May 3rd - Migration

I’ve been thinking about migration.  I’ve been asking myself whether folk living in ‘poor’*[1]countries around the world really want to leave their homes to go and live among often unwelcoming strangers with a language and culture they don’t understand and a climate that doesn’t suit them?  And, do people in ‘rich’ countries want their way of life and stability threatened by (what they see as) an invasion of foreign people whose language and culture they find unsettling?
I guess the answer to both is ‘No’ and I equally guess that the winner is the industrial capitalism system with its need for cheap labour.
If millions are prepared to move overseas to an unknown future by the lure of the ‘good life’ then life back home must be pretty dire.  The desperation of poverty drives many to face an often dangerous journey to go off in search of their dream.
The problem is that migration might meet capitalism’s need for cheap labour and it undoubtedly pulls many people in ‘poor’ countries out of poverty but its not all win, win …  Although it meets many people’s material needs it does nothing to meet our need for stability and security and it destroys people’s attachment to their place in the world.  I can’t help thinking that feelings of insecurity and instability and lack of attachment to the local neighbourhood are what leads us into many of the problems facing us today.  

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[1] I’ve distinguished ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ here in material terms which doesn’t take account of the fact that many so-called ‘poor’ countries are rich in culture and so many so-called ‘rich’ countries have had their culture buried under materialism with fashion, values, beliefs and day to day life tailored to fit the market