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• On global migration

  April 21, 2010 @ 2:56 pm | by Bryan

  The topic that seems to generate the most response on this blog is immigration. That makes sense, I suppose. There aren’t too many fora out there that facilitate a back and forth between those who are concerned about the consequences of immigration (imagined and real), and immigrants themselves, or those who view immigration in a positive light.

  Although I often refer to the issue, I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly spelt out my own position. Here goes:

  Like most of you, I remember my parents’ painstaking attempts to get me to understand the difference between right and wrong. One of the main pillars of this concept was the idea of fairness. There is something about the fact that just about anyone on one end of the world can visit, or relocate to most parts of the other, while only a very small proportion of the latter can even visit the former, that violates that basic sense of fairness. As I got older, I was taught that life isn’t fair, but that it ought to be just. I was taught that fairness would mean every time my sister got a doll I should get one too, whether or not I ‘deserved’ or even wanted one. Justice, on the other hand, meant that the same concern shown to her would be shown to me. We would be treated in a similar manner, based on consistent principles, and shown the same love, even if that meant sometimes one got gifts, rewards, privileges or duties that the other did not.

  That the rules governing global migration are unfair is in my opinion uncontroversial; they obviously are. That just makes them consistent with life, and I can happily live with that. What I struggle with is the fact that they are also unjust. What has the average Irish person done to deserve the option to visit or relocate to a bunch of different countries should she so wish that the average Tswana, Peruvian or Bangladeshi has not?

  The highly influential political philosopher John Rawls believed the answer lies in political culture. His answer in The Law of Peoples, sounds like a version of a conservative American politician’s self-help, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps, take-responsibility philosophy. The Tswana, Peruvian and Bangladeshi, by this account, need to sort out the political culture in their country because all countries have the resources to reach a satisfactory level of ‘development’, and then they won’t have to migrate. Not only can they then stay put, but once they no longer pose the risk of not returning to their own place of origin, rich countries will grant them the privilege of visiting and spending their money on said rich countries’ tourism sector. I’ve added to it, but that seems to me to be Rawls’ general point, and it’s one that many, maybe most people in the rich world, share.

  I’m all for personal responsibility. And should an individual, a group, or a national culture have negative consequences, then it’s perfectly just to let them have to deal with those consequences. But I struggle to understand how anyone who has ever paid any attention to the world beyond their front door can believe that a nation’s condition is solely, even primarily the result of its culture. Take Ireland for example. It hasn’t been a closed system in which the only things that have really mattered to its trajectory have been internal. Nations are open systems, and a lot of national culture comes about as a result of external influences. And then, as Thomas Pogge brilliantly highlights, the global political economy is such that with all the will in the world, few nations can pursue the policies they want without first taking note of the external environment.

  Maybe that’s where the fork in the road lies with respect to migration and global justice more broadly. Some see the matter as predominantly local while others think the international context is decisive. That most of the former are the beneficiaries of the status quo and the latter the losers is telling of human nature, and that probably cuts both ways.

  So, if the material benefits of human labour are unevenly, and unjustly distributed, if the same is also true of natural resources, such that some places give up the resources around and beneath them for much less benefit than that accrued by those who take them, why shouldn’t people be allowed to follow the wealth? I completely understand and empathise with the concerns that some have over the effects of ‘mass migration’, but frankly, I think the right to follow the world’s resources trumps those concerns (empirical studies show that the average American consumes something like 6 times his share of the planet, the average European 4, and the African less than her full share).

  The real issue, of course, is global distributive and regulatory justice. But until that’s addressed, I can’t see there being a plausible moral argument against the right of the poor to follow their share of planet.

  Comments (21)

• Why we aren’t bothered

  February 28, 2010 @ 11:42 pm | by Bryan

  Breda O’Brien’s disturbing article, What happened to all the missing foreign children? demands, I think, an answer. She asks:

  Are we, as Phil Garland, HSE assistant national director for children and families, suggested, simply racist? … I can only imagine the resources that would be marshalled and the blanket media coverage if Irish children whom I teach went missing. Between 2000 and 2009 a total of 501 migrant children went missing from HSE care. Only 67 have been successfully traced.

