Refugees
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A quick question I had in regards of potential policy once the revolution occurs.
We know that climate change is going to create hundreds of millions of refugees, so many that it will make 2016 seem paltry in fact.
My point is, if we’ve abolished the state i.e. border controls and citizenship, then how are we to handle this influx?
Muslims are a tiny minority in the UK currently yet we’ve had them protest and shut down schools just for teaching about LGBT, sex ed and womens rights!
In some areas they have even attempted to patrol the streets to police if a woman is dressed “appropriately”, now this is while being a tiny minority as stated above.
If we have no border controls nor citizenship requirements for control then it’s obvious those poor people fleeing climate change will undoubtedly choose the UK to migrate to.
Without border controls they’d become the majority population relatively quickly.
Wouldn’t that destroy the revolution?
I understand some of the second generation are not the same and have our same values, many in fact, but the others are people who cannot be bargained with, so my point is what would we do?
Obviously this is all moot if we don’t consider border controls and citizenship to be part of the state apparatus we’re talking about but from reading it is.
I have looked for answers in WSM website but could not find one hence why I am asking here.
Both reactionary religious beliefs, and biggoted xenophobia of the type above, is something that a socialist movement will have to overcome or you won’t get socialism.
Why think everyone wants to come the British Isles? It’s just some grey and rainy rock on the edge of Europe. Hardly the centre of the universe.
Well already millions want to come here, they actually reject countries like France to come here, so forgive me but your assertion that they will not because of weather is unfounded.
We have a good quality of life which would be undoubtedly better under socialism, that is a huge motivator for refugees.
Personally I think in socialism we would let as many refugees as we can sustain enter, allow them to enjoy the same benefits we get while allowing them to work.
None of this stick em in ghettos/camps/containers and not let them even have a job nonsense.In the meantime we would donate as much a possible to build up the means of production in their origin countries if they are democratic.
However we would not allow them citizenship meaning decisions like what schools teach are out of their hands.
Maybe their descendants can have citizenship depending on their integration.
Refugees wanting to settle in the UK usually do so because of historic, family, or language ties. That is only a small drop of the world’s refugees.
What you are describing doesn’t sound like a world co-operative commonwealth. Democracy would be something that happens within the workplace as much as in the community. Creating a two tier system where some don’t get a say would not be socialism.
I think you misunderstood me.
Yes when we have worldwide socialism there literally will be no problem of refugees as the reactionism would have been done away with, at least in the vast majority.
What I’m saying is, say Britain elects the SPGB in 2050, right when climate change is causing millions of climate refugees.
What do we do?
These people are coming with very reactionary beliefs, if we give them democracy in our decisions, then we’d have to accept that in areas where they inevitably become majorities because of the sheer numbers climate change will turn into refugees, that womens, LGBT and other rights are going to evaporate.
See what I’m saying?
You seem to be assuming that the revolution could take place in just one country but how could it? The very fact that you are assuming a climate crisis causing mass migration shows that we are talking about a global problem and so one that only has a global solution.
Capitalism, being politically divided into different capitalist states, is incapable of solving this problem. If it arose it could only be solved within the framework of a worldwide society based on the common ownership of the world’s productive resources. Then, if the worse cane to the worse, and climate change gets so bad that large numbers of people have to move, then such a society provides the framework in which this could be arranged rationally and in a humane way.
The other assumption which is unreasonable is assuming that the socialist movement could win political control in one state while the rest of the world remained capitalist. As socialism is a world concept and as conditions are basically the same the world over, if and when it takes off this is likely to spread at more or less the same rate everywhere. This is dealt with in chapter on Socialism and the Less Developed Countries of this pamphlet:
One implication of this is that most of the the people living in currently “Muslim” countries will no longer be Muslims but will have abandoned that religion and its prejudices and embraced socialist ideas. That these ideas will have spread there too.
Yes, I think I see what you are saying ActualSocialist10. You are saying that, if Islamic fundamentalists share equal rights in a democracy, the socialist revolution is doomed. Well that is correct – assuming that the fundamentalists are a majority of the world’s population.
However you seem to be saying that asylum seekers are a threat to world socialism. It’s almost as if Suella Braverman joined this forum for a laugh.
Paula (not moderating)
I see what you’re saying ALB.
I’m not denying that the revolution won’t spread, that is the only way it can happen.
