In the Wall Street Journal Walter Russell Mead echoes the point I made last week, that having made messes of their home countries the people of the Middle East and North Africa are searching for greener pastures:
What we are witnessing today is a crisis of two civilizations: The Middle East and Europe are both facing deep cultural and political problems that they cannot solve. The intersection of their failures and shortcomings has made this crisis much more destructive and dangerous than it needed to be—and carries with it the risk of more instability and more war in a widening spiral.
The crisis in the Middle East has to do with much more than the breakdown of order in Syria and Libya. It runs deeper than the poisonous sectarian and ethnic hatreds behind the series of wars stretching from Pakistan to North Africa. At bottom, we are witnessing the consequences of a civilization’s failure either to overcome or to accommodate the forces of modernity. One hundred years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and 50 years after the French left Algeria, the Middle East has failed to build economies that allow ordinary people to live with dignity, has failed to build modern political institutions and has failed to carve out the place of honor and respect in world affairs that its peoples seek.
Maybe they’ll fare better in Europe than they have at home. Or maybe they’ll bring their preferences for social, cultural, and economic organization with them and try to impose them on their European hosts. As I pointed out in comments the track record hasn’t been particularly good. In Sweden, for example, two-thirds of the welfare recipients are Muslim migrants and there is, understandably, rising anti-immigrant sentiments among ethnic Swedes. It’s hard to study in France due to the country’s refusal to keep relevant statistics.
Something to keep in mind is that all of the countries formerly occupied by the Ottoman which includes not only the Middle East and North Africa but Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria as well are drastically under-capitalized and have severe trust issues. I wouldn’t be surprised if a mass influx of people from those countries succeeded in turning Germany into Bulgaria rather than turning the new migrants into Germans. But that call is up to the Germans.
On a side note there’s a good backgrounder on Europe’s migration crisis at The Council For Foreign Relations.
I think the Civilizational aspects are present, but probably overstated. Of the top ten countries of origin for refugees, there are a number of non-Islamic states: Congo, Burma, Columbia, Vietnam, and Eritrea.
Of the other five states, only Iraq and Syria were a part of the Ottoman Empire, the remaining four (Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan) are in the periphery.
The Civilizational aspect may not be Islamic versus Western, but whether these are “cleft” countries that lie between Civilizations or otherwise lack a broadly shared ethnic/cultural/linguistic identity to form a competent state.
I am looking at figures from 1990 to 2013, so I may not be capturing more recent trends, but I don’t see anybody citing other statistics.
The top 10 for for 2013 are here. Here are some comparables for 2015. Basically, Syrians outnumber the next largest contributing country’s emigres 2:1.
However, if we were trying to identify the factors underpinning the mass migration and getting beyond the obvious and superficial, I think it’s pretty clear that among the critical factors are:
– Islam
– Colonization
– Colonizing country (Turkey and Belgium among the worst)
Note, too, that listing the ten countries contributing the most migrants doesn’t tell you who in those countries are migrating. It could be, for example, that the Burmese who are migrating are Muslims. I just don’t know.
In the past you and I have disagreed about the U. S. role in the present chaos. I think that we kicked over the hornets nest, upsetting fragile equilibria. We may not be the only cause but I strongly suspect that we accelerated the process.
The question then becomes to what degree is colonization a cause and to what degree an effect? The U. S., after all, was a colony. It’s tempting to suggest that among the reasons that countries were colonized were social and economic dysfunction.
The 2013 figures are for EU asylum seekers which is a narrower construct.
In 2013, 9.2 million refugees originated from the top ten countries. In 1990, 13.1 million refugees originated from the top ten countries. A lot of this has to do with the decline in Afghanistan (from 6.3 million to 2.6 million) and Iraq (from 1.1 million to 400 thousand), which offset the large increase in Syria (from 2 thousand to 2.5 million)
Is the problem that more are arriving in Europe, where EU policies are poorly constructed and shared? Are dislocated or impoverished people today more likely to travel further than the Red Cross camps set up across the border? Is focussing on the top ten hot spots, losing sight that refugees or migrants might be increasing proportionately across most of what used to be called the Third World? Are internationalist changing how they count?
All good questions. I’m focusing on European “asylum seekers” because that’s the most recent crisis. Yes, there may be a much, much larger problem.
For example, I think that a quarter of Mexico’s population has left because Mexico is dysfunctional and its dysfunction has multiple causes, two of which are Spanish colonization and U. S. policy.
Another factor in the present Middle East to Europe migration might be that the grandfathers of the people in the “gateway countries”, e.g. Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, would have just shot Syrian migrants rather than feeding them and sending them on which is what the people of today are doing. Maybe one question we should be asking is what the Ottoman would have done compared with what the Erdogan government has done?
