Struggling with how to view mass migration

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The other day we were with some liberal-minded friends who were excoriating Prime Minister Cameron for not taking in many more Syrian refugees into the UK. Leaving aside for the moment the practical logistical problems facing the EU –  the existing housing crisis,  jobs and schools, the fears of culture change, and the less than stellar integration of some previous immigrants –  their argument was that, along with countries like Japan, Western Europe faces an increase in the proportion of elderly people and an overall decline in population, and that this is bad for our economies.

My own feeling is that this too corporatist a  point of view, that is, companies want ever-increasing populations to maintain and grow their profits.  Whether there are the resources available matters less than growing numbers and, thus, sales.  On the other hand, I think we should concentrate, not on gross national product but on gross national happiness (both inexact measures, I know). What is actually wrong with a static or even falling population as long as real people live in reasonable prosperity and are happy?  It is the income per head that matters, and this requires jobs and a feeling of security and reasonable predictability.

Corporate interest meshes with religious teaching when it comes to population issues.  Faced with a possible world population of 11.3 billion by the century’s end, we have to get used to migration, maybe massive, from Africa and the Middle East; too many babies, too little thought (and too little family planning).  But can large numbers be absorbed?  Will taxpayers be content to fund new homes and schools when their own needs are not being met? The British government estimates that each refugee currently costs £23,000 in benefits, education, health etc  (£11,000 if they get a job)   We all feel for the poor, battered and displaced Syrians and accept that many are educated, skilled and middle class, and could make contribution.  But how do we handle the politics of it and why do sheer numbers of people in an economy really matter?

Your thoughts?

The perils of zealous parenting

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Emma Brown in the Washington Post (October 19 th) reports on the increasing problem of “helicopter parents” who are so anxious to see their gifted children succeed that they are on the phone, sometimes several times a day, advising their kids at university.

“They want  to help them by shepherding them from milestone to milestone, shielding them from failure and pain”.  But in doing so they do them no favours.  Parental intrusion robs the children of a chance to learn who they are, what they love, and how to navigate the world.  There is a documented rise in depression and other mental and emotional health probles, even suicides, caused by not allowing kids to fail and flounder – things that give you strength and resilence.

Our job as parents is  to put ourselves out of a job and make sure that our offspring can take of themselves.  Part of the problem is the admissions “arms race” involved in getting to universities like Stanford or Harvard.  But the reason behind this frenzy is mostly money, or the expectation of it.  Admission to top universities virtually guarantees a high income. But there  is more to life than all this stress and preoccupation with money.  Those who go through that mill end up  “breathless brittle and old before their time”.

As Epicurus is quoted as saying,  “Let us live while we are alive”.  At this time of life young people should be exploring what life has to offer. They should enjoy it.

The curse of nationalism

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I have just finished a book by Victoria Hislop called ” The Sunrise”.  It is a fictionalised account of how Cyprus became divided and thousands of Cypriots, both Greek and Turkish, lost their homes and possessions  in 1974, particularly in ancient Famagusta (now called Varosha).  In that year a coup against President Makarios by extremist supporters of union with Greece provoked an invasion by Turkish troops, ostensibly to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority.

One of my most precious memories was leading my regiment, fresh from England, a brass band playing, through the ancient port gate  of Famagusta. The gate was (is) so old that Anthony and Cleopatra would have processed through it into the  historic city. Shakespeare immortalised it in Othello, Act 2, Scene 1 .  It is now the prohibited entrance to a decaying city.

Now, looking back, I realise how we, the British, with our 30, 000 troops utterly failed to bring peace to Cyprus. We were fighting an idea. The culprit was nationalism and one simple, extreme idea – union with Greece, or enosis.  Cyprus has never been part of Greece, but never mind. Greek teachers from Athens radicalised a whole generation of Greek Cypriot children, and we failed to maintain the charming live-and-let live way of life between the two communities that had survived for centuries.  30,000 British soldiers failed to root out the small minority of  about 300 dedicated trouble-makers. Later our government washed its hands of the problem of the resulting refugees.  Everybody lost. The sheer ignorance and stupidity of the nationalists defies adequate description.

When  we arrived that day in  Famagusta we genuinely thought we could help. We were peacekeepers, but it turned out that we couldn’t fight an idea with guns and bullets.  It gave me a lifelong distrust of nationalism.  Moderation –  that is the answer. And to think – Epicurus, master of moderation – was a Greek.

 

 

 

Messing up a beautiful language

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Back in March an online petition calling on Italians to stop using English words (for which there are equivalents in their own language) gathered nearly 70,000 signatures . Italians should not squander the “history, culture and beauty of our language”, said the campaigners, who highlighted the growing use of clumsy hybrid terms such as “footing” (jogging), “baby parking” (crèche) and “mister” (football coach). The issue seems to be one of mounting concern: the Italian navy recently caused outrage by using the English slogan “Be cool and join the navy” on a recruitment poster, while the government ran into trouble for referring to a piece of legislation as “the jobs act” rather than “la legge sul lavoro”. (The Week)

Italian is a beautiful language. English is, too. But why undermine your own ancient culture by using these silly expressions? English has always adopted foreign words since the days of the Romans; it is expected. But the Italians have done less of it, until now. Their wonderful way of life is already under siege by the  influx of people. Were I Italian I would protest these pseudo-English importations, too.

Ending mass incarceration

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The United States has over 2 million people in jail.   It is home to 4.4 percent of the world’s population, and 22 percent of its prisoners.  The private-for-profit prison “industry” is a $70 billion industry.

The system is deeply immoral.  State governments guarantee private prison corporations an occupancy rate that will keep prison cells filled.  These companies charge exorbitant rates for prisoners to contact their families by phone, and outrageous service fees to prisoners trying to access their money upon release.  Prisoners work for pennies an hour on behalf of major corporations. The work is fine, but the profits made out of it are not.  This has all come about because the prison companies spend millions of dollars lobbying for laws that needlessly keep people behind bars for far too long.

Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation that will put an end to for-profit prisons, barring bar federal, state, and local governments from contracting with private companies who manage prisons, jails, or detention facilities. It requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to improve their monitoring of detention facilities and eliminate private detention centers within 2 years.  It reinstates the federal parole system so that officials can individually assess each prisoner’s risk and chance for rehabilitation. It also ends the immigrant detention quota, which requires officials to hold a minimum of 34,000 people captive at any given time!  Inbelievable! (information from the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign).  Prof. Mark Mazower of Columbia University asks, “Can one expect voters to object to indefinite detention without trial in Guantanamo when they acquiesce in sentences that condemn people to decades in solitary confinement or sentences that run into hundreds of years?University

I wouldn’t blame the foreign reader for thinking I was making up all this up; but I’m not. It   is wrong to profit from the imprisonment of non-violent human beings and the suffering of their families and friends. There seems to be a modestly bi- partisan drsire now to end  the era of mass incarceration, to treat people with dignity and to ensure that they have the resources to get back on their feet when they get out.  Recently, President Obama ordered the release of nearly 6,000 nonviolent offenders from federal prison, but a drop in the ocean of over 2 million prisoners, most of whom are non-violent; but it is a start.