By Lubna Abdel-Aziz "Every person in this country is from another country. They are just here to make a better life!" cried an eye-witness as he watched Los Angeles police violently attacking a demonstration by Mexican immigrants on 1 May. And so it is, and so it has been since the beginning of time. The reasons have always been the same -- with variations of circumstances -- the search for a better life to ensure the survival of the species. Even the ancestors of humans, some seven million years ago, spent less time in trees and more time travelling across open ground in search of food. Evolutionary pressures favoured those with longer legs, so they began to walk upright using their hands for gathering food and protecting their infants, and later making tools. They developed larger brains and were more ready to learn. Such were our early ancestors The competition among them for survival was also fierce. Groups that developed larger brains overtook others. Grunts and noises that once sufficed gradually changed into words, resulting in sentence formation, leading to creativity. The one constant amidst all the changes, was the survival instinct that motivated their migration. Homo Sapiens had colonised the whole of Africa about 150 millennia ago, and spread across Europe and Asia 80 millennia ago, and Australia, 40 millenia ago, in waves of migration that continued for thousands of years. Each new wave wiped out the previous inhabitants or interbred with them. The results are evident today amongst modern humans, who come in a variety of shapes and forms, but all share similar abilities to our last common ancestor. Migration to the Americas may seem like a recent phenomenon, but in fact it started 15 to 10 millennia ago in a wave of population movement. This wave noticeably includes the Neolithic Revolution, Indo- European Expansion, the Early Mediaeval Great Migration, the Age of Exploration and European Colonisation, which led to the accelerated pace of migration since early modern times. With the rediscovery of the Americas in 1492, the pace of migration accelerated further, peaking during the 18th century. Migration historians often identify the age of mass migration between 1840 and 1914 (or 1940), "in which long distance migration occurred at an unprecedented and exceptionally high scale." This includes the voluntary emigration of mainly European peasants and labourers, about 55 million of them, to the American Continent, as well as the involuntary slave trade. Asians also descended on American shores, numbering about 2.5 million. Countries other than the US receiving immigrants were Canada, Argentina, Brazil and Cuba. Within Asia itself, some 100 million migrants travelled from one end of Asia to the other. From India and China, 50 million went South, and from China, Russia, and Korea, 50 million travelled North. Why do we emigrate from a given country to become immigrants of another? To flee purgatorial flames of a subhuman existence. We move instinctively to where we are afforded better means of survival. This pursuit will never end. Wars, conflicts, and natural disasters, such as floods and famines, have urged further migratory flows. Muslims moved from the Balkans to Turkey, while Christians moved the other way during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Jews moved into Palestine at the dawn of the 20th century; their immigration increasing after WWII, ending with the creation of the state of Israel, as a result of the 1948 United Nations Partition Plan. Migration is a desirable, natural, human, activity, and the underlying factor more often than not, is economic. Therefore its economic results are of greatest importance for the development of nations. How else could that famous American 'melting pot' have overflowed to such a degree. In a little over two centuries, the US has risen to the highest global standard. Could this have happened in a stagnant society, deprived of the influx of different immigrants from every walk of life and every corner of the globe? Not only do they share their cultures and traditions, but they bring an enthusiasm and energy not found in an immobile population. Their courage, conviction, tenacity, vision, not to mention their spine and spunk, create a wave of accomplishment and growth that results in economic prosperity. Most industrialised, advanced nations have welcomed, invited, or tolerated, the flux of immigrants from the third world. The Indian Diaspora, second only to China, has developed into an economic force to the countries where they landed. In the US as well as the UK South Africa and the Gulf countries of the Middle East, Indians have emerged as a rich, prosperous, ethnic community, contributing greatly to the economies of their adopted countries. Legal immigration to the US increased from 2.5 million in the 1950s, to 10 million in the 1990s, and are now at their highest levels, reaching over 35 million immigrants. Illegal immigration, on the other hand, may be as high as 12 -20 million. Desperation often drives immigrants to take incredible risks, including disease, starvation, and often sacrificing their lives in search of a more stable secure future. Hence the US/ Mexican dilemma! How can they ignore or control, a 2,000-mile border between both countries, one prosperous, one wanting. The major issue of cheap labour presents temptations hardly overlooked by the needy immigrant or the greedy business man. This is a crisis of major proportions for all those concerned. While immigrating to another country presents new hope and a chance for a better life, it is not without its problems. Immigrants often suffer the slings and arrows of social and cultural discrimination, hovering together in small communities for protection and comfort. The neighbouring Mexican labourer, who was once warmly welcomed during the years of the Depression and several wars, seems to have lost his appeal. Three million Turks suffered a similar fate in Germany. Once invited as guest workers during the post-war years have now become a social burden. More than five million Arab immigrants share a similar predicament in France. The problem of the Mexican immigrant will surely be resolved, for US citizens more than any others know the value of the freedom to emigrate. This powerful instinct, no government can stop no matter how stringent its laws. Immigrants will add to the fabric of life, lighten other men's toil, soothe another's sorrow. Fools are those who think they can hamper man's flight for freedom, prosperity and his pursuit of happiness. Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains -- Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 -1778)
