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a trailer for the countless forthcoming dramas about Third World
asylum-seekers being denied "room at the inn" by the heartless
West, the Australian government today finds itself in the dock,
charged with racism and inhumanity. The crime: Refusing to allow
the landing of a Norwegian container ship that contains, in addition
to its regular cargo, 434 "boat people" from Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
In the last
few days, Canberra has been subjected to enormous international
diplomatic and media pressure to admit the refugees. In America,
some conservative commentators — anxious not to appear uncompassionate,
mean-spirited, or nativist — have sung nervously from the same
hymnbook. Even London's Daily Telegraph, usually hard-headed
on international migration issues, described Australia as suffering
from a "siege mentality" and of being "tarnished"
by its unwelcoming attitude to asylum-seekers. This criticism, moreover,
was leveled not in its editorial commentary but in its reporting:
Respectable opinion is apparently so unanimous on this issue that
moral opinions are treated as though they are facts.
And in general,
to quote Dr. Johnson, there have been ten thousand stout fellows
in the embassies and on the op-ed pages ready to fight to the death
against xenophobia "though they know not whether it be a man
or a horse."
It is quite
possible, therefore, that the Aussies will eventually be swept away
by this torrent of cant. After all, they have the usual complement
of "human rights lawyers" and Non-Governmental Organizations,
who were quick to ask the courts to override the government's decision
not to admit the refugees. And though the court has decided, for
the moment, not to obstruct the diplomatic compromise (which will
send most of them to New Zealand instead), it has reserved the right
to change its mind as long as the refugees are on the high seas.
But there are
good reasons, of both humanity and justice, for rejecting not only
this particular boatload of refugees, but the entire scenario of
Third World entitlement and guilty Western obligation it embodies.
Let us take,
first, the facts of this particular case.
After their
own boat sank, the "boat people" were rescued by a Norwegian
ship that, in accordance with international law, set out for the
nearest port in Indonesia to land them there. But the refugees had
other ideas, invaded the ship's bridge, and demanded to be set down
in Australia instead.
Acceding to
their threats and moral coercion, the captain lost his nerve and
turned course. The Tampa would eventually have arrived in
Australia if John Howard's government, showing an unfashionable
firmness, had not put troops on board to prevent it. A stalemate
then reigned — with the Aussies refusing entry, the Norwegian
government demanding it, the diplomats haggling about it in Geneva,
and the Australian courts wondering whether to intervene —
until the current fragile compromise was hammered out.
Even from these
modest facts, we can draw some obvious conclusions:
1. The "boat
people" are not asylum-seekers journeying to any refuge from
persecution; they are migrants seeking the particular destination
of Australia.
2. Whatever
their status beforehand, they ceased to be either asylum-seekers
or migrants when they invaded the ship's bridge. They then became
hijackers and pirates.
3. If there
is a legal or moral obligation on any state to take them in at this
point, it is either Indonesia (the country nearest to the point
where their boat sank) or Norway (the country on whose maritime
territory they now reside).
There cannot
be an obligation on Australia to accept them, since that would mean
that migrants could bypass the immigration laws of any nation by
the simple expedient of seizing a ship and forcing the crew to go
there. An international law that facilitated such actions would
be empowering piracy, rather than rescuing people from persecution.
And if we fail to distinguish genuine refugees from economic migrants,
we will encourage an uncontrollable outflow of people from poor
to rich countries — and effectively abolish national borders.
Indeed, such
an outflow is already happening. The Tampa incident is not
an isolated one, but only the latest and most dramatic example of
the "invasion of the boat people." Thus:
In 1993, the
Golden Venture — holding 300 Chinese migrants who had
paid $20,000-35,000 to criminal smugglers for their passage —
was beached off Queens, N.Y. It was the 24th such ship known to
the Immigration and Naturalization Service to have reached the U.S.
in this way.
This February,
the East Sea, a Cambodian-registered freighter, ran aground
just off St. Tropez on the French Riviera. When police and medical
teams arrived at the vessel, they found 900 people cooped up in
the hold. Mainly Iraqi Kurds, they had paid gangs $4,500 per adult,
and $2,000 per child, to be smuggled into Western Europe.
In 1999, at
least three ships deposited Chinese migrants on the west coast of
Canada.
None of those
on the Golden Venture have returned home; none of those on
the East Sea or in Canada will do so; all will reach some
haven in the West. Those who live in their home villages will conclude
that they too should save up money to pay smuggling gangs to spirit
them into the U.S., Canada, Australia, etc. And if the Australian
government is forced to accept immigrants — through the force
majeure of the refugees, ratified by a court — the last
uncertainty will be removed, and boats will set off for the First
World in larger and larger fleets.
Two prescient
works of fiction predicted this astonishing development: from a
right-wing perspective, Jean Raspail's 1972 novel Camp of the
Saints, and from a left-wing one, the 1990 BBC movie, The
March. Both tendered the same explanation: that the apparently
powerless refugees making their painful way to the First World wielded
the one weapon against which an otherwise omnipotent West was defenseless
— its own humanitarianism.
But that humanitarianism,
unrestrained by common sense, is a false one overriding other, equally
important moral considerations: notably, the rights of nations to
determine who will enter their borders and become part of their
national community. If we yield to it, it will damage not only the
West but also the migrants tempted towards our world. For some will
be cheated; some will perish on the journey; some will be forced
into prostitution and near-slavery to pay off their debts to the
criminal gangs. And all will live precariously outside the law of
their new nations.
If Australia's
John Howard persists in his refusal to be morally bullied by this
false humanitarianism, he will deserve the gratitude of all —
refugees and the West alike. Of course, he won't get it.
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