The corporate state works by rules. Violate them and you are the 'other'.
The 'other' is the group of persons that the corporate state requires so that blame may be apportioned.
The 'other' in the modern world is the migrant.
Trump is calling for their summary deportation, without any right to a trial or appeal.
Italy has exposed the lack of willingness within Europe to address the issues migrants give rise to, but in a way intended to appease a populist agenda.
The UK has been lambasted for the fees it charges to those who want to naturalise in the UK, making that impossible for many whatever rights they may have.
And this is just some of this weekend's news.
If evidence was required that we need to rethink migration it is available in vast quantities.
But let's also ask why this evidence is becoming so apparent. It is because the corporate state is seeking to make the migrant a scapegoat. It has found its 'other'.
And the corporate state is, of course, the fascist state, where transgressing the rules is the crime, and the rule that is transgressed is not having paperwork to prove the right to human rights that mere existence should provide.
I do not think the march towards the new fascism is co-ordinated by plan. I do think it is by motivation. And that motivation is hate.
The state. when misused, can all too easily round up the usual suspects whose paperwork fails to pass its own artificial standards. That's the work in progress now. And Brexit will make it much worse.
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And yet people vote for governments that implement these policies. Is democracy broken?
Andrew,
In my humble opinion democracy has been broken for some time. While ever the majorith of the electorate are too poorly educated in matters political and economic to exercise informed judgement in elections then democracy is doomed to misrepresent the majority of the electorate. It is the essential duty of a democratic state to ensure unbiased political and economic education to the electorate. Failure to do so is the root cause of democratic failure in my opinion.
Yes the “hostile environment” promoted by Theresa May when Home Secretary and still as PM is clearly alive and kicking despite the apologies for the illegal treatment meted out to the Windrush migrants and their families. The front page of the Guardian says it all highlighting the extortionate fees demanded by the Home Office for perfectly “legal” migrants today to obtain the relevant papers for them to stay in the UK.
I notice several linked stories in this post. The last sentence in this one is interesting:
“Arrival figures for refugees and migrants are currently 51% down on last year and 81% down on 2016.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/24/migration-is-threat-to-eu-free-travel-area-says-italian-prime-minister
So despite this massive drop in numbers an EU emergency summit on migration is called because some boat rescues in the Mediterranean grab a lot of headlines?
Whatever one’s view is on this subject this serves as a reminder to keep an eye on the facts and statistics rather than the anecdotes and headlines.
Well, speaking of those who make it their business to generate a fear of ‘the other’, this story is full of sordid intrigue, skulduggery and serious implication:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/25/nigel-farage-denies-shorting-value-of-sterling-on-night-of-brexit-vote
Its worth reading closely.
How would our foreign policy change if our priority was to prevent the causes of mass migration? Is there any debate on this? For example, large number of migrants have been coming from Syria and Libya, countries in which people have been badly affected by our own military interventions.
There has been debate. Look to Prospect, for example. I would add that the debate has not been that enlightened as yet
Well, quite. Most people would rather live in the community where they are established if they had a free choice, and if conflict and politics and disease and economics did not push them to move elsewhere.
But we ain’t seen nothing yet. The population of Africa is estimate to increase from around 1 billion to around 4 billion by 2100, on a continent that is likely to be badly affected by global warming. Lots of good work in this area from the Roslings and Gapminder, but they remain optimistic.
That’s looks like a pretty wild estimate Andrew. Do you have a link for that?
It’s still all about big powers, spheres of influence, top tables, and now we have MP’s saying we need to increase defence spending to maintain influence with US. Presumably so we can continue to interfere in other countries. That’s why “othering” can be so dangerous. Once the “other” has been dehumanised it becomes easier to kill them.
I’m a little bemused by Turkey – (remember how Boris promised to help them join the EU, now that we are leaving?) They seem to have voted in a dictatorship, willingly. Yet they have millions of refugees, which the EU is helping to pay for. Is there civil strife there? I think Erdogan may be using them as a weapon for political advantage, rather than “othering” them. The Kurds are another matter of course.
“remember how Boris promised to help them join the EU”
Well that didn’t happen and I doubt that it ever will now.
So like Boris.
I think it worth noting that while the Government’s spokespeople are keen to colour the picture by constantly using the term ‘migrant’, most of the people referred to in the european context are not migrants but refugees. We should perhaps try not to collude with these spokespeople, and instead refer to refugees, for whom a different set of rules should apply.