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U-Know! Forum » 2m Immigrants? |
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Joe Chip 94 posts |
Aug 05, 2002, 17:49
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Whichever way, it's going to be a lot of additional urban sprawl in an already densely populated country.
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Aug 05, 2002, 18:02
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i'm an immigrant. Have been for most of my life. i've called 4 continents my home at one point or another, and haven't been a resident of my native country since i was a child. Yet i think that immigration is going to become a big problem for many nations, and for the world in general, over the coming decades. The gap between rich and poor nations is as wide as ever. All the same; so long as people can make an acceptable life for themselves in their home... so long as they have a roof above their heads, food on the table, and some kind of future for their kids to look forward to... they'll tend to stay within their own community. Emigration is therefore restricted to the adventurous, the ambitious or the misfit. However, as soon as the food gets short, or someone bombs your home, or the future offered your kids isn't too bright, then emigration becomes a palatable option for many more people and families. As more and more areas of 'the developing world' succumb to famine, or warfare, or the ravages of climate change (think of the recent flooding in Mozambique), then there are more and more people needing to find another place to live. If you're forced to uproot yourself and your family, to flee starvation or war, then you'll head for the places with the best chance of providing for yourself and family. Places with decent medical care (you think the NHS is bad? i suspect it appears near-miraculous in comparison with the local health provision in Mozambique after the floods). Places that should have enough money to go round. The trouble is, those wealthy places are already creaking under the weight of their bloated societies. The 'western lifestyle' is unsustainable. Each of us living in the wealthy industrial nations consumes far more than our "fair share" of global resources. We do this at the expense of those living elsewhere, of course; i'm not hiding that fact - more like illustrating it. So an immigrant from Mozambique (i'm not "picking on" Mozambique by the way, quite the opposite; i just happened to see a documentary about life there after the floods, and figured if ever any people had a good reason to emigrate it was those folk) even at the lowest rung of the wealth ladder in the 'first world'; immediately becomes part of the global resource depletion problem (rather than one of its victims). The Europe / US / Australasian way of life is killing the planet. i think most of us agree with that here. i am *NOT* proposing some kind of anti-immigration thing here... i don't think we natives of the wealthy areas have any more right to be squandering global resources than anyone who emigrates to join the party. Far from it. i'm just pointing out that every additional human being who becomes part of this way of life (at whatever level) is contributing to our most serious problem. Those deluded unimaginative fools who think they are dealing with the problem by restricting immigration, are in fact completely missing the entire point. The solution? i have a theory. . . . . . but it's not solid enough to publish just yet.
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Aug 05, 2002, 20:05
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Is an extra 2 million people arriving each year in Britain wise from a cultural and/or demographic view? Well, whether it's wise culturally is probably a subjective thing. Depends what kind of culture you want, i guess. And it depends on how much those arriving are willing to adapt to the local culture, and how much the local culture is willing to adapt to meet their needs, and whether that process can be done peacefully and amicably. Certainly i don't personally see any reason why people from whatever cultural background can't coexist harmoniously... finding strength in the things they share, and gaining wisdom from their differences. i've encountered Irish communities in North Africa, South America, Southern Europe and the United States. In all cases there's a willing embrace of the local culture, a desire to feel at home in this new venue, but without any necessity of loss of identity. So my personal experience of living overseas has been a generally positive one from the aspect of dealing with the local culture. Now, i'm just not nationalistic enough to believe that this ability to peacefully coexist with other cultures is unique to the Irish. i like to believe it's a human thing. People, when allowed to acknowledge their shared humanity, will generally get on with one another. And my subjective belief is that this cultural exchange is indeed a positive and wise thing for us to be doing. That you can point to myriad examples of cultural / ethnic / religious intolerance around the world and within the UK is - i believe - just what happens when people cease acknowledging their shared humanity. Without empathy people are liable to get vindictive, and to lash out at those they perceive as different. They do this rather than deal with the emotional problem / blockage that is denying them the empathy to see beauty in, and learn from, those differences. Whether the influx of immigrants is wise from a demographic point of view can be answered with less florid psychobabble thankfully. Fact is, the population of the UK is getting older. The postwar baby-boomers didn't have nearly as many kids as their parents, and the generation they spawned are having even less. Coupled with significant increases in average lifespan, this means that the demographic balance is tipping sharply. Retired people who use the NHS or get a pension aren't drawing on the taxes they themselves paid as workers; they are drawing on the taxes being paid by current workers. As the proportion of retired people to workers rises, so the economics of the welfare state start to break down. This is just statistics; it makes no odds if you're a libertarian capitalist or a red-leaning socialist; fact is an ageing population is difficult to sustain economically (unless you ask people to work longer; which i'm totally opposed to... people should be retiring earlier, not later!) The solution is - of course - to import labour. The United States is further along this road than we are in Europe, and it's funny to watch the Republicans on the one hand vent spleen against those shiftless illegal immigrants, and on the other quietly up the number of "migrant workers" to deal with this demographic imbalance. That said, 2 million extra people (anyone know how many people leave annually? What is the actual *net* influx?), many of whom will be from the 'developing world' and will therefore be taking a step up the global-resource-usage ladder (see my previous post regarding that), does seem like an awfully high number. It's the population of London every four years. Jeez! A new London every 4 years? That just can't be sustainable.
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Aug 05, 2002, 20:11
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It's 2 million per decade, innit? Not per year. D'oh! Still, all my ranting about ageing populations and cultural empathy is still relevant i think. And i don't think a new London every 40 years is sustainable either, as it happens. i mean, i don't think the one we have now is sustainable!
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MonkeyBoy 1008 posts |
Aug 05, 2002, 21:48
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If the third world debt was sorted out and we stopped supplying dodgy regimes with arms then immigration wouldn't be half the problem it is. Sorry can't supply stats on this one, it just makes sense thats all!
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Nat 1905 posts |
Aug 06, 2002, 09:30
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*Don't be so PC* you say!!! Bloody hell I only said I don't personally like the word immigrant... jeez...!! Wish I hadn't said anything now.... I also don't like the words prodigy, shark, maggot, petrol and many more!!! ;o) Last time I post anything up here I think.... Nat x
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necropolist 1689 posts |
Aug 06, 2002, 09:59
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but what the hell
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Joe Chip 94 posts |
Aug 06, 2002, 11:59
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One point I'd like to make here is that the immigrants who would be coming in would be at the bottom of the wage ladder, so we wouldn't get much money out of them we could use for pensions. Furthermore, they themselves would need pensions at some point. I think the Chinese describe this as "useless mouths".
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Aug 06, 2002, 12:09
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I thought you were going to say something about some VERY tall foreigners coming to live in the UK. :-)
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Aug 06, 2002, 12:24
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What you have to be careful of is the 'Brain Drain' factor. Most people leaving the UK are heading for more or equally affluent countries. Ireland is actively encouraging immigration (yes, I'm an immigrant), but they are being quite choosy. This means the more *skilled* work force disappears. Ireland's population has grown by 500,000 in the last 3 years - that's nearly 15%!! And they want the same again in the next 5 years - assuming the economy doesn't do a total nose dive. However, with so many people unwilling to do the dirtier jobs you have to accept that people will be shipped in. I personally would be very snobbish and would have had a real personal battle with myself if the only work was a dustbin man. I thoroughly appreciate the great job done by these wonderful people, but I would have struggled to have done the job myself (three cheers for bin men!)
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