South Africa's Migrant Crisis

Fleeing war, drought and poverty , an increasing number of people from the Horn of Africa are heading south en route to South Africa. After arrival, many face xenophobia, arrest and deportation. Attempting to escape a dictatorial regime, many Ethiopians are fleeing the country in search of a better life. The country is suffering from severe drought and famine and has a border conflict with Eritrea. Eritreans are also seeking refuge away from a country that many experts rank as the least democratic in the world. Many head north toward Europe while others travel the southern route towards South Africa. Somalian refugees are also joining the trek south, fleeing atrocities and violence at the hands of al-Shabab militants in their country. Migration flows, which include refugees, asylum seekers, displaced persons and economic migrants, put a strain on governments in the region as they struggle to cope with the large number of migrants crossing their borders and moving through their countries. Many live as illegal aliens.

For most, the goal is South Africa, the only country in the region where refugees and asylum seekers enjoy freedom of movement and the right to work rather than being confined to camps. But as the number of migrants from the Horn of Africa seeking asylum in South Africa reached unprecedented levels, authorities began debating a shift away from the 1951 Refugee Convention that defined the term "refugee," outlined the rights of the displaced and set the legal obligations of states to protect them. In South Africa, three percent of the population are migrants. Due to high unemployment rates and poor economic growth, South Africans are frustrated and anti-foreigner sentiments are expressed more often and, as in Europe, have become more mainstream.

"South Africa for many years has had a very progressive law regarding migrants, particularly among refugees, and the country was in fact the number one recipient for asylum seekers in the world," said Loren Landau, a senior researcher at the African Center for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. According to Landau, many refugees are not able to exercise their rights and increasingly the South African government has hinted that there is a need to control migration. "They are taking the cue from Australia, Europe and North America, saying that we can't have any more," he said, adding that while they are still formally committed to protecting refugees and migrants, in practice protections are being eroded.

The United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, says South Africa has 120,000 recognized refugees and one million asylum seekers with pending cases. Tina Ghelli is the UNHCR's regional spokesperson for Southern Africa. "The biggest challenge in South Africa is the implementation of refugee's rights," she told DW. "Sometimes they face discrimination when they access social services and often become targets of xenophobia. Many of them make strong contributions to the community and economy - but that is not recognized."

There are currently amendments being discussed by the South African parliament to take away the rights to work for those people. Also the government is pushing neighboring countries like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania to keep the migrants so they do not travel further to South Africa. But also more and more people from Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Congo and Zimbabwe are fleeing their homes and arrive in South Africa, which many regard as an attractive economic giant.

The men, women and children making up these migrant flows towards southern Africa frequently resort to unsafe modes of transportation and smuggling networks. They expose themselves to injury, violence, detention, exploitation and abuse. Human trafficking has become a huge problem in the southern region. Desperate people are being trafficked from the Great Lakes region through many countries to South Africa. Recently, in Zambia police discovered a truck carrying more than 100 Ethiopians. 19 were dead. They were most likely victims of human trafficking.

Xenophobia in Zambia

Violence erupted earlier this month in slum areas of the capital after foreigners, especially Rwandans, were blamed for the recent murders of at least seven people, whose body parts such as ears, hearts and penises had been removed. Locals argued that these were ritual murders committed by foreigners to secure body parts used for good luck charms.

As a result, hundreds of Lusaka residents stoned houses and shops owned by foreign nationals, with hundreds of foreigners seeking refuge at police stations and churches as looters took food, drinks, refrigerators and other electrical appliances. Two people were burned to death in those anti-immigration riots in the country's capital, Lusaka. The two dead had been identified as Zambians who died "in the confusion" as riots tore through the shantytowns.  According to the police, more than 60 foreign-owned shops have been looted or destroyed in Lusaka in the past week and there were calls to "rid the country of all immigrants"

Zambia's government is trying to send hundreds of refugees back to camps. Refugees who built lives in residential neighbourhoods were not willing to return to camps even though they were facing imminent threats.

"People here say they don't want to return to refugee camps because there is no way to make a living and conditions are poor," Al Jazeera's reporter, Fahmida Miller, said

In Limbo in Israel

As Europeans argue over whether to call new arrivals migrants or refugees, Israel’s government calls the Africans “infiltrators”, a word loaded with negative connotations.

“We are a country of refugees,” says Anat Ovadia, a spokesperson for the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, one of the non-governmental organisations that petitioned for the detainees’ release. “It is very shameful that Israel forgets its history.”

Israel has about 45,000 asylum-seekers, 34,000 of them from Eritrea and 9,000 from Sudan. Most entered via Egypt’s Sinai desert up to 2013, when Israel completed a formidable steel fence at the frontier. The Africans live in Israel in legal limbo. They have visas that allow them to stay but that bar them from working. The visas must be updated at least every three months. Holot is an “open” facility in Israel’s southern Negev desert, where detainees are required to report for regular roll-calls to prevent them from working in Israel, where many Africans have menial jobs.

Israel has granted only a tiny number of asylum requests, and offers cash incentives for Africans to leave.  Refugee experts say that Israel’s policies toward migrants reflect both political pressures to do something and demographic anxieties in its rightwing governing elite about maintaining a strong Jewish majority in the country.

“This week’s events reflect once again the lack of a policy of the Israeli government when it concerns non-Jewish immigration to Israel,” says Jean-Marc Liling, an Israeli lawyer specialising in refugee law. “There is a complete incapacity to deal with the fact that Israel has become a country of immigration and not only a country of Aliyah [Jewish immigration].”

