For generation after
generation, Wales has lost people, particularly young people, who have left to
seek a better future elsewhere. The immediate cause is well-understood: a lack
of opportunity here, coupled with greater opportunity elsewhere. Within the UK,
it’s not a phenomenon unique to Wales of course; Scotland and much of England
outside the south-east corner have suffered the same fate. The wider reasons
for that economic imbalance are well-understood as well: a centralised state
which concentrates power, wealth and talent in the centre by sucking it in from
the peripheries. The extractive and exploitative nature of the Welsh economy is
easily seen by looking at transport links – the best ones overwhelmingly run
from west to east rather than north to south, historically facilitating the extraction
of mineral and other wealth.
The fact that Wales
has not been an independent country during that time, and the consequent lack
of a recognised international border obscures the basic fact: most of those who
left Wales were (and are) what are today called, usually pejoratively, economic
migrants. People who live in an area denuded of much of its wealth by far-away
rulers migrate in search of a share of what was originally theirs anyway. We’re
not good at recognising it, but it is the same imperative which drives many of
the migrants reaching these shores currently. Coming from countries which were
systematically exploited and robbed by their colonialists, they travel to where
the wealth now resides in search of opportunity. And it should be no surprise
that the country of choice for many of them will be the one which colonised
them, and whose language was imposed upon them. So, for example, Algerians tend
to favour France and those from the former British Empire tend to favour the
UK.
If anyone should be
able to understand and empathise with economic migrants, it is us here in
Wales. But by and large, many amongst us don’t. Perhaps it’s due to a lack of
understanding of our own history, coupled with an acceptance of the version of
history with which we are fed. But the bottom line is that, whilst many in
Wales blame the exploiters for the loss of those who leave, they blame the
individuals for the new arrivals. In truth, our interests have more in common.
If it’s an unfair distribution of wealth which drives economic migration, it is
a fairer distribution which will reduce it. It’s no accident that, in the UK as
in the US, anti-immigrant sentiment is being driven and funded by some of the
richest political donors. We only have to ask ourselves who might feel most threatened
by any suggestion of a fairer distribution of wealth, whether within a state or
more globally, to understand why.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment