Suketu Mehta - Immigration panic: how the west fell for manufactured rage
The west is being destroyed, not by migrants,
but by the fear of migrants. In country after country, the ghosts of the
fascists have rematerialised and are sitting in parliaments in Germany, in
Austria, in Italy. They have successfully convinced their populations that the
greatest threat to their nations isn’t government tyranny or inequality or
climate change, but immigration. And that, to stop this wave of migrants,
everyone’s civil liberties must be curtailed. Surveillance cameras must be
installed everywhere. Passports must be produced for the most routine of tasks,
like buying a mobile phone.
Take a look at
Hungary, where Viktor Orbán has forced out the Central European University and almost
destroyed the country’s free press and most other liberal institutions, using
immigrants and George Soros as bogeymen. Or Poland, whose ruling party purged
the judiciary, banished political opponents from government media, greatly
restricted public gatherings and passed a law, modified only after an international outcry, making it a crime to accuse Poland of
complicity in the Holocaust.
Or Austria, where the neo-Nazis in the governing
coalition want to fail kindergarteners for not knowing German. Or Italy, where a fanatically anti-immigrant coalition that won power
is now going after the Roma. All these rode to power, or intensified their grip
on it, like Orbán, by stoking voters’ fear of migrants, promising to ban new
immigrants and to take away the rights of immigrants already in the country.
Once in power, they energetically set about depriving everyone else of their
rights, migrants or citizens.
It is a successful
strategy for the fearmongers. Driven by this fear, in country after country
voters are electing leaders who are doing incalculable long-term damage. And
some liberal politicians blame not the fearmongers or the people who vote for
them – but the migrants. “Europe needs to get a handle on migration,” declared Hillary Clinton in November 2018. It “must send a
very clear message – ‘We are not going to be able to continue to provide refuge
and support’ – because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will
continue to roil the body politic.”
The economist Jennifer
Hunt tells a story about visiting Germany recently and listening to people
making the liberal argument against letting in refugees: “If we let these
people in, we’ll have the far right in government.” Hunt’s response: “If you
don’t let these people in, you’ve already become a far-right government.”.. read more:
