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Economic Migrants

from New Puppets - Same Old Machine by Active Minds

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about

Migration is the hot political topic of the moment, with a lot of foaming at the mouth from those on the political right and their media outlets. For many years the conservative press have run inflammatory stories about “economic migrants” - people coming to the UK to improve their standard of living, rather than to escape lives of oppression and persecution.
Well, as far as I’m concerned, poverty IS persecution. Why should we expect people to put up with a situation where their families don’t have enough to eat? We’d all choose to do something about it if we were in their situation, yet when they do the newspapers here scream foul - as if people have no right to a decent standard of living.
For those migrants coming into the UK, particularly from outside the EU, this is not a decision that is taken lightly. They are leaving behind their families, and moving to a country whose language and culture are often very alien to them. Many risk their lives to get here. The term “illegal immigrants” is casually thrown about - branding desperate people as criminals instead of the victims that they are.
Many western people and businesses have become very rich by exploiting other people, who’ve become very poor as a result. Multinational companies benefit from global economic arrangements which keep some counties poor - from the lack of a fair system of distributing the world’s wealth - and they use their political influence to help keep it that way. If we shared the wealth more fairly, then there would be no need for people to leave behind their homes, family and culture just for economic reasons. But as it is, we shouldn’t be either shocked or outraged to see people wanting to come here and share in the wealth that has been created.

lyrics

“Economic migrants” - a term that causes outrage: readers of the Daily Mail see it searing off the page. They’re appalled that people come here just to get a better living - foaming mouths spew out opinions neither charitable nor forgiving. Tebbit, that darling of the right-wing press - do you remember what he said? When his dad was out of work he didn’t mope around. Instead, he “got on his bike” to find a job to support his family. Isn’t that what people are doing now? That’s not difficult to see. Is it really hard to understand? What would you do if you lived in a land where a life of poverty was the expectation? Wouldn’t you try to change your situation? It seems that for most people here this migration should be a one-way street - where Brits can buy cheap homes abroad, retire and put up their feet. Or businesses set up there to exploit favourable conditions. There’s no sympathy for those in very different positions.

credits

from New Puppets - Same Old Machine, released March 31, 2015

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