[NNWM] Migration and Characterization
Oct. 12th, 2004 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldFrom the International Herald Tribune:
I've been following as best as I can the debate on whether or not to respond to unregulated population flows towards the European Union by setting up detention camps in Libya, of all places, following the Italian example.
The whole matter is a difficult issue. As Danny noted on The Head Heeb in relation to Israel, sovereign states do have the right to restrict entry to their borders; indeed, the ability to determine who belongs to the national community, and who is resident on the national territory, is a critical element of statehood and often a criteria for the recognition of a claimant as a sovereign state. States--or in the case of the European Union, awkwardly-classified conglomerations of states--are well within their formal rights to prevent people from barging unasked into membership or affiliation, regardless of their perceived needs.
Yet. Perceived needs are very difficult things to measure, simply because they're so completely subjective. Within the European Union, for instance, central Europeans--contrary to hysterical fears--largely do not perceive a need to migrate to richer western and northern Europeans countries, partly because their countries are already reasonably prosperous and converging with some speed, partly because the costs of migration (adapting to a new culture, leaving home) were such as to discourage movement. If we're talking about Romanians or Bulgarians or Russians, though, the situation is different, still worse if one is talking about Albanians or Ukrainians or Moldovans or Serbs. For people coming from outside Europe, from the Middle East or North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa or rural China or South Asia, perceived needs are such that even illegal migration under the worst conditions is attractive. On the part of the receiving countries, the perceived needs for labour are decidedly out of sync with the actual needs of their economies; virtually every First or Second World countries depends, to one degree or another, upon immigrants to do the jobs that natives disdain, whether the immigrants are legal entrants or illegals (perhaps better if illegal since more exploitable).
The decision to engage in migration across cultural and/or political frontiers intimately involves calculations about costs. Can the move be afforded at any number of necessary levels (cultural, economic, personal)? Are there any loopholes to lessen the costs? Can membership or affiliation in the destination society be, if not guaranteed, at least reasonably plausible? What's the difference between the expected experience and the actual experience?
There's a lot in the migration experience that I'd like to use in my NaNoWriMo project. I wonder how well it'll work out.
The issue [of how to deal with asylum seekers, refugees and illegal immigration], to be raised Thursday and Friday when EU justice and interior ministers meet in the Netherlands, has pitted EU countries such as Sweden and Ireland, who want to prevent Europe from turning into a fortress, against those led by Germany, Italy and Britain, who insist much tougher asylum and immigration laws should be introduced.
Germany, Italy and Britain favor the idea of setting up "transit camps" in Libya before refugees and immigrants cross the Mediterranean to Europe. All three want to stem the flow of refugees and immigrants from African countries.
But the United Nations and several human rights groups have criticized such plans, saying Libya has no legal system or infrastructure to deal with refugees. Tripoli has not signed the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees that sets out how refugees should be treated.
I've been following as best as I can the debate on whether or not to respond to unregulated population flows towards the European Union by setting up detention camps in Libya, of all places, following the Italian example.
The whole matter is a difficult issue. As Danny noted on The Head Heeb in relation to Israel, sovereign states do have the right to restrict entry to their borders; indeed, the ability to determine who belongs to the national community, and who is resident on the national territory, is a critical element of statehood and often a criteria for the recognition of a claimant as a sovereign state. States--or in the case of the European Union, awkwardly-classified conglomerations of states--are well within their formal rights to prevent people from barging unasked into membership or affiliation, regardless of their perceived needs.
Yet. Perceived needs are very difficult things to measure, simply because they're so completely subjective. Within the European Union, for instance, central Europeans--contrary to hysterical fears--largely do not perceive a need to migrate to richer western and northern Europeans countries, partly because their countries are already reasonably prosperous and converging with some speed, partly because the costs of migration (adapting to a new culture, leaving home) were such as to discourage movement. If we're talking about Romanians or Bulgarians or Russians, though, the situation is different, still worse if one is talking about Albanians or Ukrainians or Moldovans or Serbs. For people coming from outside Europe, from the Middle East or North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa or rural China or South Asia, perceived needs are such that even illegal migration under the worst conditions is attractive. On the part of the receiving countries, the perceived needs for labour are decidedly out of sync with the actual needs of their economies; virtually every First or Second World countries depends, to one degree or another, upon immigrants to do the jobs that natives disdain, whether the immigrants are legal entrants or illegals (perhaps better if illegal since more exploitable).
The decision to engage in migration across cultural and/or political frontiers intimately involves calculations about costs. Can the move be afforded at any number of necessary levels (cultural, economic, personal)? Are there any loopholes to lessen the costs? Can membership or affiliation in the destination society be, if not guaranteed, at least reasonably plausible? What's the difference between the expected experience and the actual experience?
There's a lot in the migration experience that I'd like to use in my NaNoWriMo project. I wonder how well it'll work out.
