Since the dawn of humanity, when the first men started to colonize this planet , there is one thing that we have never ceased to do: move. Peoples have always moved from one place to another, driven by the need to find better areas where to find or grow food or even by that innate curiosity to explore and break any limit reason places, whatever its nature might be. Peoples have always moved; and whether you like it or not, they’ll keep on doing so, despite the walls short-sighted government mean to erect. These walls will be destroyed, this is what any history book has taught us.
Even the strongest wall cannot resist the blows of the most powerful, dangerous drive: survival instinct. If we, western cultures, accustomed to live such a pampered life where it has become hard for most of us to distinguish our needs from our wants, weakened by the certainty of our welfare, dazzled by the superiority of our technology, believe to keep our status erecting walls, I’m afraid we are just deluding ourselves.Think about the Romans, for example, they had power, armies, technology, a very refined culture, but their rich, sophisticated world fell under the blows of the rude, illiterate tribes of the barbarians, who were driven by stronger needs.
It cannot be denied that immigration is a great issue of our times and for this reason governments had better avoid selfish policies and work hard on shared solutions.The majority of those who eventually manage to land on our coasts are driven by that kind desperation that makes them stronger despite their physical weakness and slight statures, as they are ready to defy any danger even death to change their lives. We, fortunately, have lost memory of what that means, but this makes us vulnerable. Furthemore, they are many and they will be more as they make children, so in a possible conflict among races even mathematics is on their side.
Hence, what can be done if we don’t want to end up just like the Romans? Since walls are no effective solution, I can only see two possible reasonable ways:
1. developing genuine integration policies thus making of immigration a resource;
2. helping them make a productive system in their own countries. Very difficult to be achieved in the short-term, by the way, as it should be planned with the local powers.
However, now that I think of it, there would be another way to go in the case the two solutions I mentioned above could not be effectively pursued, only, that would not be a choice, but a consequence of myopic policies. As immigration cannot and will not ever be stopped, the only thing left to do it to “exterminate the brutes“. (Conrad, Heart of Darkness)
e-Tinkerbell 
There’s another solution . . . well, not a solution per se . . .
Cynical but so true.
Wise if sad thoughts, Stefy. I sometimes think we have ceded power to madmen (you have to be a bit mad to go into politics anyway) and that common humanity is a concept that has been surgically removed from their beings. The US, Brazil, Britain, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia … the list seems endless of countries headed by so-called populist leaders who manipulate whole populations for their own profit. But there are signs of resistance: will there be the patience and strength of will to keep up that resistance? One hopes so, for all our sakes.
I am not that optimistic, as those signs are too feeble and pale. I ‘ve recently watched a lecture of my beloved Alesandro Baricco about Alexander the Great and the importance/power of a good story telling. If you have good one , the masses will follow you anywhere even towards their ruin. We don’t have a new story telling to oppose to those of the populists,that’s our problem. A united Europe is no longer a good one and furthemore I cannot see a real leader. For a while I thought Macron could have been that one, but as far as I can see and understand I was wrong.
One of the problems I can see is that we’ve been sold the idea of “unity” as opposed to cooperation. By that, I mean that idealistic idea that people of diverse backgrounds, cultures, religions, and taste in pasta can all come together toward a shared goal and advance humanity to the next level (whatever that is).
The reality is we’re tribal in nature. Some might even argue that’s how it should be: care about your family first, then friends, then neighbors, then fellow countrymen, then people in general, then animals, then plants, then that stuff that grows on bread when you leave it out too long. Within that hierarchy, there are religious, political, social, and discretionary groupings flowing in and out of the various levels.
There’s powerful evolutionary drives that justify that way of thinking and pushing against them has — at least to now — never worked. Heck, it doesn’t even work on the people who push for it.
It would be nice if — within reason — various groups of humans approach similar goals by adapting them to their own groups and then cooperate with other groups even as they recognize the individuality of said groups. But humans don’t appear to be wired that way; we’re driven by greed and a desire to not only be “equal” to others, but to surpass them.
Throw religion into the mix and you’ve lost all hope for whatever idealized society one might dream up.
Hence, wars (civil and international) with temporary breathers in between as we gear up and set the groundwork for the next war.
Although I think this could fall into your second option, I do believe there is another point.
I reckon that most of this people would truly rather not ‘migrate’ or escape their home lands and Countries, taking on possibly deadly journeys and risking everything to come ‘on our coasts’. As many of them have already stated multiple times, they could be really well without it!
They reason why most of them escapes is terribly simple (and not only poorly civilised states): war.
War that we help to ‘sponsor’ and finance. We may not be fighting in the first place, or our Country may not be sending troops, but we do have a part in it. We make the weapons. We craft the bombs that fall upon their heads and make them flee. Money really is the root of all evil, to say it in Gilmour’s way. War economy was certainly already there, and may has its roots back into the Romans’ age, but it is indeed the black plague of our times.
I we really want to help them, I think we should start by that. The only problem being that those decisions are not in everybody’s hands and ‘common people’ like us often can do nothing at all in these regards. But I do believe we do have great powers in our ‘little hands’ and everyone can make his part. No matter how little, everything counts.
Excuse my cosmic pessimism, but I am of the opinion that our little hands count nothing. But you are young, so it is right that have faith in the fact tha you can change the world. Still.
I know we can do very little, if not nothing. Indeed, we have no power on these ‘big decisions’. It is true that we are only drops in the see but we, as drops, can choose for ourselves. And that is enough to begin change, no matter how little the scale.
Besides, I’ve got a lot of white hair now, so it can be misleading 🙂