This Earth Is One Country

For hundreds or probably thousands of years, young men, and indeed whole families, have left their homes to go travelling elsewhere in the world, looking for better prospects for themselves. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, people from Europe swarmed across the ocean in ships, seeking to settle in the Americas, or find a way of making a fortune in Africa, Asia or Australia. Provided that no-one was actually killing them, they did not mind whether they were wanted there or not! They went, because they were looking for a better life.

At the present time, Europeans are seeing this process in reverse. Instead of people fleeing Europe to escape poverty, war and persecution, people are now trying to get into Europe to escape poverty, war and persecution. Prosperity has increased in much of Europe since the nineteenth century, and a system of migration designed to help the peoples within the European Union has resulted in the doors being shut to most people wanting to come to Europe from outside. The doors are shut, so people have started coming through the windows. They pay some hard-hearted criminal gang for about 80 square-inches of floor space on a crowded boat and get towed or pushed out to sea.

Because the European Union has a system, it is totally flummoxed when people don’t use the  system, but just turn up on the open sea. What does Europe do in response? Well, nothing very organised, because the “problem” of people entering illegally is, by its very nature, haphazard and uncontrolled.

The United Kingdom has its own part in this, with several thousand people hanging around near Calais, trying their best to get into the U.K. by almost any means, because they do not have the paperwork which would allow them entry. Although the exact details of the “problem” will continue to shift, people trying to move to another part of the world, which seems so much richer and/or safer than their homeland, will continue for a considerable time.

Why? For a number of reasons. Some parts of the world are much richer than others. One big step towards solving this would be the institution of a world currency. This would immediately put an end to currency speculation, to adverse exchange rates and much economic uncertainty. Companies wishing to open a second factory would find it more beneficial to do so in places where the wage levels are lower. Money would shift towards the poorer countries until the financial situation of all countries would be better balanced. If the rich countries really want to avoid being magnets for everyone who sees themselves as dispossessed, more immediate and determined efforts need to be made to distribute the wealth better, so that it reaches all parts of the world.

Of course, it is not only Europe which attracts migrants. Other countries which apparently offer employment and economic opportunities are equally attractive – people cross from Mexico into the United States every day, and Thailand, Malaysia and Australia have “boat people” trying to gain entry. Any well-to-do country which speaks English (the U.S.A., Canada, the U.K., Australia, etc.) may become more attractive to the more determined migrants, because many of these people already speak the language. A world language would help this situation greatly. If all the schools in the world taught the same shared language, then English-speaking countries would be no more attractive to migrants than would other countries.

But a huge reason for millions of people leaving their homes is conflict. People are currently fleeing conflicts in the Yemen, in Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc., and some of them are heading for distant lands. Peace and political stability are desperately needed in the world. Bahá’ís see democracy as a way forward for the planet and the Bahá’í writings emphasise that universal freedom is an important part of creating unity in the world. We all need to see mankind as one family, and the whole earth as one home.

The “problem” of “illegal” migration will not be solved until  the causes of the situation have been removed. Bahá’u’lláh said: “This earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens”. Until we look at it from that perspective, and start asking how we can improve the lives of all of its citizens, we will continue to struggle for solutions.