Globalisation and criminalisation of third world migrants

BY WILLIAMS WODI

Globalisation is a corporate protection racket cobbled together by Western economists, who do not want changes to the post-World War II economic arrangements that massively favour it to the detriment of developing countries that were compelled to watch from the sidelines. Globalisation has been celebrated as the best way to interconnect people from distant ends of the world, create cultural homogeneity, and influence ideas across national boundaries.

Globalisation, which is driven by breathtaking advances in information and communication technology, has led to the interconnectedness of societies in far-flung parts of the world, thus making trade and the free flow of goods and services easy around the world. Malevolent capitalists in developed economies gleefully celebrated the so-called gains of globalisation for reducing the wide world into a “global village” which offers cultural and economic opportunities, creates unimpeded access to information and knowledge, and increased competition in creative and innovative ventures.

Quite regrettably, the direct victims of globalisation in Third World countries lament its negative impacts, which include cultural uniformity, economic exploitation and dependency, environmental degradation, and erosion of cultural identity. In short, globalisation graphically captures the metaphor of a speeding train that has seats for those who enter to sell, while ignoring those who have nothing to offer the global market. Globalisation dates back to the era of slavery and colonialism, except that the current uneven production and supply chain arrangements have worsened the already existing economic downturn of people living in developing nations. Such people are not only deprived of economic opportunities, but are also barred from migrating to developed nations to share in their abundant economic opportunities.

There was a time when not many people lined up in front of foreign embassies to obtain visas to travel abroad as “legal” immigrants. The unjust economic arrangements orchestrated from Western capitals have, however, gradually given birth to a new phenomenon today known as “illegal migration” by those who created the imperfect conditions that are forcing people in developing nations to sell off their few personal belongings to risk everything to board rickety boats to Europe and North America.

Globalisation has created what the West now labels “illegal migration,” which has, in turn, criminalised nearly all categories of immigrants. The word “illegal” has taken on a life of its own, making a substantial segment of the global citizenship aliens on planet earth. Liberal-leaning activists have sought to spray Arabian perfume on it by preferring the word “undocumented persons” to refer to people uprooted from their countries to find refuge or gain economic status in foreign lands without the relevant immigration papers. The existential truth is that no human being should be declared “illegal” because the use of this offensive word as a noun negates human equality and social justice to a large segment of global citizens.

The irony is that those zealots in the West who promote anti-immigrant hysteria by using the word “illegal”, rather than “undocumented” to label migrants, forget so soon that the same Europeans freely travelled to colonise and exploit other continents without proper documentation. The same people who deployed the gunpowder and knavery to conquer and subdue Africa, India, the Caribbean Islands, Arabia, and Latin America, without seeking permission from the local people, are the same hypocrites who now glibly talk about the need for “secure borders.” It is on record that for centuries, there were no “visa” or “paper” requirements that enabled European adventurers to “legally” enter other countries. They simply walked or paddled across borders without being molested by the local inhabitants who were suddenly “discovered” by these pirates, convicted criminals, and conquistadors commissioned by European palaces.

The word “illegal” is a simple way of declaring that society is fragmented into those who have rights and others who are systematically denied the same rights as equal human beings. Pray, what law or moral consideration confers any right on European leaders to “legitimise” some people and label others as “illegitimate”? Yet, those branded as “illegal” migrants constitute a substantial part of the main steam engine of the economies of the countries that now reject them as “illegal” aliens.

These are the same malevolent spirits who converted their fellow human beings into chattel slaves, who laboured and created wealth that developed Europe. Today, globalisation has recreated the forces of economic production and global supply chain that exclude so many poor people around the world from the end benefits of capitalist production. The painful truth is that the same global economic and social inequalities promulgated in the West force poor people into migration, exposure to exploitation, persecution, and prosecution by populist Western governments hell-bent on impressing their voters.

How can they create harsh economic situations in developing countries through neo-colonial economic policies, only to turn around to brand and deprive them of the sole means of survival, which is mostly menial labour that brings in paltry income? The deliberate deprivation of legal status to the so-called “illegal” migrants has been massively weaponised to criminalise vulnerable people and punish them in their just struggle to improve their parlous living conditions created by those who now demonise them. Europe and its American cousins can only reduce the adverse conditions that compel mass global migration by people in the Third World through massive global economic reforms that are inclusive, humane, and offer social justice and equality to all human beings.

According to reggae star Jimmy Cliff, “Too many people are suffering; Too many people are sad; Too many likeable people got everything; While too many people have nothing; … Remake the world.” Global leaders with conscience must address the social forces that uproot communities and drive them into a desperate, mortal expedition as economic refugees.

Let us put the argument into proper context: The Portuguese started kidnapping Africans as human commodities in the 15th century, and were joined by other European nations to export slaves to labour in the global North. So, why then are the same people now being branded as “Illegal” migrants? Victims of the economic consequences of globalisation must be welcome to the table, and their voices must be heard loud and clear if the West is to achieve peace; otherwise, displaced communities will continue to migrate abroad to share the stolen global wealth stored in Europe. Not even the clown called Donald Trump or an Emmanuel Macron, holding midnight conspiratorial meetings with Keir Starmer, can stem the rising wave of “illegal” migration to America, France, Britain, Germany, and other rich European nations.

Africa campaigned relentlessly for reparations to atone for the evils of slavery, but Europe scoffed at the idea, while the Jews continue to receive reparations for the holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. This is the moment of truth. Remake the world, or the world will remake Western Europe. It is payback time.

Wodi is a public affairs analyst, and can be reached at [email protected]