Eternal scapegoats

UNESCO Courier, Nov, 1998 by Antonio Cruz

Vulnerable and 'different', immigrants are easy targets when their host countries experience hard times

No major industrialized country can in good faith deny the contribution of immigrant labour to its prosperity, not even "impenetrable" Japan with its some 300,000 clandestine workers. Hardly any of their construction projects could have materialized without immigrant labour. Nevertheless, despite today's fast pace of globalization, increasing migration movements and the accelerating tendency towards cosmopolitan societies, immigrant workers are still perpetual and universal scapegoats, no more shielded in this respect than their predecessors a century ago.

The intensity of exploitation and rejection may have diminished in certain countries, but as always the immigrant worker is only admitted to so-called "host countries" in order to satisfy labour demand and later discarded, very often like a paper handkerchief which has served its purpose. Even people of immigrant origin may take part in this rejection; those who have once been exploited can themselves become formidable exploiters. The human reality of immigration continues to be neglected. The migrant worker is seen as nothing more than "human capital", and more as "capital" than "human". This is so both in developing countries, largely because of the present economic crisis, and in the industrialized countries, including former sending countries, because of the upsurge of nationalism.

Since the economic turmoil in Southeast Asia began in mid-1997, Thailand has expelled some 250,000 immigrant workers, South Korea has "leniently" allowed 50,000 illegal immigrants to leave the country instead of fining or imprisoning them, and Malaysia has already deported some 50,000 Indonesian workers, granting a two-month amnesty as from 1 September 1998 for illegal workers to leave the country voluntarily or face sanctions. These numbers do not include those who migrated internally, from the rural areas to the cities, and have now been forced to return to their villages.

Immigrant workers in Africa have not been spared. One of the more recent examples is that of South Africa, which after having succeeded in putting an end to the apartheid regime, intensified its fight against clandestine immigrants whose labour was no longer required. Between 1992 and 1995, South Africa expelled almost 400,000 African workers, mainly Mozambicans whose government had played such an active role against apartheid. (See pages 28-29).

Contributing more than they receive

In industrialized countries, globalization has provoked, inter alia, the development of nationalism, supported largely by those who have become marginalized, unable to keep up with increasing competitiveness. Faced with an increasing mass of discontented citizens, politicians in search of electoral themes choose the easy way out. It is more difficult to get across to the public complicated explanations of economic theory, global trade and financial markets than it is to to attack new arrivals, depriving them of access to social security programmes so that "savings" thus made may be used to aid the poor nationals. Meanwhile, in all the industrialized countries, immigrants' contributions to social protection systems are higher than the benefits they receive.

Once considered to be the exclusive capital of the far right, the use of immigrants as scapegoats is now tempting other parties across the spectrum, from the right to the left. The United States, the world's most powerful industrialized nation, which owes its prosperity and very existence to the arrival of waves of immigrants, is not exempt. The situation is even more absurd in Australia, a continent of immigration located in the Asia-Pacific region, where the immigrant scapegoat is designated by his or her colour and ethnicity. Pauline Hanson's anti-immigrant party does not point the finger at European immigrants, mostly of modest background, but rather at Asians who have generally poured substantial investment into the country and at Aborigines whose ancestors lived in Australia well before the arrival of immigrant settlers, including the ancestors of Ms Hanson's supporters. (See article page 33). However, the target may not only not be a foreigner, but be of the same "colour" and "ethnic group" as his or her attackers: in June 1989 a southern Italian was beaten to death in Verona by a group of northerners. Very often, in Africa for example, there is nothing physical or cultural to distinguish an attacked immigrant from his or her attackers.

The mechanism is immutable and implacable: a culprit - even an imaginary one - for the difficulties afflicting a country must always be found. When there is no foreigner to fit the bill, the mechanism acts against those who are considered different (see the history of Jewish communities) or vulnerable (women). But immigrants are easy targets because they are particularly vulnerable as well as being "different". They are generally not allowed to vote. In developing countries, shifting the blame on immigrants is easy because of the weakness or absence of democratic institutions to uphold their rights. In industrialized countries it is no more difficult to incite public opinion against immigrants by invoking the right of freedom of expression, despite the fact that exercise of this right may jeopardize their fundamental rights.