Call for an International Panel on Migration and Asylum

[bgmt]

Call for an International Panel on Migration and Asylum to guide European policies and global migration governanceThis text seems to me entirely adequate. It addresses real long-term issues, it does not give easy solutions, it calls just for opening one's eyes and seeing that there is a problem that cannot be addressed on a short-term basis. One

Comments

[bgmt]

Yes, I know about the Evian conference. But I see no similarity. Solving the migration problem is an essential need (whether understood or not) of today's powers. Solving the Jewish problem was not at all considered as something essential. No one would believe then what would happen to Jews, and no one would believe that this would become THE issue after the war.

I distinctly remember that more than 30 years ago I said that the 21st century would be a century of migrations, not of immigration. Then I thought it would be so because of the demographic pressure, which is not the main cause now, but I was right about the problem. I said then that it would be best to think about it before it happens, to be prepared. One of the causes of my "cleverness" was the fact that it was the moment of the downfall of the South-African regime, and no one could predict the success of Mandela's approach. People feared a mass outflow of whites from South Africa, but where? Who was ready to take all of them?
This did not happen. But migrations do happen, and their size will increase.

[gomberg]

I am afraid, they will resolve the "problem" by means neither of us would consider either civilized or acceptable. Of course, for the following few decades everybody will be swearing that "never again" and laying flowers to tasteful memorials. Then it will happen again.