1y ago

Emigration: The hidden catalyst behind the rise of the radical right in Europe’s depopulating regions

theconversation.com

21 comments

This was a very informative article, but I have to admit I don't agree with it's framing of the problem.
No doubt, migration has enforced ethnocentric tendencies, and this is reflected in elections. Migration is a problem created by capitalism in a two ways.
People are fleeing their countries because of war, environmental catastrophies or to find a better job and life, among other reasons. Problems that have been created by capitalism.
The most popular receiving countries in europe are former colonialist powers, so good-old racism comes back to the picture since it was not really addressed in the first place. Also in these countries neoliberalism has hijacked governments through legal lobbying, so relevant policies are being implemented that favor of the rich, definitely not the people, even less immigrants.
Briefly I could say, capitalism has destroyed democracy, or at least any reminiscence of democracy that representative democracy had, so the road has been cleared for quite some time now, for neo-fascist tendencies to be represented in local and EU parliaments.
I think talking about migration without mentioning capitalism or neoliberalism, gives a distorted picture of what's been happening in Europe, during the last decades.
- There is also a large analysis around migration that plays various roles in this. Like they mention that services are unmaintainable with no immigration to those areas. But also, who is emmigrating to cities? People seeking higher education, often from more well off families, predominatly women. This leaves a lot of working class men, who is often the main target of the far right. In Sweden, about 25% of men vote for the far right. This is just one example, I imagine there can be a lot of related reasons to this emmigration observation.
- Both war and environmental catastrophes existed prior to capitalism...
  
  Don't be purposely obtuse. They very obviously weren't saying capitalism created the concept of war or environmental catastrophe.
  
  Indeed as capitalism and democracy have risen, war deaths have dropped precipitously.
- The most popular receiving countries in europe are former colonialist powers
  Germany and Sweden received one of the highest refugee per Capita, were not part of the colonist movement. The Ottomans were colonizing the entirety of the current problematic areas where refugees are coming from (Syria, Libya, North Africa etc ..) yet, you're blaming the West?
  
  Germany and Sweden ... were not part of the colonist movement
  Was this a joke?
  German colonial empire - wiki
  Swedish overseas colonies - wiki
"hidden"

21 comments