By Andrew L. Urban
A decade ago I reflected on how “Millions of people are taking life threatening journeys to seek new lives in the West. Some are indeed fleeing life threatening persecution at home. But many of the millions (over 50 millíon according to the UN in 2014) are seeking a better quality of life. They are usually referred to as economic refugees and mostly come from the Middle East or Africa. Many have few if any skills that will help them into jobs in Paris, Berlin, London or Sydney – not even language skills in many cases.”
That observation is still valid but since then, we should include all the cities in America, swamped by millions of illegal migrants, thanks to the 2020-2024 Biden administration. Los Angeles is burning as rioters are attacking law enforcement, activists demand that illegal migrant criminals be above the law … senior politicians and even judges are supporting and aiding illegal migrants evade capture, despite some of them being murderers and child sexual abusers.
The existential moral challenge for Western democracies is how to respond – and its far more complicated than what basic humanitarian notions might propose.
Absorbing large numbers of financially dependent refugees and illegal migrants poses two immediate problems for host countries:
1) the soaring, long term cost of housing, feeding and medicating millions of refugees, from the already strained state revenues provided by reluctant taxpayers and national economies squeezed by a variety of circumstances;
2) the expansion of ghettos of unemployed, unemployable refugees, young or not, fermenting like explosive chemicals, feeling entitled to support but unable to contribute, alienated and vulnerable.
There is virtually no universally accepted requirement for social integration, to make matters even more complicated.
There is an argument that Western democracies can afford and are morally obliged to help such refugees & illegal migrants. They are endowed with all kinds of rights … But this argument is in a reality vacuum. Is there a limit on the numbers? The numbers are exploding in Europe as well as the US. Who decides where to draw the line? What about the poverty stricken, unemployed or indigenous disadvantaged of the host countries? Do they not warrant charity to begin at home, and that share of resources increasingly going to economic migrants? What moral rights do economic refugees have over hosts? The sheer scale of it is overwhelming, as mass migration expands on its own momentum, deaths on the journeys notwithstanding.
Further questions arise as time passes, as it already has: when minority groups grow and become pressure groups, will they skew public policy as vote-chasing officials pursue their wishes – like Australia’s emerging Muslim Vote? When migrant groups present profoundly conflicting cultures within the host societies, what then? For example, should Sharia law be accepted in a Judeo-Christian society?
The moral question is so complex it defies simplistic answers. It is an imperative question for democracies because without working out how to respond to this challenge, democracies will inevitably begin to weaken- as they already have. Once homogenous communities are now increasingly multicultural, but not in a good way. Tensions are splintering communities and even entire societies. The UK and France are sad examples. The basic concept of a dress code, for example, has divided French society viz Muslim clothing. The confusion about what is or is not reasonable is driven by the confusion about religious freedom as it intercuts with the social fabric (pun not intended). *
In an ideal world, there should be no need for a legal ban on the burqa in public anywhere in the world; full face veils should be voluntarily discarded as a matter of respect where the culture of the host country calls for it. Western residents and even visitors are required to abide by dress codes and social customs in Muslim countries.
Dress codes are an integral part of our cultural communication and cohesion, confirming – within fairly broad limitations – the acceptance of and adherence to the values by which the host society lives. That is one of the responsibilities balancing the right to enjoy the benefits of the host society.
The question can be boiled down (if oversimplified) to whether Western democracies are willing to welcome the desperate refugees from the rest of the world, whose heroic struggle to reach their hosts are emotional bombs but whose contributions are limited. Will these citizens share their wealth, degrading their own quality of life in the process, for such a humanitarian end result? Yea or nay, how will governments deal with the matter?
The Australian experience offers no answers, no solutions, no methods of managing such issues. Oversized migration to Australia is causing the same challenges – to the economy and to social cohesion – as it does elsewhere.
Conflicting demands of democracy – conflict between the needs of the hosts and the refugees, for a start – are making this the greatest threat to democracies because there is no ‘right’ answer; there is not even an evident ‘right’ way to manage the issue, never mind resolve it, if resolve means to stop it happening.
In return for refuge and support, what responsibilities can the Western hosts ask of refugees and migrants to shoulder? Can the ongoing welfare support be maintained? Is it really the right thing to do morally? Whose rights are more equal?
But it isn’t the naive and needy migrant or genuine refugee who poses the greatest threat to democracy: it is the secretive political movers and shakers behind them, exploiting the circumstances, weaponizing the professional legal supporters, bank rolling the professional agitators to generate chaos. That is the even more important question. We shouldn’t be surprised if the answer turns out to identify political enemies of our democracy.
Could one of the answers to that question be found on the steps of the Sydney Opera House on October 8, 2023, when rioters reacted to the Hamas attack on Israel – clearly migrants of some kind – edged close to anarchy screaming support for Hamas and hateful, violent insults at Jews?
*A Muslim perspective: “Few are aware that the conservative Damascene jurist, Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328), discouraged Muslims living in majority non-Muslims lands to dress in a manner that was distinct from their compatriots. In his mind, conspicuously religious garb could prejudice non-Muslims towards a true understanding of Islam’s universal message.” – April 19, 2011, Reflections on France’s Ban on the ‘Burqa’: An American Muslim’s Perspective, by Abid Quereshi
Andrew L. Urban was a refugee in Britain after the Hungarian revolution and a decade later became a migrant to Australia.