  How is it that hundreds of children disappear from the state’s care, and almost no-one takes any notice? Does this simply boil down to racism or some variation of it? Or is it something else; the outworking of the same phenomenon that makes the death of a few individuals in The United States or Western Europe considerably more news worthy than the deaths of scores of poor rural Asians or Africans? The outworking of an accepted, albeit rarely acknowledged human life value index? The same index which confers some missing children and their families near celebrity status while leaving others in their anonymity?

  Maybe what’s really at work has more to do with the same things that allowed children to be abused by priests for so many years. Could it be that Irish culture, like many traditional African cultures, has an aversion to the discussion of unpleasant topics? Maybe, for the sake of ‘peace’, or something like that, we just don’t like to disturb the many with the difficulties of a few? And perhaps the secular variant of that culture is what informs the prevailing attitude towards gang violence, and criminality in general: provided it is contained, so long as it does not spill over into the nice parts of town or affect innocent people – while it remains out of sight in other words – we seem to be perfectly capable of living with the scourge.

  Before we collectively lost our minds, before power and the pursuit of material gain intoxicated much of Zimbabwe, people generally held the view that life was sacred. For some, this went so far as to believe that the lack of respect for the sanctity of life leads to all sorts of calamities, personal and collective, ranging from natural disasters like drought, to things like financial ruin.

  That a lack of respect for human life leads to ruin has been upheld in Zimbabwe. I think the same can be said for Ireland. Had the nation taken time out from its frenzied pursuit of development, progress, and wealth in order to look for missing children, to deal with allegations of clerical abuse, to focus on crime and the factors that give rise to criminality, and the like; had the priorities been different, who knows? There may never have been a financial collapse, or even a housing bubble for that matter. But as things stand, several hundred missing foreign children aren’t nearly as important as a few hundred potential Ryanair jobs, or speculation on the extent of the dysfunctionality of the FF/Green marriage. Not in Zimbabwe, Ireland, or very many places for that matter.

  That being the case, if the old folks back home are to be believed, we should all brace ourselves for disaster. Or, if you prefer Hobbes:

  Seeing every man, not only by Right, but also by necessity of Nature, is supposed to endeavor all he can, to obtain that which is necessary for his conservation; he that shall oppose himself against it, for things superfluous, is guilty of the war that thereupon is to follow.

  Comments (18)

• Cork, 3 years on

  January 28, 2010 @ 10:59 pm | by Bryan

  I moved to Ireland a little over 3 years ago, and lived in Cork City for close to a year. Honestly, my memories of the place aren’t pleasant. I don’t know whether that’s because Cork is a hard place to break into socially, or if I just transposed all my negative immigration experiences and feelings onto the city.

  I was asked to speak at an event in Cork last night and was definitely more nervous about seeing my old neighborhood than my speaking engagement. When I lived there, I was part of an invisible underclass. Well, invisible in one social sense, and a very obvious sore thumb in another. Immigration was a hot topic at the time, and a very emotive one at that. An unemployed black man killing time along Patrick Street during the week at 11 o’clock in the morning was the very image groups like the Immigrant Control Platform were fighting. I can’t even begin to compare my time in the city with the experiences of people in segregated America, but were it not for my time in Cork, I’m sure the following passage from W. E. B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk would have a different ring in my ears:

  Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half- hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.

  I didn’t feel like a problem last night. I wonder if that’s because having real problems tends to make you turn away from silly ones? Maybe the country’s current difficulties have brought perspective to the issues around immigration. Or maybe I’m just out of touch – part of the group Du Bois (wrongly in my opinion) calls the talented tenth; those minorities who have been assimilated into the mainstream.

  It’s probably a little of both. I was sad to leave Cork this morning because I feel less ‘other’ there now. Whatever the reason, I suppose immigration is one of those things that, at both the individual and collective levels, gets better with time.

  I’m left feeling pretty optimistic.

  Comments (15)

• Blame it on the immigrant

  November 24, 2009 @ 1:14 pm | by Bryan

  38 per cent of 18-24-year-olds would like to see most immigrants leave, compared to 23 per cent of over-65s.

  72 per cent of people want to see a reduction in the number of immigrants living here.

  43 per cent say they would like to see some, but not all, immigrants leave the State, while 29 per cent would like to see most immigrants leave.