Mr. Mead apparently is unaware that human history extends back in time a little more than 200 or even 400 years. Groups of human have been killing off rival groups for control of land and resources for thousands of years. The stable countries are stable because of a homogenous populations were achieved through extermination or expulsion of the unwanted.
The subjugation of unwanted groups of people was another option, but the subjugation would often be brutal. This brutality would not allow the basis for most of the institutions to develop, and removing the ruling power would cause chaos.
(Russia is one of the few places where there are a hodge podge of different people who all consider themselves Russians, but this was accomplished through about a millennia of Czars, many brutal. I am not sure how long Russia would be able to last without a strong central leader.)
If Europe is to fix the migration problem without a mass extermination, they will need to provide a strong, and often brutal, central government for more years than they can imagine. This would be a good choice for them economically.
Mr. Mead mentions capitalism, but of course, he means Adam Smith’s sound money version. Europe needs to increase its financial balance sheet, and the Middle East would be the perfect place to hide the debt.
What Mr. Mead is dancing around is a “drain the swamp” strategy for Europe. It worked so well for the US he thinks Europe should try it. I guess it is true: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
Since his area of specialization is U. S. diplomatic history I doubt he’s lost sight of history entirely. His view may have been narrowed a bit as you suggest.
Take France as an example of what you’re describing. Starting the 16th century the modern French state was created by the systematic oppression and suppression of non-French speakers. Various forms of ethnic cleansing including forced migrations took place. Education has been carried on solely in French and students who spoke Basque, Breton, or Occitan in school were beaten, expelled, or shamed in various ways (“clogging” was a favorite). Look up “la vergonha“.
France has, apparently, lost sight of its own history. One of the effects of a campaign of silence.
The big welfare winners in the USSA are the breeders, so it is no surprise that the big welfare winners in Sweden are Muslims–also the biggest breeders–with a fertility rate above that of the traditional Swedes, who now outbreed most Europeans.
While we certainly played a part in causing this crisis, we certainly are largely responsible for the refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan, I don’t think we have had that much to do with Syria. Most of that goes to Assad, the Gulf states, Turkey, Iran and Russia. The Sunnis and Shia are fighting (throw in the Alawis for fun) and their supporters on each side are keeping it going. We have had a peripheral role.
I also don’t think we have that much to offer in the way of a solution. We couldn’t get the Iraqis to get along after occupying them for 8 years. Still can’t get the Afghans to get along after 12 years. I think Lang has been suggesting that we should support Assad until this is resolved. Not sure that would matter all that much. We haven’t stopped the fighting in Afghanistan.
I don’t Hungary or the Europeans have an obligation to take in unlimited refugees, especially as many seem to economic migrants rather than true refugees. I suspect they will have to use their military to stop the flood. Load them on boats and drop them off in Saudi Arabia. If they want to fund war in Syria, then can also pay for the consequences.
Steve
Mead wants a more American-centric foreign policy, but I sense movements of people that are larger than the framework of a European problem, or one of recent wars. There have always been wars; are they worse now than 50 years ago, or have the responses to war evolved in an age of global media and transportation? Is the European problem different in nature than the one U.S. faced recently as Central Americans paid to shuttle their children to the U.S. border?
which is why my attitude towards war has moved in the general direction of “don’t write a check your ass can’t cash”. For me the implication of invading Afghanistan or Iraq was a long-term, foreseeable future obligation to occupy the countries once we’d removed their governments. I read the temper of the American people as not being conducive to such obligations and that’s a major reason I opposed both invasions.
I also think that Turkey is a major reason for what’s happening. I don’t think that Ataturk’s Turkey would have allowed the country to become a throughway for every Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, Afghan, or Pakistani who wanted a better way of life in the West.
Afghan refugees:
1990: 6.3 million
1995: 2.7 million
2000: 3.6 million
2005: 2.2 million
2010: 3.1 million
2013: 2.6 million
The Afghan refugee crisis was worse in the ten years before 9/11 than the ten years after. There is at least as much evidence that the U.S. invasion improved the Afghan refugee crisis as worsened it.
@Dave Schuler
… the 16th century …
In the case of France, I would go back to the Gauls, but you document how the modern French have achieved their Frenchness. Since you study anthropology, I am guessing that your sense of history is in thousands or tens of thousands of years, and this is usually my point in these discussions. For most people, anything before their grandfather’s time is ancient history, but I think it is now before their father’s time.
Are today’s terrorists really more terrorizing than yesterday’s barbarian hordes. Is Osama bin Laden a bigger threat than an Atilla the Hun? The Romans and Carthaginians had a real problem if the other won total war.
The Germans had nothing to fear when they lost WW2. At one time, their second aggression would have been their last. The military aged men (over 14 – 16) would have been slaughtered, and the women and children would have been sold into slavery. Soon, we may find out that not exterminating the Germans was a bad idea.
(Note: Nobody is talking about slave reparations for the Roman slaves who did build the Roman Republic and Empire.)