Merkel and Chirac dance, while the refugees arrive by boat

Merkel and Chirac dance, while the refugees arrive by boat

Merkel and Chirac were on the news last night, promoting the EU charter. This initiative has been much in doubt given the Dutch and French rejection of the EU constitution last year. The recent expansion of the EU has also given many people pause. There is much consternation about expanding too fast and about people from the Eastern countries coming to the West to take people’s jobs. The French began circulating a worry about “Polish plumbers” coming to work for nothing which scared everyone away from EU expansion.

It sounds very similar to the American situation and jokes/worries about Mexicans. A huge difference, of course, is that Mexicans are not given citizenship as the new Eastern countries citizens are. But Americans are completely unsure what to do about the millions of immigrants working there who don’t have papers or rights. The issue is still being hotly debated by the politicians while the Bush Administration promotes militarization of the country’s Southern border.

Here, the militarization is taking place in the Canary Islands where Africans by the boatloads have been landing, fleeing economic depression and the total lack of economic opportunity. People are actually attempting to reach the Canaries by boat from Senegal, miles and miles away. The Spaniards are enlisting European help to keep people out, financial support to put refugees in detention centers, and legal support to deport people back from where they came. Globalization is going to force countries eventually to look long and hard at North/South inequality and economic imperialism because the economic migrants are not going away, if anything next year there will even be more.