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Comment by mmsimanga | Hacker News Reader

I speak as an immigrant. I see a lot of comments not being too kind to people who aren't welcoming of immigrants. As a person, I actually do understand. Not everyone is going to like me. As an African I do wish some of this energy would be directed to the African leaders that make their countries so terrible that someone feels it is better to jump on a rickety boat in search of a better life. These African "leaders" send their kids to school in the west, they go to the west when sick. I wish all this energy against people who don't want immigrants is directed at the people who made us immigrants in the first place. My first choice is a return to my country.

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>These African "leaders" send their kids to school in the west, they go to the west when sick.

This is common among all oligarchs, and a great idea for sanctions. Want to rob your country blind and blow out your liver on fine drink? Congrats - you're barred from entry. Feel free to use the hospital in your home country like the rest of the poor souls you've abused.

This would require immense cooperation and the whole scheme can be defeated if any one country doesn't comply.

Given that the US has offered medical visas to Yakuza leaders in the past, I don't see this ever happening.

There have been some efforts by immigrants interestingly enough in the UK harassing a minister from their home country[1]. There should be more of this. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lceJAw6iSck

It's much easier to hate on an individual in front of you than a president, policy, regime or country (and takes less effort). The bigger grind for me is that the same countries (UK in particular) hammering citizens from those countries welcome leaders with open arms and provide them with refuge, the ability to buy sheltered properties etc. The UKG loves nothing or nobody but money, I just wish they would be upfront about it so their policies were consistent with their actions.

100% with you. At some point, someone has to ask who/what is causing the immigrants. I know the answer isn't simple. Some will even say the West is caused all the issues in the first place. At some point though we have to start discussing concrete ways of changing the status quos and moving forward. Changing UK immigration laws might help a few of us get into the UK but not much will change in the home country. The same African dictators rigging elections are allowed to vote on UN resolutions and make grandstanding speeches at global conventions.

Yes, that's the point I'm making. The west maintains the status quo because it's of benefit to them, they just don't want any of the side-effects (including increased migration). Colonization hasn't gone away, it's just changed form.

Downvoting reality does not make it less so, people.

I think you can also look at things aside from money. Education and wealth also tend to correlate with individuals that are able to peacefully integrate into a society. Granted there are exceptions -- Osama Bin Laden came from a billionaire family and was well educated, but they are indeed the exceptions. By contrast people that are impoverished, have little education, and especially that may hold more extreme religious views or have different cultural views than the countries they're migrating to, can result in major issues.

For instance in Germany the numbers vary from 75%-90% of immigrants expected to be unable to find a job within 5 years. And crime among migrant has also been increasing. This is something that has been neglected in most left leaning media though the BBC did run a piece earlier this year [1]. As the article states, in one area regarded as "an average state" violent crime increased by more than 10% in a single year, with more than 90% of that increase attributable to migrants -- with migrants being twice as likely as German nationals to face reports of violent crime.

I mean these are unpleasant facts, but they are absolutely true facts. This doesn't mean you should refuse all migration or even that migration is bad. But it does mean that you can't simply claim selective migration policies are just about money. Germany took in well over a million migrants. With the vast majority of these individuals not finding work in society that means society will be paying for them. How much is a fair amount of money to care for these individuals? Each $10,000 costs Germany around $10 billion per year. There's some irony referencing money here, but the point is that if you carried these policies out, without end, you'd eventually destroy your own nation, hurting countless individuals in the process, all because you were reluctant to say no.

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What I don't understand is why nobody wants to consider this issue objectively. I expect the above is mostly downvote bait, but that's ridiculous. It's like people on the right want absolutely no migrants because all migrants are evil. And people on the left want open borders because all migrants are amazing and loving people that will integrate fully and peacefully with no meaningful negative impacts whatsoever. This sort of dichotomy is idiotic, but people on both sides are so scared of being seen as being partial to the 'other side' that they become increasingly radicalized meeting in some horseshoe of mutual stupidity. Bah to it all.

[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42557828

> For instance in Germany the numbers vary from 75%-90% of immigrants expected to be unable to find a job within 5 years

Given 12% of Germany is foreign born and the country has 3.5% unemployment, something feels off about these numbers and conclusions.

