From: Bob Olsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 20:58:04 -0400 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Refugees: Wave of the future More disease. More hunger. More misery. More tyranny. More war. Toronto Star, Sept 8, 2001 The wave of the future: Refugees Human tide of misery only just begun, experts say Oakland Ross, FEATURE WRITER More than half a million desperate souls - mostly fleeing poverty, political oppression, or environmental desecration in their own lands - somehow found a way into Western Europe last year. Without an invitation. They came as refugees, or would-be refugees, hoping to find a safe haven on the prosperous side of the widening gulf that separates the world's few rich nations from its multitude of impoverished ones. Half a million people in one year - and counting. This human tide is already straining the tolerance and resources of some European states, sparking calls for the erection of imposing physical and legal barriers - the establishment of a Fortress Europe - that might, or might not, succeed in keeping the outsiders out. But the problem in Europe may have barely begun. Many experts say the number of asylum-seekers currently entering Europe amounts to nothing, or next to nothing, compared to the massive waves of humanity now stirring in the distance, all but invisible from the ramparts of Europe. When it comes to refugees - these experts say - Europe, like many other parts of the world, hasn't seen anything yet. ``Europe hasn't begun to see anything,'' warns Thomas Homer-Dixon, head of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto. ``What it has seen is preliminary.'' These are sobering words, especially when you consider just how disturbing, and at times downright shocking, the plight of Europe's outsiders has even now become. ``Already, dead bodies are washing up on Gibraltar,'' Homer-Dixon notes. ``The end of the chunnel in France is basically an armed camp.'' The chunnel - an informal term for the undersea rail link between Britain and the Continent - has become a common route for asylum-seekers trying to enter Britain, a country thought to be more receptive to migrants than many other European states. Like the corpses washing up on the shores of Gibraltar (mostly the remains of people drowned in ill-fated attempts to cross the strait from North Africa), the legions of virtual prisoners concentrated near the chunnel's terminus in northwestern France share at least two things in common. They are fleeing poor countries, and they are human symptoms of a world-wide phenomenon, one that is already large and seems fated to become considerably larger - the illegal migration of people seeking a better life on the few patches of the planet where a better life seems possible. The problem isn't confined to Europe, by any means. It's global, and it's coming to a country near you. In fact, it's already here. Last year, Canada received 29,966 refugees, according to Immigration Canada. Some 41,377 people sought asylum in the United States in 1999, says the U.S. Committee for Refugees, but that figure is dwarfed by the number of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. each year, mostly from Mexico, who do not formally declare their existence. Such undocumented newcomers are believed to number about 300,000 a year. They, like their counterparts in Canada, Europe, and elsewhere, are flesh-and-blood pieces of a fast-growing global puzzle. According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees, at the end of last year, there were 14.5 million refugees or asylum-seekers concentrated in various parts of the world. Slightly more than half were either Palestinian or Afghan. The rest hail from myriad lands, in Africa, Asia, Latin America - countries where life is hard and hope is dim. In many ways, these people are the future. ``The coming decade will be an age of migration,'' says Robert D. Kaplan, a U.S. journalist and author of several influential books on public affairs, including The Coming Anarchy, a collection of essays published in book form last year. The title essay in that collection first appeared seven years ago, in The Atlantic Monthly, and excited immediate alarm among the chattering classes and along the corridors of Western political power. The article painted a bleak portrait of the planet's future, a future viewed largely through the dismal prism of Sierra Leone, a torrid and broken-down country in West Africa. This, said Kaplan, is what the world is destined to become: corrupt, lawless, overcrowded, and hot. A big, revolving slum. Among the many kinds of unpleasantness that apparently await humankind, Kaplan predicted the following: Huge population increases, mainly concentrated in the world's poorest regions. The erosion of nation-states and their replacement by ``fascist-tending mini-states'' or ``road-warrior cultures.'' Deforestation and soil erosion on a massive scale. The steady depletion of fresh water supplies. An alarming increase in natural disasters, especially as global warming raises the levels of the world's oceans. Kaplan's litany of horrors rolled numbingly onward. More disease. More hunger. More misery. More tyranny. More war. And, not surprisingly, more mass migrations, as people in their millions seek to escape an earth tipping toward hell by fleeing to the few oases somewhat insulated from the surrounding inferno - countries such as Canada, the United States, Australia and the nations of Western Europe. Not everybody agreed at the time with Kaplan's excruciating world view - a view that might be summed up as Apocalypse Soon - but it certainly started people talking, and worrying. Now, seven years later, Kaplan