Greece is the new Islam

Leading up to national elections in the Netherlands, which took place on 12 September, I have been closely following the debates between party leaders. The most striking observation I made is the near-total absence of the issues of immigration and Islam in the debates.

This was in stark contrast with the previous elections, when these themes were dominating everything, and in which far-right leader Geert Wilders managed to paralyse most other parties with 'telling the truth' about the alleged mass-immigration, the threat of Islam and the failure of multiculturalism.

In short, mass-immigration, particularly of Muslims, was blamed for almost all ills of Dutch society.  Immigration was threatening the Dutch economy, Dutch jobs, Dutch education, Dutch social security, Dutch public health, and, last but not least, Dutch national identity. In Wilder's world, mass-immigration is part of an international jihad aiming to 'islamize' Dutch and European societies. Stopping mass immigration was therefore seen as the solution to solve most problems facing Dutch society.

Although this scapegoating of migrants and Islam lacked any factual basis, and with the exception of the smaller liberal and Green parties, most big were terrified to openly counter this nonsense. On the contrary, out of fear of losing votes, the entire political field moved to the right and adopted restrictionist positions and many did not refrain from pointing fingers at immigrants.

In April of this year, the political scientist Amber Jane Davis successfully defended her excellent PhD thesis at the European University Institute, The Impact of Anti-immigration Parties on Mainstream Parties' Immigration Positions in the Netherlands, Flanders and the UK 1987-2010 . In her thesis, Davis describes this phenomenon in which the entire political spectrum has moved to the right in response to the rise of far-right anti-immigrant parties since the 1980s. Interestingly, she also observed that, when the far-right threat (temporarily) falls away, an opposite movement occurs, with parties adopting less restrictive positions.

In her study, Davis also shows how such strategies are largely ineffective or can even be counter-productive. This is not only because as anti-immigrant voters tend to opt for the 'orginal' instead of the 'copycats' as Jean-Marie Le Pen, former leader of the French Front National, once argued, but also because their zigzagging or flipflopping on immigration issues undermines their credibility in the eyes of many voters.

After the electoral victory of Wilders' PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid, or Freedom Party) in 2010, the Dutch right-wing 'liberal' VVD party (which basically represents the interests of the well-to-do) and the Christian Democratic CDA party had no qualms to form a minority government which was backed in parliament by the PVV.

However, since then, the Great Recession and the Eurocrisis have entirely changed the political game, as the focus shifted towards economic policies and bread-and-butter issues. Despite his acrobatic ability to blaming immigrants for almost any problem, even Wilders was unable to make a credible link between immigration, or Islam, and immigration.

After Wilder toppled the government in April by refusing to back budget cuts, he radically switched his rhetoric, and started to run an electoral campaign based on a fiercely nationalistic, anti-European agenda, advocating to scrap the Euro, bring back the guilder and leave the EU. Wilders tried to convince voters the only way to reclaim Dutch sovereignty was to leave the EU. 

Instead of immigration, Brussels became the new scapegoat.

And Greece became the new Islam.

Wilders tried to shift the blame of all economic problems to Greece and other southern European countries. "We are paying up for those [sic] garlic countries, whose affairs are in disarray" - he stated in one of the latest debates. Wilders created an image of Dutch tax payers subsidising the sunny lifestyles of lazy, corrupt Greeks, who all retire at the age of 50 to lie on the beach for the rest of their life. Wilders strategy bitterly failed, as he was defeated during the elections.

Europe did not prove to be such a poisonous theme as Islam and immigration.Leaving the Euro and the EU proved one bridge too far for the Dutch. Opinion polls interestingly showed that the election debates have made the Dutch public less Euro-sceptic. This is the good news. The debates made voters more aware of the vital importance of the EU for the Dutch economy. More practically, reintroduction of the guilder and border controls would complicate holiday making for the travel-savy Dutch. That's the good new: the public wants to be informed, and arguments do apparently count.  

It is more sobering that other mainstream politicians, and particularly prime minister Mark Rutte, leader of the right-wing liberal VVD party (who won the election) also shifted the blame of the Eurocrisis to southern Europe, and the Greeks in particular. We see exactly the same Greece-bashing among most German politicians.

Such simplistic accounts of  "it's all their fault" are not only simply wrong (see for instance here and here), as they deny the role of northern European governments and banks in the Eurocrisis. What is more worrying that such fingerpointing goes along with self-righteous attitudes and typical northern European arrogance.