If somehow it was not clear, the numbers were referencing (in the case of employment) and being driven (in the case of violence) by the recent surge in refugees Germany took in. The 75% comes from Aydan Özoğuz, commissioner for integration, refugees and integration in Germany [1]. The upper end comes from recognition that they're taking an optimistic view of things. As of the start of 2017 Germany had taken in 1.2 million migrants, and from government numbers 34,000, or 2.8%, were employed, with a fair chunk of those in temp jobs. [2] Getting to 25% employment from there in 5 years is perhaps not impossible, but it's extremely optimistic.

[1] - https://www.ft.com/content/022de0a4-54f4-11e7-9fed-c19e27000...

[2] - https://www.thelocal.de/20161219/so-far-only-34000-refugees-...

No, it's not clear, because you're talking about refugees in particular vs immigration in general. Two groups subject to very different laws and circumstances.

Sure, discussing this topic is important. Let's not act like it's not discussed and researched daily, in my experience the entire narrative of migrants is completely dominated by this particular debate, we barely discuss anything else when we discuss migration. I agree the discussion isn't always objective, but if anything I find it errs on the side of over-attributing issues to ethnicity or cultural background.

A lot of the issues tend to be connected with policy today and in the past, but get attributed somehow to the ethnic of cultural background of the individual migrant. That's not an objective discussion either. Unemployment is a real issue, indeed, but not granting a work permit, not recognising foreign degrees, expecting new migrants fleeing a civil war to pay language education to the tune of many thousands of euros (e.g. the Netherlands) as part of their path to citizenship while not being allowed to work, and then exclaiming they're a net cost to society and somehow their issues aren't related to our policies, but rather their cultural background, is a myopic view of the situation as well.

Irrespective of root causes though, I'm always struck by the irony of the right saying immigrants are taking our jobs and lazy parasitic welfare receivers at the same time. Which is it?

Anyway, I'd point you to the academic literature in Western-Europe, there's been quite a lot of carefully researched studies on the economic benefits of migrants. I can't say there's much of a consensus, some see a small net benefit, some a small net loss in terms of taxpayer revenue / cost, but there's certainly no overwhelming evidence that migrants are a long-term economic issue, quite the contrary. Most economists will say we need migrants and need to invest more in integrating them into our economies, which means be more permissive rather than restrictive in granting legal status like a work permit.

Some reading on the particular case study you referenced:

https://www.dw.com/en/when-refugees-want-to-work-in-germany/...

https://www.ft.com/content/bea8507e-64cb-11e8-90c2-9563a0613...

No doubt there are terrible leaders, but experience in the middle east has shown it's no just terrible leaders standing in the way of prosperity.

Care to give examples of good leaders in the Middle East?

Keep in mind that the only countries in MENA that currently have a democratically elected leader are Tunisia and Lebanon.

It may be even more fundamental: Good leaders emerge from a good democracy. Maybe what the Middle East needs is to copy from the constitutions of successful democracies. Even adopting just our First Amendment would be a decent start.

As long as the oil status quo is maintained, I don't see this happening. Thankfully those days seem to be quickly disappearing.

Democracy isn’t always the best form of government for a given population. I think all attempts to force it that have blown up are a good demonstration of this. It depends a lot on the culture, the would be leaders, etc. It should be emergent and home-grown, not exported.

> It should be emergent and home-grown, not exported.

It's amazing how bad government "democratic nation-building" is at realizing this.

Democracy is, at best, a generational project. This issues we're seeing in autocratic -> democratic states are almost inherent in an overly quick transition.

From a game theory perspective, why would any leaders act in the best interest of the country when there are no institutions and no expectation of democratic continuity?

IDK, (most of) the Eastern European former Soviet satellite states did a pretty good job of it in less than a generation.

Most people tend to point to Iraq as the model of "democratic nation-building" but that was probably the best example of what not to do -- send all the bureaucrats (who were, by necessity, members of the Ba'ath party) home and deny them a say in the new government, disband the police and military forces, basically let the people do whatever they want with revenge killings and ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and keep the people who are (presumably) in charge of law and order bottled up on the military bases with limited contact with the local population.

It still boggles my mind the total shitshow post-invasion Iraq turned into...

