By Iggy Kim
Since prehistoric times, humanity has been on the move. Driven by material compulsion, we have made the entire planet our own, adapting to all manner of climate and topography along the way.
With the rise of class society, migration took on an added dimension, as labouring classes were enslaved by, or fled from, the owning classes. But prior to capitalism, the low level of economic forces limited the size and frequency of population movements.
With the birth of capitalism, humanity began to be churned up in a new and contradictory phenomenon: on the one hand, new super-groupings of populations merging into nations, and on the other, a sharp increase of systematic mass migrations.
As European peasants were torn from the land and crafts to which they had been bound for generations, some re-established subsistence lives in the settler colonies, but most were forced to work for others. The new proletariat massed in the towns where employment was to be found.
When there were not enough jobs, many sought opportunities abroad: between 1846 and 1875, more than 9 million Europeans emigrated to the United States.
Socially engineered catastrophes caused mass migrations, such as the exodus from famine-stricken Ireland and the flight of Jews from eastern European pogroms. Millions of Africans were kidnapped and taken to the Americas as slaves. Colonial settlers displaced indigenous peoples in the Americas, Australia and South Africa.
Imperialism
Towards the end of the last century, a handful of countries that had had a head start in capitalism began to monopolise the markets and resources of the entire world. An epoch was born of world wars, global depressions, high-tech holocausts, dictatorships and civil wars.
Migration has gone into overdrive. In the 1880s, an average of 700,000 to 800,000 Europeans emigrated every year. After 1900, this rose to between 1 and 1.4 million.
In the 10 years after World War II, 50 million Europeans and Asians left their countries. After the partition of India in 1947, 17 million refugees migrated between Pakistan and India. Countless millions have been displaced by the imperialist-instigated Russian, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese civil wars. It's happening today in the Balkans, Rwanda, the Congo and Colombia.
With the spread of capitalism throughout the world, the 19th century European economic migrations have been repeated in other continents. In the Third World, mass urbanisation has produced super-cities such as Mexico City, Seoul, Calcutta and Jabotabek (Jakarta-Bogor-Tangerang-Bekasi).
However, imperialism has stifled and distorted international capitalist development, so that there are two, vastly unequal, worlds. Mass migration today is fundamentally about movement between the Third and First Worlds. Enormous population concentrations in the former, unsupported by adequate economic infrastructure, spill over the borders of the latter. Imperialist aggression, such as the sanctions against Iraq or the catastrophic debts imposed on oppressed countries, drives millions to seek to escape.
Modern population displacements are a product of the class conflicts and contradictions of capitalism.
A growing contradiction lies in the erection of First World fortresses, on the one hand, and the global integration under imperialism that compels massive migratory movements, on the other. Multinational capital is throwing off the constraint of borders, but condemns workers who follow this wealth to constantly watch their backs for those who police the imperialist fortresses.
Xenophobia in the imperialist countries is whipped up not so much to exclude Third World migrants altogether, as to control their influx and keep them subdued as super-exploited labour. The reality is that First World capitalism needs a clearly delineated section of the work force vulnerable to much lower wages and conditions, socially policed by persecution of their colour and/or language and/or legal status.
For global justice
Mass migration is induced by the capitalist system. If the poor peoples of the Third World had a real choice, mass displacement would cease and migration would become a free movement of individuals.
But a truly free choice will not be possible without replacing global capitalism with a system of genuine equality, i.e., international socialism. When Europeans and North Americans spend more on cosmetics and ice cream than what is needed to teach all the world's children and women to read, there is no doubt that the material wealth for such a global system already exists.
In fact, when productive resources are democratically allocated and political power is exercised by the majority, there will be a greater and more frequent interaction between the world's people. The democratic ownership, control and distribution of productive resources will impel practical, grassroots cooperation across all frontiers and gradually erode the barriers of chauvinism and racism.
The outstanding internationalism of Cuba, itself a Third World country, gives us a vivid glimpse of what even one poor, socialist government can do in terms of international material and political solidarity. Socialist Cuba has dispatched brigades of medical staff and teachers to other poor countries. It continues to freely treat the child victims of Chernobyl. Its soldiers volunteered to aid the armed struggles of the working people of Angola and Mozambique against South Africa's imperialist military, helping to trigger the political retreat of the apartheid regime in the mid-1980s.
Making a revolution in one's own country is the sure path to global justice. This is even more so in imperialist countries, such as Australia, where the world's wealth is concentrated.
Open the doors
Because imperialism is directly responsible for the mass exodus from the poor countries, the immediate measure to demand of "our" government is the unconditional right of entry and residence for all those who come here. Upon arrival, immigrants should be given equal access to social and health services, as well as free English language classes and other services necessary for equal participation in society.
Correspondingly, an unconditional right of residence (and citizenship if they so choose) should be immediately granted to all those already living here, regardless of whether they are "illegals".
Nationalists of both the liberal and conservative type argue that an open-door policy undermines national sovereignty, that immigration policy is basically about a people's right to choose who should be admitted into the country. But this accusation can stick only if the underlying assumption is that immigrants "take over" a country by numbers alone — the vile slander of the racists and xenophobes.
More importantly, "our" ruling class rules more than just this country. An open-door policy is about squarely putting the onus of population displacement abroad onto this imperialist class. Our duty is to the victims of their injustices, if and when they choose to come here. This is also vital in breaking down the hold of nationalist chauvinism among white Australian-born workers, which forms a major obstacle to the building of a socialist movement in this country.
An open-door policy raises other demands that get to the heart of capitalist rule. It must be inseparable from the demands for a shorter work week without loss of pay and the nationalisation of key industries under democratic worker control to ensure jobs for all.
A struggle for such demands requires the reform of the labour movement into a democratic and internationalist fighting force, to become the true defender of all workers through a campaign to equalise wages and conditions for migrant workers, the majority of whom are currently in the most insecure and worst paid jobs.
Just as capitalism and mass migration go hand in hand, so too must labour struggles be intertwined with championing the rights and living standards of migrants. Welcoming migrants to take an equal place in these struggles can further advance them, and such internationalism at home is the natural complement of internationalism abroad.
Fundamentally, an internationalist strategy requires the intervention of organised socialists, those whose objective is to go beyond defending workers' bargaining power to a general offensive against the capitalist system and its global injustices. A true solution to the problem of mass population displacement cannot begin until there is a break in the imperialist chain — until one of the handful of wealthy countries makes a revolution. This would have an enormous international impact.
A socialist Australia, for example, would cancel Third World debts owed to it and massively increase unconditional material aid to the poor countries, especially those that had been exploited by Australian imperialism. Assistance to anti-imperialist and socialist movements throughout the world would help to directly empower the oppressed peoples for their self-emancipation.
The poor who wished to immigrate here would receive assisted passage without discrimination and be encouraged to participate in the building of socialism. Under a rationally and democratically planned system, this country could easily accommodate tens, if not hundreds, of millions more.