AS the world changes outside of having to grapple with socio-economic challenges such as poverty and hunger and climate change, the political dynamics driving insularity and creating room for the rise of insularity and oligarchy is something to be watched.
Friday’s swearing in of President Donald Trump, in what is considered the most powerful nation and by extension most powerful politician, in no small part came about through his fiery rhetoric during the campaign.
This included the promise to build walls on the U.S. border to keep out Mexicans; maintain a registry for an ethnic group considered a threat to that country; curtailing immigration; rejection of his predecessor Barack Obama’s refugee policy, and ensuring businesses stay at home. His inauguration speech honed the same lines, repeatedly making clear his “America first†policy. According to an Associated Press story (January 21, 2017), this speech has left world leaders jittery.
In examining concern about immigration, it should be said that violating a country’s laws ought not to be countenanced. Similarly, seeking to resolve what has become a problem cannot be done without regard for strategy respecting human rights and factoring in the cost to be borne by the taxpayers. This is a delicate balancing act that requires a carefully thought-out strategy, though as complaints are made about it, the willingness to act is subsumed by insular arguments and threats.
Illegal immigration has become a feature whereby societies that are considered better off see people moving to them, persons fleeing persecution or wars in their own countries.
Socio-economic problems such as poverty, hunger, and less than desirable standards of living which are frequent in lesser developed countries see people moving by whatever means. Un-ending wars have created a deluge that see people fleeing — particularly to the European countries — creating refugee crises where the numbers have now surpassed that of World War II. Other factors include political instability and changing weather patterns that have uprooted resources, bringing in its wake further deprivation, resulting in people fleeing.
It is understood from a human standpoint that citizens in countries where standards of living are considered better, would take objection to an influx of immigrants, more so those with dissimilar cultural and physical characteristics. Additionally, unplanned immigration can also place shock on those societies’ social services and compromise service-delivery. These socio-economic spill-offs cannot be denied.
Resources are not limitless. Competing for them or prioritising how they should be distributed in the former instance rests with the population and the latter — the government through policies, programmes and laws. It cannot be denied that heterogeneous physical and cultural characteristics of the human race have historically been primary sources of conflict, based on perceptions of the other, and notions of inferiority and superiority that influence misplaced justification to suppress and deny.
Even as these are accepted as factors to consider in decision-making, what ought not to be lost sight of are the sources behind the problems and the opportunities created to escalate them, which in large part will continue unless addressed. Where politicians are today campaigning and acceding to office playing on fears masked as patriotism, such carry consequences for improving the global environment and creating a level playing field for all. Protectionism also creates fertile group for oligarchs to use the levers of governance to entrench and empower themselves as the masses and their welfare suffer.
Seeking and holding political office is primarily seen as pursuing a desire to help in improving the lives of people, by building on what currently exists even as systems, such as laws and programmes, are put in place to create equality and the enabling environment for all to succeed. Where persons, organisations, and leaders in government have amassed wealth by exploiting situations, these have in no small part created the problems being faced today.
Recently, there has been a spike in persons coming to office campaigning on putting country first, leaving international blocs, and extricating countries from agreements. Persons who are seeking public office are being accused of involvement in vulture capitalism. Rather than helping those who may find themselves in difficult financial circumstances, the opportunity is taken to prey on their misfortunes for economic gains.
Such approach in treating with people, their resources and the institutions of state, has given rise to a new oligarchic class, who now not only have access to the political corridors of power, but are themselves holding the reins of power. Where insularity and oligarchy are intertwined in politics, it is not only merely a case of oil and water where they don’t mix, but more a case of creating a toxic situation that is harmful to the environment.
Guyanachronicle
