Immigration

“If the original architects of the ‘European dream’ were to wake from their slumber, they would no doubt be turning in their graves at the threats to the Union posed by today’s unparalleled mass migration and surge in home grown terrorism. Luckily for them, it is the nightmare of Europe’s current leaders to ponder the challenges of reinstating national borders, curbing free movement of people, combating extremism, all of which in turn may lead to disintegration of the European Union itself and all that it stands for.”  

– Alex Morritt

Morritt said that sometime before last Thursday; seems he saw the future. The people of the United Kingdom have voted. They want out of the European Union. Ironically, the people of Scotland and Northern Ireland – parts of the UK – voted to stay in the EU. This has already reignited the movements of an independent Scotland (to rejoin the EU) and a reunification of northern Ireland with the Irish Republic in the south (who is an EU member-nation.) And the secession fever is spreading in light of Britain’s vote, notably in France and the Netherlands (stay tuned, more are sure to follow.)

So what’s behind all this. There are several reasons, mostly about loss of old national sovereignty with subservience to Brussels’ bureaucry, but the largest reason is the huge influx of Middle Eastern and North African immigrants flooding into Europe, financially taxing, particularly the western, northern industrial nations. That, and the fear that embedded among them are terrorists bent on destroying western civilization.

But I suspect there’s a more truthful reason.

“It is interesting…the rhetoric [and] the gathering strength of right wing politics….Everywhere in the West ‘immigration’ [is spoken] in terms of the end of …’culture’, displaying signs of feeling threatened by these ‘others,’ who are portrayed as an invasive force.” ( Himani Bannerji.)

And a growing vocal, almost majority, in the USofA are saying the same. Unlike the EU, where states can voluntarily withdraw from the union, we put that issue about our union to rest with our Civil War.

Our upcomming national election will focus on immigration. Will we continue to welcome immigrants with the Statue of Liberty’s “Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses”?

Or will we close our borders with walls, increase our already paranoid, increasing police-state with diminishing freedoms and become “Fortress America”?

Just asking.

– Bill