Respect, not race

With the British National Party grabbing a few headlines at the moment, I thought that I'd offer my own take on the issue of nationality and citizenship as my first WoS post of 2007.

Coming from a pretty multicultural city, I’ve worked alongside people from across the world, some of whom I’ve considered good friends. Most of the time, when either bitching about work or sharing a drink, their ethnicity or their reasons for coming to Britain simply hasn’t struck me as important – a brief topic of conversation, at best.

In a desperate attempt to make my English degree mean something, I like to put this down to my love of reading. Bear with me. On my bookshelves sit cherished works by the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, and various other writers from a diverse range of backgrounds. If I’ve learnt only one thing from this esteemed collection of writers (and that’s quite possible) it’s that the character of a person is far more interesting and important than where they come from. Things like nationality or ethnicity don’t define someone, but their outlook on life can.

In his excellent essay on identity, ‘Citizens of the World’, K. Anthony Appiah tells us that one of the last pieces of advice his father left him was that, wherever he lived, he should try to leave it “better than you found it”. A perfect motto for the internationalist outlook. That’s what’s important to me: If someone respects their fellow citizens then, regardless of where they came from, I’m more than happy to live alongside them.

In defence of immigration

Most people these days (even in Britain) seem to accept that immigrants make great contributions culturally, politically and economically to the nation they migrate to. Even the critics of Britain's current open-door policy find it difficult to dismiss the benefits gained from the current wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe - except, Migrationwatch that is.

Having said that, the chairman of Migrationwatch, Sir Andrew Green, actually conceded that of 'course many immigrants make a useful contribution to the economy but, taken in total, the economic benefit is at best marginal'. The fact that the host nation and the immigrants themselves both benefit seems to be lost somewhere in translation. Indeed, it is left to the astute blogger, Tim Worstall, who kindly reminds us all that such benefits is normally known as 'Pareto improvement'.

Who needs the British National Party when we've got Migrationwatch?

The Great Fence of USA

Probably inspired on the great wall of China, George W. Bush signed the bill that will allow USA to built a 700-mile border fence along 1/3 of U.S. Border with Mexico. Nobody knows how much will it cost but the value of $1.2 Billion dollars were allocated to this project with the signature of this bill.

He expects with this fence to control the flux of illegal immigrants that go through this border. "Unfortunately, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders for decades and therefore illegal immigration has been on the rise," Bush said.

Many people criticizes this politic not only abroad but also inside the USA. One example is T.J. Bonner, head of the National Border Patrol Council which states that: "A fence will slow people down by a minute or two, but if you don't have the agents to stop them it does no good. We're not talking about some impenetrable barrier".

Well I think that T.J. Bonner is quite right, not only USA will spend billions of dollars, but also will give a bad image of itself, for a measure that ultimately will have little effect. But looking on the bright side , in a far future tourists will have another attraction to see in the USA: "The Great Fence of USA".

[Quotation taken from here at CNN]