Anti-Greek rhetoric may be attractive to win popular support, they also fuel superiority feelings based on stereotypes of efficient, reliable and responsible northern Europeans versus corrupt, unreliable and sloppy southern Europeans. This in turn, provokes anti-northern feelings in southern Europe, with the Germans symbolising northern European arrogance. In Greece, Germans are being accused of abusing the Eurocrsis to imposing its and to re-occupy Greece, sometimes even comparing it with Nazi practises (for a photo gallery see here).

Both sides are clearly wrong here. But while the anti-German sentiment in southern Europe gets full exposure in the media, northern European political leaders seem little aware or reflective about the damaging effects of their own arrogance, which may serve short-term political goals (of winning elections) but do nothing to solve the crisis, and may in fact endanger such a solution by fuelling intra-European racism.

Europeans looking for greener pastures in Africa

Who could have thought this just a few years ago? With the economic crisis hitting many countries hard, and unemployment soaring, Europeans have started emigrating again in large numbers.

While the Portuguese move to France and Brazil, Greeks explore better futures in Germany, Australia and Turkey. At the same time, young Spaniards are moving towards Britain, France and Germany. In Britain, Spaniards even seem to replace Eastern European workers. As a young, Spanish waiter told me smilingly: "We are the new Poles!".

And with the demise of the property bubble of the "Celtic Tiger", the Irish have resumed historical patterns by massively moving out again to English speaking countries such as Britain, Canada, Australia, US and New Zealand.

But who could have thought that Europeans would be looking for greener pastures in Africa?

Yet, this is happening. For instance, Portuguese jobless graduates flee to Africa as they have discovered opportunities in Portuguese-speaking countries like Mozambique and Angola, whose economies are booming and in dire need of young, skilled workers. A recent news report showed that in 2010, 23,787 Angolan visa were issued for Portuguese, against only 156 in 2006.

A recent documentary on Dutch television showed how young Spanish increasingly try their luck in Morocco. It shows young Spanish, who flee unemployment and impoverishment and find work opportunities and more affordable living conditions across the Strait of Gibraltar.

I can warmly recommend the documentary (although the voice-over is in Dutch, much of it is in Spanish), as it shows the world upside down: A young Spanish women crying on a rooftop terrace in Tanger, from which she can see Spain. Working at a Moroccan call-centre, she does not have the money to return regularly. A 38 year old man who has lost all he has who is looking for work in Morocco and who just received 60 euros from his mother in Spain to survive the next few weeks.  Another man working at a small factory making furniture, considering himself "lucky" to have found work in Morocco. Many of them consider Morocco as a country of opportunities.

This does obviously not fit into Europeans stereotypes of Africa as the continent of misery. Who would want to go there? This portrayal of "Africa = misery" is misleading in the first place, and goes back straight to colonial times, when Europeans fabricated stereotypes about African "backwardness", tribalism, chaos and poverty as a justification for their "civilizing" colonial mission.

Although violence and poverty have frequently occurred in several places and regions, other parts of Africa have been relatively prosperous and peaceful, and have in fact attracted migrants.

What many people ignore on top of that, is that some African economies are growing fast, and can nowadays offer better opportunities to skilled, entrepreneurial Europeans than the stagnating economies of Southern and European Europe. In addition, many African economies have been sheltered from the worst effects of the Global Economic Crisis because their banking sectors are less liberalized and therefore better protected.

It is impossible to predict what the future holds. Of course, if European economies pick up again, it is likely that emigration will fall and immigration increases again - Although it remains a question to what extent and when economic recovery occurs, as the current crisis seems to be a protracted one, and may last for many more years. It would also be dangerous to exaggerate African growth and to deny that many Africans continue to live in conditions of extreme poverty insecurity. And it would also be naive to think that Africans will stop migrating themselves.

However, it is important to go beyond colonial stereotypes of Africa as a continent of misery and to stop thinking that the whole world wants to come to Europe. In fact, this hardly concealing the idea the Europeans are superior.


The new European migrations towards Africa can teach Europeans a lesson: We are not the centre of the world. For centuries, Europeans have taken for granted that it is their right to "discover", occupy, conquer, visit and settle in foreign lands - without asking permission.

This continues until the present day. "We" find it normal that Africans need visas to enter Europe, but we think it is our natural right to travel abroad, and get upset when we are asked visas in return.

The irony is that while Europeans talk in belligerent terms of 'combating' illegal immigration from Africa as if Africans are a plague or a threat to security, Europeans can move to and settle in Africa with relative ease and do not even question this situation of inequality.

However, if this new European exodus continues, European governments may well be put under pressure by African governments to ease their own immigration rules.

