Do human beings matter?

The sad situation, or not so sad and deserving according to many, of refugees from Syria and other nations that desperately want to find a new home in Europe and other Western nations has been in the news a lot lately. Some of the stories, and some comments from friends and family on Facebook, sadden and anger me, but there was an encouraging one in the BBC News yesterday.

In "How Sweden tries to assimilate its influx of refugees," Edwin Lane writes that the Swedish government, motivated by a desire to do what is morally right. even at considerable financial cost, welcomes many refugees every year, treating them with respect because they are human beings (2015). This includes helping them learn Swedish and other skills to fit into life and to find jobs that make the best use of their skills, which are often considerable.

Obviously, I think that other nations, every other nation, has an obligation to help the less fortunate, and that includes accepting them as refugees. Unfortunately, my mother is one of the Australians who think we should not offer such help to those desperately in need of it. This sometimes leads to uncomfortable moments at the dinner table on my visits home. I usually try not to comment when my mother is saying things with which I strongly disagree and find offensive, but every now and then, she says something so awful that I think she should be corrected, so I do. It does  not make her happy, but I suspect she calls refugees and immigrants lazy people who take the jobs of real Australians, and much worse, much less when I'm there because she knows I won't just let it all politely pass. Politeness is important, but you can be polite while honestly speaking unwelcome truths.  My mother is totally wrong factually as well as morally: nations that accept refugees tend to do better economically for the very good reason that such people are willing to work very hard to make a better life for themselves and their families. The Australiane xperience , also the experience of the US and many others, is strong evidence for this. Almost everyone in Australia, except the Aboriginal people who were there 40,000 years before we invaded, are at most second or third generation: my own Italian ancestors only sought a better life in Australia in the 1880s, and when they arrived, they worked very hard, contributing greatly to the economic and social health of Australia. That my own mother, whose own parents were immigrants, is so anti-immigrant seems a bit weird to me.

80,000 refugees a year, in
a county of less then 10 million.

But even for nations not founded on recent immigrants, it does seem to me the right thing to welcome in new citizens. Certainly, there are difficulties, but I think that people who are willing to make such a radical move are very likely to be both willing and able to succeed in their new home: the Chinese who settled in Thailand after the communist take over of China and earlier to escape the turmoil and poverty in their homeland seem to me to have contributed  a lot to Thailand. How many immigrants does Thailand settle permanently, granting them Thai citizenship each year? Tiny Sweden with with a population of only 10 million, takes in 80,000 new people who will become Swedish citizens every year. This puts my country to shame, although in the past, we have done much better. Perhaps it's economic fear that now drives Australia to be less generous, to be less willing to do the right thing morally. But I'm sure that that thinking is wrong. My Italian immigrant ancestors made Australia a better country, as did the Greeks, the Vietnamese, the Cambodians, and even the English who first invaded my country, turning the native residents they did not kill off into socially damaged outcasts living miserable lives.

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Reference

Lane, E. (2015, September 21). How Sweden tries to assimilate its influx of refugees. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34261065