Germany's far-right parties are planning a show of force this coming weekend in a small town called Goslar. They are irked by the fact that the town’s mayor, Oliver Junk — a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats elected in 2011 for an eight-year term by more than 90 percent of the vote — has declared he is keen on accommodating a lot more immigrants. Goslar is losing up to 2,000 residents a year, and Junk says: “We have plenty of housing, and rather than see it decay we could give new homes to immigrants, helping them, and so give our town a future.”
Goslar’s predicament isn’t unique, or even rare, across Europe. The continuing exodus from country towns to the city is only part of the phenomenon. The continent’s birthrate has long been in decline, presaging economic concerns, not least on account of the growing imbalance between taxpayers and pensioners. Refugees fresh off the boat are obviously not taxpayers, but it’s hardly unrealistic to weigh their potential in this respect, once they have settled down and obtained jobs.
Employment is another crucial issue, of course, particularly in countries where austerity is the default position imposed by the European Union (EU). And perhaps it isn’t entirely a coincidence that the primary landing ports for refugees are mainly the more economically depressed southern European nations such as Italy, Greece and Spain.
They are inevitably the first ports of call because of geographical reasons, but it is hardly any surprise that the refugees who end up there are disinclined to stay: Many of them head toward Germany or Sweden. Others pick Britain, invariably via Calais, as their destination. This may be related to having relatives over there, but perhaps more often than not it’s because they have a working knowledge of English, or at least are more familiar with it than with any other European language.
English, after all, is the much ballyhooed lingua franca of the Internet age. Sure, 18th and 19th-century colonialism means the anglosphere stretches far beyond the shores of the UK — but the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are very far away if you are embarking from Libyan shores, and in some cases even less welcoming. Australia, for instance, has effectively “turned off the refugee tap,” as it likes to see it, by mounting a military operation whereby boats headed its way are turned — or towed — back to wherever they came from (usually a transit point such as Indonesia), and Australians know little about it apart from the occasional leak, because of a news blackout.
Yes, Australia still calls itself a democracy. And whenever news does crop up of atrocities on Manus Island or Nauru, the Pacific outposts where refugees once bound for Australia are incarcerated, under the watchful gaze of taxpayer-funded private guards, the government invariably opts for plausible deniability.
Australian Premier Tony Abbott is sufficiently proud of “stopping the boats” to have shared his blinkered “vision” with European leaders and some of them are believed to have expressed interest in it.
Chances are that, had boats been heading toward British shores, David Cameron would have found an excuse to replicate Abbott’s deplorable stance.
His implication that they are vermin is shared by at least a few other European leaders. Hungary’s crypto-fascist government is planning to put up walls, while Slovakia has declared it will accept Syrian Christians but not Muslims.
A substantial proportion of the refugees risking their lives to reach Europe are indeed from Syria. Others flow from Iraq and Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia, Eritrea and Libya, and various other nations. Most of them are fleeing existential threats, albeit not exclusively from military violence. “Economic migrants” tend to be singled out for condemnation, as if their quest for survival is somehow illegitimate. In some cases, Europe (and its allies) can be held directly or indirectly responsible for the fate of those knocking at its door, as a result either of recent military interventions or its colonial legacy. In others it cannot — but that does not necessarily reduce its responsibility as a relatively well-off repository of wealth in the world where it is extremely unevenly distributed.
It’s common for such views to be countered with the argument that facilitating an influx would be undemocratic, as so many Europeans oppose it. But that in large party involves glossing over the compassionate views of so many others, from fishermen in Sicily and the Greek islands to political figures such as Oliver Junk and the presumptive leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
It is presumed that Germany’s relative willingness to accommodate distressed segments of humanity is based in part on its determination to prove it has exorcised its Nazi legacy — which was largely responsible, seven decades ago, for the last comparable flow of refugees in Europe. It’s hard to tell the extent to which this may be true. Compensating for a fascist past is certainly no bad thing. But when a driver conveying a busload of foreigners feels obliged to announce, “I want to say welcome. Welcome to Germany, welcome to my country,” as Sven Latteyer did earlier this month in Erlangen, one would like to think he was prompted by nothing more than fellow feeling for displaced human beings. The contempt for people-smugglers or human traffickers is perfectly justified. They are, after all, exploiting desperately vulnerable human beings. They are also, however, supplying a service, no matter how atrocious, for which there is a persisting demand. The EU has contemplated — but not yet undertaken — military action against irregular marine transport services from the Libyan coast. Chances are it wouldn’t be terribly fruitful, even if unconscionable “collateral damage” were to be avoided. But might not flights from Tripoli, at least for those who are anyhow bound to be taken in, make it that much harder for the traders in human misery to ply the Mediterranean route
Completely open borders may be a bridge too far, but Europe can afford to lower its barriers, potentially benefiting itself in the process and reinforcing its endangered reputation as a humanitarian haven.
