ANALYSIS
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23 October 2009
Tides of Men: migration in the 21st Century By Peter Curson
At the commencement of the 21 century migration looms large as an issue of great debate and political controversy. The vast majority of the world’s 6.8 billion people will never leave home or cross a national border. Most people will choose to live and die in their country of birth. Despite this, the number of international migrants has reached an all time high with well over 200 million crossing international borders last year. Possibly 4% of the world’s population left their country of birth or citizenship in 2008 for an absence of one year or more. Many left permanently in search of a new life. Such population movement has reconfigured the world we live in and radically altered the population structure of many nations.There seems little doubt that the homogenous nature of many states has changed beyond recognition and that migration has transformed the world. Many developed countries have changed from major sources of emigration to attractive destinations for immigrants from developing countries. Over the last few decades, Moroccans have moved to the Netherlands and Belgium, North and West Africans to France and Spain, Turks to Germany, Africans, Asians and Poles to Britain, Asians and Pacific Islanders to Australia and New Zealand and Mexicans to the USA. Some moved as skilled labour, but many initially moved as labourers to work in coal mines, on farms, or to sweep the streets and do the labouring jobs that locals did not want to do. Others moved as students on temporary visas, while some sought asylum of refuge. Finally,some made the journey as illegal migrants. In 2008 possibly 15% of all those who migrated were illegal.Many faced extraordinary challenges in making the journey such as the 32,000 who managed to reach Spain’s Canary Islands last year. In the same journey, an estimated 6,000 drowned or died of malnutrition while trying to navigate the waters. Roughly 30 years ago, Moroccans and Turks barely totalled 48,000 in the Netherlands. Today, the figure is probably well over 700,000. In Germany, Turkish migrants totalled 616,000 in 1973. Today, the figure is well over 2.6 million. North Africans in France provide a spectacular example of the demographic impact of immigration. In the late 1950s there were roughly 313,000.Today the figure is nearer 4 million. Such movements of people have radically transformed the ethnic, religious and cultural nature of many societies. Take the case of New Zealand, for example. In 1945 almost 94% of the population could be classified as European, with Maoris making up about 6%. At the last census in 2006, Europest
ans made up only 72%, Maoris 16%, Asians 10% and Pacific Islanders an additional 7% of the total population. Critically, not all areas in New Zealand have participated equally in this migrant revolution. Compare, for example, the experience of the Auckland region with that of Tasman. In the former’s case, 56.5% of the population were classified as European, 11% Maori, 18.9% Asian and 14.4% Pacific Islander. In Tasman the rates were 83%, 7.1%, 1.3% and 0.8% respectively. The US also illustrates the demographic impact of immigration. Each year more than 500,000 illegal Mexicans cross the border in search of the American dream. In total there are probably more than 6.5 million illegal Mexicans in the US and 27 million Americans list their ancestry as Mexican. By 2050 Hispanics will probably comprise almost one quarter of the US population. Some years ago National Geographic described migration as ‘the dynamic undertow of population change, everyone’s solution, everyone’s conflict.’Such a statement sums up the ambivalence to migrants seen in many developed countries. Attitudes to the rising number of migrants in developed nations vary. On the one hand various organisations such as the Catholic Church and the World Bank lobby for more migration on the basis that people should not be confined to the countries of their birth by national borders, and that migration is an essential component of economic growth and development. Others argue that the migration of young adults to developed countries is a critical ingredient in bolstering declining work forces brought about by falling fertility and rapid population ageing among the host population. At the other extreme, in many European countries particularly in Europe, people and organisations are calling for sharp reductions in immigration largely on the basis that immigrants were ‘not wanted’ and that their presence threatened the concept of a culturally homogeneous state with a common language, culture, traditions and history.To others, migration is seen as one of the forces eroding the power of the nation-state.This they argue is to be seen in the problem of protecting the nation’s borders against illegal migrant flows. Still others remain concerned about the spread of radical Islam among the descendants of early guest workers who were expected to leave when their job contract finished rather than remain permanently. Successive waves of immigrants have produced a veritable sea of descendants and today Muslims constitute the majority of immigrants in many Western European countries. Possibly as many as 20 million now call Europe home. The National Front in France and various organisations in Britain and Belgium have been
MULTI-ETHNIC SOCIETIES IS NOT A SITUATION EASILY EMBRACED BY MANY EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. MANY CONTINUE TO DRAW DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN CITIZENS OF EUROPEAN DESCENT AND OTHERS. THIS HAS HELPED CONTRIBUTE TO WIDESPREAD IMMIGRANT SEGREGATION IN HOUSING AND THE JOB MARKET
particularly strident in calling for, not only a halt in immigration, but also for sending migrants back to their home countries. Several countries have tried unsuccessfully to convince immigrants to leave their new homes and go ‘home’ by offering a variety of financial incentives. A recent program in France in 2005 ended in total failure. Some of the countries contributing to the migrant flow have also come to realise that the loss of skills and expertise outweighs any short-term benefits from remittance flows and have tried to discourage emigration, with so far relatively little success. One plus that immigration has delivered to many European countries, however, is that it is transforming fertility. In Britain, for example, women were having an average 1.6 children in 2001. In 2008 this had increased to 1.96 – still below replacement level of 2.1 but edging closer. For the first time in 10 years the UK’s birth rate has played a bigger role in overall population growth than net migration. The reason – immigration. Almost one quarter of all births were to immigrant women.There are now more women of childbearing age, and they have come from Africa and Eastern Europe to make Britain their home. Polish migrants illustrate what has happened. In 2005 there were 3,403 births to Polish women in the UK. In 2008 there were 16,101. In the US and France much the same has happened and birth rates are now at their highest for 20-30 years. The number of international migrants is at an all time high and the flow shows no sign of abating. In fact, the number is likely to increase over the next few decades.The migration of people from the underdeveloped world to developed countries
