The Guelphs and the Ghibellines are still at it hammer and tongs, pushed into their respective camps by a clash between religious authority (Pope Leo) and secular power (President Trump).
The two principal bones of contention avidly being gnawed by both groups are war and immigration. As febrile debates so often do, this one seems to force both parties to express themselves in binary absolutes.
One is either a bare-teethed warmonger who loves the smell of napalm in the morning or a weak-kneed, limp-wristed peacenik bearing a flower and a vacuous half-smile. Or else, one loves immigration so much one would happily fling the country’s doors wide open to all comers. Conversely, his opponent is a xenophobe who wants to keep all funny-talking foreigners out – and throw out those who have managed to sneak in already.
Yet neither issue can possibly be reduced to extreme absolutes. Some wars are just and must be condoned. Others are unjust and must be denounced. Some immigration is good for the host country, some can be ruinous not only economically, but also socially, culturally and politically.
Hence the answer to the question in the title above, or to the same one about war, ought to be a resounding and unequivocal ‘that depends’. And yes, I do have a dog in this fight, having myself been an immigrant 53 years ago. That erstwhile status precludes my adopting an uncompromising stance, along the lines of ‘keep all them foreigners out’.
However, I’ll happily keep my personal emotions away from the debate if you promise to do the same. In the spirit of rational discourse, I’d like to offer several arguments pertaining specifically to emigration from Russia.
Here are some of those arguments, in no particular order: Zworykin, Sikorsky, Rachmaninov, Chagall, Stravinsky, Nabokov, Balanchine, Sorokin, Pavlova, Lossky, Horowitz, Heifetz, Gamow, Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Némirovsky, Brin… Do tell me where to stop: the list can go on, and yes, you’re welcome to take exception to the last name on it.
As I duck the stones aimed at my head by blood-and-soil conservatives, I must still insist that, had those people stayed in Russia, their host countries would have been the poorer for it. There’s no question that some immigration is good for any country, and not just because of the immediate contributions some émigrés can make.
Fresh blood flowing through the veins of the cultural and intellectual life of a country can have an invigorating effect on the indigenous population. Its heart begins to beat harder, its brain goes into overdrive, its eyes open wider.
On the other hand, a torrential influx of huddled masses yearning to get welfare and remaining staunchly alien, not to say hostile, to the host civilisation can destroy said civilisation by delayed action.
England, to name an obvious example, is suffering every possible ill effect of mass immigration of cultural aliens, and even my presence here doesn’t quite provide a satisfactory counterbalance.
The conclusion makes itself: a country must apply the same standards to every aspiring immigrant as a family applies to any potential guest they consider inviting to dinner.
Some invitees can enliven the party with their impeccable manners and gregarious wit, and one can be sure they won’t slip the odd silver spoon into their pocket. Others can kill a party stone dead by getting raucously drunk, pawing every woman they can reach and ending up throwing up on the floor.
Admittedly, it’s easier to vet individually a potential guest, one of, say, a dozen candidates, than a potential immigrant, one in, say, millions. Australia, one of the few countries with sensible immigration rules, has developed a system that seems to work.
Rather than being driven by abstract humanitarianism or, conversely, obtuse xenophobia, Australians use a points system to assess an immigrant’s eligibility. They look at such characteristics as age, education, skills, work history and so forth.
This is supposed to work quite well, although I don’t know enough to comment on how well. The idea seems sound though: some immigrants can be a blessing for the country, others a curse. Deciding on the potential for one or the other should be a matter of the cold-blooded weighing of pros and cons, not of emotion either positive or negative.
But should it be only pragmatic? Western countries used to be, and still pretend to be, Christian. And Christians don’t make decisions solely on the basis of utility. Qualities of mercy and compassion can be downplayed but they can’t be ignored.
Hence, if some people face certain death in their homeland, they deserve special consideration. Yet here again logistics interfere with general principles. I’d suggest that millions if not billions of people around the world can make a legitimate claim of being oppressed and in fear for their lives.
Yet Britain can’t possibly accept billions or even millions of them, although our recent governments, both Tory and Labour, seem to disagree. And our potential Green government (yes, it is a possibility) wants to abolish all restraints on immigration, provided an aspirant can demonstrate fervent hatred for everything Britain stands for.
Let’s just say that, though utility must be leavened with mercy, it shouldn’t be overridden by it. The issue is extremely complex, as proved by an example from the generation preceding mine: the Holocaust of European Jews.
In 1938, when the Nazis’ hostile intent left little doubt that European Jews were in danger, 32 nations, including the US and Britain, called a summit conference at Évian. The participants expressed sympathy but largely refused to change their immigration laws, signalling to Hitler that no one wanted to take the Jews.
Thus both Britain and the US can be judged to have been complicit in that massacre because they rejected the numerous opportunities to save those people from horrific death. The two countries maintained restrictive immigration policies throughout, ignoring early reports of mass extermination.
There weren’t many Schindlers among American and British officials, people willing to accept some discomfort to save a few victims crying out for help. Yet even that episode wasn’t free of some nuances.
Since both countries were still reeling from the Great Depression, they were wary of the economic consequences of mass immigration. Also, the fear that the Nazis would inundate masses of immigrants with their spies were very real.
Both countries had strict immigration quotas, and the British were also reluctant to facilitate Jewish immigration to Palestine for fear of upsetting their Arab friends. In spite of that, some people were saved.
Between 1933 and 1945, the US accepted 180,000 – 225,000 refugees, way short of the available quota slots, but still. And by 1939 Britain admitted 70,000 – 80,000 refugees, including 10,000 children.
The fundamental difference between that mass migration and the problem facing us today is that European Jews were indeed Europeans. Regardless of the widespread anti-Semitic sentiments of the time, Jews were part of our civilisation – even though they worshipped the first half of Scripture rather than the second.
Most of them had few problems of integration, and within a short time they were ready to contribute to the economic, intellectual and cultural life of the country. The same can’t be said of the predominantly Muslim mass migration of our time, including one that may yet come from Iran.
Still, the Persian civilisation Trump threatened to annihilate did produce in the past giants like Avicenna, Omar Khayyam, Hafez, Saadi and Al-Biruni. Not many of such figures are discernible in today’s Iran, but still it would be a pity if we refused to admit Iranian refugees without first trying to find the needle of a great mind in the haystack of the Shiite throng.
All I’ve tried to do is point out some of the nuances one has to ponder before pronouncing on immigration policy with authority. Simple solutions may not always work. If improperly wielded, Occam’s razor can slit some throats we’d be better off keeping intact.