Tom Rolfe/flickr. (CC BY-NC 2.0)
The problems associated with today's mass migrations are nothing new. They have always arisen from the incompetent or misguided policies of governments, usually the same governments creating the conditions from which migrants are trying to escape.
In the current European refugee crisis, an attempt is commonly made to distinguish between ‘deserving’ refugees, to whom asylum should be granted, and ‘economic migrants’, who should be excluded. However the distinction is not clear cut. So-called ‘economic migrants’ are often the victims of misrule by totalitarian regimes, persecuted with political and economic discrimination as well as the loss of civil liberties. Their poverty is often brought about or compounded by the actions of politicians, and even when those actions do not lead to war, the famine or economic distress that so often results from misrule can be just as deadly as guns and bombs.
