A few days ago, I received a message from a German friend floating a question on why racism has risen in popularity recently in Western countries. I gave him my answer and thought I should put it out here to share what I have been thinking about for quite some time.
Globalization
Nothing is perfect and neither is globalization. We have reaped its benefits for years and I suspect that we start to see its downsides now. In Western countries, globalization leads to unemployment in certain industries whether it is because firms relocate their operations to developing nations or it is because the technological advances render some industries obsolete.
Suddenly, workers who are between jobs are left with few options. The jobs that the workers are qualified for no longer exist where they live while new jobs require skills that the workers don’t have. Instead, highly skilled jobs are now done by skilled immigrant employees. Businesses care the most about their productivity. As long as they don’t have to break banks to hire qualified staff for the jobs, they’ll do it. Even if one is local but doesn’t have the qualifications, how can one be employed?
Consequently, there is tension in the society from unemployed folks and there is a sentiment that immigrants steal their jobs.
Wars and violent conflicts
Meaningless wars and violent conflicts in Africa, Middle East and other developing but unstable areas also contribute to the rise of racism. As these unfortunate events take place, the victims have no choice, but to flee for their and their family’s lives. Who can blame them? The closest safe heaven is Western Europe, which has been quite more friendlier than the US in terms of refugees.
Unfortunately, the influx of refugees is so much bigger than what the Western European countries can handle. Once the integration efforts don’t keep up with the arrivals of refugees, the refugees stay unemployed while reaping the social benefits from the governments. When that happens, some locals would understandably be upset. I mean, who wouldn’t given the high tax rates in Western European countries.? Additionally, there are some bad “apples” such as terrorists or those who committed crimes. As a consequence, local citizens grow unhappy about the refugees and immigration in general.
The Internet
Internet enables the friction-less flow of good information….as well as of bad information such as propagandas or simply false news. As human-beings, we are more drawn towards negative coverage. Hence, media outlets keep feeding us negative news on immigration regardless of whether the news is valid or how the news stands in the whole big picture. For instance, if a refugee commits a crime, what is the percentage of the incident compared to the number of crimes committed by locals in the same timeframe?
And there are folks who intentionally distribute distorted and false information to advance their agendas. As we are drowning in an ocean of news & information every day, it’s tricky to know what is what.
Validation from the US
I don’t believe that racism only existed after the above factors. However, its rise, especially in politics, can be attributed to having a validation. The validation stemmed from the election in the US in 2016 and perhaps one year before that. Suddenly, some politicians have an example to validate their less-than-desirable behavior. I couldn’t recall seeing that much racism a few years ago when wars already took place, globalization had already been going and Internet was already there. However, after 2016, the wave of racism and nationalism has risen to a new height and gone from strength to strength to the point that even countries such as Sweden or Finland have seen more anti-immigration.
I have been pretty much an immigration since 2010, except 3 years of staying in Vietnam. The growing anti-immigration movement concerns me a great deal and the connection between the factors above has sat on my mind for a while. I used to adore globalization a lot thinking that it was such a perfect concept. Now, I don’t think it’s perfect any more.
Minh Quang Duong 