So let's remind ourselves: With migration, always expect the unexpected.

Migration… it’s the economy, stupid!

Politicians like to talk about migration in water metaphors. Migrants always seem to come in flows, waves or tides. They also like to give voters the image that they are “in control” of immigration; indeed, that immigration is a flow that can be turned on and off like a tap.

In reality, politicians are much less in control of immigration than they would like people to believe. For instance, liberal democracies can do little about family immigration, because the right to family life is enshrined in international humanitarian law. Migration is also facilitated through migrant networks, which decrease the costs and risks of migrating.  

Politicans' tough talk on immigration obscures that the economy is the prime driver of migration. In all wealthy societies, there is structural demand for immigrant labour, for the high skilled but also the low skilled, in the official and illegal sectors. Years of neoliberal policies in the form of privatizing and de-regularizing labour markets have hugely expanded the demand for immigrant labour for temporary, unattractive and low-paid jobs in cleaning, catering, agriculture, factory work and care that native workers typically shun.  At the same time, politicians are under pressure by employers and big business to either allow higher quotas of immigrants or turn a blind eye when faced with illegal migration.

This is what happens in practice: Politicians know all too well that migration serves vital economic interests, and cannot stop immigration even if they would want so, but do not dare to tell so to their voters. Their tough talk about reducing immigration is usually nothing more than a smokescreen to hide their inability and unwillingness to stop immigration.

Not convinced yet? Do you think this is just left-wing talk? Please look at the graph above. The blue line shows the average of economic growth (indicated on the right hand axis) in the previous two years in the Netherlands. The red line shows the immigration rate as a percentage of the total population (on the left hand axis). As you can all see, there is an incredibly close relationship between economic growth and immigration rates. Isn’t that a smoking gun?

Migration is a demand-driven phenomenon and the business cycle is an accurate predictor of immigration.  Similar graphs can be drawn for most other Western countries. The irony is that the correlation between economic growth and immigration is particularly high for countries such as Germany and The Netherlands who have long denied being immigration countries. Despite all the anti-immigration rhetoric, such countries have high immigration rates.

Decades of globalization and regularisation have created open societies and economies, which will inevitably attract migrants as long as they keep on growing. In that sense, borders are indeed beyond control to speak with Jagdish Bhagwati. As long as demand persists, migration will continue. If governments try to close legal channels for labour migrants, they will either come as family migrants or as irregular migrants. This is also what makes all these discussions on the economic impacts of immigration a bit artificial, as the assumption is that immigration can somehow be stopped or significantly reduced. This is both denying history and the demand-driven nature of immigration. It is not so much “immigrants come and take our jobs”, but rather “Immigrants: your country needs them” as runs the title of Philippe Legrain’s book.  

Indeed, the only way to drastically reduce immigration is to wreck the economy.  A prolonged economic recession is therefore the only recipe to reduce immigration.   And this is indeed what we are seeing in several south European countries, which are now seeing ‘negative’ migration with more people leaving than coming.

The same may happen in north European countries, such as the Netherlands, if they plunge back into the ‘double dip’ recession. If this happens, anti-immigrant parties will certainly cry out with shouts of victory that this shows the success of their harsh policies, while in reality, it was the recession and unemployment that explain reduced immigration.

But if economies pick up again, immigration will surely pick up again too.

As so often with migration: It’s the economy, stupid!

The Arab Spring and Migration

Last Tuesday, I attended a workshop hosted by the Refugees Studies Centre and the International Migration Institute of the University of Oxford on the consequences of the ‘Arab Spring’ on human mobility and forced migration in North Africa and the Middle East. The workshop also investigated how states and international organizations have responded to these events. A range of researchers and representatives of international organizations shared their expertise. I will summarize some of my observations I made during the day. Please look at this link for a full programme and the list of speakers.

First of all, the workshop dispelled the myth that the ‘Arab Spring’ has led to large-scale migration to Europe. Since the outbreak of the popular uprisings, European media and politicians have been obsessed with the imaginary fear of massive waves of North Africans invading Europe.  These sensational predictions were speculative and lacked any scientific basis, so it should come at no surprise that these have never materialized. The number of refugees moving to Europe in response to the crisis has actually remained very small. 

The presentations at the workshop emphasized that the Arab Spring had much more significant implications for migration and mobility in the region itself. While the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have remained relatively peaceful, the violent conflicts in countries like Syria and particularly Libya have generated large flows of refugees, most of whom gone to neighbouring countries such as Tunisia and Egypt in the case of Libyans and Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and even Libya for Syrians.