I'd defer to someone more intimately aquatinted with Eastern Europe's pre-Soviet history, but my impression is that it followed many of the same themes as Western Europe.

Which is to say the area was likely primed for democracy over hundreds of years in a similar manner.

And as anthithetical as communist mono-party government is to pluralist democracy, one can certainly make the case that it can be credited with building institutions and a functioning bureaucracy.

Many organs of which directly mapped to democratic equivalents, as near as I can tell.

As for Iraq, absolutely agreed. And I think essentially everyone still working in foreign policy now believes de-Ba'ath-ization was a terrible mistake.

Precisely. What proponents of "export democracy" forget is that it takes time to develop a democratic tradition. Democracy in the US and the UK is centuries old. In the case of France and Germany, it took bloodbaths to turn them into democracy in a short time. Not different to what happened in few Arab states.

In India(my home nation), we have a 70 years old democracy. It's broken but functioning. And hopefully, we will get there soon.

You are right, but faced with a migration crisis such as the one we have what would you have the West (because that's where most migrants are heading) do?

For starters, we can (1) stop invading and destabilizing countries and (2) stop supporting autocracies and monarchies even if it goes against our short-term interest (e.g., access to oil).

Migration crises are the result of a chain of bad decisions made over the years. Avoiding them requires long-term thinking and leaders with foresight.

Your point no 2) is in agreement with my parent post. In short, rather make life uncomfortable for the leaders that are causing people to migrate from their countries. Your point no 1) is something the voting public in the country (e.g. US or UK) need to make known to their public representatives.

You are right avoiding migration issues requires leaders with foresight and motivation to make those decisions. It suits some leaders to have their countries always in a state of crisis so there is no clear accountability. It suits leaders in these countries to always point to the West and say that is where all our problems come from. They take no accountability and then they go on holiday and get medical attention in the West. The question is how do we motivate these leaders to make the right decisions, life is pretty good for them as things stand. It's not their relatives jumping in boats to try to get to the West. They fly first class.

Your last sentence is 100% true: forcing democracy on a country is never going to work.

But claiming that democracy doesn't suit all populations is something I do not agree with.

Democracy is the only form of government where (in practice) the people have a say in how their country is run.

But how can you say that’s ideal for all? And that’s even suggesting that the mechanisms underlying keep that going for real and not just in name.

America is losing is democracy as the money in politics is determining policy more than the constituents voting [1]. China, meanwhile, is vastly expanding its empire and economy under totalitarian control that’s lifting millions out of poverty [2]. Other countries have populations that want clerics or other religious folks at top (e.g. Iran), or tend to have a history of authoritarian rule and a population that respects that. There are many different forms, and I find it to be cultural imperialism to suggest there is an ultimate form of government for all people. That is coming from your own values, which is due to where you were raised and the larger social norms.... not some commandments from the heavens that dictate what it must be.

Democracy can be great (in theory), but it’s not the only way.

[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China

America is losing is democracy as the money in politics is determining policy more than the constituents voting

And yet American's current president was elected despite him being out-spent 2:1 by Hillary Clinton. In the UK Leave won despite being outgunned and outspent by Remain.

In fact here is a study that claims campaign spending during general elections has essentially no impact whatsoever.

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/gsb-cmis/gsb-cmis-download-auth...

China was dirt poor because of its long, unbroken history of dictatorship. It's still poor today, although given the fraudulent nature of many Chinese statistics it's hard to know how poor. But the fact that the PRC appears to have learned a few lessons by copying the success of more democratic capitalist nations, is in no way a vindication of dictatorship: there are still so many lessons for China to learn.

Finally, the "cultural imperialism" line. I wonder if you actually are Chinese, to be using that line, because it's one the PRC pushes constantly. The idea that dictatorship and democracy are two equally valid ways to run a country can be easily disproven by just looking at how many people mourn the passing of dictatorships when they fall (not many), or their success rates in various metrics. Democracy is clearly a much better way to run things.

The us constitution has not been a great model. Latin america was the main place it was copied, and that didn’t work out so well. And even america had a civil war.

The british and french systems are more likely to be copied nowadays.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution_a...

Not necessarily. Mustafa Kemal didn't emerge from a democracy.

Exactly right.

