The Financial Times states the facts: At the start of the 19th century the ratio of real incomes per head between the worlds richest and poorest countries was 3:1. By 1900 it was 10:1. By 2000 it had risen to 60:1. What could be more natural than that those impoverished by this process should seek to follow its source the agent of their dispossession? And what could be more predictable than those who have gained from these events should seek to prevent them from doing so? The noses of the poor are always pressed against the TV screens of our windowpane. At a touch of a button they can still be made to disappear. It is only when our control becomes less remote, when gaunt faces appear on our streets, that a more authentic response emerges. After all, Europe has contributed spectacularly to the global disturbances of regions and peoples. It has, since colonial times, been an agent of vast uprootings, has exported its own migratory spirit, has filled the world with economic migrants. The economies of almost every nation have been influenced by our financial organisations, by our democratic institutions, in which those whose lives are wrecked by them have no say. Its the business of Western politicians to ensure that the advantages its people have gained should not be cancelled, while declaring their abhorrence of xenophobia and racism. They dare not state whose side they are on. Yet they seek to halt people at frontiers of Europe under the pretense of the maintenance of good race relations. What this means is that the fragile privilege of Europe must be defended against the poor; the overwhelmingly black people. Internationalists are set against racists. The struggle between rich and poor takes place on the aspect of race conflict. Jeremy Seabrook.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 07:43:47 +0000
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