Reject Attempts to Blame the Peoples for the Global Migration Crisis
- Diane Johnston -
An Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada
backgrounder dated December 10, 2018 states, "In response to the
Syria refugee crisis and increasing movements of refugees and
migrants, the UN General Assembly in 2016 adopted the New York
Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. That declaration launched
separate processes to create two non-binding international
agreements: one for refugees (Global Compact on Refugees) and one
for migrants (the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular
Migration (GCM))."
The backgrounder informs that the estimated 258
million
international migrants worldwide represent a 49 per cent increase
compared with the number in the year 2000, and 3.3 per cent of
the world's total population.[1]
The GCM says, "[It] seeks to reconcile tensions
underlying
international migration, including national security concerns,
human security, dignity and rights." It concludes: "The
successful negotiation of the GCM in the current global climate
related to migration and sovereignty underscores the value of
multilateral dialogue on critical global issues and the role the
UN can play in supporting a rules-based international
system."[2]
 An attempt to give credence
to a rule of law that in practice
no longer exists has become a matter of very serious concern.
Various forces have come forward to defend liberal democratic
notions of peace, order and good government, enshrined in the
rule of law, as if this were the solution to the very serious
abuses of power we are witnessing today. However, each passing
day reveals that the system called liberal democracy is precisely
what has collapsed into the anarchy, violence and chaos that is
carrying out abuses and condoning them and has proved incapable of
developing a pro-social alternative.
Louise Arbour, a Canadian who is the UN's Special
Representative for International Migration, reports that the GCM
initiative "emerged from the intolerable sight of large numbers of
migrants losing their lives, and of a growing perception that
governments had lost control of their borders." This way of speaking is
devoid of context and gives governments which pursue the neo-liberal
anti-social offensive a way to justify these actions and use the issue
of migration to foment social division. Human trafficking today is the
consequence of creating what are called prosperous economies by
upholding so-called market economies, human rights and multi-party
systems. The rich have become richer and the poor poorer but
nonetheless the architects and promoters of this system are let off the
hook.
The loss of migrants' lives and the loss of control of
borders is not accidental but rather the double-edged sword of
imperialism. Migrants and refugees are the canaries in the mine,
victims of the neo-liberal assault on the international rule of law and
nation-building, which arose from the ashes of the great victory over
fascism in 1945 and now lie ruined from the attacks of imperialist
globalization.
Except in rare examples, U.S.-led imperialism has
breached the borders of many countries to gain control over their
economies, politics and all aspects of life, including culture and
ideology. In the case of those countries that imperialism has been
unable to overwhelm, it has resorted to destruction through predatory
wars, financing of mercenaries to foster regime change, economic
sabotage, blockades and sanctions to cripple a targeted economy, such
as that of Venezuela. The attacks create refugees and an outward
migration of desperate people seeking a life as they have every right
to do.
The "estimated 258 million migrants" have become an
international reserve army of unemployed workers willing and able
to sell their capacity to work at almost any price to gain a
foothold towards a better and stable life. How convenient for the
big powers to find millions of global unemployed at a time when
their own populations of working people are shrinking because of
a falling birth rate.
Imperialism of the big powers is the force behind the
nation-wrecking agenda of unjust wars, regime change, big power
interference in other country's internal affairs, economic
sabotage, blockades and sanctions, the out-of-control pillage of
natural resources, and the instability and environmental degradation
and climate change provoked by corporate greed, beyond the reach
of any rules or regulations. The lack of control over the affairs
that affect the lives of working people is the challenge they
face and which they must organize to change.
The financial oligarchy deals with migration in the most
self-serving way possible, namely, to blame migrants for their plight
and divide the working people of the countries which are using these
migrants as cheap labour. It is important that working people in Canada
not fall prey to this propaganda that does not serve their interests.
The governments in these countries that serve the interests of the rich
then bemoan the fact that as human beings migrants must be provided
with the essentials of life at the standards of living the various
countries have attained. Thus, the plight of migrants and their role in
the economy is presented as the "inability of governments to control
their borders and stop the flow of migrants" because private interests
have been politicized. The old democratic forms no longer exercise
authority because the conditions they were designed to deal with have
changed.
The means used to defend what is called the national
interest in no way restores a national authority but on the contrary
turns people into categories to be criminalized. Heightened border
control and a fight against organized crime and gangs consider, as a
premise, migrants and refugees illegitimate usurpers, who must then
prove themselves worthy. The Trudeau government equates any
nation-building in opposition to imperialist control as an attack on
the peace, order and good government of the liberal democratic order.
Nonetheless, the plight of those forced into migration today compels us
to act to build the New, not to defend an order which no longer exists
and is therefore incapable of sorting out any problem in the present.
 Many migrants, after a
treacherous journey they never wished to
make in the first place, end up living and working underground as
undocumented cheap workers, fearing arrest and deportation each
and every day. They suffer abuse at the hands of human
traffickers and unscrupulous employers. They work to send money
home to their families and provide a life for the next
generation.
Migrants
are
victims
of a world order that has fallen apart under the aegis of
the global financial oligarchy. They are part and parcel of the great
sea of humanity which forms one working class worldwide striving to
empower itself so that it can humanize the natural and social
environment. Defending the rights of all, especially by speaking out
against the abuse of fellow human beings and against their
enslavement and plight, is to assume social responsibility and take
concrete action to take control of our own lives and nation-building.
The
strength
of
working
people
lies
in
their
overwhelming
numbers
and
aims
for
society
which
are
not
self-serving.
Working
people
gain
control
of
their lives when they speak up to defend the rights of all in their own
name, and do not let others with agendas speak in their name, as is
done all too often at this time.
Notes
1. "Global
Compact
for
Safe,
Orderly
and
Regular
Migration,"
Immigration,
Refugees
and
Citizenship
Canada,
December
10,
2018.
2. Ibid.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 16 - May 4, 2019
Article Link:
Reject Attempts to Blame the Peoples for the Global Migration Crisis - Diane Johnston
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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