Politics

Agonie a exodus

Sep 23, 2015 Robert Skidelsky

BRUSEL – Tragický exodus lidí z válkou zmítané Sýrie a okolních zemí je těžkou zkouškou pro uvážlivost a sympatie světa. Od roku 2011 uprchly ze Sýrie zhruba čtyři miliony lidí, přičemž z milionů dalších osob se stali vnitřní uprchlíci. Drtivá většina těch, kteří odešli ze Sýrie, dnes přebývá v sousedních státech – v Jordánsku, Libanonu a Turecku. S postupující krizí však statisíce uprchlíků míří i do Evropy, přičemž většina z nich volí extrémně nebezpečnou trasu po moři.

Vzhledem k povaze a rozsahu tohoto exodu se všechny předchozí právní a politické předpoklady o migraci náhle jeví jako překonané. V minulosti byl hlavní motiv migrace ekonomický. Debata vyvolaná ekonomickou migrací se přitom vedla mezi liberály, kteří zastávali princip volného pohybu pracovní síly, a lidmi, kteří požadovali omezení přeshraničního pohybu v zájmu ochrany pracovních míst, kultury nebo i politické soudržnosti.

Jak se svět plnil národními státy a prázdná místa se plnila lidmi, zvítězily restrikce nad volným pohybem. Po první světové válce se rozšířila kontrola přistěhovalectví. Všechny země formulovaly populační politiku.

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Robert Skidelsky

Writing for PS since 2003
208 Commentaries

Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords and Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University, was a non-executive director of the private Russian oil company PJSC Russneft from 2016 to 2021. The author of a three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes, he began his political career in the Labour party, became the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Treasury affairs in the House of Lords, and was eventually forced out of the Conservative Party for his opposition to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 11 Comments on this article

David Morgan Oct 8, 2015

No one seems to mention the fact that the vast majority of refugees/migrants are Muslim. This will have a huge effect on the demographics of any city, or indeed country. As we are well aware from past experience the Muslim communities established in European countries do not integrate into that society, and combined with ongoing terrorist plots and attacks on the West gives an underlying feeling of fear and mistrust. This leads to the formation of right wing parties and will lead to attacks on these unfortunate people in the future.
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kees de vos Sep 28, 2015

I think there is a solution. UNHCR has a longtime program to help refugees to safe countries. Only just more than a 100.000 could be helped just far because the program is dependent on cooperation. This program should be extended to poor countries where the rich "vulnerable" ones would spend the money involved (up to 35.000 per person per year). Poor countries can make money this way, are better served with more educated refugees and they would think twice before opting such a solution.
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jagjeet sinha Sep 26, 2015

Professor Skidelsky in his inimitable style has perfectly diagnosed the central problem.
"Liberals upheld the principle of free movement of labour".
"The World filled up with Nation-states and empty spaces filled up with people",
"Then restriction triumphed over free movement".
Europe seemingly inspired by Liberal thought allows free movement of labour that belongs to member nations of The Union, without fiscal transfer mechanisms that reduces the pressure of internal migration from its poor to the rich regions, hoping that guest workers will come and go back resulting in "little net movement of population".
The consequences for European Union as an "Incomplete State" is fuelling a rise in anti-immigration fury feeding the political shifts inside democratic electoral colleges confined by old nationalist boundaries.
In this "Incomplete State" of affairs, the crisis of refugees fleeing Meltdown in neighbouring non-EU geography is literally rubbing salt in wounds without any real remedy. Humanitarian magnanimity from Merkel is dismissed as reminiscent of 'The Berlin Baghdad Railway', an incomplete foreign policy project from German history, welcoming guest workers when Europeans need to find jobs has not been perfected.
There are too many fault lines frozen by history that are beyond melting options, that are perhaps best resolved clinically with Econmic goals the only reasonable minimum programme - but when the agenda is strewn with politics the outcome can be a chilling reminder of a dictum whose death is never final : ONLT THE DEAD HAVE SEEN THE END OF WAR.
Liberals triumph in forging free movement within nascent Unions perhaps designed to produce Islands of Prosperity at best.
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M M Sep 25, 2015