Are you kidding?

Do you really think that it's just about drafting a constitution? And do you think that Middle Eastern countries do not have the capability to write their own constitutions?

What about Israel?

I was thinking about MENA from an Arab/Muslim point of view, but technically you are right.

My point was that getting rid of some of the terrible leaders did not solve any problems, indeed made things worse by most measures. Tribalism and perhaps worse - the rule of violence leads to bad leaders. I imagine even good people would have to be bad to stay on top in those societies.

Terrible according to whom? George Bush and his gang?

Usually the ones who were proponents of national self-determination and/or assassinated: Yitzhak Rabin (Israel), Yasser Arafat (Palestine), Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran, who the US deposed), Anwar Sadat (Egypt), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), Mohammed Daoud Khan (Afghanistan), Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Saudi Arabia).

That's not at a useful metric at all.

For example, most of the nationalist/Kemalist leaders were brutal autocrats.

I'd argue that the best among them was Borguiba, but I suppose you've never heard of him.

That wasn't my metric.

It was a historical attribute that many "good leaders in the Middle East" shared.

And you specified Middle Eastern, which I took to be exclusive of the Maghreb.

Look up what MENA stands for.

Gotcha. My day job doesn't use foreign policy acronyms.

I'm sure there are other examples in North Africa.

But 'name good leaders in the Middle East' -> 'here are some good leaders (many of which were nationalists' -> 'most nationalist leaders were autocrats' isn't arguing the same thing.

I assume we agree that there were in fact many good leaders in the Middle East? Which was my original point.

Firstly nonsense about most Kemalist leaders being brutal autocrats. Second whats your point?

Name one Kemalist leader in the Middle East who did not persecute a segment of the population, or allowed the opposition to participate in fair elections.

Nationalism by definition involves suppressing a segment of the population (usually opposed to the unifying party and/or allied with external parties).

It's ugly but true.

It also happened in the United States. In Britian. In France. In Germany. In Spain. In Italy. In ancient Greece and Rome.

There are lighter / harsher ways of going about it, though the appropriateness of those is also defined by the opposition's actions.

Successfully creating a national identity, where there were disparate groups before, breaks a lot of people in the transition.

> Nationalism by definition involves suppressing a segment of the population [...]

Great, but what does that have to do with my question, exactly? Were Kemalist leaders not nationalist autocrats?

Or are you trying to argue that nationalism is necessary for a country to transition into a democracy?

You first tell me who the hell you call “Kemalist” then I will tell you whether or not they are Kemalist at all. Dont throw around “Kemalist” liberally to make a point. Then we can discuss further.

> Or are you trying to argue that nationalism is necessary for a country to transition into a democracy?

I'd argue that nationalism is a requisite step for a diverse country, including multiple ethnic or cultural groups within its borders, to become a democracy. (And I'm sure I'm cribbing an old idea in the field here)

It seems like there's little basis for common action without a supergroup which includes, binds, and restrains all otherwise oppositional parties inside a legal framework.

I'd argue that's why uni-party "democracies" tend to be so fragile. When the party becomes the state, then opponents of the party can only be opponents of the state.

Exactly similar thing in india. This is happened with all indian Brahmins settled in United States. Top on the caste ladder, denied education to other castes and when british conquered india and gave education to other castes they started to move to united states, the Brahmins who are staying in india have missed that chance and can not compete now as other castes are competing too.

Not sure about the UK, but here in the US, there’s been a consistent (since ~ WWII, at least) bipartisan effort to make sure those sorts of leaders run countries like yours.

It’s unclear how voters here can make a difference:

Arguably, things were worse under Obama than W. That was while Hillary Clinton was running the state department.

Trump seems to be intentionally blowing up the entire federal foreign policy apparatus, which could help in theory, but he’s also doubling down on military policies that lead to indefinite wars. Also, he hasn’t ended any wars or cancelled funding for any of the things the US does to destabilize foreign nations.

Sorry.

Please, no need to apologise. We all in this world to do the best we can. I presume the American people have their own problems they need to solve and if you have some capacity to help us, I would rather you put pressure on dictators causing immigrants. That's my opinion. Others will have different opinions on where the energy should be spent.

Kim Jong-un went to school in Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-un#Early_life

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