Not Just South Africa

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa has attracted millions of migrants fleeing political and economic turmoil in their own countries. Zimbabweans account for the largest population of migrants in South Africa, with some analysts estimating they make up 23% of the whole workforce. With a youth unemployment rate of over 50% and a slowing economy, cheap foreign labour is a hot political issue, with locals accusing foreign nationals of stealing their jobs. But while South Africa has borne the brunt of the harsh international spotlight, other similar African government operations, are flying under the radar.

The Republic of Congo last week launched the second phase of its operation “Mbata ya bakolo,” which in the local Lingala language means “the slap of the elders”. Some 600 foreigners were arrested over only two days. The first phase, carried out in April 2014 in the economic hub of Pointe-Noire, forced back an estimated 250,000 workers from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo in only a few weeks. Churches and local charities say the operation was now a “full-blown manhunt” and employed violence and degrading treatment. The conflict-ridden DR Congo ranks last on the UN development index, and over the years tens of thousands of its nationals have found menial jobs in neighbouring Congo, where living conditions are slightly better. Official figures from Kinshasa in April showed around four million residents in Congo, equivalent to around one in 10 of the population, hailed from DR Congo. Realising targeting economic migrants attracts international backlash, governments now increasingly cite insecurity as a reason for targeting foreign nationals.

West African borders tend to be most porous, with emergent economies such as Ghana and Ivory Coast particularly popular with immigrants.

Nigeria has in recent years deported thousands of foreign immigrants, citing concerns of infiltration by Islamic extremists - though it protested the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa. The country’s porous borders and lenient immigration officers have seen thousands of foreign workers easily move in, especially from Niger in the north, but also from Ghana, Chad, Benin and Cameroon, seeking to earn a better living. Immigrants now make up a significant part of the menial labour workforce in Lagos. But the country’s battle with terrorism has seen them targeted by authorities, with some 22,000 deported in 2013, while a crackdown was also carried out ahead of its March election.

Niger early this month deported more than 3,000 Nigerians fleeing Boko Haram, with refugees saying they were forced to walk back over three days after the insurgents attacked an island in Lake Chad. Niger is home to more than 100,000 other Nigerian refugees fleeing the militants.

Kenya has been a preferred destination from Somalis and South Sudanese fleeing conflict, but this year threatened to close the world’s largest refugee complex after deadly terror attacks by Somali militant group Al-Shabaab. But there have also been reports of friction with locals over the high visibility of Somalis in key areas of the economy, such as retail and real estate, a perception of illegality that peaked during the surge in piracy in the Indian Ocean.

http://mgafrica.com/article/2015-05-19-you-are-an-immigrant-from-africa-in-africa-tough-luckxenophobia-is-increasingly-regional

Angola's anti-migrant campaign

During the last few days Angolan security forces have arrested and arbitrarily detained several African nationals who they also subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment in serious violations of migrants’ human rights, according to several human rights organisations

The Angolan authorities have embarked upon a new fight against clandestine immigration that is becoming more like a migrants ‘manhunt’. In the last ten days, 3,000 people have been rounded up in the streets of Luanda. Non-Angolan Africans are violently arrested in the streets, in their homes and at work and taken to the detention centre in Trinita, 30 km from Luanda. Some are forcibly repatriated. They are kept in cruel, inhumane, humiliating, and degrading conditions. They are crammed into tiny cells and deprived of both water and food. Some pregnant women (two of whom are from Mali and Guinea) had to give birth in these deplorable conditions. Acts of torture and extortion of money have also been reported.

Immigrants in Angola, especially people from West Africa, have been subject to repeated attacks, stigmatization and violations of their human rights. The arrests may be linked to ethnic and religious discrimination, since the main group targeted is largely composed of Muslims from Guinea, Mauritania, Mali and Senegal. Witnesses reported that mosques were surrounded by the Immigration Services on Friday, 19 December 2014.

Socialist Banner condemns all xenophobic practices and attitudes.

The tragedy at Ceuta and Melilla

Every week, hundreds of Africans try to scramble over the high fences that encircle Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish-ruled enclaves on the northern tip of Morocco. Countless migrants are injured as the Moroccan military, on one side, and a few hundred Spanish police on the other, block Africans seeking to cross into the two tiny territories -- barely 12 square miles (30 square kilometres) of land between them. Nearly 4,700 undocumented migrants have infiltrated Melilla thus far this year, the interior ministry said -- up from 3,000 in 2013. The Spanish government says nearly 20,000 migrants have tried to storm the six-metre (23-foot), triple layer fence at Melilla this year alone.

Ceuta sits in a strategic spot 15 miles from Gibraltar across the mouth of the Mediterranean, with Melilla 140 miles to the east. To guard their fences, 600 Civil Guards are stationed in each of the territories. "You have to be strong and very fit. You have to be a lion!" said AbouDiarrisso, a lean 22-year-old from Ivory Coast who clambered over into Melilla. "There were 200 of us to start with. I was the only one to get over the fences." Some migrants sit atop the fence for hours before falling off exhausted, getting dragged down by Spanish guards or knocked off by blows from their batons. A video filmed by rights group Prodein in October showed Spanish guards beating a migrant on the fence and carrying him apparently unconscious back to the Moroccan side. The Spanish government has since announced a reform that would formally authorise border guards to drive migrants off who try to climb the fence. Commissioner Nils Muiznieks of the Council of Europe, the continent's top human rights authority, branded that plan "unjust and illegal under international law".