If Merkel and her team (some of them resigned since) had kept their mouths shut, none of this would have happened. In one survey yesterday by “The Telegraph”, 95% of the respondents blamed Merkel for the migration crisis. The genuine refugees are the ones in tents and camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Since Merkel is so generous, (except with the Greeks), she should have stationed teams of experts in refugee camps in those countries bordering Syria, whose main duty would have been to interview the refugees and seek their consent for temporary repatriation instead of sending from her government delegation after delegation on sightseeing to those countries.
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Avraam Dectis Sep 25, 2015

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2 points:

1) The Syrian conflict started when certain entities armed and funded the opposition. This apparent miscalculation appears to have killed a quarter million people as well as caused the refugee crisis. There should be more coverage on how this all started.

2). Asylum should not be curtailed. I personally, having lived in the USA all my life, am considering seeking asylum since I have been getting poisoned by a stalker gang for the last 18 years and have been unable to get the police or government to act. My government appears to have made a deal with the racketeers - essentially handing its citizens over to gangs to be poisoned in return for its own safety.

AVRAAM JACK DECTIS
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Jose araujo Sep 25, 2015

Robert, if all people leave a country in times of distress, political distress, who will be there to fight the oppressors?

Refugee status must be individual, when we are faced with massive exodus actions must be taken, not to protect refugees, but to fight the causes of oppression.

For sure humanitarian help must be provided, and asylum to the ones that cannot fight, but if we accept the ones that can fight, who will be there to protect the remaining people left in this countries?

Accepting refugees in this situations is compounding the mistakes, not only we don't help the country, but we are validating and perpetuating an immoral regime by taking away the capacity for this countries to change and regenerate.

If we take away the more westernized individuals from this problematic ares we will be left with a region where only fanatics exist, and sooner or latter its going to bite us back.
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Barry McHugh Sep 25, 2015

Would any capital market be altered if 1% of the monthly addition to quantitative easing went to fund some partial solution to the problem?
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Zsolt Hermann Sep 25, 2015

I agree that our present system is incompatible and this incompatibility goes way beyond legal, political aspects.
The problem is that we have built a world based on economical, financial considerations alone.

We think everything can be measured in money, the health, state of nations can be judged by growth figures, stock market performance, GDP and accumulated profit.
People themselves are measured by their wealth, "worth", or celebrity status which of course is also converted into marketability, numbers on their next contract.

The European Union itself, at the center of the present migrant crisis was established only in order to optimize markets and harmonize financial institutions. Since the global crisis started all the action, "bailouts", "rescue/solution packages" were only intended for the markets and the banks. The whole chaos surrounding Greece was and still is about nothing else but the economy, money and the safety of the financial institutions.

Of course such a myopic system has no framework, capability to cope with, handle any kind of humanitarian situation. Our present global, human society dismissed anything "humane" or "moral" long time ago sacrificing them on the altar of consumerism.
We will not be able to handle this crisis or the next, moreover we will not be able to survive in the natural system we evolved from and still exist in unless we rebuild our human societies but this time on "humane" foundations.
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Max Isert Sep 23, 2015

Mr. Skidelsky,

I am a huge admirer of yours. ''Return of the Master'' is indeed a literary masterpiece, because you describe and explain its subject so eloquently to the reader.

Especially your chapter on globalization I have personally quoted many, many a times.

''The idea that 'globalization' can lead to war, national self-sufficiency to peace, was of course a complete reversal of the traditional teaching.'' - Excerpt from ''Keynes-The Return of the Master''

What would Keynes do and say in a situation like this?

The borders of the Schengen zone must be protected and reinforced first, before any policy can be developed or suggested.

As Keynes rightly suggested, recovery has priority over reforms. I think this economic wisdom, also applies to the countries, and the EU as a whole.

First the refugee floods need to be stopped and the borders need to be secured, and once calm and control have returned, then the EU can think about reforms, and its purpose and its core values.
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Robert O'Regan Sep 23, 2015

It seems that the refugees are being used as a 'weapon' in a war between IS and the 'West'. It quite effective for, as you say, there is no real countermeasure available. The war folk are able to understand barrel bombs, mines, cluster bombs and rockets etc but have yet to develop a policy for this event. Fresh water supply from the Red Cross seems to be causing a reaction.
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