No Borders - One People

Forty Million Refugees

There are no less than forty million refugees in the world today. Forty million people living in misery and hopelessness. Such is the appalling truth revealed in a little book recently published—Refugees 1960.

The authors fondly hope that in this world refugee year, the camps can be emptied and the conscience of the capitalist world stirred so deeply that every man, woman and child will be resettled. Just listen to this:

“Every country with room to spare should ease open its bureaucratic door and undertake to accept without ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’ a percentage of the sick or economically useless human beings, to balance what they have gained from the young, healthy immigrants who will be benefiting their economy without any cost to them in education or training.”

A tall order indeed. It is hopeless to appeal to the conscience of a society which has been directly responsible for such a monstrosity. Far better to have a world where man can be free to travel over its surface without the futile restrictions of nationality, and where he can satisfy his needs from a sufficiency of wealth that only Socialism can make available.

But when all this has been said, it is still worthwhile to read Refugees 1960. Mainly, it is a plain, straightforward statement of very unpalatable facts, and no attempt has been made to grind a political axe. Yet by its very simplicity of style and presentation, this book shouts a condemnation of capitalist society from every page.

From book review by E.T.C., Socialist Standard, June 1960

Indeed, much the same sentiments can be expressed today , 50 years later. Shamefully but totally expectedly that bureaucratic door has not been eased open but frequently slammed shut.Not just here in the UK but recently in the news we have seen that in America , Arizona state laws has been passed to permit please to stop and question anyone who may be an "illegal immigrant" , or should we simply say , who looks "foreign".

For the first time, more people are leaving their homes because of environmental factors than because of war. The world now has 25 million environmental refugees, compared with 21 million war-related refugees. They aren't really genuine refugees, the cry goes up, only "bogus ones", who have the nerve to try to cross the capitalist-ordained boundaries to make themselves a little better off.Who gave the world's rulers the right to tell us which bit of land we should live on? Like many laws enacted by the ruling class, restrictions on the crossing of borders really only hit at members of the working class. The apologists for capitalism who try to foment ill-feeling towards "foreigners" landing here, whether they come to escape persecution, or to obtain slightly higher wages, never attack the upper class who swan about the world as if there were no such thing as state boundaries.

The problems we face are not caused by workers from other parts of the world migrating to this part, but by the capitalist system of class ownership