Globalization Creates Migration from Third World

Selina is married with three children and is a loving Christian woman who applauds globalization for raising the standard of living in third-world nations but is dismayed by its effects on the movement of people away from those nations towards her back yard.

"Yes," laughs Selina, "I suppose I am one of those ridiculous NIMBY people but I can't understand why these people want to come here when the global powers have done so much to improve living conditions in their own lands."

"Theoretically, globalization helps third-world nations by providing work for populations that are unemployed and living in poverty," says Selina, "but I can also see how it hinders third-world nations by exporting western values that, in turn, create jealousy or antagonize the purists in those nations."

"How often do we hear about western trained doctors and other professionals who, once qualified at our expense, don't want to stay in their country of origin to help their own people?" sighs Selina. "And how often do we hear about young people from third-world countries who, given a taste of western education and culture, will do whatever it takes to come here and enjoy the real thing? And how often do we hear about the religious fanatics, the purists, in third-world countries cracking down on young people who adopt western values?"

"By committing acts of terror against the West, as well as against their own people who adopt western values," says Selina, "the fanatics are deliberately or otherwise pushing the global powers into becoming more controlling."

"As I see it, the global powers moved into the third-world to help the people - to educate them, to provide them with work and to improve their health and living conditions," says Selina, "but it has all blown up in our faces because once raised to a higher level of existence these people don't want to stay in the third-world. They want to come here."

"And when you're being persecuted by your own people for adopting western values why wouldn't they want to beg for refuge status in our country?"

"Unfortunately, globalization may have started out as a good thing, but the fanatics in the third-world have turned it into a monster," sighs Selina. "The more the fanatics persecute their people and try to push the global powers out, the more the global powers have to defend themselves and in doing so the civilian populations of third-world nations are suffering a terrible existence."

"Given this scenario, those with the qualifications and money to emigrate to the west are doing so in droves," says Selina, "and those who don't are leaving in ever increasing droves as refugees in boats or on foot. It is a human tragedy."

"And while the global powers are spreading democracy, Christianity, jobs and western values to the rest of the world," sighs Selina, "nobody seems to notice that the rest of the world is now on our doorstep!"

"I'd hate to see the global powers stop doing their good work in the third world," says Selina, "but if all this good work is just creating a whole lot of economic immigrants and desperate refugees wanting to live in my backyard then I wish it would stop."

"All globalization seems to be achieving is a movement of people from the third-world towards the West," says Selina, "and this was not its intention.?"

"I'd like to see all those people we trained as doctors and lawyers and other professionals returned to their own countries to help their own people," says Selina. "It is immoral that they turn their backs on their own people."

"No wonder the fanatics are railing against the global powers. Wouldn't you if the cream of your people emigrated, indicating that your culture is not good enough for them?"

immigrants and cash cows

Cheryl believes that the only thing attracting refugees and immigrants to western countries is not jobs – because there just aren't enough jobs for our own people let alone the rest of the world – it’s our cash cow welfare system that gives them public housing, free health benefits, free education, free legal representation, free pensions and a stack of cash to spend as they please – for doing nothing!

"It's an absolute disgrace that refugees and immigrants are allowed into the country and given benefits paid from my tax money, and yours," says Cheryl. “The government should shut the gates immediately.”

"The welfare cash cow is crumbling under the sheer number of people receiving benefits," says Cheryl, "and add the immigrants and refugees to our own needy people – the unemployed, the single parents, the disabled and the elderly - and it's obvious that something has to give."

"The welfare system was never intended to service so many people," says Cheryl, "and be damned if I am going to slave my guts out and pay increasingly more tax in order to help people who should never have been allowed into the country to start off with.”

“Most of all, though, I am terribly worried that when my husband and I – or our children – may need to draw upon the welfare system we’ve been paying into for years, that nothing is left,” explains Cheryl. “Immigrants just don’t understand, or don’t care, that the benefits they are given come from the tax we pay – it’s not ‘free’ money from the government.”

Read more from Cheryl on this subject:

the welfare cash cow

swing to communism to create jobs?

desperate iraqi refugees

Ashley's grandparents escaped Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the stories they tell her about the terrible effects of war on civil populations have made her a champion of refugees everywhere. She is appalled by the way Iraqi refugees were treated by Australia in 2001, and now Greece is doing the same thing in 2007 -- turning away boat people to sink or starve on deserted islands.

"As soon as George W. Bush came to power the movement of refugees out of the Middle East became obvious to everyone," says Ashley. "People in those countries knew his focus was going to be his daddy's unfinished business in Iraq and they were getting out as fast as they could by whatever means they could."

"The most spectacular of these refugee movements occurred in September 2001 when a sinking boatload of Middle Eastern refugees heading for a save haven in Australia was rescued by the Norwegian container ship, the Tampa."

"The Australian authorities requested the captain of the Tampa to return the refugees to their port of origin, Indonesia, but instead he headed for Australian territory because the refugees were agitated and did not want to go back."

"A stand-off for a considerable length of time occurred while Australian, Norwegian and Indonesian authorities passed the buck, during which distraught refugees, some sick, some pregnant, some very old, some very young, were trapped in the scorching heat on the deck of the Tampa."

"The Australian authorities claimed that the refugees were queue jumpers -- illegals who forced their way into a country ahead of those who waited for official processing of their claim for refugee status -- and eventually the refugees were offloaded at Nauru, a tiny Pacific island, where they were processed by United Nations officials and then either farmed out to whatever country would take them or returned to the misery of the country from which they had fled."

"A short while later, another sinking boatload of Middle Eastern refugees heading for save haven in Australia was not so lucky," sighs Ashley. "Every person on board, an estimated 350 people, lost their lives."

"The whole scene was reminiscent of my grandparents' story," says Ashley. "Thousands of people tried to flee Germany in the early 1930s when Hitler came to power, but they were refused entry by country after country because they they did not enter with official permits."

"As a result of the world's indifference to refugees, millions of people were exterminated in Europe, mostly Jews but also people who were considered undesirable by the Nazis -- gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people and political dissenters."

"In Australia, not even the demise of the second boatload of refugees, softened the black hearts." says Ashley. "On the contrary, the feeling at the time was that their watery end was their own fault."

"Apart from the simple fact that everybody in Australia who is not aboriginal is either a boat person themselves -- or a plane person, illegal or otherwise -- or descended from such a person or, worse, a convicted felon," says Ashley, "the lack of compassion for the Middle Eastern refugees was shocking."

"It was difficult to comprehend that the self-proclaimed 'lucky country' could treat refugees so badly," says Ashley. "Only a year before, in 2000, Australia had hosted the Olympic Games in Sydney and the world was applauding the warm hearted Australians."

"It's difficult to imagine how the black hearted people responsible for this so-called War on Terror crime go to sleep soundly at night," sighs Ashley. "How can they look at a future full of splendid opportunities for their children when they have effectively diminished their own humanity by treating the Middle Eastern refugees so inhumanely?"

"And now Greece is going the same thing!" sighs Ashley. "Is there something about holding the Olympic Games that makes nations heartless?"

Ashley's story first apppeared as boat people and is reprinted with permission.