The second group of displaced people consist of the migrant workers that have lived in these countries for years, such as the Bengali, Turks, Egyptians, Nigeriens, Chadians and Europeans working in Libya. Most of them have tried to return home in the wake of the conflict.

However, the most vulnerable group consists of migrants and refugees who were not able to return because it was too dangerous and/or because they lack the money and contacts to flee. They have become trapped into a situation, which the migration researcher Jørgen Carling has aptly described as ‘involuntary immobility’.

Others do not necessarily want to return, as they have fled insecurity, persecution and deprivation in their own countries, and they have often been living in North Africa for many years or decades. These include sub-Saharan and Tuareg migrants in Libya and refugees and Iraqis, Palestinians and Somalis in Syria and Sudanese and Somali in Egypt. Political instability, economic crisis, increasing costs of living and unemployment, and the decrease of security (due to decreased policing) have made these groups more vulnerable than they were already.

For instance, due to less effective policing, a city like Cairo has experienced a rise in crime, theft, kidnappings and overall violence, which affect all Egyptians, but which have made refugees and other foreigners particularly vulnerable.

Violation of basic rights of refugees and asylum seekers remain a daily issue in the region .In Egypt, Libya and Syria, the overall climate of insecurity and increasing suspicion against foreigners has also made it more difficult for humanitarian organizations to reach out to vulnerable refugee and migrant populations. In Libya, sub-Saharan migrants still fear retaliations because they are associated to “Black mercenaries” Khaddafi has reportedly employed, and Tuareg and Tebu populations in the south are equally vulnerable. The revolutions severely disrupted the livelihoods of Tuaregs who fled the violence, and who have ended up in Saharan towns like Tamanrasset in Algeria.

The workshop also emphasized the profound impacts of the Arab Spring on origin countries, an issue that Eurocentric accounts of the Arab Spring have almost completely ignored.  This does not only pertain to the possible role of returnees in the political violence in countries like Mali, but also the fact that many families in extremely poor countries like Niger and Chad are now deprived from vital remittance income since migrant workers returned home from Libya. In many ways, return migrants moved from one to another situation of insecurity.

Notwithstanding the adverse consequences of the violence in particularly Libya and Syria on the situations of citizens, migrants and refugees in the region, the workshop also showed that the Arab Spring has not fundamentally altered the long-term migration patterns and trends, although they might have accelerated them. For instance, although the falling away of policing has encouraged more Tunisians and Egyptians to cross the Mediterranean Sea on fisher boats, these migrations are anything but a new phenomenon, and should certainly not been qualified as ‘refugee flows’.  

In the case of Tunisia, these crossings of prospective labour migrants have been a ‘regular’ phenomenon since south European countries introduced visa requirements in the early 1990s. In the case of Egypt, migration to Italy and other European countries from villages in de Nile Delta and regions such as the Fayyoum oasis south of Cairo has already been increasing over the past decade.

In terms of policy responses, international organization such as IOM and UNHCR have collaborated relatively effectively in responding to the crisis, particularly around the refugee and migrant flows engendered by the violence in Libya. Also regional governments have been relatively collaborative in hosting refugee populations. By contrast, the response from EU countries has been embarrassing. Although European governments continued to pay lip service to “supporting democracy”, policies remain driven by imaginary fears about a “Biblical Exodus” from North Africa, and this obsession stood in the way of offering protection to refugees . Migration continues to be portrayed like a threat to stability and security, and the trend towards externalizing border controls had continued, as if nothing has changed.

It is rather unlikely that long-term migration patterns will drastically change due to the revolutions. In this context, it is important to observe that the same processes that have created the conditions for the revolutions to occur are also conducive to emigration, and both phenomena seem to reinforce each other. A new generation has come of age, who is better educated, more aspiring and more aware about opportunities elsewhere and injustice at home than any other previous generation, but at the same time feels rejected, disrespected and angered due to high unemployment, corruption, inequality, and political repression. This has been reinforced by decades of neoliberal reforms and privatization, which have benefited small elites, but have made lives of ordinary people more insecure.

The coming of age of a new, wired and conscious generation of “angry young men and women” have increased both the emigration and revolutionary potential of Arab societies. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, the idea that emigration will stop is as unlikely as the idea of a “mass exodus” towards Europe. Certainly a populous and deprived country like Egypt seems to have a significant emigration potential for years to come. However, the extent to which these migrants will go to Europe or elsewhere primarily depends on future economic growth in Europe.  At the same time, it is likely that Libya continues to rely on migrant labour, and Egyptian and sub-Saharan migrants have in fact started to return.