concedes he got some things wrong. He predicted, for example, the ``peaceful dissolution'' of Canada and its absorption by the United States, something that doesn't appear to have occurred quite yet. He also predicted a multitude of troubles in Africa would strike a cultural chord among African-Americans, leading to increased political instability in the U.S. - another apparent miscall. But Kaplan's vision is, to some degree, being borne out already. Natural disasters, for example, are becoming more frequent, and they are affecting more people - 200 million people a year compared to 50 million people 50 years ago, according to the International Red Cross. During the 1990s, says the Worldwatch Institute, the combined financial cost of the globe's natural disasters ran to $608 billion (U.S.) - greater than the combined toll of the previous four decades. Many experts predict that the planet's burden of floods, fires, landslides, hurricanes, droughts and heat waves will only get worse as the new century wears on. Diseases are spreading too - AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, among others. In some parts of the world - for example, the Middle East - people are already fretting about the danger of wars being waged over access to fresh water. Meanwhile, almost everywhere, human populations are rapidly shifting from the countryside to the cities, many of which are located in earthquake zones, where impoverished masses must crowd onto unstable, unserviced land. Are these trends the drumbeats of Kaplan's coming anarchy? Kaplan himself seems to think so. Speaking from his home in Massachusetts, the author defends his earlier horrific vision, arguing that he got the big picture right. He sticks by many of his darkest predictions. ``In terms of general trends, I was right,'' he says. ``I think the issues I identified - demographic growth, disease, urbanization - proved right. I think, for the next 10 years, you are going to see continued unrest and rebellion in many parts of the developing world.'' And, he says, there will be refugees, more and more of them. Homer-Dixon generally agrees. In fact, seven years ago, the Canadian political scientist was a central authority for Kaplan's unsettling exploration of the future. Homer-Dixon has since written his own book-length examination of the main challenges facing humankind at the dawn of the third millennium (The Ingenuity Gap, published last year by Knopf Canada). His view is not as pessimistic as Kaplan's, but Homer-Dixon also sees trouble ahead. ``In most of the developing world, things are getting more or less better,'' he says. ``But people in richer countries are getting richer far faster.'' And that's a problem. ``What motivates you to move?'' he asks. ``It's the perceived difference between your life here and your life there. It's the gap.'' And the gap is growing. Forty years ago, says Homer-Dixon, the richest fifth of the world's population possessed about 30 times more wealth than the poorest 20 per cent. Today, that factor has tripled - to 90 times more wealth. According to Homer-Dixon, half the world's people scrape out an existence on $2 a day - or less. And the world is steadily becoming a less hospitable place, as the pressures of increasing population exact their toll in the form of vanishing forests and dwindling water supplies. The result? People start to move, seeking better prospects in different places. To some degree, that's a sustainable phenomenon. Canada, like many European countries, has seen its birth rates fall dramatically in recent years. Such countries need immigration in order to maintain population levels and to fuel economic growth. The ruling Liberals in Ottawa, for example, endorse raising immigration levels to 1 per cent of the population - or about 300,000 people a year. But, for various reasons, that goal isn't being met. Canada now admits only about 230,000 new immigrants each year. This probably means that, like some other industrialized nations, Canada could absorb many more newcomers than it does, without suffering dire consequences. ``Our countries are countries of immigrants,'' says Homer-Dixon, referring to Canada and the United States. ``We've benefited hugely from that. We're going to be absorbing huge numbers of people in the next couple of generations.'' He pauses before adding, ``You want to make sure it happens in a way that everybody gets along.'' There's the rub. In many ways, societies are like games of musical chairs. In rich countries, when the music stops, just about everybody is likely to find a seat - not the best seat, necessarily, but a seat of some kind. In poor countries, that isn't so. As a result, people have to fight for their chairs. Kaplan believes the fighting is going to continue and that it will spread. He says democracy and respect for human rights in wealthier nations will likely decline, as people resort to harsh measures in hopes of protecting themselves in what they see as an increasingly chaotic world. Seven years after he published his gloomy portrait of the future, Kaplan continues to believe that the rough beast of anarchy is still slouching our way, just over the horizon. Things are bad, he says, and getting worse. There will be more war, more rebellion, more desperate people in flight. If he's wrong, so much the better. But, if he's right, look out. Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2001. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. ............................................ Bob Olsen Toronto <[EMAIL PROTECTED] ............................................ _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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