Ich Bin Ein Ausländer

There's a lot of talk about the refugee crisis in Europe. The now famous photograph of a three-year-old child who drowned trying to get to Greece is being haled as a turning point in people's attitudes. I've mentioned before how pictures change people's perceptions in relation to violence against women, but in international aid, it makes an amazing difference. I've heard aid workers in the past despair that we can't be proactive about famine because of the power of pictures. Famines aren’t surprising; we can see the problem coming. But we can't do anything until it starts, because the West won’t give money until they’ve seen the pictures of the starving African kids. That makes me wonder how much effort there is going to be to get that photo at future crises. Never mind Doctors Without Borders, we need Photographers Without Borders.

Of course, in today’s polarized world, public opinion doesn’t completely change, it just alters the spin and moves the goalposts. We’re already seeing the adaptation by the nationalist politicians (which in Europe, is really big.) The talking point of choice seems to be to emphasize that there is a difference between refugees fleeing conflict, and economic migrants, who are looking for better opportunities. So remember, there is a difference between people whose fear of violence drives them to take a dangerous journey to a foreign land, and people whose fear of starvation drives them to take a dangerous journey to a foreign land.

I’m actually pleasantly surprised by Europe’s reaction. I’d started to think of even mainstream Europe as kind of racist, But now we’ve seen some public and widespread expressions of tolerance. I mean, who expected that when foreigners with a different religion needed help, it would be the Germans who were most enthusiastic about taking them in. But on the other hand: Hungary? Who knew they were Europe’s Arizona? Hungary’s hardline reaction seems out-of-proportion for something that’s mostly going to trouble the rich countries the refugees are trying to get to. Though the Czechs also get a dishonourable mention for writing identification numbers on migrants’ arms, up to the point someone pointed out that such practices have a really bad precedent in that part of the world.

I can understand why the Hungarians would feel at least a little hard done by. Countries that migrants pass through do incur costs and inconveniences. Whatever benefits these people will give, it will go to their destination, not countries en route. So it is unfair. Not quite dust-off-the-fascist-practises unfair, but a little unfair. The best example of this problem is how the Italian navy spends a lot of time rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean, even though the migrants are trying to get to Northern Europe. Journalist Gwynne Dyer pointed to a creative solution to this: Italy could just give all the migrants automatic citizenship. It would be no trouble to the Italians: thanks to the European Union’s laws, such citizens would then be free to travel and work in any part of Europe. So they’d just go to Germany or the UK, and Italy would never see them again, and it would no longer be their problem.

So if the Hungarians were smarter and less angry, that’s something they could try: give free citizenship to anyone who asks for it. Rich Europe would be flooded with Syrian-Hungarians, and thus be forced to do something about the problem. Something surely more effective and humane than just building a wall.

We Come From The Land Of The Ice And Snow

There's an election coming up in Britain.  Any election means there's going to be a variety of campaign handouts to promote the parties' platforms.  Here's one from the left-leaning Labour Party that's been getting a lot of attention:

When you see that, a number of questions may occur to you.  Can a liberal party win over the centre successfully with a few highlighted promises? Will they lose the support of their base?

But probably, you're wondering what kind of a stupid campaign gives out mugs?  Whatever happened to pamphlets?  You'd think that if you were going to use any beverage vessel to win over xenophobic Britons, you'd go with a teacup.

As an aside, here are some of the other images that came up when I searched for the mug picture.  I don't know how Bieber got on there, though Google might just group all the embarrassing mug shots together.

As political strategy, it (the promise, not the mug) doesn't make sense. At a time when the Conservatives are facing a big vote split with the even-further-to-the-right UK Independence Party, Labour just needs to get its base to turn out in big numbers.  Instead this has really alienated them.

But more to the point, it's incredibly bad timing.  While Labour is trying to harness the fear of foreigners, Europe's migration problem has taken a turn for the tragic.  Europe and its constituent countries have scaled back patrols of illegal migration in the Mediterranean this year, and at the same time the situation in Libya and other parts of Africa and the Middle East have gotten worse.  The result has been a huge increase in deaths during attempts to cross the sea.

Something that's really bothered me about the coverage of the migration crisis is the way the recent history of it has been explained.  The usual story is that Europe cut-back on patrols in the hopes that the lack of a safety net for desperate, dangerous journeys in the Mediterranean would discourage attempts.

To put it in terms the locals will understand: Bollocks.  This wasn't some clever strategy to discourage migrants, it was European leaders doing the only thing they ever seem to do: ignoring a problem and hoping it goes away. Usually that just makes a few investors nervous, but this time a thousand people died.  With their economy still poor and far-right anti-immigrant parties making gains, spending money on illegal immigrants isn't popular, so they did the easy thing, whatever the results.

Europe is going to have to face the fact that its bigotry is dangerous.  Usually we think of the problem as caused by a small number of Neo-Nazis. I have no idea how prevalent they are, so I can't comment on the seriousness of that problem.  But the fact is that the mainstream fear of foreigners is beyond what you should see in a civilized society.  Of course, this is an issue everywhere, but the amount of social-acceptance of it, the quickness to scapegoat, and the number of politicians cashing in on it, is a serious problem with real consequences.