An intriguing question in this respect is whether the economic crisis in Europe has played an indirect role in triggering the uprisings in emigration countries like Tunisia.

It is important to remember that, for political elites in the region, migration has fulfilled an important role as a political and economic ‘safety valve’, since the opportunity to migrate abroad relieved unemployment, discontent and internal political pressures for reform. Has this lack of emigration opportunities perhaps turned the attention and anger inwards, and tipped the balance in favour of revolutionary forces? Also, political exiles and emigrants have played an important role in supporting the revolutions, certainly in Tunisia and Egypt.

Another key question is what the impact of political reforms and more democratic modes of governance will be on migration and migration policy. This impact seems very ambiguous, and very much depends on the nature and course of future political reform. Some participants argued that more conservative, religiously inspired nature of current and future governments may possibly increase migration aspirations among secular elites, minorities and women, whose rights might possibly be infringed upon.

On the other hand, possible increases in respect for human rights for their own citizens may also push North African societies to become more reflective and self-critical towards xenophobia and violations of the rights of migrants and refugees. Finally, democratically elected governments may be less enthusiastic about collaborating with European governments in joint border controls and the expulsion of irregular migrants, as preventing emigration may makes them unpopular at home.  

What will happen this is uncertain, and dependent on the future course of political and economic change in the region, but it should certainly not be taken for granted that European governments can continue to conclude ‘migration control deals’ as they used to do with Khaddafi and their other dictator friends in the region.

The only way to reduce immigration is to wreck the economy

There is increasing evidence that migration from Mexico to the United States is declining fast, and that, in fact, quite some migrants are returning. Politicians are usually quick to claim that such decreases are the result of border controls, the erection of fences and walls, and tough immigration rules. Yet the real cause of such decline is the protracted economic crisis in the US and soaring unemployment, which has particularly hit the construction sector, where many migrants tend to find employment.

This shows once again that immigration is primarily driven by economic conditions. Fluctuations in both legal and illegal immigration are closely associated to the business cycle in receiving countries. If the demand for migrant labour does not meet supply in the form of regular migration channels, migration will not stop, but migrants will come illegally. Only sustained economic recessions tend to significantly curb immigration.

To put it differently, the only way to really reduce immigration is to wreck the economy.

But the recent decline in Mexican immigration cannot be solely explained by the economic crisis in the US. Another important factors include shrinking families and expanded opportunities in Mexico, explaining why more and more young people prefer to stay at home instead of migrating to the crisis-ridden and increasingly immigrant-hostile United States. Mexico itself is also becoming a migration destination for poorer Latin American countries,

A similar, and probably even more convincing story can be told about Turkey. In recent years, migration from Turkey to the European Union has rapidly decreased. This is only partly related to declining opportunities in the European Union, as this decline already started before the onset of the economic crisis.

The main reason for this change has been extraordinary high growth Turkey has witnessed over the past decade following fundamental political and economic reforms. Why bother going abroad, if your own country offers so many new opportunities? This has made Turkey into a new migration destination - which means that more people migrate to Turkey than Turks move abroad. Also other emerging economies, such as Brazil and China, are attracting increasing numbers of migrants.

This shows how fast the world is changing. European and American debates on migration are still based on the self-centered notion that the whole world wants to come to the Western lands of milk and honey.

However, seen from Africa, Asia and Latin America, they increasingly appear like regions in crisis. So, people may either prefer to stay home or to simply go elsewhere. For instance, more and more sub-Saharan Africans migrate to Asia, North Africa, Turkey or even Latin America.

If and when economic growth resumes in the US and the EU, migration is likely to increase again, but with increasing global competition for migrant labour, governments and societies cannot afford the luxury to just take for granted that migrants will keep on coming - with this attitude, they may be shooting themselves in their own feet.

In many ways, in the future, the question will no longer be how to prevent migrants from coming, but how to attract them.

Although politicians and opinion makers may celebrate declining immigration, in their shortsightedness they do not see that this is in fact a sign of crisis.

Rising nations attract migrants, declining powers try to keep them out.

Africa Paradise

Imagine a world in which young Europeans try to desperately reach Africa. An interesting article in Slate Africa speculated on this scenario. It referred to the film Africa Paradise by the Beninese film maker Sylvestre Amoussou. It is a movie about a French couple which, in 2033, tries to leave a Europe plagued by unemployment and violence to enter the prosperous United Nations of Africa. However, African border guards stop them, and this is where their troubles start....

