Part of scene at Keleti Rail Station in Budapest, Hungary - a few days after we left.
It was on the evening of Sept. 2nd, 2015, that we learned that thousands of migrants - mainly Syrian refugees - were flooding into Keleti train station in Budapest. The grim scenes televised over the BBC into our hotel room were not encouraging, with thousands occupying the station - and mats, people spread all over. The word "bedlam" perhaps best described what we beheld.
After grabbing an early breakfast on Sept, 3rd, we went to the front desk to checkout, hoping to arrive at Keleti by no later than 9.55 a.m. to avoid any delays or confusion. But Lili, the amiable hotel front desk manager, informed us that the station has been totally shut down - no trains running at all. Period. The existing chaos featured tens of thousands of migrants attempting to board trains to Western Europe on their own, forced the authorities' decision.
By now we know the end result of that mass panic migration, which saw Angela Merkel's Germany taking in nearly 1 million immigrants, triggering enormous impacts - not only in Germany but across Europe. (cf. WSJ, ' Europe Raises Barriers To Immigration', June 30- July 1, p. A6). To sum up: Merkel's right centrist party (CDU) which formed a governing coalition with the Bavarian CSU, is on the ropes (cf. 'Merkel Faces Showdown With Coalition Partners', Financial Times today) splitting with the CSU's Horst Seehofer, over migrant issues. According to the FT account, "if the two fail to bury the hatchet, Horst Seehofer said he will resign, a move that would mark a historic rupture in the center right of German politics."
This is happening even while Right wing, anti-immigrant governments have come to power in Austria, Italy and been powerfully re-elected in Hungary - with Viktor Orban..
In addition, the EU has been forced by popular pressure to consider diverting the incoming migrant masses, shifting the processing of asylum claims to African countries. African nations themselves have been reluctant to host what the EU calls "disembarkation platforms" fearing they could become magnets for migrants and targets of jihadists.
The disembarkation platform concept itself is inspired by a model long adopted by Australia, i.e. in which thousands of migrant boats have been turned back and sent to 3rd country centers run by local authorities. In other words, the Aussies have no more stomach to deal with processing migrant asylum requests themselves. Like Pontius Pilate, they are washing their hands of the problem. Naturally, the Aussie solution has prompted international outrage (ibid.)
European leaders, mindful of the Australian experience, have assured one and all that the disembarkation platforms will be operated in UN- approved centers within African and other 3rd party nations. The "bloc has also pledged 500 million euro (about $580 m) to support African countries in managing migrations and to create a new fund to support border security".
The long and short of it is that migrants from whatever nation are getting hostile receptions on both sides of the Atlantic - as well as in the Pacific (with the Australians). Put bluntly, the world doesn't want migrants. Not now, not ever. The "prosperous" world nations, at least, believe they can keep their quality of life if they prevent their borders from being traversed by millions of "others". This is magical thinking, to be sure.
In the U.S. we learned ('Shifts In The Search For Asylum', WSJ, op. cit., p. C4):
"The policy makers who crafted the 1980 Refugee Act never imagined that within a generation the U.S. would have a vast asylum bureaucracy ."
But they should have, given the exploding global population which must be linked to exploding mass migrations. It is common sense that if overall human numbers grow out of resource bounds in too many overpopulated, economically stressed nations, those numbers will overflow into other nations less besieged by problems.
The author of the piece, Maria Cristina Garcia, also noted:
"From 1973 to 1980, only 23, 722 requested asylum....A decade later petitions for asylum increased dramatically due to political turmoil in Haiti and civil wars in Central America."
Noting that in the years from 1980-1991, 400,000 requested asylum.
Apart from the political instability let's note how the human numbers have changed in those cited years. For example, 3.9 billion populated the planet in 1973, compared to 4.4 billion in 1980. But then by 1990 it was 5.2 billion. All other things being relatively equal one would expect an increase in migrants as well as asylum seekers given the added population. Flash forward now to 2015, the year of the great influx of Syrian and other refugees into Europe and we find the world at 7.4 billion - or 2.2 billion more people than in 1990. Why wouldn't there be vastly more migrants, asylum seekers?
