Western Europe appears to be in the grip of a panic. The spectre haunting us is mass immigration, again. In Britain and elsewhere, especially in the wake of 9/11, the arrival of asylum-seekers and refugees – even attempts by national governments to recruit essential workers – is leading to heated debates about the impending death of national cultures and the prospect of white Christians becoming minorities in Europe.
Media hysteria and gains by the extreme right are feeding off each other. Meanwhile, the British home secretary David Blunkett has described the country as a ‘coiled spring’, a view which is echoed in the report of a recent parliamentary committee warning of ‘social unrest’ if the asylum and refugee issue is not tackled.
Suddenly, the ‘enemy within’ is everywhere. If the hordes are not already inside, it is only a matter of time before the misguided believers in ‘airy-fairy civil liberties’ – another choice phrase from Blunkett – will have allowed them to overrun us. There is even some momentum behind the idea that Britain should no longer abide by the 1949 Geneva convention on refugees. Blunkett, following leads given by some other Europeans and also the Australians has been proposing ever more inhumane ways of treating refugees in an attempt to deter them from thinking of Britain as a safe refuge.
