Migration

Migration, the basic animal instinct that drives almost all species on the planet to move onto greener pastures when there environment is soured.  There is a mass migration going on in the world right now.  But it is not a migration of geese or butterflies but a migration of people, a mass exodus of people seeking better lives away from the violence, disparity and poverty of the places they would like to call home.

Every living thing on the planet has the right to seek happiness and we cannot blame these people for risking their lives to try and better the lives of themselves and those they love.  I feel for them on a grand scale and wish them luck wherever they may end up.

But we also have to look on the other side of this equation.  If there is a mass immigration of people from a third world country to a first world then it becomes the responsibility of that new country to shoulder the burden that these immigrants bring whether it be financial, medial or cultural.  When I see the activist stating their cases on boss sides I am left with one simple thought, it is a thought from a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson in his famous essay "Self Reliance"

 "Oh foolish philanthropist, they love afar is spite at home."

[abbreviated quote]

It makes me think that, yes we want to show compassion and generosity to these people but in doing so we forget about the people already in our own country we need to take care of.  We have our own poor, we have our own people living in violence and hunger.  Poverty and despair are rampant in every country yet we want to focus on the problems of other countries to deflect attention from the problems of our own.  While I do believe we need to extend aid to these people and help them in an way we can, I find it hard to grasp why we should shoulder the burden in our borders instead of fixing the problems within their own.  I know the argument of leaving the solidarity of a nation to its own devices, but haven't we been meddling in the affairs of other nations too much already?  Maybe we should begin to focus on meddling for the good of that nation instead of the corporate greed of America and Europe.  

I say fix our own problems before we shoulder the burden of more.