It may sounds a phantasm to most but is a future increase in European migration to Africa really that unrealistic?

In fact, it is already happening. More and more Europeans are settling in the Maghreb, West Africa and elsewhere on the continent to work, to do business or to retire. But why are they usually not seen as migrants, but as expatriates?

Why would they not be migrants? Because they are not considered as "poor" or "desperate"? (At least, this is the way Western media portray African immigrants, even though we know that most of them are neither poor nor desperate). Or because they are neither Black nor Muslim? In any case, "migrant" has increasingly become a term to describe the (undesirable) other.

This reveals the double standards Europeans apply when it comes to migration. While most Europeans find it normal that Africans and other foreigners are denied entry and live in situations of illegality, they find it equally normal that Europeans have the privilege to go and settle almost anywhere in the world. My students find it perfectly normal to spend their summer holidays in Morocco, Egypt or South Africa to discover the world and/or themselves, but often fail to realize that young Africans may have similar desires and dreams.

This is why films like Africa Paradise are important. It compels Europeans viewers to look themselves into the mirror and to imagine how it would be to be on the other side. But it also compels African viewers to consider racism and xenophobia in their own society.

The movie opens up the imagination by portraying a future in which the world looks totally different. And even if the scenario of Africa Paradise will not play out, this is an important message. Because it is very likely that the future of global migration will look fundamentally different from now.

And why would people not go to Africa?

Increasingly, Europe seems to become a continent marked by ageing, economic stagnation and social sclerosis. Particularly in southern Europe but also in Ireland, faced with mass unemployment and a general lack of perspective, young people have started to migrate again. And in the future, why would they not increasingly opt for Africa? 

While income differences between Europe and most African countries are still huge, many African economies have been growing fast and offer many social and economic opportunities for young, aspiring people. While countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana, Senegal and South Africa attract increasing number of migrants from within Africa, they also attract increasing number of migrants from outside. And these are not only Europeans. According to some estimates about one million Chinese already live in Africa.

Thinking about Africa as a migration paradise does not only help to correct stereotypes about Africa, but can also help Europeans to look themselves into the mirror. What if?

The African invasion that did not happen. Why and how?

Do you remember? Back in February and March of this year, European politicians and the media were sowing fear that Europe was about to face a deluge of African migrants in response to the Arab Spring. Particularly the violence in Libya was predicted to push up to 1.5 million sub-Saharan migrant workers to migrate to Europe. Others believed Gaddafi's threats that he could unleash a migrant invasion. Images of Tunisian boat migrants arriving on Lampedusa confirmed this image of a looming migration crisis.

None of that has happened. The vast majority of people fleeing the violence in Libya has returned home or temporarily settled in neigbouring countries - such as Libyans in Tunisia. Eventually, only a few thousands turned up in Europe. Although immigration of Tunisians - which had nothing to do with this violence - somehow increased, it never came near to "biblical" proportions predicted by Italian interior minister Maroni.

The sad thing is that we knew that this mass migration was not going to happen, and me (on this blog) and other migration researchers have been arguing this several times. However, such insights have been systematically ignored by politicians and media, because it served them well to deflect the attention away from their internal problems and because apocalyptic stories about miserable and desperate Africans invading Europe draw large audiences.

These stories ignored a number of basic facts.

• the vast majority of migrants in Libya and North Africa were not on their way to Europe but were there to work;
• the majority therefore opted to go home instead of going to Europe;
• the idea that Gaddafi could single-handedly unleash a "Black" migration invasion was as megalomaniac as his belief that all Libyans dearly loved the Guide of the Revolution of that he was the leader of all African; 
• every year several tens of thousands of North Africans cross the Mediterranean illegally in search of work (which exists, by the way) ever since south European countries introduced visa requirements for North Africans;
• numbers and routes fluctuate annually in response to job availability in Europe and which borders are best controlled, but this year's immigration from Tunisia is certainly not "unprecedented" compared to flows in previous years;
• these numbers of "several tends of thousands" are significant but dwindle in comparison to total EU immigration of about 1.5M annually. 

Back in the sixteenth century, Nicolò Machiavelli already argued that to stay in power, rulers should create external enemy in order to sow fear, create a common cause, defect the attention away from your own failings, and rally your people behind you. In recent decades, and particularly since the fall of the Berlin wall and the "Communist threat", European politicians have effectively used the imagined threat of uncontrolled mass immigration to stay in power.

