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Friday, September 01, 2006
Out of Africa - Illegal Immigrants, Crime, Terrorism, Polygamy And Aids
To be honest, if you can get all the way through this exceedingly long article / paper on the current problem of illegal immigration - without requiring treatment for depression, succumbing to the temptations to lock yourself away in a castle, or just to end it all, then you are a stronger person than I. :)
But, for those who want all the facts and opinions on the problem that is facing the Canary Islands, Europe and the world, then this is a large part of the story.
To put it into perspective, 240,000 illegal African immigrants entering Europe each year does sound like a huge number. Amongst the many millions of European residents, it's not like we are overrun yet. Yes, there are crime implications, but you can find plenty of criminals amongst "our own" too.
Immigration does present a special problem for the Canary Islands, simply because of the limited resources a territory this small can be expected to have to deal with it. That would make the 20,000 or so who have made it to the Canary Islands so far this year pale into insignificance, if it were not for the physical and logistical limitations. That number, of course, has risen in large part because controls had been made better, stopping them from using other routes.
How one solves that, because every time you close one avenue, it only forces the immigrants to open another route, I just don't know. Any border controls just end up being band-aids. The whole world has to address the causes.
Despite all the fears, the doom and gloom, I cannot let go of two thoughts:
One, the desperate immigrants are fellow human beings. What are they doing that we would not do if "the boot were on the other foot"? Secondly, since man himself hailed from Africa many hundreds of thousands of years ago, you could say that we are all result of people who did exactly as these guys are doing now. Why is it OK in a history book and suddenly wrong when it doesn't suit?
What does really worry me and, which is very apparent from the article, is the growth in racism it's creating. Fear makes people irrational. Take the situation on these islands. Very few, if any, Africans remain here after their 40 days "quarantine" in the retention centers. Most are transferred to the mainland.
It is therefore, utterly irrational to worry about the African boat-people phenomenon in terms of it's effect on everyday life. But the subject of immigrants is NEVER off the lips of the local people. They worry about diseases from the Africans, but, maybe once they realize that the Africans don't stay, transfer their fear to those outsiders who do. British are not really "foreigners", since we are European, but don't think that matters to ordinary people.
Now, I'm not going to remind anyone how much Britain has contributed to the fortunes of these islands throughout history, because we have done plenty of damage too. But for as long as I have lived here, in areas where Canary Islanders have come across a lot of British tourists, not a few have treated us with contempt. Given the animal like behaviour of some of our drunken brethren, I can hardly blame them, but it is still wrong to make such generalizations or (as they do) to assume that we are all rich and hike prices accordingly.
Both of those things were part of the reasons I moved from south to north on this island, away from the people who just saw me as someone to take advantage of.
Fortunately, by the time Britain threw in with the US over the war in Iraq, most people in this area already knew where I stood. I still seriously considered putting up "Guerra NO!" (No War) posters, just to make sure no one was under any misapprehension and, I have made a point of discussing my views.
So far, so good. I've mostly been allowed to live in peace these seven years.
Only last Sunday, I took myself off on a nice little relaxed excursion by bus. After a very pleasant lunch and walk, I was getting the bus back to the valley.
There was a group of four people, from Santa Cruz, in their 60's doing much the same thing. They wanted to the bus to Icod (which fair enough was what the bus number said it was), but when they found out that it was going up to Las Portelas, basically said, "Oh, well lets get on that anyway and have a look around."
"We" friendly locals in this area all talk to one another on the bus, so I thought I was being helpful pointing out to this Santa Cruz woman that there was, in fact, going to be a fiesta parade in Las Portelas that very afternoon.
Know what she did? Snubbed me. Looked right through me and ignored me.
She heard me. My Spanish is GOOD, but I can't help looking English.
Well, low and behold, some five minutes later, the group are engaged in animated conversation with the bus driver about immigrants. For reasons that should be obvious (i.e. my benefit) this woman chose to make a statement that "there will be English everywhere". And Dutch, according to the driver!
If you don't think this problem needs tackling before this becomes widespread, more threatening than just a few ignorant comments, or racism doesn't worry you, wait until you're on the receiving end. My opinion is that even if guests are unwelcome, treat them nicely and they will, mostly, just live quietly and cause no trouble. Provoke us to react and, don't be surprised when we do.
Out of Africa - Illegal Immigrants, Crime, Terrorism, Polygamy And Aids
