Safe, what is safe? When are you perceived to be safe versus actually safe, is safe the same for everyone? Is it safe to jump into the maelstrom or is it safer to sit quietly and accept? Should the refugee have stayed and tried to create safety or is traveling to a new perceived safety the better choice?
Recently, I was presented with the idea that this world is in the process of transitioning from a 19th century world to a 21st century world and we are witnessing the pangs of growth. This is an idea I can get behind, as it includes the demise of that insidious ogre Nationalism and his companion closed borders. I know that change is hard; I have lived through some incredible historical moments of great hope only to see society slip back into the same patterns-again, progress lost. Or was it?
Throughout history humans with the means have been able to move freely in the pursuit of trade and/or work. That is until the late 1800s.The first President of the United States stated “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.” [1] Limitations on this statement of welcome by George Washington were not long in coming. In 1882 the first major law restricting immigration was enacted in the USA. This was the Chinese Exclusion Act signed into law by President Chester Arthur as a reaction to the familiar fears of job displacement and wage pressure. [2]
Sixty nine years later the after effects of two major wars left Europe so devastated that rules stating how refugees would be treated were codified both in the United Nations Universal Bill of Human Rights and in the 1951 Refugee Convention and its accompanying 1967 Protocol. The intent was to provide a safety net in times of crisis. Most of the industrialized western countries are signatories of this document.
As a result refugees now have a definite and a clear set of protections “guaranteed”. They, theoretically, have a path to safety and a stated right of non-return if their life is endangered in their homeland. In the late 1970’s Haitian’s fled the dictatorship of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and sailed for the USA. Then President, Jimmy Carter, initiated a policy allowing Cubans and Haitians to apply for asylum if they had entered before 10/10/1980, after that date they would be incarcerated and deported which is in contravention of both the UN Universal Bill of Rights and the 1951 Refugee Convention. In 1981 President Ronald Regan redefined Haitian status from refugee to economic immigrant and started the interdiction of Haitian boats which continued for the next decade. 1992 saw a violent military coup in Haiti and tens of thousands of Haitians fled for the US seeking political asylum. Sitting President H.W. Bush used the excuse that there were no human rights violations going on in Haiti so the US was a no go for those Haitians seeking political asylum. 37,000 Haitian were either repatriated or detained in the first use of Guantanamo Bay as a Detention facility, a harbinger of things to come. Clearly those “guarantees” had little meaning in practical application and the flight to “safety” was not a journey to freedom or a better life.
The next President to take office was sympathetic to the Haitian situation and was on record as willing to reverse the standing policies. This had many Haitians waiting for election results in the US and building boats for the journey. When Bill Clinton took office he was told there were approximately 700 Haitian boats waiting to depart for US shores. As President, Clinton found the choice of safety a bit more complex than when on the campaign trail and opted for a “safe” for the US path and reinstated the previous administrations Haitian policies. As President Obama said December first of 2015, what you do as President is very different from what you say you will do when you are not the President.
These actions were taken by the US, a country of immigrants. These actions contravened the United Nations Universal Bill of Rights and the Refugee Convention, both of which we publicly say we support-and then repeatedly show the words have no relevance. At this time, the US is planning on deporting families back to violence ridden Central America. [3] Routine contravention of the Refugee Convention is now occurring daily across the EU and Turkey with forced “repatriations” and the accepted use of detention centers.
Ask a refugee what they want and the first thing they will tell you is safety. They want a safe place for their family and then themselves. The next is opportunity for education. Yet, in their quest for safety and opportunity the refugee creates a feeling of insecurity in those already in safe quarters.
It seems safety has a different meaning depending on where you are sitting when you think about the word. Propaganda plays a part in an individual’s perception of what safety constitutes. Sitting in a bombed out house waiting to see if your husband/father/son makes it home from getting bread and water engenders a far more basic definition of safety than an American or European citizen watching a media frenzy based on conjecture with no facts and then taken by politicians to use as fodder for fear. The media fed Westerner is told that a refugee family, who finally decides it is time to run before anymore members are lost, is coming to take JOBS and they might do “bad things” even though reality says otherwise. Two perceptions of safety, one is real, one is a manufactured reality based on manipulation. However, it must be remembered that perception generates its own reality and this knowledge is the lynch-pin of propaganda manipulation by politicians universally.
Politicians manipulate the two sides of one coin, that coin is safety. Is it safe to open borders and provide succor to those fleeing violence? Is it safe to close borders and deny the chance at life itself to those on the Refugee Road? Little regard is given to actual long term humanitarian needs or solutions. An industrialized western political policy of deterrence will not stop the exodus from Near Asia and Africa. These flights only increase as native resources are depleted and global climate change makes local conditions unacceptable. The past has demonstrated safety is not achieved by a failure to understand why an exodus occurs. The axiom “ignorance is bliss” will only last until the tides of war wash over all as history tells us WILL happen.
[1] G. Washington:Excerpt from address to Irish Immigrants
[2] Chinese Exclusion Act,1882
[3] American Immigration Council Central American Deportation plan Dec.2015