OUTCRIES ABOUT IMMIGRATION: THE FEAR OF THE
OTHER
What is this emotional charge that can
raise the heart beat of normal law abiding citizens?
Is it the fear of the other? Someone whom
you do not understand?
Jacobo Timmerman, the Argentine writer and
political activist, asked his Jewish mother: Why do they hate us? To which, his
mother replied, they hate us because they don't understand us.
I will give you a news item that appeared
in BBC News and would dare you to guess in which part of the world the scenario
is unfolding?
USA? Canada? Australia? New Zealand?
France? Moscow? Beijing? Elsewhere? UAE? Qatar?
This city was built on the premise of
Immigration. Unlike Australia or USA where there was a native culture which
flourished before, this city was a marsh with no water supply and an occasional
stop over for pirates from the nearby archipelago.
The self styled “heartlanders”, people who
have been here the longest, mainly children of immigrants now denounce in no
uncertain terms the policy of their government over the rapid rise of both low
wage immigrants who do most of the dirty work and millionaires from corrupt
countries who can safe keep their millions here. Foreigners now make up close
half of the population, from whom they are not distinguishable by colour, dress
or religion.
The “locals” blame the immigrants for the
rise in property prices and for “taking our jobs”
This country which was an artificial creation of
post colonial political puzzle, has no history to speak of, but has relied on
the government to do the best, which it did at a time of rapid global expansion
in technology providing its citizens with a good standard of living, one of the
highest in the world.
Most of the descendants whose families cannot
claim to have more than one hundred years in the national territory now want
that privilege denied to others who had come after them.
I have heard this story in the USA; those who
come here without permission should go back, referring to Mexicans but
forgetting themselves came there without permission.
The disease has spread to Europe. In Hungary,
Greece, even liberal countries like Holland, Denmark and Sweden, anti
immigration parties have gained support from the general public.
(in many wealthier European countries, the public schools are predominantly attended by children of immigrants. Here a group of ten girls are out for a Physical Education Class in an European Capital and five of the ten are wearing hijab, marking them as observant moslems)
The dislike of the other and blaming them for
social ills has a long history in Europe. Jews were blamed for the Plague in
the middle ages and of course, the Nazis blamed the Jews for the ills of their
society.
Lawrence van der Post so eloquently wrote about
why the White and Black men of Southern Africa disliked the native San/Bushmen
people. He said, these innocent people were like man-child and closest to the
creation of The Supreme Being which was resented by the later comers to their
land.
I remember listening to an Old Maori in Otahu
peninsula in Aotearoa, which they renamed, New Zealand: Pakeha came and he will
leave one day. American Indians have a similar prophecy that brown skinned
people would once again populate their country. They don't have to wait much
longer. It is estimated that by year 2035, the white population of the America
would comprise less than 50% of the population!
We cannot go back on history. Aryans came from
the North and Savages from Uzbekistan ruled India for three hundred years
before British took over. The native population of India, the indigenous Australoid
races and Dravidian races are squeezed out of their original lands, even though
it was hundreds of years ago. France cannot ask its 5 million Muslim citizens
to go back to the Maghreb, or UK asking its Black British from Africa, India,
Pakistan and the Caribbean to leave its shores.
Immigrants are here to stay and only in one
country I have felt that despite some reservation from the minority fascist
party of that country, the diversity is used for the betterment of the entire
country.
So which country was I writing about in the beginning
where the vitriolic voices of the “local born” want a restriction of
Immigration?
It is SINGAPORE, an artificial creation of a city
state, governed well by the authoritarian state which gave its citizen first
world living standards in return for stern loyalty.