raises a host of questions. These include – should migration be considered a ‘natural’or ‘normal’part of human behaviour that has occurred throughout history, or should it be seen as an ‘unnatural’activity that brings disruption, discord and conflict? And is migration a process that will strengthen nations rather than weaken them? And finally, is migration critical to economic growth both in the remittances it sends ‘home’, and in the skills, technology and labour in delivers to developed countries? Migration thus poses a myriad of challenges with widespread policy implications for all countries. Multi-ethnic societies is not a situation easily embraced by many European countries. Many continue to draw distinctions between citizens of European descent and others. This has helped contribute to widespread immigrant segregation in housing and the job market, with many living in impoverished ethnic enclaves feeling like third class citizens. The security implications of migration also loom large. It is the sovereign right of all countries to decide who enters their borders and remains. The question of how to achieve this in an era of mass human movement while protecting a nation’s borders from illegal arrivals and terrorism remains an unresolved issue. Finally, there is the overriding fear that disenfranchised and disillusioned by the failure of integration, some European Muslims will consider taking up jihad against the West. There seems little doubt that debate on such things will rage for some time yet. Peter Curson is Professor in Population & Security, at the Centre for International Security Studies, Faculty of Economics & Business, the University of Sydney. He is also a TGIF Edition subscriber
Police hold Indonesian people smuggler CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA – Indonesian police are holding a suspected people smuggler whose wretched boats were intercepted recently by Indonesian and Canadian authorities. Abraham Lauhenapessy was discovered hiding among the 255 asylum-seekers on board a 90-foot wooden boat.The Jaya Lestari 5 was towed by the navy into the western Java port of Merak just over a week ago. Lauhenapessy is a known high-level Indonesian people smuggler who was released from an Indonesian jail in June after serving two years for human trafficking. Australian Federal Police have been keeping tabs on Lauhenapessy, 49, since his release from jail, according to a report in The Australian newspaper. He organized the latest trip aboard the Lestari 5 for a Malaysia-based ethnic Tamil people smuggler named Ruben, according to the investigators’record of evidence obtained by The Australian. Some of the crew of the Lestari 5 told police that Lauhenapessy was supposed to have gotten off the vessel with several other Indonesian crew members
as it neared Christmas Island where Australia has set up camps for boat people hoping to be allowed into Australia. But a rendezvous ship never arrived, so Lauhenapessy was stuck on board, the report said. He along with fellow Indonesians Mansur Mamero, 50, and the captain, James Israel, 43, John Palele, 53, Ramses Kathiandago, 56, and Alfrits Mashaganti, 44, are in custody. The Tamil refugees on the Lestari 5 still want to reach Australia, and some went on a three-day hunger strike last week. Lauhenapessy is also wanted by Canadian authorities concerning a boat with refugees taken to the Pacific coast Canadian city of Vancouver last week. The Canadian naval frigate HMCS Regina intercepted the motor vessel Ocean Lady ship off the west coast of the island.The 76 illegal migrants on the rusting vessel reportedly paid their smugglers up to $45,000 each for a new life in Canada, the so-called Canadian Option, one of the migrants on the Ocean Lady explained.
The suspected asylum seekers are now being held in a jail in the city, according to the Victoria Times Colonist newspaper. One of the illegal migrants on the Lestari 5 boat in Merak, Indonesia, is said to have identified the Ocean Lady as one of several boats under contract to Lauhenapessy. The person said they took Lauhenapessy’s so-called Australian option because at $15,000 it was cheaper than the trip to Canada aboard Ocean Lady. The news comes as Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is expected to arrive in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta for talks on strategies to halt the illegal trade of smuggling people to Australia. Rudd is expected to offer more money to Indonesia to improve its maritime surveillance and interception of refugee boats, The Australian newspaper report said. He may offer to relocate some of the current asylum seekers within Indonesia to third countries. Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration is negotiating with the refugees on the Lestari 5 in the port of Merak to leave their boat and
move into temporary nearby shelter, the Jakarta Post newspaper reports. Indonesia has yet to ratify the U.N. Convention on Refugees that defines refugee status for migrants. This means Indonesian officials are unsure of what they can and can’t do with the boat people, whose status in the country is not clear,the Jakarta Post said. If they are deemed to be illegal visitors then Indonesia could repatriate them. But if they are declared refugees or asylum seekers they then might have claims to stay in Indonesia or be sent to a third country willing to accept them. The IOM said it is also in discussions with Indonesia’s Foreign and Justice ministries about the next step for the boat people. The IOM was set up in 1951 as an intergovernmental organization to work closely with governments and other intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations to resettle refugees. It has nearly 130 member states, and 17 states hold observer status. – UPI