This seems to be their prime motivation to use every "migration crisis" to blow out of proportion the real magnitude of the phenomenon. It has served them very well, but with the harmful consequence that many Europeans now genuinely believe and fear that they are "under threat" by a looming migrant invasion. However, the funny thing is that such migration waves always keep on "looming" at the horizon, but never actually arrive!

What has been the European response to the Arab Spring in terms of migration policy? Shameful. After having supported North African dictators for many decades, North African citizen spontaneously started to revolt against those leaders, European governments created panic about a few thousands of migrants landing on their shores and basically turned their back. While the Tunisian government has generously assisted hundreds and hosted tens of thousands of migrants and Libyans fleeing the violence and greatly facilitated the  work by UNHCR and IOM, wealthy European countries were arguing and haggling about sharing the "burden" of a few thousands of asylum seekers and refugees.

One of the first things the Italian government did after recognizing the National Transitional Council (NTC) in Libya is to guarantee that the TNC will respect the migration agreements they concluded with ... Gaddafi! Do the realise that these agreements have sanctioned abuses against the human rights of migrants and asylum seekers, as is extensively documented by human rights organizations and researchers? If the NTC is serious about democracy and human rights, it will not be able and should actually refuse to implement those agreements. The violence and abuses sub-Saharan migrants in Libya are currently experiencing, do therefore not necessarily bod well for the democratic credentials of the current NTC government.

So, European governments continue to actively pushing North African governments to violate rights of migrants and asylum seekers. Do they realise democracy also implies attributing rights to foreigners and migrants? After all, fundamental human rights do not only extend to citizens, but to all human beings.

In North Africa, human rights organizations have been assisting migrants and refugees and have been fighting for their rights of foreigners living on North African soil as part of a broader struggle to build more equal, just and democratic societies. They deserve the support of European governments, an certainly no encouragements to their leaders to continue abusing human rights of foreigners and, ultimately, also of their own citizens.

Development leads to more migration

It is often said that the only way to reduce migration to Europe, North America and other wealthy countries is to stimulate development in poor countries.

This sounds very logical. But it is a myth. In reality, social and economic development in poor countries leads to more migration. If you don't believe it, please look at this graph:

(c) Hein de Haas

This graph (from this recent study) ranks all countries in the world according to the level of human development. This is an index used by the United Nations Development Programme to measure the level of development of countries, and is calculated on the basis of three indicators: life expectancy at birth, years of schooling and income (GNI) per head of the population. It is a rough indicator of the quality of life and living standards in countries.

I divided all countries of the world countries in five, equally large groups ranging from very low to very high levels of human development. The blue and red bars indicate the number of emigrants (citizens living abroad) and immigrants (people born abroad) as a percentage of the total population (using 2000 data). It shows a striking pattern

• Immigration goes steadily up with the levels of development. More developed countries are more attractive. This makes sense. It also indicates that highly developed countries are inevitably high immigration societies.
• The surprise is in the blue bars: emigration initially goes up with levels of development, and only goes down once countries move into high development categories. It indicates that if poor countries become wealthier, emigration will increase.

This comes as a surprise to many, and is often met with disbelief. However, the explanation is simple: Development increases people's capabilities and  aspirations to migrate. International migration is often a costly and risky affair. Many people in poor countries simply do not have enough money and other resources to migrate over long distances. When societies become wealthier, more people will be able to migrate. And more people will have diplomas and qualifications which will allow them to get visas.

It is therefore no coincidence that the most important emigration countries in the world, such as Mexico, Morocco, Turkey and the Philippines are not the poorest countries in the world.

But it's not only money that matters. Also education and access to modern media such as satellite television and Internet plays explain why development initially leads to more migration. If people go to school, they increase their life aspirations, become more aware of opportunities elsewhere. Together with schooling, also access to modern media lead to people aspire better opportunities and different lifestyles.

When I lived in a Moroccan oasis for my research, my young friends, who were all peasants' sons and had gone to school, simply could not imagine a future on the farm anymore. Again, this was not only related to the lack of jobs on the countryside; they found life on the countryside simply "boring". They wanted to go and live in Casablanca or Marrakesh, or to go to Europe.

These processes are universal. It reminded me of my own mother, who also could not image a life on the farm anymore in the far north of the Netherlands, and went to Amsterdam. My parents moved back to Frisia in the north when they founded a family, until it was my turn to get bored and so I moved "back" to Amsterdam at the age of 18.

