"Human Sewage"

Time to punish journalists.

The reporting of the deaths of 58 people, while trying to enter Britain, shows once again the deep racism of the average journalist. In some cases, the media identified the victims themselves as criminals. But in most cases, the media presented the deaths as an example of 'criminal immigrant smuggling'. The British immigration laws were not criticised.

It is not wrong for poor people to enter a rich country. Rich countries and regions have a moral duty, to redistribute their wealth. The so-called 'development aid' is not redistribution. Giving one dollar per person per year to Albania, for instance, will never bring Albania to Californian standards of living.

If rich countries refuse to redistribute their wealth, then generally speaking, it is not wrong for poor people to go to the rich countries. This is a moral issue, and it overrides any legislation. Specifically, rich countries have no right to transform themselves into fortified islands of wealth amid poverty. Anti-immigration legislation with this aim (zero-migration laws) is clearly morally wrong. Anyone may break such a law, anyone may smuggle poor people into rich countries, in such circumstances.

It does not have to be like this. There is no secret about how to redistribute wealth geographically: the European Union, and most of its member states, have regional policies which do that already. Mass immigration, on the other hand, is not an effective form of wealth redistribution. To give some idea of the scale of the problem: GNP per head in Britain is about 4 or 5 times above world average. About 150 million or 200 million immigrants would be needed, to bring it down to average. Clearly, it would be much simpler to introduce a new income tax, perhaps 30%, and use that to fund real development, in Eastern Europe and Africa. But there is apparently no chance that will happen. What western politician will introduce an extra 30% income tax, on top of all existing taxes?

So what is the reality of immigration? The reality in Britain is that no economic migration is legal anyway. And even 200 immigrants provoke extreme hostility from the media, and from racist parties - they often work together. In fact every individual immigrant can be the target of British newspaper journalists, and every detail of their income and housing - to show that "too much is spent". This has created a climate of extreme hostility, in which immigration officials can hunt immigrants. When the Customs official at Dover found the bodies of the 58 dead, what did he do? He called the Immigration Service, no doubt to ensure that no survivors escaped.

You don't have to go far, to see who created this mentality. No further than the local newspaper, the Dover Express. According to the anti-racist group CARF, in October 1998 the paper printed an editorial about "illegal immigrants, asylum-seekers and the scum of the earth drug smugglers who have targeted our beloved coastline". The Dover Express concluded: "We are left with the backdraft of a nation's human sewage and no cash to wash it down the drain". (see also Racism And The Press In Blair's Britain)

Of course the British tabloid press is not the only place where you can find racist journalists. In Ireland - only 15 years ago a source of economic migrants itself - the tabloid press has copied their British colleagues.(see also Refugees and Immigrants in the Irish Media)

But the racism is not always as crude as this. A few weeks ago, the British military attache in Athens was shot. His widow, together with her children, made a statement at the gates of their home, explaining how their lives had been destroyed. Several minutes of the statement were broadcast on BBC News, and copied by other TV stations in Europe. Will the families and friends of the 58 victims in Dover get similar airtime, on BBC News to speak about their grief and loss? No, because BBC journalists are racists. It's that simple. This kind of racism pervades newspaper and broadcast journalism in EU countries.

It is time to punish journalists for, creating a climate of racism and hostility toward migration. A journalist is not some sort of sacred being, deserving special protection. There is no 'freedom of racism'. The criteria for punishment is simple: migration of poor people to rich countries is not wrong, and any journalist who campaigns against it should be punished. The penalties should be at least sufficient to reverse the effects. Any newspaper, for instance, which refers to immigrants as 'human sewage' should be closed - completely, permanently, and without compensation. Of course suppression of media hostility to migration is not, in itself, a solution to the problem of global inequality. However, it does seem to be one of the necessary first steps to a solution.