Displaced 092915

The news of the day is that Europe is facing a migrant crisis. Reality is that the crisis lies deep in Africa and Asia where displaced began to seek stability and safety in Europe. 

Germany enacted the most liberal refugee and immigration policies in post WWII, opening its doors not only to Europeans but also the displaced from other lands.  The present masses of displaced however find the German door hard to open. European nations are attempting to bar their doors in face of a growing migration.  Border States are accepting the displaced from humanitarian concerns but are unable support the large influx or pass the migrants through locked doors while States debate the crisis.

The Twentieth Century was the century of displaced brought about by major wars and global economic depression.  World War One displaced masses not only in Europe but also Africa and Asia.  The Bolshevik Revolution added Russians to long lines trudging across Europe and Far East.  Before these refugees were settled a global financial meltdown swelled to ranks of displace.   Chinese and Spaniards joined the march while the depression was still generating wanderers.  The States created by the Versailles treaty were unstable, sending more people in search of safety. Japan invaded Asia already at war with itself and the political collateral damage was more displaced.   The classic displaced haven was the United States but even it was beginning to limit immigration.  Without options the displaced wandered, living a marginal life to survive.  Then came WWII where countries were destroyed with survivors becoming the new global displaced.  WWII did not really end but became a cold war of very hot proxy wars with more displaced from remote regions, swelling the ranks of the unwanted.

It is probable that there will never be a reliable estimate of the vast numbers of Twentieth Century's displaced.  Whole families died along the road; often no one was left to count.  Others just disappeared, some resettled in their own countries, and still others were lost in foreign lands.  The United States deludes itself that it can never happen there, but it has during the great dust bowl and depression along with ethnic cleansing of minorities.

That's the last century, the displaced of this century might exceed its flawed estimates.  Great power politics and war has already sent millions of displaced wandering in search of a home.  They are met with little sympathy even hostility as they arrive on to distant shores.  The problem is not resettlement of the displaced but rather addressing the dynamics that forced them to take extreme measures to survive.

As they wander across the landscape even more villages are bombed daily swelling the endless stream.  Disease and poverty are rampant in remote regions.  Nations complaining of the masses at their door should address the causations that forced migration.  Stop destroying cities and villages, assist peace, health and development efforts in regions generating much of the migrations.  With the right turn and militarization within the developed States this is unlikely in the short term. Their humanitarianism wears thin and migrants are told to move on, they and their culture is unwanted.