I would support Tony Abdo's position below. Surely we have to look at
immigration, asylum-seekers, etc in the wider context of globalization and
it's effect of widening the gaps between rich and poor and, consequently,
driving the poor to seek relief by gaining access to richer countries. If we
stay blinkered and look at this purely from the point of view of the
welfare/wage levels of OUR nation's workers, we fall into the trap the
globalizers have laid for us which, like all dictatorships, follows the well
tried and tested system of 'divide and rule'. So lets stop being divided.
That dictatorship is, however, not so much an evil conspiracy of company
directors, fund managers, politicians etc but rather the 'dictatorship of
competition' which we are all subject to.
John Bunzl
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Abdo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2000 11:47 PM
Subject: [CrashList] Re: Communist Internationalist Position on Immigration
and Travel
> I must admit to a feeling of despair, when I see some comrades debating
> immigration as if it was only a question of defending workers of one
> country or another, from having their wages decline or not. Despite
> these comrades being perhaps a minority on some of our lists, it is easy
> to ascertain that this angle of judging immigration questions is
> widespread amongst the international left as a whole. How can we
> protect our native working class and help them defend their current wage
> scale, or even better it? Is this all we should think about?
>
> So, to bring a note of reality to the discussion, I think it opportune
> to mention another aspect of immigration than just the effect on wages
> or culture that has been mentioned previously. And that aspect
> is....... the effect on health that immigration has.
>
> There has always been that aspect, as the effects of illegal immigration
> on the health of native populations to The Americas from Europe is
> widely known. But it is obviously something that comrades like the
> general population as a whole, pay little attention to, in the current
> debate about whether to close borders or not. One can never really
> close borders to the migration of infectious disease, no matter what
> measures are taken.
>
> Building a wall around Europe and the United States, Canada, Australia,
> NZ, and Japan, will not protect workers from 'the coming plague'.
> Far from that, it will help make the plague arrive with even more deadly
> force, and even more deadly effect.
>
> A Left not having a pro-immigrant, internationalist communist position,
> actually endangers the health of all workers, everywhere. How can
> the struggle against disease be carried out in an effective manner, when
> we support locking out people from more healthy environments, into
> horrid, disease supporting cesspools elsewhere? All in the name of
> defending wage levels in the industrialized world.
>
> We know about the AIDS situation in Africa. Does it seem so remote
> to Leftists because there is a body of water blocking Europe and The
> Americas from its approach? Well, AIDS and disease is aproaching
> from other angles as well.
>
> The weekly Mexican paper, PROCESO, has an article this week, about how
> Mexican immigration traffic to the US has brought AIDS back to the rural
> areas of Mexico. But US authorities now see AIDS as entering the US
> from Mexico! Is militarizing the US/ Mexico Border part of
> Clinton's overall 'health care' proposals?
>
> Something similar is going on right now between Eastern and Western
> Europe. Western European Leftists are not going to be a help for
> their working classes, by supporting barriers to movement of people that
> actually assist more in increasing the movement of infectious disease.
>
> The article in PROCESO illustrates how rapidly AIDS is spreading to
> campesinos in rural parts of Mexico, when nothing is done to either
> decrease their exposure to unsanitary conditions within the US, nor
> within Mexico itself when they return.
>
> And the problem is more than just the problem of AIDS. It is a
> problem of tuberculosis, cholera, dyssentery, and many another
> infectious diseases promoted by poverty, lack of sanitaion, and no
> public health system functioning properly.
>
> The only real communist position on immigration and travel has to be to
> support an emergency program of economic assisstance to the Third World,
> while promoting the free right to travel and work anywhere for anyone,
> all across the globe.
>
> Tony Abdo
>
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> http://www.proceso.com.mx/1239/1239n12.html
>
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