Migrant Madness Drives Political Upheaval

Global mass displacement is changing values and driving conflict

By: Michael Vatikiotis

For two weeks over the summer, Europe was fixated on the story of a luxury yacht that sank in a storm off the island of Sicily with the loss of a billionaire technopreneur, a senior international banking executive, and several rich lawyers. No one seemed to comment or care that such sudden Mediterranean squalls also take the lives of countless migrants making their way to Europe on rickety boats and inflatables – more than 3,000 people in 2023.

There’s a reason for this staggering lack of compassion. The rich world – primarily Europe and the United States – is in the grip of a politically charged migrant crisis that is reshaping politics dramatically, ushering in increasingly illiberal governments in ways that go beyond the migrants themselves to feature cutbacks in social welfare programs and tough-on-crime posturing. These political currents not only impact the safety and security of the migrants, but, with the changes to government policy and public sentiment they drive, are also redefining attitudes towards larger geo-political concerns that are eroding the norms and values that once governed the so-called rules-based order.

In Europe, waves of Africans, Levant Arabs, Afghans, and central Asians have been battling their way overland and by sea to Europe escaping climate change, oppression, and war for much of the past decade. In 2023, there were 27 million non-EU citizens residing in the European Union, or roughly 6 percent of the total population – and that number had increased by 3 million from the year before. While many face a terrible ordeal in getting to where they want to go, a major factor in increased migration is constantly increasing mobility, combined with the knowledge that there may be a better life elsewhere.

These migrants are mostly not welcome (unless they come from war-ravaged Ukraine). Their presence has fueled racial and religious intolerance that is driving voters towards extreme right-wing parties like AfD in Germany, Law and Justice in Poland, and Reform in the UK that have started to win elections and could transform the face of once democratic and liberal Europe. Reform in the UK, led by far-right activist Nigel Farage, won 13 percent of the popular vote from a virtual standing start. Recent polls in Eastern Germany have brought AfD closer to influential power in regional assemblies – though Germany’s constitution would block its actual governing role. Their agendas combine a mix of xenophobic racial sentiment, with virulent anti-Muslim prejudice and strong support for militarism.

The impact on other parts of the world is already being felt. While Europe contributes arms and wields sanctions to combat Russian aggression and violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, no European government has had the courage to limit or sanction Israel’s ghastly war against Palestinians in Gaza. Instead, Israel has argued that it is waging a war against Islamic terrorists and stopping them from coming Europe’s way. Feeding off anti-migrant sentiment, Israel’s lobbyists have successfully obscured the killing of more than 40,000 civilians and undermined the resonance of the notion of genocide.

In the United States, migrant issues are a major concern in this year’s presidential election, with thrice-married former and possible future President Donald Trump, who has been convicted of multiple felonies including rape and falsifying business records, nonetheless running a formidable campaign with illegal migration a central issue. The foreign-born population of the US today stands at close to 50 million people, or 20 percent of the population. In recent years, tens of thousands of people have scrambled across the porous land border with Mexico escaping poverty in Central America, and oppression in countries like Venezuela. Interestingly, many Chinese migrants use this land route as well, with 37,000 Chinese asylum-seekers detained by US law enforcement last year. 

Although better protected in the US, which built its society on immigration, migrants arriving in Europe increasingly feel they have none of the basic rights and security that drove them there in the first place. 

The British Conservative party, which lost power to a center-left Labor Party government in July, sought to deport migrants to Rwanda. Barely a month after taking power, the new Labor government faced the most serious racial unrest the country had seen since the 1970s – sparked by suspicion that the stabbing of young schoolgirls had been caried out by a Muslim migrant (the suspect arrested is in fact a UK national of Rwandan origin).

Elsewhere, Germany’s leadership has advocated migrant deportations for those who don’t qualify for asylum on a mass scale. A Syrian migrant who stabbed three people in August galvanized support for the far right. And in France, the far right almost won a workable majority in the French legislature on the back of anti-migrant and xenophobic sentiment.

Europe and the US are not alone in bearing the brunt of mass displacement. The UN estimates there are more than 120 million displaced people worldwide, that’s one in almost seventy people globally. Increased levels of unaddressed or unresolved conflict are a major driver. An estimated 10 million people are internally displaced in Sudan, and another two or more million in Myanmar. 

Climate change is driving a lot of this demographic instability. In Africa some 40 million people are said to have been displaced by rising temperatures and water shortages that have driven people out of the continent’s arid middle belt either north or south, disrupting local communities and generating frictions that have helped build support for extremist groups like Al-Shabab in Somalia and Boko Harum in Nigeria.

The reality is that the world needs to adapt to these large mass movements or face a stark increase in violent social unrest and conflict. In some parts of the world, governments and society have derived economic advantages from migrant labor – along with the accompanying threat of exploitation. 

Thailand is thought to be home to more than two million displaced Burmese, for example. Thirty years ago, when a similar displacement occurred after the 1988 uprising, tens of thousands were herded into camps along the border. Today, they mostly find work in towns and cities in the service and construction sector. True, many of the more recent migrants are young, educated, and speak passable English – a real advantage in Thailand’s tourist-oriented service economy. 

Yet in contrast to the situation across much of Europe, and despite long historical antipathy between Burma and Thailand, there are also signs of a compassionate and liberal response to the raging conflict in Myanmar. At a recent academic conference on Myanmar’s conflict hosted by Chiangmai University in Northern Thailand, hundreds of activists and students who have sought refuge in Thailand since the military coup in 2021 found a safe, secure platform where they could openly debate the future of their country. No one is pressuring them to go home. But in all probability, they will – armed with better education and experience, as well as some capital, to be able to rebuild their country. Sadly, that’s unlikely to be the case for the tens of thousands of asylum seekers that the UK restricts to hotels pending slow and often unsuccessful processing of their cases.

Michael Vatikiotis is a writer and veteran observer of Asian affairs. He is the author of “Blood and Silk: Power and Conflict in Southeast Asia.”