Immigration

Posted on 2002/05/30 13:40:59 (May 2002) by john.

Something else society has totally misunderstood.

Charles Pasqua, the now (in)famous right wing French politician once famously said "On veut tendre vers un immimgration zero". Any francophones reading will hopefully excuse the probable spelling mistakes I've inadvertently included there, I'm writing from memory. Anyway, for those among you not so conversant in la belle langue, this loosely translates as "We're aiming for zero immigration".

You know what, I agree with him. Oooh shock tactics. Well of course there's a twist to that, and, yes syntactically I agree, but semantically I utterly disagree. As in, I might actually say the same thing, but I mean the exact opposite of what he means. You know, for me the whole concept of the word immigration is one born of nationality and divisiveness. I'd like to end the concept of immigration altogether, end all the unnecessary procedures and regulations, and simply let people live wherever they want, whenever they want, without any fuss. Immigration laws are undoubtedly a form of discrimination, and a very damaging one in my opinion. An individual has no choice in which country she or he is born, and yet, without any other criteria being required, this simple fact will dictate a persons freedom to move. This is terrible! To me, this stems from the simple observation that the world is staggeringly older (not to mention larger) than any single person alive today is. How can a human being, or indeed group of human beings, own a piece of it? It just doesn't make sense. It'd be like the bacteria on your hands claiming to own your thumb. Preposterous. And yet that is the situation we live in. Why do I have more right to live in England than someone born elsewhere? This country has been made great because of the wonderful mix of cultures we have embraced over the years. English as a language has become successful, at least in part, because it has elements of so many other languages. The European Union has been an astounding success. Look at where we are now, a far more mixed and balanced continent. The kind of history that plagued the first half of last century is now unimaginable within Europe, because of easier movement of people between countries, and in turn a greater understanding of each other. I love Europe today, I can sit in a restaurant and be surrounded by people from 20 or more different countries, from all over the world. What a marvellous achievement. Borders breed something evil in the human mind. The world can only be a better place if they are taken away.

The only way to stop the immigration "problem", is to stop this childish, divisive beahviour, open up all the borders, and give every man, woman and child the freedom to go where they please.

There is some Genesis song or other that says: "You kill what you fear, and you fear what you don't understand." Given that premise, it is unlikely that borders will be opened and freedom increased for the majority of the world...

And I am not talking about the West. Often, the 3rd world countries that are the source of our immigrants are such a dangerous place because of ignorance and fear of what the freedoms of the West (the civilised world?) actually mean. The governments and dictators are scared that if they grant freedom, then they will lose everything. It seems to me that once you go down that road, there is not much short of a revolution that can change that course...?

Posted by rowanboy at 2002/06/06 15:27:20.

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