Ooooh there's a lot to unpack here.... And I dont know if I fully have the energy but let's have a go.
Yes, there's an extent to which western foreign military policy plays into global refugee flows. Historically, a very enormous extent. But directly in this way? Only an extent.
Yes, there's an extent to which western foreign military policy plays into global refugee flows. Historically, a very enormous extent. But directly in this way? Only an extent.
This type of argument presupposes that all global conflict lies at the feet of Western intervention which is.. at best a little naval-gazing.
Give global tyrants their due: plenty of them control, repress, torture, ethnically cleanse, bomb & gas their populations just fine alone.
Give global tyrants their due: plenty of them control, repress, torture, ethnically cleanse, bomb & gas their populations just fine alone.
Syrian refugees - the largest group in Europe - are overwhelmingly fleeing Assad's violence and Putin's munitions.
Yes, Western powers chucked a few bombs in for good measure, but the brutal repression of popular insurrection against dictatorship is what refugees are fleeing.
Yes, Western powers chucked a few bombs in for good measure, but the brutal repression of popular insurrection against dictatorship is what refugees are fleeing.
In Yemen, we can take much more of the blame, as Western arms are undoubtedly the tools of the Saudi destruction of that country. But Yemen, for various reasons, is a very minor source of refugees in Europe.
Far less discussed, is how we prop up dictators and attempt to pay them off to STOP refugees from fleeing. Before his overthrow, we funded Omar al-Bashir's surveillance and detention facilities for the purpose of "controlling migration" out of Sudan. That didnt help.
A much more fundamental way in which we've fuelled long-term migration patterns is also evident in Sudan: the legacy of empire.
History of subjugation & wealth extraction from the whole world is why we are rich & safe while instability & poverty is widespread in former colonies.
History of subjugation & wealth extraction from the whole world is why we are rich & safe while instability & poverty is widespread in former colonies.
Our wealth in relatively resource-poor UK is based on what was stolen then and what costs we continue to externalise now.
Mines in Congo still provide cobalt for our luxury tech where local wars & enslavement are fuelled by the need to control its export.
Mines in Congo still provide cobalt for our luxury tech where local wars & enslavement are fuelled by the need to control its export.
Women & children work around the world in incredibly dangerous, exploitative conditions exposed to filth, abuse, risk of disaster & loss of life to make trinkets that we ship easily across global borders to feed our fast fashion desire, distorting economic bargaining abilities...
Another way we are responsible for global mobility: The front line of climate disaster is drawn conveniently beyond our borders. The environmental impacts of our lifestyles being felt in drought, tsunamis, crop failures & famines around the world.
So a long and incoherent ramble later, yes. The West and we in the UK are responsible for much of why people are forced to leave their homes around the world. In multiple ways we extract our luxury from a border system that is unjust and is the cause of so much suffering...
But the Stop The War-type narrative that it's purely our foreign military interventions that are to blame for everything simply flattens and distorts the global picture without giving due agency to global actors nor giving an honest appraisal of how impossible it is to simply end
We cant erase the history of global inequality, we can only work to right it. They are here because we were there and because we still are. But also because of capitalism, environmental degradation & because of established communities historically tied together through migration.
I am feverish. These are morning tweets. Not referenced essay points. Please do not nit pick too much but rather engage in good faith if you want to (she lives in hope on twitter because she never learns).