I’m just pointing out that currently the EU has around 800’000 asylum seekers arriving per year (the average is more like 500’000 if we take previous years into account) https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Asylum_statistics&oldid=558844#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20first%2Dtime,in%20a%20given%20EU%20country..
With climate change this is set to rise exponentially, even if we say best case scenario, the climate only warms by just under 2C and that number is raised by x10, that is 5 million new people with reactionary views arriving each year on average.
With open borders that means they are bound to end up as majorities in some cities they migrate to.
So my question is what do we do if they vote to ban LGBT in an area that previously had it legalised? How do we react if they do not respect the rights of women or actively roll them back?
“So my question is what do we do if they vote to ban LGBT in an area that previously had it legalised? How do we react if they do not respect the rights of women or actively roll them back?”
This sounds like a description of what the Christian nationalist far right is trying to do in some US states. Should we therefore assume all Christians or all people from the US want to do the same?
What you are referring to is the “paradox of tolerance”. The question of how far should democracies tolerate intolerant views.
I’ll suggest that creating a permanently excluded underclass of people from certain religious or geographical backgrounds would only compound the problem.
For one thing, a strengnthed right of exit would actually weaken conservative and fundamentalist movements. If those you are trying to repress can easily go somewhere else the amount of power that can be exercised over them is reduced.
Actually, as you pointed out, many of the second generation of refugees whose parents came from areas dominated by backward religious and cultural ideas and practices come to reject these. It’s the best thing that could happen to them. There are quite a few MPs in Parliament of all parties of “Muslim heritage” (as we have to say) but none of them as far as I know what to bring in legislation to oppress women or ban homosexuality. Quite the opposite. Many are women.
I think you are exaggerating the likelihood of climate change leading to mass migration on the scale that you are basing your worries on. But if it did happen, capitalism wouldn’t be able to cope with it properly and the last thing socialists should do would be to join those calling for pulling up the drawbridge to keep out “undesirable” refugees. We should be insisting that only within the framework of a world based on common ownership could any necessary mass migration be dealt with properly ie rationally and humanely.
I think the first error here is seeing refugees/foreigners as a uniform bloc of reactionary ideas: there are reactionary people enough in the UK, what is important is the material basis for said reaction, mostly around trying to secure jobs, and seeing ‘others’ getting all the benefits.
Lets not forget the propagandistic aims of British capitalists in trying to pain foreigners as reactionary others: these claims were all made about the Irish centuries ago: it’s about building a coalition to protect their wealth as Britain’s rulers. the propaganda of a universal worldwide society without nations and borders would intrinsically challenge that.
So, the first point is honest debate is needed to try and change people’s minds alongside social practices that bring people together, a worldwide movement that attacks the reactionary interests everywhere.
I’m sorry but noone is even addressing my question and the evasions are actually starting to become quite disturbing.
For reference all polls from Muslim majority countries show you what they think of women’s rights, LGBT and apostasy.
The climate research shows we’re going to have hundreds of millions of refugees unless we cut emissions dramatically by 2030.
I LIVE in an area where there is a lot of a Muslims and we couldn’t put up a Christmas tree in public because they got violent over it.
As previously stated in some areas of the UK they’ve even tried to patrol the streets to police what women can and cannot wear.
I’m going to ask this one last time in the simplest way possible.
Imagine after the initial revolution the UK, France and Spain have elected SPGB like parties, and we’re still waiting on the other states to have their revolutions.
Many refugees go into Bath for example and they become a majority there, then start voting to ban LGBT, alcohol and women’s rights, how would we respond?
Already answered:
“the first point is honest debate is needed to try and change people’s minds alongside social practices that bring people together, a worldwide movement that attacks the reactionary interests everywhere.”
In the scenario you paint, the refugees are just as likely to be socialists from across the globe as reactionaries, and the movement in their own countries would be having these debates.
People’s mind can change (quite quickly) and if they can’t, then socialism will never happen.
I see what you’re saying that’s the same answer I got from the anarchists tbf.
To me that is highly insufficient.
Not even talking about just refugees now, we know that reactionaries are extremely well organised.
Even if we had the overwhelming majority of the UK’s workforce behind us, for example 75% which would be unprecedented in history (not even this many were against slavery), that still leaves 25%.
That’s millions of people.
If they organise, i.e. go into locations to become majorities for example and start rolling back human rights, then your answer would be to try to debate them out of it.
Surely wouldn’t a better system be, we have a bill of rights that cannot be rolled back and anyone who tries to do so gets arrested?
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