I wrote the other day that there was a rumour Labour had allowed virtually unlimited immigration because immigrants were more likely to vote Labour in future and that any objections were likely to be branded racist. The very next day the Telegraph reported that not only was it true, as the following extract makes clear…
“It called for increases in foreign workers to meet the Government’s “economic and social objectives” but also stated that the public would be opposed to the shift because of “racism” and urged ministers to try to alter public attitudes towards immigrants…It emerged earlier this month that another draft of the same document suggested Labour’s migration policy over the past decade had been aimed at meeting “social objectives” as well as economic needs – but again passages were removed.”…
Worse, Andrew Neather, a former advisor to Blair, Straw and Blunkett, added that the sharp increase in immigration over the past 10 years was partly due to a “driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multi-cultural”.
It beggars belief. Whether or not the British people wish to change their culture to make it more multi-cultural is entirely up to them, and I assume they voted as such, but that’s not the point. What this document implies is that everyone who is deeply concerned about the biosphere’s ability to manage super-exponential population growth, and opposes immigration on such grounds is inherently racist.
This makes it impossible to ever take anyone in government for the last decade seriously at an ecological level again. Unless they have more luck than the gods of probability have ever seen, they’ve set Europe up for the Balkans on Steroids.
Back in the real world…
I want to return to the problem of Africa. First because it’s in the worst shape, and because many of the same issues come up in thinking about other collapsing regions, like the middle east. I’ve just discovered some research which throws some light on the troubles that Africa is in.
Research led by Dr. Marshall Burke of the University of California, Berkeley, has shown that the critical component in the endemic wars of sub Saharan Africa is temperature. The team combined historical records of conflict with rainfall and temperature records. A 1°C rise in temperature produced a 50% greater probability of conflict.
The reason seems to be the reliance of the majority of Africans on crops which are sensitive to small changes in temperature. On the one hand it’s good to get some hard data, on the other it’s a nightmare because it means that as temperature increases in line with global warming Africa becomes even more unstable than it is now. Assume Dr. Burke’s analysis is correct and that, as he says:
“…when you put things like economic growth and better governance into the mix, the temperature effect remains strong.”
Then it means that Africans find themselves in a classic adaptational trap. Their cultural history and traditions will not necessarily be helpful, because their environment is changing rapidly, too rapidly to allow for natural rates of adaptation. Since half of the world’s failed states are in sub Saharan Africa, and many of them have barely any government, it may be we are already too far into the cycle of collapse to have any effective remedy for the whole population. I’m not suggesting a scenario in which International development projects, African aid, rock stars, and the UN continue as they have; the same sad story about which we can do little. I’m suggesting a radically worse situation in which the world comes to terms with its first billion person famine, the complete collapse of society and agriculture, and the effects of the inevitable billion plus diaspora on Europe.
It is absolutely critical that Africa is stabilized to the extent possible. Clearly the traditional approach of giving billions of dollars in Western taxpayer’s money to Dictators such as Omar Bongo, President of Gabon, who brought $1m in shrink wrapped notes into the US in a suitcase, isn’t working well. Or Teodoro Obiang, son of Equatorial Guinea’s President, who moved $100m in “suspect funds” into the US, including $30m for a nice little place in Malibu. Or Jennifer Douglas, fourth wife of a former Nigerian vice-president, who helped her husband bring $40m into the US. According to a Senate report this week many other African leaders have moved hundreds of millions of dollars out of the countries they were supposedly leading, with the help of US professionals. Read the full story here and feel your eyes roll. Let’s take it for granted, until we have better data, that buying Teodoro a Malibu villa (oh, and a $38m airplane, sorry I forgot) probably isn’t the quickest route to avoiding the world’s largest ever famine and its inevitable diaspora. It’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that western government sponsored Aid must be stopped. It’s failed both the recipients and the western taxpayers.
Despite the almost irresistible glamour of Bob and Bono, I’m not a huge fan of celebrity advocacy either. I remember a difficult meeting at the LSE in which Medecins San Frontieres was represented, talking about how to manage the often counter productive campaigns with celebrities. Perhaps it’s as Bishop Tutu says, that it’s important that we are “listening to what Africans actually want, that Africans drive their own development.” But I doubt it, because if that was working, then it really wouldn’t be a problem. The problem is that Africans haven’t driven their own development. Are we going to recycle the same post-colonial arguments again? It’s been 50 years. But in the end Desmond may be right for reasons he may not like. It looks like that Africans will have no choice because the rest of the world is too busy. What Africa needs isn’t more help. I think the people of Africa have endured all the help they can stand.
What Africa needs is intelligent systems. I’m a huge fan of small independent humanitarian organizations who engage local populations long term and personally, and it’s those organizations that are coming up with the solutions. Like kiwanja.net which enables humanitarian groups and those they serve to use communications technology in imaginative ways. We need to flood Africa with technology and knowledge systems. They need knowledge and they need friends who will work on a local level to stabilize populations. The Africans will figure out what new crops to plant, how to educate themselves, and how to manage their environment. They have to because years of paternalism, patronizing missionaries, the UN, and crooked tribal presidents, now living in Malibu, haven’t.
To come back to the African diaspora in Europe: As I said in my last post, I’m am afraid that this year, or very soon thereafter, we will see a backlash against this migration from Africa as the financial conditions in Europe worsen.
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