  People in rural areas and those from less well-off backgrounds are also more likely to support a reduction in the number of foreign workers based here.

  40 per cent of those in the 18-24 age group say they are likely to emigrate.

  None of this is very surprising. Life in Ireland seems a little more uncertain than in previous years. People are rightly worried that there isn’t enough to go around. It makes sense then that there’s a desire to get rid of anyone who doesn’t have to be in the country – all those without a strong claim to a slice of the dwindling national pie.

  Fair enough. But what assumptions go into that thinking? When the 1,004 participants in this survey were picturing the typical immigrant, who did they have in mind? The typical immigrant in Ireland is someone from an EU-member state. Europeans, based on the last census, make us something like 70% of the immigrant population. Do the 38% of 18-24 year olds who want to see most immigrants leave really want to boot out the Brits, French, Germans, and Poles? And how does that square up against the finding that 40% of those in that same demographic want to emigrate?

  This period in Ireland’s history is in danger of going down as one huge wasted opportunity. Maybe a state of mass reflection and re-evaluation is too much to hope for when people are genuinely fearful of what the future will bring. But venting out at the usual suspects – the politicians, the wealthy, the immigrants, the trade unions… – how much good is that going to do? The country could expel every immigrant, politician, rich person, every union official and everyone else deemed to be responsible for the current state of things, but the underlying problems would remain.

  Shouldn’t those underlying problems be the focus of attention?

  Comments (53)

• Trying to see beyond my ghetto

  October 21, 2009 @ 11:50 am | by Bryan

  

  Malone Road, in the vicinity of Queen’s University Belfast. Photograph: Bryan Mukandi.

  Integration. I don’t think I’d heard that word as frequently as when I first moved to Ireland. ‘Integration’ seemed to be the word around which the country’s entire strategy on immigration, and a growing multiculturalism, would hinge. But for all that the word was thrown around, I don’t think anyone really knew what it meant, or how one goes about integrating. I suppose the civil servants who plucked it out of a dictionary – or more likely some other country’s policy paper – I suppose they decided the immigrants would figure it out.

  I’m having to figure out how to integrate all over again. Being an ‘international student’ at Queen’s (a category that officially includes citizens of the Republic of Ireland) is an interesting experience. It only takes days to be ‘integrated’ into the university community. It seems as though the area surrounding the university was purpose built for students. So without much effort, you can be part of a vibrant community that is predominantly populated by other students. It all leads, I think, to a very posh version of the ghettoisation that Irish policy-makers sought to avoid by promoting ‘integration’.

  I’m sure there are plenty of local students with dual citizenship. They get to be part of the posh ‘ghetto’ as well as living in the real world of Northern Ireland, posh or otherwise. For the average international student, that is seldom the case. Yesterday, someone suggested that I go on a Belfast bus tour if I want to see the ‘real Belfast’. My response was that I don’t like doing the tourist thing and would prefer to learn about the city and its inhabitants as they really are. At which point, a local guy told me that the closest I would get to knowing the city beyond ‘the ghetto’ would be the bus tour.

  Because of what is probably a sense of inadequacy, I don’t think of myself as a journalist. Having said that, I have the privilege of writing for a fantastic newspaper. And I spend most of my time in Belfast. It seems to me that the logical thing would therefore be to engage with the city and learn more about it than the tidbits tour operators serve to tourists.

  Here’s the question, how do I do that? How does one integrate into a place like Belfast where it’s infinitely easier to stay in one’s own ghetto? And if it’s a really posh ghetto, is it even worth trying?

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• Let’s all join the BNP?

  October 16, 2009 @ 12:57 pm | by Bryan

  

  British National Party leader Nick Griffin.

  Great news! Progress, tolerance and all of that. It looks like the British National Party (BNP) will finally start accepting non-whites! It makes perfect sense. What could be more convincing than a black guy or Asian woman telling other racial minorities that they are wrecking the lives of decent, hard working Anglo-Saxons and Celts, and that said minorities should leave Britain? Nick Griffin must be kicking himself for not coming up with the idea.

