Aug-Oct 2015

Refugee crisis and imperialism

The exodus of millions of people from some countries of Africa and West-central Asia has turned into a huge humanitarian crisis. In the past few years, millions of people of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and many other countries of this region, have been forced to evacuate their homeland due to ravages of devastating war and they are desperately roaming from one place to another to find a place where they can at least survive with their families. Thousands of Syrian refugees are braving the seas to escape to European countries and in their quest many have lost their lives. The picture of the lifeless body of a 3-year old Syrian child Aylan Kurdi in the shores of Greece has evoked huge sympathy throughout the world for the refugees and also strong reaction against the governments of European countries. Under huge criticism around the world and also inside their own countries, the leaders of European Union have finally been forced to allow the refugees to enter the continent, but it is obvious from their statements and actions that they do not welcome the refugees in their countries. Each government is trying in its own way to stop the refugees from entering their own country. The leading countries like Germany and UK are trying to dump the refugees on the shoulders of smaller nations. The governments of many countries are now busy in erecting barbed wire fences on the borders. However, news reports say that there have been huge demonstrations of ordinary people in these countries which are welcoming the refugees and demanding to the governments to allow the refugees to enter their soil.

It is true that the recent tragic tale of the death of Aylan Kurdi has been instrumental in bringing the problem to the centre of attention of the people of various countries outside the conflict zone. But, it was brewing for a long time. Even in February of this year, more than five hundred people died in a boat mishap while trying to flee to Europe by sea. Actually, the present refugee crisis from Africa and West Asia has started when, after the breaking out of so-called Arab spring in the West Asian and North African countries, the imperialist forces led by US imperialism increased its armed intervention to control and use the popular revolts against the authoritarian ruling elites for their own benefit and converted those revolts into bitter civil wars between different factions of exploiting classes. The majority of the refugees migrating to Europe are from Syria, where a devastating war between the forces of Assad and Islamic State and other US backed forces is ravaging throughout the country. According to an estimate, almost 4 millions of people of Syria are now living in refugee camps. Though there are not many Libyans amongst these migrants, millions of Libyans have also been uprooted from their origin and now living in refugee camps in Tunisia.

However, there are also thousands of refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan amongst the migrants to Europe. According to statistics given by Eurostat, "Citizens of 141 countries sought asylum for the first time in the EU in the second quarter of 2015. Syrians, Afghanis and Albanians were the top 3 citizenships of asylum seekers, lodging around 44 000, 27 000 and 17 700 applications respectively.....Asylum applicants from Iraq (nearly 6 times more) recorded the most substantial relative increase in the EU in the second quarter of 2015 compared to the same quarter of 2014". It needs no explanation that the refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan are also the result of the war inflicted by US imperialism. In their unending lust to corner, to loot the crude oil of these countries they have repeatedly thrust upon these countries devastating wars. They have occupied these countries for considerable period of time and have now erected puppet regimes. On the top of it, the imperialist forces have encouraged internecine wars between different communities. Due to these wars, millions of people were forced to flee these zones of conflict and became refugees, without any shelter, education or other human living conditions. So, in the quotation given in the beginning, it may be a joke that the refugees like Hassan are not migrating but chasing a thief who has taken their possessions, but no one can deny Hassan was absolutely right in the sense that the Western imperialist forces are thieves which have taken the possessions of people of oppressed countries.

If one sees the refugee problem from a wider perspective, he/she will not fail to recognize that mainly imperialism and capitalism are responsible for this problem. It is not that before the Arab spring or even before the Afghanistan or Iraq wars there were no refugees. For almost seven to eight decades thousands of Palestinians who for generations are living in refugee camps in different parts of West Asia. The Palestinian problem and the problem of Palestinian refugees have also been created by the imperialist forces. After the Second World War, the western imperialist forces forcibly curved out Israel from the land inhabited by Palestinians by evicting them from their homeland. The imperialists established Israel not from any love for the Jewish people, but to control this mineral-rich, petroleum-rich region with the help of ruling classes of Israel. There are refugees in our country as a result of the partition which was the handiwork of British Imperialism and big bourgeoisie of Indian subcontinent. Not only in India, but in other places they have drawn borders at their will, without considering the wishes of the local people and created refugee problems in those countries also.

In addition to these refugees who have been evicted from their country, in almost all countries, dominated, exploited and oppressed by the imperialism, there are millions of poor people, majority of whom are indigenous people and of oppressed communities, have been displaced internally by the imperialist and the capitalists of these countries, who are also tied with the imperialist capital, in their bid to loot minerals, to create dams or other projects in the name of development. However, as experiences have clearly proved, this development was meant for development of the capitalists, for the rich people. The poor people who were displaced by their development project did not get an iota of the fruits of that development. Such is the tragedy of these people that there are many who have been displaced due to such development projects more than once in their lifetime.

So, the refugee problem, be the present one which is affecting Europe or other ones where people are living in refugee camps in the other oppressed countries, or be it the problem of internal refugees, is the creation of imperialism and capitalism. In their unending greed and lust to garner, to loot resources of earth, to control more and more geographical areas, these imperialists have brought devastations on the people of these countries, one part being the refugee problem.

As long as imperialism rules this earth, more precisely as long as capitalism will be there in this earth there cannot be any solution to the refugee problem. To eradicate the refugee problem, we must eradicate capitalism. Because, firstly, in the present stage of capitalism, it is not possible to conceive capitalism without imperialism and secondly, capitalism itself is responsible for displacement and ruin of innumerable people. Only in socialism there will be total democratic control of people over the land and resources and the people will themselves decide how they will use those resources and how the people affected people will be relocated. In socialism there will be no war among people and there will be no displacement due to devastations of war. Only socialism will be able to find a lasting solution to the refugee problem.

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Comments:

Name-	Manan Vij
Comment-	Comrade, I want to take annual subscription of your journal, can you please tell me amount and procedure regarding the same.

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