The Trauma of being a Migrant

"In South Africa this situation of forced labour is typical," explains Marija Nikolovska, project manager of irregular migration programmes for International Organisation for Migration (IOM) South Africa. "Migrants are unaware of their rights and are afraid to go to the police because they don't want to be deported or are afraid the police will not act." The migrants who manage to secure work often face exploitation, Nikolovska adds. "Those who find employment are paid less than South African workers and sometimes have their salaries withheld for months. If they protest they risk losing their jobs or being reported to the authorities."

Recent figures released by the South African authorities show that of the 2,000 illegal migrants repatriated each week, up to 20% are unaccompanied children. About 350-400 Zimbabwean children cross the border each day without passing official checkpoints, according to Save the Children Zimbabwe.

 While some malaishas (taxi drivers/smugglers) operate solely as middlemen, many are part of a network who rob, sexually assault or enslave the migrants.  Girls are sometimes forced to work as prostitutes, says Natalia Perez, programme director of IOM Zimbabwe. "Beitbridge and Musina are busy transit routes, many young girls work in prostitution where the risk of being exposed to HIV is high." Boys are also vulnerable and can be found begging, sleeping rough or in low-paid jobs. They are sometimes targeted by magumagumas (gangs of robbers) and face mistreatment by the police.

According to Médecins Sans Frontières, the international medical organisation, more than 75% of the 4,000-5,000 migrants they treat each month have been raped while crossing the border, with nearly 60% violated by more than one perpetrator.

From here

The Politics of Human Disposability.

The Mediterranean has been described by Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat as a "graveyard" as migrants from Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, seek to cross over to Europe to flee various hardships partly attributed to the legacies of Eurocentric colonial and neocolonial politics. It is estimated that over the last two decades, around 20,000 people drowned while being smuggled over. The European Union, through its "fortress" politics, centering around the notion of "security," has much to answer for in this continuous human tragedy.

We are witnessing the present rightist discourse of the "foreigners who will take our jobs" and parties that built their identity and electoral success on fear of foreigners. The criminalisation of immigrants serves to fan the flames of racism and xenophobia. The marginalization of immigrants with no access to citizenship rights and social benefits, especially rejected asylum seekers, leads them to eke out a living at the very margins of society, in the "underworld" if need be. This furthers the construction of irregular migrants as given to criminality, promiscuity etc. rather than being victims of a systemic oppressive and ultimately racist structure that encourages abuse of their vulnerability.

 If anything, the target of any anger, where vulnerable working-class employees are concerned, should be those unscrupulous employers who prey on a destitute "reserve army" to considerably cut down labor costs. If one goes by hearsay, they often completely do away with these costs, at best paying the migrant a pittance. But unless these aspects of the migration issue are tackled systematically and backed by robust research by those whose historical function was that of leading the working class through a sustained process of an inclusive workers' education program spanning different media and settings, we are more likely to see a swing toward the right. And by this, I mean not only the emergence of right-wing parties, but also former leftist parties veering towards right of centre.

The dominant discourse centers around "security" on the grounds of the threat of international terrorism rather than foregrounding a person's right to seek asylum and protection, especially in cases where her or his existence is very much in jeopardy. In the majority of cases, we have bona fide breathing human subjects being criminalized for sins not of their making - sins for which Europe itself has a lot to answer. All this attests to the legacies of colonialism in Africa and the Middle East and the Western powers' collusion in the creation of situations characterized by the presence of client tyrannical regimes, not least through the supply of arms by a western-driven arms industry, and, in one specific case, a direct colonial/apartheid regime.

Maria Pisani,  lecturer in Youth and community Studies and founding director of the Maltese NGO, Integra Foundation,   points out that "illegal immigrant" is a nonexistent term in international law. It is bandied about by politicians to justify "illegal legalities," that is to say, the trampling over human rights, basic ones at that. It has unfortunately become part of the popular doxa. She reminds us of the 1951 Geneva Convention that recognizes a person's right to asylum and which allows for possible instances of "irregularity" in recognition of situations that lead to "forced migration." Once again, these policies should be international since we are dealing with international, global phenomena and should therefore not be allowed to be guided by the selfish interest of political and economic powerhouses in Europe and beyond.

Lawyer and activist with regard to immigrant rights, Neil Falzon, said in a recent newspaper interview in Malta Today that there are no legal means that allow "bona fide asylum seekers" to make it to Europe without placing their lives in jeopardy. He points out that flying is out of the question since no visa would be made available by any European country.

Anybody with a modicum of human compassion and who values human life dearly should be outraged by the events occurring at Europe's doorstep. We should protest to highlight the continent's shameful past with regard to treatment of ethnic minorities and sensitize other Europeans to the danger of seeing complex global imperialist issues in myopic nationalistic and mono-cultural terms. Hopefully it would sensitize other Europeans to the complex set of factors that compel people to leave the contexts in which they are rooted, and possibly love dearly, to seek a different life abroad. The reasons for doing this are many, but I would mention some here: civil wars fueled by a Western-based arms industry and exacerbation of tribal conflicts often resulting in rape and being disowned by family; the attempt among women to avoid female genital mutilation; evading religious fundamentalism; the negative effects on African farming of subsidies provided to farmers in other continents; the negative effects of climate change; an impoverished environment (the ransacking of Africa); and a colonial ideology which presents the West as the Eldorado and a context for the "good life," structural adjustment programs, the quest for better employment opportunities . . . and one can go on, perhaps falling prey to western stereotypes and constructions of "Africa."

