White supremacist?????????????? you don't even know my colour! I am simply saying that with mass movements the international community should work for the best solutions. What is it about equal distribution that you don't understand.
For the record, I'm White, so I've been thinking about how White privallage is a factor in my thinking and how racism has therefore been invisible because of that. it's been a little jarring. We see this alot in "Post-feminism" in which legal equality is assumed to be the sufficient condition, if not the same as, actual equality. I would guess the same is true with racial attitudes and conflicts- that the problem is largely hidden behind notions of legal equality or being "colour-blind". I've had the rather strange experience of thinking about how I see history and realising how selective and eurocentric my own knowledge is, even though I would not consider it intentional. it is simply the world I grew up in and I'm trying to recognise that as a factor.
I don't use the term "White supremacist" therefore to refer to explicit advocacy of the White Race, but more when it is used implicity without direct reference to inequality which are a legacy of the past. It is not meant as an insult, but merely trying to read between the lines to see the "invisble" racism that liberal notions of "equality before the law" perpetuate. there is a strange way in which the definition of "humanity" almost always means white people everyone else gets erased from the picture.
There is a large difference between "equality before the law" and "equality of outcome". The notion of "equality before the law" conceals large socio-economic inequalities along racial lines. "equality of outcome" does not- but as many liberals will point out, could create its own problems. The issue is that "equal" distribution can be based on the former, implies that the market distributes resources based on purchasing power. (I would assume) that most refugges and immigrants are not wealthy, and therefore that they are not in a position to secure access to resources on their own. If I don't take that into account I would help perpetuate pre-existing racial inequalities between locals and immigrants/refugees.
@Laika Once again I must question your highly generalised answer to a specific statement - "I'd hazard a guess that it is more likely, that immigrant and refugee populations will be denied their human rights rather than locals by taking up residence in a new country." I was not talking about human rights in general but the specific right to a fair share of the space available. In Britain we have been doing it for decades eg Basildon, Milton Keynes etc. Why not apply the same thinking to internationalism.
"fairness" is a sort of nonesense phrase used in politics, which means whatever people willl consent to. So a "fair" share will depend not on the needs of the people, but on the power they have to assert their rights and satisfy their needs. Again, this perpetuates inequalities along the lines of those who already have the power and the wealth. That is a particular problem for internationalism as a "fair" international compromise may well not be sufficient to gaurentee the needs of the people affected.
You're specific point on creating space for refugees/immigrants in Basildon and Milton Keynes in the UK, is not something I know anything about. so you're more than welcome to expand on that.
Yes the west has caused most of this but 'is the west collectively reaping the whirl wind' I think not. Ref the present refugee crisis, countries are quick to quote how many people they took in but this is irrelevant without looking at how much space is available. Where as a refugee would you prefer, some slum in Liverpool or a ranch in Wyoming?
I think a refugee would prefer not to have been made a refugee but I wonder whether I am the person to make that call. Perhaps it is a little nationalistic in thinking people have a tie to their country and their home, but anything we do now, is really a sticking plaster to the on-going problems back in Syria and Iraq. The West is privallaged in having stable liberal, democratic regiemes and a relatively affluent (if financially and psychologically stressed) middle class. That wealth was developed, not just by industrialisation, but by centuries of forcibly creating access to markets by conquest and imposing western systems onto them. the ultimate goal must be to develop those countries and that would stem the tide of refugees at their source. A pipe dream perhaps, but no matter how much we fulfil our duty to the refugees (as we should), we still have a duty help societies develop to a point where they don't create refugees.
I have deep reservations when the notion of "over-population" is used as it almost always has racist connotations. Thomas Malthus himself made some very assumptions in how he treated the birthrate as leading to expoential growth in population due to people's inability to control their reproductive activities. Over-population threfore often comes up in relation to right-wing politics, and I would include the environmental movement in that. I strongly suspect there's more than a little self-contradiction between the anti-imperialism and the "humanitarianism" in the last paragraph, as I haven't worked that out very well. nation-states create the illusion of a "seperate but equal" world community, when it is far from otherwise. facts and figures are very welcome as the immigration issue gets so blown out of proprtion in the media to appeal to people's prejudices and parties like UKIP thrive on the ignorance and fear of the issue. I wish I knew more.
