Refugees & Population Movements

Homo Sapiens began their migration out of Africa about 60,000 years ago. That should make us think on many levels. For a start we are obviously all descended from what were, presumably, black Africans. So racial discrimination seems rather silly & pointless. At that time there were no borders. There was just land & hunter gatherer people. Borders are a human construct. The first border was established in 1278 for Andorra. Our present system is only 350 years old. The British and French drew the modern borders of the Middle East, the borders of Africa, in Asia after the independence of the British Raj and French Indochina and the borders of Europe after World War I as victors, as a result of the Paris treaties. 

Now we build walls & have armed soldiers on border crossings. We spend vast amounts of money trying to keep people in or out. People have always moved around to try to improve their life chances. People are aspirational & often brave. Trying to stem the tide of population movement, for whatever reason, goes against an inherent instinct in people. If life conditions are bad, we try to make them better. We don't just accept. It's a survival instinct, not just for the individual, but for the generations to follow.

If you accept my premise, you have to seriously consider the validity of what countries & governments are doing today in the face of population movements due to war, dictatorships, climate change, famine & lack of the basic necessities of life. We must find a way to deal with this equitably because it is going to get worse. The world is more unstable than for a very long time. Instability due to War, Famine & Climate Change is not going to go away. Some places on earth are going to be uninhabitable.

I have no faith in the United Nations ability to deal with this for two main reasons. Firstly there is a worrying amount of corruption in the UN. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/jan/22/united-nations-development-programme-undp-bribery-claims-iraq-aid-project  I also think that the fact that countries like Russia & China have the power of veto means that decision making is flawed & voting always results in compromise & inaction. Not particularly happy about the USA veto either.

I'm not a politician. But I think I'm reasonably intelligent. It seems to me that the present course of action is unsustainable & will ultimately cause even more death, destruction & upheaval. Maybe that is desirable to some? Are we, individually, going to tolerate living with the impact of that on other people who want the same good life that we have? Personally I can't.

I don't know if my solution is viable. But for what it's worth, this is it.

I think that trying to get a truly international agreement about dealing with population migration in a humane & equitable way is impossible. So I think we should focus on getting an agreement in Europe. Our lives are ruled by algorithms. Surely it is possible to consider factors like habitable land mass, population size, demographics, infrastructure, wealth & resources and come up with a plan for the assimilation of migrants in a fair way. Each country should take the number of migrants as determined by the calculation. Some countries, like Germany, need migrants because of their demographics. Some countries, like the UK have a relatively small land mass & are islands, so goods have to be imported.

We need fresh thinking. Now. Before this extremely difficult problem results in civil unrest or worse.