There is however one major global reason, namely the quest for low-cost labor by corporations and other businesses alike that serves as a "push-and-pull factor." As David Bacon argues (see Illegal People. How Globalization creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants, Beacon Press, 2008), hegemonic globalization necessitates migration, but it is the same victims of this process who are rendered "illegal" and criminalized as a result, often victims of the "carceral state." By carceral state, I mean the state that punishes as part of its function in dealing with the excesses of hegemonic globalization, that is neoliberal capitalist-driven globalization or "globalization from above." Detention centers such as those decried by international and local observers over here and Fabrizio Gatti in Lampedusa are institutions that reflect the presence of a carceral state, to borrow Henry A. Giroux's term.

Neoliberal politics with their structural adjustment programs in Africa and other parts of the "majority world" have exacerbated the disparities between South and North. Colonialism has not gone away, but has taken different forms. There is recent talk about providing the right conditions for "investment" (there's the magic word) in Africa not to compel people to move elsewhere.  First we ravage a continent and drain it of its resources and now we attempt to resuscitate it.  In fact, I detect racist overtones in this idea, namely that Africans are to remain in Africa and do not belong elsewhere.

Adapted from this interview of Maltese scholar Peter Mayo, author of, among many other books, The Politics of Indignation (Zero Books, 2012)

Israeli Racism

Recently we have witnessed the shameful rounding up and deportation of Africans from Saudi Arabia.  In 2011 in Tel Aviv, a thousand Israelis ran rampant through the streets, smashing and looting African-operated businesses and physically assaulting any dark-skinned person they came across.

The rioters were encouraged by the likes of lawmaker Miri Regev, who announced that African migrants are "a cancer in the body" of the nation.  Regev "apologised” after the violence, not to African asylum seekers, but to Israeli cancer victims, for comparing them to Africans and was appointed by PM Benjamin Netanyahu to head the Knesset Interior Committee, the very body that decides the fate of those asylum seekers.  Netanyahu has pledged to rid the country of its "tens of thousands of infiltrators" from Africa.

The persecution suffered by  Africans often occurs in the countries from which they have fled and to which Israel has no qualms about illegally deporting them.  Israeli-Canadian journalist David Sheen, who reports relentlessly on the hazards to African existence in the Jewish state,  remarks: "When Israel rounds up and deports African refugees, it makes a mockery of the millions of Jews who died during World War II because no one would grant them shelter." Since Israel took over responsibility for reviewing refugee status requests from UNHCR, out of the 60,000 non-Jewish African asylum seekers living in Israel, Israel has approved only one single solitary application. And that one African woman that the State of Israel… has deigned to bequeath refugee status upon - is an albino.

Although the fundamental reason for restricting African access to Israel is to prevent a tipping of the demographic balance in favour of non-Jews, the circumstances facing Ethiopian Jewish immigrants indicate that religion only gets you so far. Lest the target national colour scheme be irreparably disrupted as well, Israel has been known to forcibly inject Ethiopian females with contraceptives.

Former Knesset member Michael Ben-Ari declares: "We are waging a war against the phenomenon of assimilation."

Dying for a new life

The crossing of the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe to find a hoped-for better life has resulted in many hundreds of drownings. But let us not forget those who die even before they reach that leg of their tortuous journey.

Dozens of people traversing the Sahara desert on their way to Europe are feared to have died of thirst in Niger, officials say. Five bodies have been found, while a further 35 are missing after their vehicle broke down.  They consisted of entire families, including very many children and women. The bodies found are of two women and three girls aged 9-11.

Israel's racism and militarism

A blog describes Israel’s latest refugee deportation ploy policy.

Ynet reports that the government is close to inking a deal with three African states (who are likely Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Uganda) who will take “tens of thousands” of ‘undesirable’ African refugees from Israel in return to Israeli weapons and training.  Isn’t that neat and tidy!?  Israel gets rids of what Israeli politician  Miri Regev called a “cancer in its midst” and contributes to the rising tide of mayhem and violence in countries like South Sudan and Eritrea, already beset by instability and civil war.

The Israeli government revealed there are 7,000 registered arms merchants plying Israeli weapons to precisely these sorts of unstable states, making Israel the sixth largest arms merchant in the world.  

Ethiopian Migrants

In the last six years around 250,000 Ethiopians have made the dangerous journey into Yemen, gateway to the Gulf, a very poor, deeply divided country besieged with internal problems, which has limited resources, the second highest rate of chronic child malnutrition in the world and where 45% of the population live in poverty.

Djibouti city is the first major stage in the harrowing journey to Yemen, here or at sea all possessions, including mobile phones, cash and clothes are stolen, by smugglers, corrupt police or border guards. The journey to Djibouti’s capital is harsh and dangerous, in which many Ethiopian migrants die of starvation, dehydration or are killed by bandits. The Danish Refugee Council report, ‘Desperate Choices’, states, and wait for days or weeks for favourable conditions to cross the perilous waters of the Gulf of Aden, in flimsy boats manned by vicious criminal gangs. The ordeal of women begins in Djibouti, DRC report an Ethiopian man recounting the sea passage when “four Yemeni smugglers were on board the boat. They raped the girls in front of us, we were not able to move or to speak, and those girls were already sold to Yemeni traffickers.” Many are abducted and held captive, sometimes for months on end, their experiences are harrowing in the extreme.

On arrival in Yemen men and women are separated, wives taken from husbands, daughters from Fathers brothers from sisters. Trafficking and multiple rape of women is widespread, IRIN 12/03/12 state “the majority of the approximately 3,000 women held by smugglers in Haradh [on the border with Saudi Arabia] over the past year were raped, many of them repeatedly.”

