Failure pushes people to vote with their feet

03 May 2015 - 02:00 By Ann Crotty
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Migration has been part of the human condition since day one. Much of economic history is about tribes moving from one part of the globe in search of a better life in another part.

In recent millenniums, it is the story of how the Romans, the Mongols and the Europeans conquered huge tracts of "foreign" territories. They used state-backed force to take control of the new regions they had travelled to in search of resources.

There was also an individual dimension to the story, particularly during the Industrial Revolution in Europe, when millions of citizens, dislodged by the tectonic shifts in society, migrated to the "new" world in search of something better.

In the 100 years to 1920, about a third of the Swedish population migrated to the US to escape the combined pressures of population growth and shortage of good farm land. After Ireland's devastating crop failure in the mid-19th century, millions of Irish emigrated to the US and Britain in search of survival from conditions that were linked to colonisation by the British. Unlike Sweden and other European countries, Irish emigration continued throughout the 20th century. After a brief hiatus in the first decade of the 21st, when it briefly experienced net immigration, emigration from Ireland resumed.

The toxic mix of frustration, entitlement, thuggery and opportunism that spilt onto the streets of Johannesburg and Durban in recent weeks highlights the story of migration over the past 60 years. It is part of the same story that has seen thousands of migrants ending their lives in a watery grave as they crossed the Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe.

In recent decades, the migration story has been about tens of millions of people, in hope or desperation, moving from a "home" state that has failed them to a foreign one that might not. Generally, it is about the movement of people from undeveloped and often failed states to developed ones. There is no "new" underpopulated territory for these people to move to, no place that can be conquered or colonised. Now it is a matter of competing with large local populations for the limited resources available.

Ironically, much of the recent migration of desperate people has been from Africa - at a time when there has been so much excitement about Africa's economic growth potential.

The tendency to focus on the countries of destination when searching for a solution to problems of migration is understandable, but it overlooks the importance "push" factors play in the decision to emigrate. In this regard it was nonsensical to believe the Nigerian government cared so much about its vulnerable emigrants that it recalled its South African ambassador last week. We must assume the Nigerian government doesn't give a toss for the millions of Nigerians who have left that country in recent decades.

At the very least, if it had cared, it would have allowed the 17 million Nigerians of voting age scattered across the globe to vote in the recent elections. Similarly, we can assume the Zimbabwean government doesn't give a jot for its emigrants who have been forced to seek survival in a foreign country and are not allowed a vote "back home", in the state that has failed them.

In recent years, most developed and growing numbers of developing countries have granted their emigrants the right to vote in their birth country. But in many countries, including Ireland, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, where emigration is linked to chronic state failure, there is no such right. Indeed, in these instances, emigration, as a safety valve, is a considerable benefit to the entrenched elites. It reduces the pressure on them to create a functional state that can cater for the population. This inevitably means continued emigration.

Unless the global community, led by the UN, pays more attention to the sources of emigration, it will become a problem that will dominate the human condition.

As a starting point, elections that do not allow emigrants the right to vote should not be judged free and fair.

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