It is an illusion that you can stop this. Most young people, particularly when they are educated, want to explore the world and discover new horizons. European and American students find it perfectly normal to take a "gap year" to travel around the world, but are surprised when young Africans or Asians show the same sense of adventure and want to discover the world. The tendency is to portray them as "desperate" and "poor" whereas the majority of migrants from developing countries are better off than those who are forced to stay behind.

Several studies about past migration have shown the same pattern. For instance, in the 19th century, most immigrants in the United States came from Britain and other North Sea countries, while migration from poorer, less developed countries in southern and eastern Europe, which were lagging behind in industrial development and urbanization, took off much later.


What can we conclude from this? If countries such as Morocco and Mexico will experience rapid growth and economic development, we can experience a decline in emigration from those countries and an increase in immigration. In recent decades, such 'migration transitions" have also happened with countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland, South Korea, Taiwan; and Turkey seems in the middle of such a transition.

But development in the least developed countries, many of which are located in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, will almost inevitably lead to take-off emigration from those countries.

Therefore, future immigrants in Europe might increasingly come from sub-Saharan African instead of North African countries.

The graph and the study on which it is based also show something more fundamental: the need to see migration as an intrinsic - and therefore inevitable - part of human development rather than a problem to be solved.

Europe’s tiny refugee burden: Putting the Libyan migration crisis into perspective

Anybody believing that the Libyan crisis would create a “biblical exodus” towards Europe or the fear-mongering by Frontex and European politicians that up to 1.5 million migrants may soon arrive on European shores, should take a look at the chart below. 

And please have a look at this website – It is a beautiful collection of pictures showing the human face of the Libyan crisis and the faces of the many poor people who kept the wheels of the Libyan economy turning over the past years - Most want to go home. How dare European politicians insinuate that these people will massively "invade" Europe? 

Just some basic facts:

• So far, only about 2,800 out of a total of 500,000 people fleeing the violence in Libya have arrived in Europe. This is less than 0.6 percent of all cross-border movements.

• Egypt and Tunisia bear the real refugee burden – if that term is appropriate in the first place: about 88 percent of all people fleeing Libya arrive on their land borders.

• The overwhelming majority are migrant workers from Egypt, Tunisia, sub-Saharan Africa, Bangladesh and elsewhere who want to go home – shattering the myth that the millions of foreigners in Libya would all be “transit migrants” on their way to Euro

• The movement out of Libya is unrelated to the arrivals of some 20,000 mainly Tunisians on Lampedusa, which is part of the “normal” boat migration by mainly North African young men in search of work. 

• A combination of favourable weather, decreased police controls and high unemployment among young Tunisian men as a consequence of the decrease in tourist arrivals parly explain the new departures from the Tunisian coast.  See also this article in the Tunisian newspaper Le Temps. 

• This illegal boat migration has existed since the EU countries introduced visas for North Africans in the early 1990s, which interrupted seasonal and circular migration flows of Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian workers. This forced them to migrate illegally and pushed them into permanent settlement. A clear example of how immigration restrictions can have counter-productive effects.

•  This cross-Mediterranean migration happens every year, particularly in springtime. Total numbers amount to several tens of thousands per year, or about 2 percent of the annual of 1.5 - 1.8 million non-Europeans migrating to EU countries.

• Only routes continuously change in response to shifts in border controls in a kind of cat and mouse game. A drop in one place generally leads to an increase at other crossing points, and the other way around.

In sum: there is no indication that there is a major increase in migration from Africa to Europe in response to the popular uprisings in North Africa and the Libyan crisis, let alone that Europe would be invaded by hordes of desperate African migrants.  

·         This was a myth from the start, and the evidence only proves this. It is only sad to see the media and politicians perpetuate this “myth of invasion”.

Lampedusa and the construction of a "human tsunami"

In my previous blogpost, I argued how Gaddafi, European politicians and agencies like Frontex have "invented" the illusionary threat of an imminent immigrant invasion from Africa to serve their own cynical, xenophobic political agendas.

For more insights into how Berlusconi's government creates an immigration emergency to deflect the attention away from his various scandals and domestic failures, I warmly recommend Nando Sigona's excellent blog, and his particularly his latest posts on "Lampedusa and the spectacle of the invasion".

He argues how the Berlusconi government needs a tiny island like Lampedusa, “small enough to appear overcrowded even with a few thousand people” –  this is the only way the “grand narrative of the emergency and invasion” constructed by the Italian government and happily swallowed by sensationalist mass media can be kept alive.  

Nando Sigona also rightly critizised the total lack of sensitivity for the victims of real tsunamis shown by Berlusconi when he compared the arrival of migrants and refugees from North Africa as a ‘human tsunami’.