 Corruption is endemic, with security officials coordinating with smugglers on the border with Saudi Arabia, “a climate of collusion and low political will to apprehend and prosecute smugglers is allowing the trade and abuse of migrants to flourish” (Reuters). The country is run, a military officer on the payroll of the smugglers to the tune of $2,000 a month says, “by tribes not policemen: these people are my friends.” ‘These people’ are turning a bind eye to the murder, rape and trafficking of innocent migrants seeking work to feed their families.

The innocent men women and children from Ethiopia making an impossible choice, with they see no alternatives, are not the villains in this ongoing human tragedy they are the victims trapped in a terrifying nightmare.

Full article here

A blind eye

Jimmy Mubenga died as three security guards restrained him with what is believed to be excessive force while being deported to Angola. Last month, a senior journalist at a radio station, accused by the ruling party of trying to incite rebellion, was shot dead in Luanda. In 2004, Mfulumpinga Nlandu Victor, an outspoken politician, was also shot dead in the capital. In 2007, the leader of the main opposition party, Isaías Samakuva, survived an assassination attempt unharmed. There are many lesser known cases of systematic abuse, detentions, torture, deaths, but none of these appear on the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) country profile. Unlike nearby Zimbabwe, Angola does not even feature in the UK's list of countries whose human rights record are of concern.

British business interests, particularly oil interests, are undoubtedly the underlying reason. Angola produces about 1.9m barrels of oil a day. One of the UK's largest companies, BP, has substantial interests there and describes Angola as one of its "six new profit centres". BP's involvement in the country began four decades ago: to date it has invested $8bn. Other British businesses operating in Angola include De La Rue, Lonrho plc, Crown Agents, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Standard Chartered and KPMG. According to Oxfam, British arms brokers were actively selling arms to Angola during the war.

The irony is that many British people take it for granted that our respect for human rights and justice is second to none. Often, when talking about dictatorships in other parts of the world, we assume we have a moral authority that other nations can only envy. The death of Mubenga while in the care of the British justice system suggests otherwise.

Cab-Ride to Capitalism: Servitude by the Majority

Socialist Banner thought it worthwhile to re-post this article from the magazine Socialist Standard .

It only takes a cab ride in a city to see which class has the most power and influence in capitalist society
Everyday taxicab rides may appear to be lacklustre experiences that are quickly forgotten. However, this might not always be the case. Sometimes our views of events may become clouded and we cannot see things for what they really are. However, after taking many cab-rides in an urban city, I began to see things in a different way. On one of my jaunts in a taxicab I decided to investigate what it is that made people come to developed capitalist countries from less developed parts of the world.

In speaking to a cab driver, who left Ethiopia to come to Canada, I found my answer. I asked, “do people tend to be more happy in Western societies than in Ethiopia?” He answered that, “Ethiopia was a poor country.” In his words I could see the influence capitalism now had on his life: he equated how much money one has to how happy they are in life. This is reminiscent of one of the trademark idioms of capitalism that money can buy happiness. This is now disputed even by some who are otherwise supporters of capitalism, but if it were wholly refuted then this could undermine the entire capitalist system. Unfortunately, many people do believe that money can buy happiness in the owning class and force those who do not make as much money into the service industry, which in its very nature seeks to serve the owning class.

Your life is influenced by where you are born

Your life is partly determined by where you are born. For example, if you are born in Ethiopia then your life will be determined by Ethiopian standards and culture. In the United States, Canada or the UK your life is determined by a more developed capitalist system. Someone may come from Ethiopia to experience the “freedoms” countries like these employ, but there is another factor at work here: class. It is easy to show that the system boasts of false promises: Sally wishes to go to university, but Sally’s parents cannot afford to pay for it because in the capitalist system one must pay for everything. Sally’s life path has now been influenced by what class she was born into. Therefore, what the Ethiopian will notice is that “freedoms” have a price and are largely determined by what class one is born into.

Along the same lines, immigrants often receive low paying work in the service industry once they enter the developed capitalist system and they can never afford the education to gain higher paying jobs. As a result they stay in the service industry their entire lives, being some of the most lowly-paid members of the working class of wage and salary earners. It is education and money that allows one to move up in a capitalist society but even if one is to move up the ‘social ladder’, it is only usually to a less badly paid section of the same subservient class.

Finding and maintaining a job is difficult enough for people in poor countries and therefore receiving an education is but a luxury. In fact, the cab driver I spoke to said that he was working to make sure that his daughter would be able to go to university. He has to spend his years driving a car all day long so that his daughter will not have to do the same job and will have a better future. If someone cannot improve their station in life because they have no money to begin with, they also cannot afford to improve their station through higher education. This means that they are left work for the class that owns and controls society. This is because capitalism is not really based on merit, but on how much money one has. This is irrational as merit should never have a price, it should be free and depend on nothing but itself.

The capitalist system is marketed on its promises of equality and freedoms through purchasing power. Prospective immigrants are given rhetoric about how capitalism makes anything possible – if one has money. However, nothing appears possible, let alone free and equal about the owning class being served daily by an exploited working class, who are actually the majority and whose freedom is rationed and limited by their pay packets and salary cheques.

