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In the days
after 9/11 and the build up before Bush’s War, we often discussed the changed
American psyche. I’ve often alluded to it as a national midlife crisis, which
obviously has many facets and historical reference points with other nation
states. As with Israel’s
foreign policy being driven by the rising population of non-Jewish citizens,
and the violent protests Europe has experienced over significant immigrant
populations, we know that the effects of globalization are more than just economics
and trade. We ignore these sociopolitical impacts at our peril. A conservative
columnist discusses some of this evolving national mood, partly racially-driven
panic over majority/minority population changes, and part isolationism, which
historian Arthur Schlesinger reminds us in War
and the American Presidency, is a long-time fixture in American
politics. - kwc
Call it the Great Wall of America. Last Wednesday, the Senate voted to
add 370 miles of it to the US-Mexico border, together with another 500 miles of
vehicle barriers. The vote wasn’t close: the wall passed by 83 votes to 16. The House has already
endorsed 700 miles of wall; and if resident George Bush had used his primetime
television address last Monday to endorse it, his ratings might have pulled out
of their tailspin. (By the end of last week, Bush was endorsing a fence as
well.) Maybe Karl Rove will set up a photo-op in October. The president could
come to the Arizona border, assemble a crowd of anti-illegal immigrant
activists and declaim, in reverse-Reagan mode: “Presidente Fox, build up this
wall!” In all the rhetoric
and emotion and high-stakes politicking around a new immigration reform bill,
two symbols have stood out. The first was the national anthem, translated into
Spanish. It was a PR debacle for supporters of illegal immigrants. The second
is the wall. It has become the rallying cry for those who believe that illegal
immigration is hurting American workers, undermining the rule of law,
compromising American sovereignty and endangering national security. At more than $3m a
mile, the wall is a huge treasure opportunity for some American companies. And
parts of it will have three layers of barrier. Just like Berlin in the old days
— but stretching as far as the eye can see. The president doesn’t
like the symbolism. But most polls show 2-1 majorities in favour of a wall
first, and then some deal for illegal immigrants afterwards. The president
wants it all at once. But with the way the debate has been heading, he may well
be unable to get it. Why the outcry? It’s
hard for many to understand. America’s land borders have never been that
tightly guarded or policed. Millions of Americans can trace their origins to
illegal immigrants who walked over the border and settled down. The
attorney-general, Alberto Gonzales, was forced to confess last week that he
wasn’t sure that his grandparents weren’t illegals. Most sane studies show
that the immigrants in question are not coming to sponge off the welfare state:
many are too illegal to access government services, and work at back-breaking
jobs for sub-legal wages. In states without income taxes, like Texas, they
doubtless pay sales and property taxes, while getting little in return. But something has snapped in one part of the
American psyche. There are good reasons for the sudden loss of patience. Voters
can smell phoneys a mile away; and there is something deeply phoney about
politicians saying they oppose illegal immigration, while doing nothing serious
about it and being supported by big businesses that benefit immensely from the
cheap labour.
Few question that the
immigrants distort the labour market and keep wages marginally lower for
unskilled native workers. The children of illegals put stress on school systems
and healthcare provision. And if you compare the ease with which half a million
illegal foreigners waltz into the US each year with the mind-numbing, endless bureaucratic
delays that legal immigrants go through (I speak from experience), you can see
the argument. And yet there’s
something else at work here: an unease,
a panic, a sense of helplessness and being beleaguered that has plagued the
American psyche since 9/11. On that day, the pristine separation between
America and the rest of the world was abolished. The continent was no longer
immune to the terror that all other countries had grown used to. Moreover, the attempt
to destroy that threat has had a chequered history. Bin Laden is still
uncaptured; the US military seems bogged down in a gruelling insurgency in
Iraq. In
American eyes, the attempt to solve the problem by reaching out and engaging
the world has not worked.
So why not seal it off? Conservatives are also venting their general
frustration at the Bush administration through the simple demand that the law
be enforced. If
Republicans cannot control spending, if they cannot stop gays from marrying, if
they cannot balance a budget, then they better show they can build a fence. Then there is genuine
cultural discomfort. Census statistics last week showed that, for the first
time, almost half of Americans under five years of age are now non-white. The
reason? Hispanics
accounted for half the population growth in America from 2004-05; and 70% of
the growth in the population under the age of five. Project that into the future and America becomes a majority
coffee-coloured country in a generation. When the disproportionately white baby-boomer
generation dies off, the ethnic demographic shift could be dramatic. There’s a
reason that people are not proposing a wall to cordon off Canada. Hence the striking
finding in a recent poll that well over half of all Republicans also want to end the
time-honoured rule that anyone born in America has citizenship. Mass deportations? Some clearly want
them. As one writer put it on a right-wing website last week: “Not only will
(mass deportation) work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If
it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6m Jews . . . it
couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12m illegal aliens, many
of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.” This is the hidden
racial and cultural subtext of the current debate. This is what fuels the
emotion. And as grassroots Republicans lose faith in their own president’s
response to 9/11, they naturally reach to a solution as simple as it is
draconian. Build a wall, they cry. Never mind that the terrorists of 9/11 arrived
legally by plane. And the louder their voices, the likelier it is that tens of
millions of future Hispanic voters will make the Democratic party their home.
This Bush understands. But many ordinary Americans feel — and feel passionately
— something else. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,29449-2189510.html |
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