  Seriously though, that the BNP have been forced to remove their racial restrictions to party membership is good for progress. Granted, the first non-whites who join may have to tolerate all manner of verbal abuse. Personally, rational or not, I would be worried about a party zealot following me home and leaving me a welcome to the club gift, like a burning cross. But despite those challenges, I can only imagine that there will be no shortage of people previously excluded from the BNP, who will choose to join the group and ‘change it from the inside’.

  A multicultural BNP can only be less venomous than today’s version of the party. The worst elements of the group will leave when faced with prospect of sitting down with those they perceive to be the source of their troubles. And who knows, in time, the party may change beyond recognition, if it doesn’t shrivel up and die.

  Welcome to the mainstream BNP.

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• Puzzled

  October 15, 2009 @ 11:44 am | by Bryan

  I think I first heard about the plight of the ‘undocumented Irish’ in the United States about six months into stay in Ireland, and I was puzzled. In fact, I still am.

  I was puzzled because within a few weeks of my arrival here, I had learnt a new vocabulary that revolved around immigration. The words ‘illegal’, ‘problem’ and ‘asylum seekers’ were the most prominent and frequently used, but there were others. By my sixth month, I thought I had understood all there was to understand about Ireland’s take on immigration. Simply, where absolutely necessary, the skilled, and a chosen few among those who fled life threatening situations (and had the presence of mind to carry sufficient supporting documentation) could stay. Everyone else was essentially a problem.

  That line was, in my opinion, tough, unkind, verging on immoral even, but ultimately, just about justifiable. Enter Bertie’s pleas to the former US administration on behalf of the ‘undocumented Irish’ with the full backing of the Irish public. Following on in that tradition, Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin, who is currently in the US, was quoted yesterday as saying, “For us it is an important issue, given the fact that a number of Irish people have been undocumented for a very long time and it’s causing real trauma and hardship on families.”

  On this issue, I lean towards the side of St Augustine who said that an unjust law is no law at all. If a person cannot earn a decent living in Zimbabwe, I don’t think they should be criminalised for jumping over a fence and looking for work in South Africa. The same goes for the person who overstays their holiday in the United States because it offers them opportunities to make a living that they feel are absent in Ireland. I cannot condemn people who take these extreme measures, especially because I have never been in a situation in which I felt my options were so narrow that ‘criminality’ was the only way out.

  Having said that, I understand and appreciate the arguments of those who believe that a nation’s territorial integrity and laws should not be broken under any circumstance. Fine. What I don’t get is how they are ‘undocumented’ when they are your lot, and ‘illegal’ when someone else’s.

  I’m trying to picture the Irish response to a Nigerian delegation’s suggestion that not only should any ‘undocumented Nigerians’ in Ireland be given a path to citizenship, but that some bilateral temporary worker program should be implemented. I’m sure undocumented Nigerian, Indian and Iranian workers in Ireland are a source of as much ‘real trauma and hardship’ on their families as Irish ones are on theirs.

  Back to what puzzles me, how does the nation’s collective conscience square this issue up? How can there be simultaneous calls to intercede on behalf of the ‘undocumented’ Irish and calls to get rid of ‘illegal’ immigrants at home? How can those two terms even live side-by-side, ‘undocumented’ and ‘illegal’? And how can there be support in Ireland for US immigration reform that lets people in, while at home legislation is being advanced to keep people out?

  I’m puzzled.

  Comments (56)

• Belfast

  October 13, 2009 @ 9:58 am | by Bryan

  

  Last week, I moved to Belfast to study at Queen’s. Before that, my only other experience of the North had been a two day field-trip to Derry (I’m always amused by the politics of that city’s name – Derry or Londonderry depending on one’s political persuasion). To be honest, I was a little apprehensive.

  Let’s face it, the only time Northern Ireland gets any significant airtime or column inches in the Republic’s media is when something bad has happened. Someone has been shot, some group has threatened to take up arms, or some minorities are being abused. I suppose we could also throw in Bertie, or now Brian Cowen going over to meet someone, with that cordial meeting being taken as a sign of progress. But that just adds to the negative stereotype. How bad must a place be if having a cup of tea and a quiet chat with some of its leaders is seen as a sign of significant progress?

  It was with this baggage that I arrived in Belfast, only to be surprised by how normal a place it is. Granted, I spend almost all of my time in and around the university, but still… Belfast comes across as a perfectly normal place. It even seems like a pretty friendly place; much friendlier, in fact, than some parts of the South.