Moreover, how successful you will be in life is largely determined by what class you are born into, and is out of your control. The cab driver from Ethiopia realised that he, or his daughter, would not be able to influence society in a poor country because all of the rich capitalist countries such as those in the G8 are the most influential and have the highest standards of living. However, even though he came to one of these developed capitalist countries, he will almost inevitably remain in the service industry for the rest of his life. This is because capitalism is not based on talent or merit like a truly equal system would be such as socialism where everyone would have an equal opportunity to pursue their true interests in life. In capitalism, your success typically still depends on how rich a family or area you are born into and what kind of a reputation it has. If you are unlucky and are born into the majority, the working class, it is likely that you will remain there to serve the upper class for the duration of your life.

Capitalism Promises Freedoms, But for Who?

It is taught in school that capitalist countries are mosaic countries, small units of various cultures existing within a larger schema or government. This view is marketed so that potential immigrants will not have to leave their customs behind and still be able to reap the so-called rewards of capitalist society. In reality, what exists is a melting pot where these cultures are eventually assimilated. The opposite of a mosaic, melting pot, a term with a negative connotation, is often used to describe societies experiencing large-scale immigration from many different countries that seem to “melt” into the existing society. For example, Muslims are being assimilated into Western culture by way of developed capitalism. Only those who assimilate into the capitalist system are able to experience the "freedoms" it promises, but at often cost to their culture. It follows that people who come to developed capitalist countries work to serve the needs of the majority, who are of a different culture, often by forgoing their own so that they might fit in the prevailing market-driven norms.

Two of the most prominent examples of the melting-pot theory are the African Americans who were enslaved by white people through trade and the Native Americans who were wiped out, enslaved or displaced during European colonization. Though these cultures, mainly the African Americans, regained somewhat of their dignity many years later, they still lost the connection to their homeland, lost their culture and were forced to “melt” into the capitalist system.

The natives of North America are an example of not only assimilation to benefit the capitalist class but of the deception of such a system. The natives did not have money or a use for money until the European settlers arrived. These initiated trade and the natives would work hard to gather furs. They would sell their furs, specifically beaver pelts, which were very expensive items in European society at the time. In return they would receive trinkets such as forks as well detrimental items like firearms and liquor. Further, the economy that was run during colonization was one that the Europeans implemented and operated themselves, i.e. capitalism. Also, when the natives finally became wary of the situation, they lost their land. Treaties for land exchange were deceitfully created in a language foreign to them so that they could not have possibly known that they were signing away their land. They were taken advantage of and most importantly, lost their autonomy and freedom. Additionally, the native clans that do remain in North America are being assimilated, or waiting to be assimilated, into society. One way where this can be seen is through the media impact on younger generations who are lured into Western society with its market-driven imperatives and away from their cultural heritage.

Servitude

It seems almost unbelievable to think that servitude exists today in a society that is supposed to be ‘meritocratic’. This is because it is unnecessary that there should even be a servant class in society at all, even if the modern form of slavery is wage slavery.

There is no doubt that if one were to ask the Ethiopian cab driver if he would drive a cab all day if he didn’t have to, he would say no. The majority of people work unsatisfying and unchallenging jobs in the service industry and this is not necessary. It is socially demeaning and it is servitude, plain and simple. Capitalism has wrought its negative influences on the African Americans and North American natives. These people were exploited and subordinate classes until they melted into the capitalist society causing social alienation and loss of cultural identity. Further, those that work in the service industry today are not far off from these fates. Their lives may be better now that they can purchase “freedom” but it is at a great cost to their dignity as they spend their lives in servitude based on the amount of money they (do not) have instead of what talents they possess. Moreover, it only takes a cab ride in a city to see which class has the most power and influence in a capitalist society and chances are it isn’t the class of the Ethiopian behind the wheel.

JESSICA FORDHAM (Socialist Party of Canada)

Drowning for Labour Fluidity

Socialist Banner has previously reported on the woes of the migrant and has repeatedly stated that workers have no borders. 200 migrants were feared dead off the coast of Libya, after the smugglers' boat which was supposed to take them to Italy capsized.The UN refugee agency estimates that more than 67,000 people undertook the dangerous voyage to Europe in smugglers' boats in 2008. More than 1,700 are known to have died, but that figure could be far higher.

Echoing much of our analysis is the head of the UN refugee agency, Antonio Guterres when he said :-

"I think it's important to recognise that in today's world where as we have seen, money moves so freely, and goods tend to move also more and more freely, there are still tremendous obstacles for people.People need to move because they can no longer live in their countries of origin because of war, because of environmental degradation, because of poverty, there are many reasons that force people to move."

The International Labour Organisation says that despite the current global financial crisis, falling birth rates across western Europe will cause a labour shortage over the next few years. It says Europe should think about making it easier for people from the developing world to come in and work.

"You have a strong demand for labour particularly in industrialised countries," explained Patrick Taran, a migrant labour specialist with the ILO."They need people to fill the low skilled jobs in agriculture and construction, manufacturing, domestic work, in health care, and you have a lot of people, including with skills, who need those jobs and are willing to come for them."

He adds "When there's no job at all at home, when you have a family to feed, you will take risks to make sure that you and your family have food on the table."

As socialists are concerned, it is not a case of chanting “Migrants are welcome here” , which implies we as workers have some right to say who is and isn't welcome in the first place; nor even of saying that the immigration laws should be relaxed. We understand that the thing which makes workers leave behind their communities, and go to a place where their language is not spoken, is the wages system itself. This underlies the need for us to recognise our identical position with regards to the wages system, and work together, as workers across the world, across boundaries, to create a commonly owned planet where all can live in security.

divide and rule

Socialist Banner has pointed out the threat of discrimination in South Africa against in-comers from other parts of the continent and now another news report high-lights the problem .

