In discussing the plight of undocumented migrants, there is a clear and present danger that we may miss the wood for the trees. We are still shocked by the video clips and photographs we have seen in recent weeks, and, unfortunately, we will see more in the coming summer.
Most of us, and that includes politicians, are aware that these human beings who drowned a few miles away from our shores were fleeing from hunger, war and persecution. This was proof for the umpteenth time that unless we tackle the core causes of this exodus, we will fail these people.
This is because we are concentrating on particular disasters, and in the process missing out on the larger perspective. Tidal waves of tears will not save even one human life.
Walter Rodney’s How Europe underdeveloped Africa is a classic study of the negative effects of European capitalism on this continent. Besides this, he makes it clear that “not only are there African accomplices inside the imperial system, but every African has a responsibility to understand the system and work for its overthrow”. What are the UN and the EU doing to break this unholy alliance?
At the September 1961 UN General Assembly, US President John F. Kennedy launched a proposal for a ‘development decade’ to “lessen the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries to speed up the processes of modernisation and to release the majority of mankind from poverty.” This was followed by the UN Resolution 1710 (XVI) that established the 1960s as the United Nations Development Decade.
UN members states were called upon to “intensify their efforts to mobilise and to sustain support for the measures required on the part of both developed and developing countries to accelerate progress towards self-sustaining growth of the economy of the individual nations and their social advancement”. The proposals for action aimed to survey, mobilise and maximise the developing countries’ domestic natural and human resources; social and economic development planning; institutional change; technology transfer and increased flow of public and private capital.
It is always ‘us’ that takes precedence over ‘them’
It would be unfair to say that the result was a total failure. The goals were not achieved because the assumption on which they were based had failed. The greed of the rich countries and their cronies – the transnational corporations – succeeded in increasing or creating corrupt political leaders rather than true development. This situation was further plagued by the arms race and the exponential growth of the multi-billion arms industry.
While we commiserate with undocumented migrants who reach the southern flank of Europe, and much more for those who die on the way, quite often we are falling into a dual trap. First, we tend to forget those who they have left behind in utter misery, hunger, war, and now even xenophobia, as in the case of South Africa.
This brings me to the second trap: Unwittingly (or egoistically or short-sightedly?) we take a very ethnocentric stance: the effect of these migration flows on countries like Malta, Italy, Greece and Spain are at the focus of several debates. It is always the ‘us’ that takes precedence over ‘them’.
How does the ‘real’ and ‘honest’ development of these countries feature in our country’s foreign policy?
Do we have a policy about the ‘war industry’?
Do we as a country fight to eliminate unequal development?
What about political and commercial corruption on a global scale?
What about the negative effects of globalisation?
When was the last time that our politicians (or our country’s ambassadors) raised these issues at the UN, at the European Parliament or at the EU Council of Ministers or in our own Parliament?
Unless effective measures are taken to eliminate corruption of the Establishment in the countries of migrants’ origin/destination, and initiate solid people-centred development, any assistance given to migrants is only a palliative which, like all other palliatives, will lose its effect in a relatively short time.
The proverbial quote from Dom Helder Camara – “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist” – ought to shake many ‘good’ consciences.
joe.inguanez@gmail.com
Fr Joe Inguanez, a sociologist, is executive director of Discern.