Migration: the Project of the Century

WHAT’S GOING WRONG?

Migration: the project of the century

Guest commentary by SONJA DINNER

Europe is currently struggling to accommodate one million migrants from Africa and the Middle East, but we are only now starting to comprehend the scope of what most European and Swiss citizens perceive as a threat.

Europe is experiencing the beginnings of a migration from other parts of the world that has been expected for more than a generation and has long since gotten underway on a smaller scale. For 500 years, the major European powers ruled as much as two thirds of the globe. Now, people are migrating from those areas to Europe, and we are not prepared.

The new migration will be the project of the century for Europe for two reasons. First, between 500 and 800 million young people from Africa and the Middle East are waiting to leave imminently to follow their vanguards to the north. Second, their integration, which is demanded by European Union authorities and by many governments, will take generations to achieve.

Because we have been financing or helping to finance sustainable foundations such as microcredit projects for more than ten years in Africa and Asia to provide people in their home countries with decent living conditions and prospects for the future, we are very familiar with the initial situation and the motivation of the people there. So we know what awaits us in Europe. It has little to do with the romantic notion of “doing good” that is so widespread.

In their home countries, the young people focus on a single issue: How can I escape the misery and poverty? How do I get to the rich countries in Europe where family members and friends are already living? The images of prosperity in

Only those who have 7 to 8 years of education can successfully be integrated in European society.

the media are irresistible. The real conditions that await migrants in reception centers are never shown. This discrepancy between expectations and the reality that not everyone in Europe is rich, leads to frustration - and to violence.

People who are willing to risk everything to build new lives will keep coming. I have visited their families in slums throughout Africa, and have come to realize that there is only one way to prevent this. We must work together with them where they live now, and where they currently see no perspectives for themselves, to ensure a dignified standard of living. And to this end, the professional development aid organizations must also insist on appropriate efforts by the persons concerned.

But people will still come. And only those who have 7 to 8 years of education can successfully be integrated in European society. If this education is lacking, integration will fail precisely at the point at which it is desired: providing skilled workers in the economic and industrial centers. Of course, 10 to 20 percent of the migrants will succeed, while others will perhaps achieve integration in the second generation, but at least half of all immigrants will remain in the shadows or on welfare benefits, as is the case today.

The scale of the task facing us is far greater than anything Europe has experienced in past centuries. Even now, the migrants are jammed into camps that perpetuate poverty on the borders of various countries. No one there is talking of integration, because nobody knows what that entails. Companies and politicians must now establish programs that are more than merely misconceived aid and charitable handouts. The migrants have an enormous potential that could be used, with our assistance, to develop their own countries. Self-reliance and responsible action are indispensable.

If this approach does not succeed, these suffering people will keep coming to Europe, which is relatively small, because even a Europe brought to its knees by the sheer volume of immigration and the efforts required to achieve integration is still more desirable than hunger, illness and premature death at home.

Sonja Dinner is the president of The Dear Foundation.

In the column “What’s going wrong?”, associations and organizations describe what they believe needs to change in Switzerland.