Human rights organisations in South Africa have condemned a spate of xenophobic attacks that have reportedly left four people dead and hundreds homeless.
"At least a 1,000 people have also been left homeless in the latest attack - we are really concerned," said Vincent Moaga, spokesman for the South African Human Rights Commission .

The United Nations Refugee Agency said it had recorded at least half a dozen attacks against foreign nationals in the past few weeks, including the fatal shooting of two migrants in another township outside Pretoria on 18 March. Following the killing, thousands of people went on a rampage, assaulting foreigners in four other informal settlements, reported local newspapers.

"Most of the attacks seem to stem from social tensions within the communities," said Jack Redden, UNHCR spokesman in South Africa. "Many foreign nationals unable to afford rentals in city centres have begun to relocate to townships - and have become the focus of simmering tensions within townships over lack of service delivery." Nearly 17 million strong labour force remain officially unemployed in South Africa. A further 3.5 million are classified as "discouraged work-seekers" or "unemployed." South Africa as the regional economic superpower has attracted migrants - both legal and illegal - from across the continent and beyond

"It is a new kind of racism," commented Annah Moyo, a human rights lawyer with the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF). "It is understandable, I think, because South Africans feel threatened as many employers prefer to hire foreign nationals because they can exploit them - but violence can never be justified."

Divide and rule to maintain whites in political power has been the history of Africa in the past but now industry and commerce , much of it black owned , now use the same tactic to weaken the working class to continue their control .

Shared exploitaion deserves the response of united resistance.

The Nationalist Madness

In September 2005, a Moroccan newspaper compared sub-Saharan African migrants to "black locusts" invading northern Morocco. Frequent round-ups have occurred in immigrant neighborhoods and in improvised ad-hoc camps close to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and larger cities, and unauthorized migrants are regularly deported to the Algerian border.

Events in Morocco have brought to the fore the madness in the nationalist issue. Hundreds of West Africans who tried to enter Spain through Morocco are brutally maltreated by the Moroccan security services apparently at the instigation of the Spanish authorities. They are beaten, put in prison and many driven to the heart of the desert and left there to die.

In the wake of the brutal attacks on these West Africans, many human rights groups in Morocco came out in their numbers to protest against the inhuman act. Unfortunately most of these activists attributed the action of the Moroccan authorities to racism. This however is a gross misrepresentation of the issue.

This misguided hatred of fellow human beings who happen not to have been born (or who have not been officially recognised as ‘citizens’) in certain parts of this world is not just found in Africa but everywhere in the world. This inhuman phenomenon makes nonsense of the oneness of the human race as preached by the UN, Christianity, Islam, etc. But this state of affairs could not have been otherwise in a world that is controlled by vampires whose only concern is profits and who place money on a higher pedestal than human beings.

The unfortunate aspect of this hatred towards the ‘foreigner’ or ‘alien’ is that the champions of nationalism use the working class of their countries against the working class of other countries. The truth however, is that the loyalty felt by many members of the working class to their country is a misplaced loyalty. Their so-called leaders actually hold them in the same measure of contempt as the ‘foreign’ members of the working class. In real terms there is no difference whatsoever between these ‘citizens’ who gleefully inflict the pain and the ‘foreigner’ on whom the pain is inflicted. The two groups are both exploited by the ruling class. In fact these African youth who were trying to enter Spain en route to inner Europe were actually forced to abandon their birthplaces by the actions of the ruling class of this world. No one in this world is unaware of the poverty and misery that is the lot of the African. And the capitalists cause this.

The only real division that exists between human beings is their access to the resources and wealth of the world. In this money-dominated world, the minority ruling class (the capitalists) own and control these resources and wealth – the land, factories, the transport and communication network, etc. The working class has no access to these and has to sell their mental and physical labour power the former in return for peanuts.

Nationalism is therefore an illusion that has no basis in reality. The working class in Morocco has more in common to the working class in sub-Saharan Africa (and indeed the working class of the whole world) than it has with its masters in Morocco and else where. The point, in a gist, is that nationalism is nothing short of an ideology that seeks to enhance the profit-making interests of the capitalist class.

However, the problem of nationalism cannot be wished away. To do away with it will mean to eliminate the present the system that fosters it. This system ensures that a minority owns and controls the means with which wealth is produced and distributed whilst the vast majority who actually does the production owns nothing. The resources and wealth of the world must be owned and controlled by all humanity. Under such an arrangement, no one will care who goes where or who belongs where. Then nationalism and its present brutalities would have been buried.

But this type of system – call it socialism – can only be possible when people make efforts to understand the workings of not just that system but also this capitalist system.

Editorial for the African Socialist , now The Socialist Banner, journal of World Socialism in Africa. Copies can be obtained (price £1.30, including postage and packaging) from 52 Clapham High, London, SW4 7UN.

DETENTION CAMPS IN BELGIUM ARE FOR BUSINESS

The author writes from personal experience having been imprisoned for 6 months at a Belgium detention camp .

The Kingdom of Belgium Government's inhuman Asylum and Immigration Laws are coming to a state of explosion. In 1998, Belgium built more than five detention camps and all are functioning proper. For example, VOTTEM, Liège detention camp is made up of four sections in a cross form. Each section is made up of twelve rooms. And each room is made up of two wooden double bunks that contain four persons in a room. This VOTTEM is a closed camp that you have no access to your freedom. And the same situation applies to other camps in Belgium. They used the same design as Hitler's detention camps in the 1930s and built their own.