The false assumption of global planners is that nations ought to remain in population equilibrium and hence not see a third or more of their populations fleeing to 'greener pastures.' But we know this isn't the case, and any nation can devolve into civil war or other instability if the right confluence of factors emerges, such as they did in Syria. Let us also process the U.S. has had a major role in a lot of the incipient political instability over the years, especially in Central America. For example, in 1954, the U.S. overthrew the democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, leading to 200,000 civilian deaths and endless strife. Arbenz sought to nationalize the vast banana plantations of United Fruit – but was ousted in a U.S. engineered coup (“Operation PBSUCCESS”) in 1954. See :
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/
The U.S. also, in 1977, backed the bloodthirsty military regime in El Salvador, leading to 70,000 civilians massacred and paving the way for the internal strife and drug linked gangs operating with impunity now. Then starting in 1981, the Reagan administration trained and funded the 'Contras" in Nicaragua, leading to 30,000 civilian deaths and much civil upheaval. In many ways, therefore, the U.S. could be said to have a direct responsibility to care for those fleeing the violence in Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
Will things get worse, and mass migrations vastly increase? Of course, because the most vulnerable nations are seeing the largest population increases, combined with severe resource depletion, including food crops (much of this from climate change). Overpopulation in the African continent is especially worrisome, as it ought to be to Europeans who fret over the numbers of asylum seekers liable to drown in risky crossings.
In the WSJ piece, 'Humans Lions Struggle to Co-Exist', Aug. 8-9, 2015, p. A7, it was noted:
"Africa's human population is the fastest growing in the world. In roughly the same period as the lion decline (42 percent over 21 years), the number of Africans has doubled to nearly 1.2 billion people. The population will double again to 2.5 billion by 2050 according to the United Nations."
In fact, short of a global catastrophe - say like an Avian flu pandemic or airborne Ebola - it is projected to reach 5.8 billion by 2100. That means nearly 1 of every 2 people on Earth will be African. Where will the resources be to support them? The jobs? The water? The life quality? Even if those billions are fortunate to have wise leaders with the best intentions, resource scarcity - including from enhanced climate change - is likely to defeat them, certainly without vast economic support.
Fact is, that the current global population growth is unsustainable and means either vast numbers will perish, likely of disease, war or famine - or they will do everything they can to go to places with greater opportunity and resources- like Europe and the U.S. By 2030, with the global population at nearly 8.8 billion, there will emerge total overshoot by one whole planet - that is, we will require an entire extra Earth's worth of resources, e.g.
This means we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us by 2030, a physical impossibility. Given the stress on African (and Central American, SE Asian) nations will be even greater, there will likely be migrant flows on the order of 200-400 million per year compared to the 68.5 million this year, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency which released its annual report 2 weeks ago. The UN report noted refugees pouring out of diverse places, nations including: Syria, Myanmar, Congo and Venezuela.
Ms. Garcia, author of the last cited WSJ piece, correctly points out there are now "few opportunities for lawful entry" for Central American refugees, and the U.S. now - under Trump - takes a dim view of whatever excuses most have to offer for coming. Basically, traversing Mexico to escape economic hardship simply doesn't cut it and U.S. immigration law "gives priority to those with financial means, education and skills necessary to the U.S. economy"
This is pretty well what Australia also demands, and what the EU is liable to require soon. In other words, it's a tall order for refugees from any stressed nation to gain entrance to a more developed, economically secure or prosperous one.
What is the solution given the immense increase in numbers leading to overshoot day by 2030? It is emphatically NOT to increase human numbers purely for economic purposes as some knot headed economists have proposed. People need to grasp that by reproducing to appease a warped economic system they are merely perpetuating gross economic inequality by helping to sustain a vast pool of surplus labor. If this numbers game is encouraged worldwide we are asking for a mass migration problem that will make the current one look like a walk in the park. (If labor is needed in the more prosperous nations, the OECD reports there are nearly 230m under or unemployed workers in its constituent nations. Also, there are millions of Central American, African and other immigrants willing to do the jobs Americans and Europeans won't, such as construction, landscaping, and farm labor.)
What to do? If the U.S, EU, Australia and other centers of greater relative prosperity are serious in their unwillingness to take in millions more refugees they need to dispense more effective artificial contraception and on a scale that dwarfs what is presently available, This will be most focused on the poorest regions - with fewest resources- which can least afford more population stress.
This move is dictated by several propositions:
1) Human resources cannot sustain numbers at the overshoot level or even half the overshoot level
2) If those numbers increase, then concomitant mass migrations will as well
3) Since few newly reproduced people will be admitted to existing "prosperous" nations - without negatively impacting them - a solution to limit future population growth must be implemented.
4) If any nations or its leaders claim to oppose mass-dispensed artificial contraception then they are effectively saying they will accept the overflow migrant numbers, so the stressed nations "need not worry".
5) Nations cannot at the same time be against mass birth control programs AND mass migration!
If you are unwilling to limit the numbers on our planet, for whatever "moral" or other reason, you have no choice but to accept responsibility for the vastly added numbers of migrants - whatever their cause- because of your opposition!
It's time the moralizers who spout off about "protecting life" and even argue against birth control, take moral ownership for their decisions and policies.
See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jim-hightower/79930/a-wall-wont-fix-immigration
And:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jeff-biggers/79932/trump-is-following-arizona-s-playbook-on-immigration-we-know-how-to-fight-back
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