  In the short space of time that I’ve been here, only two things have alluded to its past. The first was an enlightening conversation with a retired PSNI (police) officer. I would share parts of it, but he seemed like the kind of person that could make me disappear, so I won’t. The other was Hillary Clinton’s visit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a concentration of armed people in bullet-proof vests in one place. And other than on TV, I had never seen police-officers on roof-tops monitoring events on the ground below. The atmosphere was festive, and when the US Secretary of State’s motorcade drove past, most people waved and cheered. Still, it wasn’t too hard to imagine a time when that kind of police presence would have been accompanied by a very different mood.

  Hopefully, by the end of my year in Belfast, I’ll understand the significance of statements like ‘The INLA has ended its armed struggle’ (I didn’t realise that there was still an armed struggle on). More fundamentally, since from what I can tell people here don’t discuss their politics or religion publicly, I’m curious about how Protestants and Catholics tell each other apart on the streets. I’d also like to know where the demographic known on official forms here as ‘belonging to neither the Catholic nor Protestant community’ fits in to the general scheme of things.

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• Ireland’s future immigration debate

  September 23, 2009 @ 1:05 pm | by Bryan

  Ireland is again experiencing net emigration. More people are leaving than are arriving on these shores. I wonder how that will colour the immigration debate going forward.

  When I first arrived here, I was struck by what I saw as inconsistencies in the immigration discourse. I remember there being optimism that Bertie Ahern would be able to come up with some settlement for the ‘undocumented Irish’ in America. At the same time, there was a chorus of voices calling for immediate action on the large number of Eastern Europeans in the state, and the removal of ‘illegal immigrants’. I soon came to realise that the ‘illegal immigrants’ concerned included asylum seekers, those granted refugee status, and on a bad day, anyone who looked like they were from a different part of the world (with the exception, of course, of Americans and Australians).

  Since then, a lot of public attention seems to have moved away from immigrants. That could be an artefact – similar to the way in which people who live on busy streets gradually learn to block out the sound of traffic. But I don’t think that is the whole story. I think it is, at least partially, a response to falling numbers of migrants and a preoccupation with more pressing matters. The fact that migrant workers are losing their jobs at a faster rate than their Irish born counterparts should keep the remaining immigrants off the list of top national priorities. Provided, that is, the foreign born do not become too much of a feature at social welfare offices and dole queues.

  How will the general public feel about immigration and immigrants in the coming months and years? After other Europeans returning home, Irish people trying their luck elsewhere represent the largest component of the new migration trend. I am tempted to believe that a country that is sending so many of its own abroad will be understanding of those who leave worse off places in search of a better life within its borders. Then again, this is the same country that referred to others as ‘illegal’ while calling its own ‘undocumented’.

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• Creating a revolving door?

  September 1, 2009 @ 5:20 pm | by Bryan

  At the end of last week, the Justice Minister announced that non-EU workers would be allowed to stay in the country for six months after losing their job. Previously, an immigrant on a work permit who was made redundant had three months to find alternative employment, or else leave the country. At the same time, employers could only hire non-EU workers for posts that had been advertised for at least eight weeks, during which EU candidates were sought. The minister also announced that those who have been on the work permit scheme for over five years would no longer need permits to live and work in Ireland.

  The new changes will be appreciated throughout the immigrant community. BUT, and it’s a big but, there is still a huge degree of uncertainty among migrants. It is as though the state has no idea what to do about us, and every now and again decides to make some new policy announcement, just to give the illusion of being on the ball. These shifting goal posts are a cause of no small amount of insecurity. So much so, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were an exodus of migrant workers in the future.

  While some might see that as a cause to celebrate, the people on work permits tend to be highly skilled, or from sectors in which there is a shortage of Irish workers. Wouldn’t it be ironic if, when the global economy turns around, Ireland finds itself again in the position of having to attract foreign labour? I can see it now – a debate in ten years on why there has been less progress than expected around immigrant integration.

  I wonder if anyone in my imaginary scenario will conclude that a set of policies that create a revolving door of migrants, as opposed to grafting them into Irish society, is at fault.

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