? If not, why make an exception of immigrants?

Seventy Five percent of the youth in many countries with under-developing economies experiencing high unemployment when questioned stated a desire to emigrate. If the affluent countries continue to drain these investment-starved economies of their talented and highly skilled population are they not setting up a script for large scale undocumented migration, trafficking and political upheaval?

How will the poor, abandoned, huddled and hungry masses in those countries drained of skills, talent an investment manage, feed themselves and develop?

Sadly, they will probably be told that they should be grateful for the immigrant remittances they are getting from their highly skilled and talented relatives who are allowed to work abroad.

European Union lawmakers voted on June 17/08 to allow European Union Member States to hold undocumented migrants in detention centres for up to 18 months and ban them from European Union territory. Some of these European Union lawmakers are probably relatives of those who were the subjects of Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty.

But contrary to what Emma Lazarus wrote the European Union is now saying;

Send us your talented,
Highly skilled,
Send us your young,
Healthy and beautiful.

Keep your poor,
Your unskilled,
Unemployed and restless.

We don’t want them"

"If you don’t need them for your labour markets,
then send them home." 

Manfred Weber, MEP.
(Herald Tribune/18/6/08)

Is Europe re-inventing it’s history?