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The West has won and immigration is the price it is paying for this victory

2023-08-15 13:19:00, Blog Janet Daley

The West has won and immigration is the price it is paying for this victory

Illustrative photo

Illegal immigration is an intractable problem, not because of Home Office incompetence here in Britain or a lack of resources or inadequate border controls. Of course, all the latter worsen the situation, but they are not its causes.

The reason this country - along with almost every other Western nation - is facing an uncontrollable influx of illegal immigrants is because our way of life is what most people with any degree of self-respect and ambition would choose.

The combination of democratic governance with the free market economy that makes up political life in Western Europe and the Anglosphere turns out to be what most of the world's population considers a paradise. So they keep coming. Not just to escape war or genocide, which are well-known justifications for seeking asylum.

Not necessarily from poverty, as many of those illegal immigrants paid a lot of money for their passage to Europe and Britain. They flee from totalitarian or corrupt regimes, which make progress and individual self-determination impossible.

Of course, dictatorship and corruption are not new phenomena. Most of the world's peoples have lived under various despotisms for most of human history. What has changed, now, is that modern communications have made it almost impossible to prevent the most unfortunate from seeing what life is like in modern liberal nations.

And because the free peoples of the world have incorporated into their institutions the idea of ??universal rights and common humanity, they cannot easily reject those who call for help.

Although many Western countries are currently mired in deep self-loathing, the history of the last 3 centuries shows us that their view of what makes life worthwhile has won out over all arguments. Sometimes this victory - for example the fall of communism - has not even required an armed conflict.

The actual functioning of this wonderful political formula may be subject to constant revision and debate. What exactly constitutes freedom? Should it include the possibility of failure? Does it include a measure of economic security, which must be guaranteed by the state?

The arguments are endless, but they are not existential threats to the social order. Rather, they are a necessary function of the system, which must be as vital and adaptable as human intelligence itself. It is this great secret of success and the basis of that universal appeal which is causing so much difficulty today.

It offers a life that includes the possibility of taking risks within a society that is inherently safe and stable. But however kindly one describes this inevitable mass emigration, it still remains a problem.

For all its prosperity and social advantages, the West cannot absorb an infinite number of newcomers without putting its social welfare infrastructure - which is already an essential part of the social pact - under intolerable strain.

In these conditions, what is the lesson we should learn? That if the Free World cannot afford the masses willing to enter it and share its good fortune, it will have to accept its role as global liberator.

In fact, it is currently doing just the opposite, which may be due to the desperation of those who now see entry into Western democracies as their only hope. The United States must be a leader in this campaign.

First because they are the richest nation in the world. And secondly because its historical identity is based on the concept of universal human rights given by God for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". So Europe, whose commitment to these ideals has been less categorical and more intermittent, takes its orientation from America.

And America has shown itself in recent years that it does not want to accept the responsibilities to which it was once committed without any hesitation. Many analysts blame Joe Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan for the desperate number of people fleeing the country because of the Taliban regime now installed there.

But this pattern began before Biden. Barack Obama once made a solemn vow that, if the Syrian government were to use chemical weapons against its own people, there would be dire consequences. The US would consider such a move a "red line".

And what happened when Bashar Al-Assad used such weapons on his own population? Nothing. That event is etched in my memory. Because I had to write the next column that fateful day. Around noon, my editor called me to say that he had "information" that the American bombing would begin that night, so I would have to revise the article in 2 new versions.

One according to which the attack started in the evening, and another if it started in the early hours of the next morning. Just minutes before 7:00 PM that evening, the White House announced that nothing would be done about Syria. No bombing. Nothing.

So I left a final version with the editors, which closed with the thought that the biggest beneficiary of that turn would be Vladimir Putin. This proved predictable on two counts: not only has Russia been encouraged to act in the world with impunity.

But a large part of the Syrian population is determined to flee to countries that once promised them protection. The same thing is happening with that part of the Afghan population that was betrayed after earlier supporting our intervention in their country.

Add to this the considerable number of people in the failed states of northern Africa and the Middle East who were inclined to believe the West's promises of goodwill. They are coming here because they have almost no hope of escape from the misery in their country.

If the West wants to solve its internal migration dilemma, it will have to offer more than just an inspirational message to the world. Because the days of complacent isolationism are gone. Wealthy and free nations must announce the secrets of their success in the only way that drives real change in other countries. They must do this by being true to their moral principles and keeping their promises./ Adapted from CNA