The World's Phobia: Immigration

by Songül Arslan

We live in a fearful time. Despite the fact that we have all kinds of communication technologies and resources available to help us understand and learn about other cultures and people, xenophobia still exists. Fear of immigrants is the most common manifestation of this xenophobia.

I have always found perceptions of immigration intriguing. In general, current economic and political situations determine whether it is seen as favourable or not. For example, after 9/11 the rules to enter the USA were sharpened not only for tourists but also, and more intensely, for people with the aim of staying there and making a life. The fear created by that catastrophe had many political, economical, social and cultural implications. Immigrants to the United States, particularly those with Muslim backgrounds, are now being investigated and scrutinized with a never-before-seen intensity.

Fear has spread and increased, and people are now more inclined to regard Muslim people and Arabic people as extremists and potential terrorists. For instance, I know of a Muslim woman who wore a black scarf every day to her work where she lived in New York. For as long as she could remember she had taken her Koran to read on the subway and had never received a comment about it. After 9/11, people in the subway would make hostile remarks to her about the hatred that her book propagated, never considering that she condemned the horrible event as much as they did. This woman fears to read her religious books on the subway now, and I can understand her fear.

The prejudice toward Muslim immigrants is common in other countries as well, and can be seen on the both sides of the Atlantic. Let's not forget that France has recently put a ban on the expression of religion in the classroom. It is not allowed to wear a scarf around your head, but it is also not allowed to show a visible cross on a pendant. It's not that France wants to discourage religion in any way, but fear has pushed legislators to take extreme action. And it all comes down to people being afraid of what they don't understand.

As I said earlier, the manifestation of the fear depends also on the political and economical climate at the moment. A whole different example is when immigration was seen as favourable, around the sixties of the last century. The economies of countries such as Germany, France and The Netherlands grew so much during this period that there was more more demand for labour than could be supplied from within these countries' borders. They needed labourers so much--especially for the jobs nobody else would do--that they started looking for them from abroad. Workers came from Turkey, Greece, Spain, Italy, Morocco, and elsewhere, with dreams and visions of building a prosperous life.

But everything in life comes in circles and soon the fairy tale ended. Economies were crippled in the seventies (there were oil crises) and suddenly there were more workers than jobs. The majority of immigrants were now jobless, as were a lot of locals, and the atmosphere had changed. Immigrants were being accused of having stolen the jobs that should have belonged to the locals. On the other hand, immigrants were often perceived as lazy and shrewd: they had come solely to profit from the social security and the benefits. A Dutch comedian has joked wryly, "These lazy immigrants who don't want to work came here to steal our jobs."

But immigration is as old as mankind. Our earliest ancestors were migrants who roamed the earth to find food, shelter and safety. To find work elsewhere is still the main reason that people emigrate from their home countries. People also emigrate to join their families and to build lives together. Sometimes emigration is an act of pure despair when a country is at war or has a repressive regime. In the end, it all comes down to the fact that every person wants much the same thing: to build a safe, secure, and respectable life and home.

Most often, immigrants haven't left the countries of their birth just for the sake of leaving. They want to survive and to thrive, and shouldn't be regarded as evil or lesser just because they might have a different religion or a different colour or different customs. More than half of what you wear is designed and made in another country; many dishes you eat--like spaghetti and hamburgers--are typical dishes from another country; most products you use are foreign. If you look carefully around you, you will see clearly that your world is built on immigration. Ultimately, if we are afraid of others, we are afraid only of ourselves.