It is unfortunate that the people kept there are mostly immigrants from Africa, Asia, South America and Eastern Europe. These people did not commit any crime. Only that they are on their asylum procedure. They are locked up for good eight months without release. Does that reflects democracy in a country that claims advance and the capital of Europe? There was an Algerian that was detained in Vottem for eleven good months because of papers , without compensation.

In every detention camps in Belgium contains one hundred and sixty (160) detainees. And the United Nations pay two hundred Dollars ($200.00) per person everyday. And these centres spend about ten Dollars ($10.00) per person everyday. Belgium is rated as the number one racist nation in the whole world. In 1998, five Belgium Gendarmerie killed a Nigerian lady called SAMIRA ADAMU and no compensation was made to the deceased's family. Belgium have formed many kangaroo tribunals that are made up of three to five persons to judge whether an illegal immigrant have the right to be released from the detention closed camp. These are businesses, they do nothing to help the immigrants but to detain them more in order to make more profits. These people appointed to head the tribunals cannot act as the law stipulates but wait for an instruction from the Office des Etrangers or the foreign office in Brussels. Therefore, the tribunal in Liege and other places in Belgium are there to mark time for the immigrants to stay more in the detention camps. In nutshell, the more months you stay in the detention camp, the more money they get for you.

Lest I forget, the Belgium tribunals are made up of the judge, the clerk, the prosecutor, the accused immigrant, your lawyer and two policemen that will bring you out from the court cell in handcuffs to the tribunal panel. No observer or reporter is allowed to enter the tribunal hall. Everything about the tribunal is top secret. Also, they will not allow you to bring in your private lawyer. The immigrant is only allowed to go to tribunal with their own government appointed lawyer. Does this inhuman attitude reflect a thorough democracy as Belgium's claims to be?

In the detention camps AIDS can be easily transmitted through blood transfusion. This is because ten detainees use one disposable shaving stick per day. Of course it is not hygienic for anybody to use one disposal shaving stick with another person.

These groups of vandals, i.e. the Ministry of Interior, the Judiciary, the police and the airlines have connived to operate this kind of mafia capitalism in order to enrich themselves. In this situation, they take their so-called illegal immigrants to the Zaventum airport for deportation without the consent of the Embassy of that immigrant. The worst part of it is that the day of the deportation date the security in the detention camp will take you secretly without the knowledge of other detainees and put you alone in a solitary confinement where you will be ex-communicado till the day of your deportation. Surprisingly, you will see yourself to the tarmac where the plane is already waiting to fly and they will tell you to enter and go to your country just like that. Some immigrants fly home just because of fear of four policemen that will be mounting pressure for you to go back to your country. Already you will be traumatised after passing through mental torture. Some immigrants having no choice of help at that point in time will decide to fly irrespective of the danger awaiting them in their respective countries. Where on earth does this type of illegal action happen? Nowhere except in Belgium.

It is obligatory for Belgium to take immigrants to the airport for deportation. But, where the person refuse to travel to his or her country, they will feel happy to bring you back to the detention camp and keep you for extra two months or more in order to make more money from you. It is surprising to every detainee that before they bring you back to the detention camp a letter for refusing to travel is awaiting you from the foreign office to the detention camp for signing. And this happens even on weekends when no official duty is carried on. This will enable one to know that every detention camp in Belgium is for profit.

The food and drinks that they supply to prison and detention camps are free by from the manufacturers. Sometimes, it will remain some days to the expiring date and the detainees will still eat them because they have no choice.

In the Article 31 of the 1951 Refugee Convention prohibits the imposition of penalties on account of illegal entry or presence of people seeking protection. Our higher courts have agreed. Large compensation payments continue to be made for wrongful convictions or detentions. But Belgium does the opposite.

In March 2003, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reminded all States to "take concrete steps to ensure that refugees and asylum seekers are not subject to punishment". But Belgium does the opposite. From the look of things, I don't think that the United Nations are doing enough to protect refugees in Belgium. Refugees and asylum seekers are facing a lot of police control in Belgium. And nobody comes to their aid. It is inimical and criminal that a country that calls herself a developed nation is still practising the Nazi system of 1930 ideology. It is the right time that the world should rise against the Belgium attitude of detaining immigrants unlawfully without compensation as stated by the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951.

Dele Iloyana , ex-detainee , 26 January 2004
kingdeleiloanya@hotmail.com

The Border Jumpers

The BBC carries the story of Monica from Zimbabwe . She has joined the exodus of Zimbabweans crossing illegally into South Africa - the so called "border jumpers". Monica was driven out of her homeland by poverty, hunger, and concern for her little girl.

"The situation is very bad," she said. "We will try by all means to get jobs. We can't go back. We are starving in Zimbabwe...We've got no jobs. We can't do anything in Zimbabwe. We are suffering."

In Zimbabwe there is 80% unemployment and the world's highest inflation rate - now 2,200%. The price of corn, the staple food in Zimbabwe, has just risen by a staggering 680%.

Plenty of illegal migrants are arrested and sent home. So far this year, 57,600 have been deported to Zimbabwe, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Today, with modern transportation and mass communications and world media , more people are motivated and able to move. The poor and disadvantaged can now see with their own eyes the wide disparity between their standard of living and that of the richer and more advantaged people in the world. They want to share in the wealth . The fortunate few may strike it lucky . But for most it is only a temporary respite before the new conditions and the new exploitation begin to wear them down again .

In Capitalism there is no real escape .