By: Profe. Gonzalo Santos ~ March 31, 2019
This action, borne out more of a would-be emperor's fury against the disobeying human tides on his shores than reason, will not work. It will not stop the massive forced exodus of Central American refugees, fleeing extreme conditions of violence & chronic poverty. Rather, Trump's reckless lashing out will surely exacerbate and accelerate it!
This human exodus, let's first be clear, is not unrelated to us. It is a potent, mobile deployment of social resistance by the true victims of our entire North American political economy. The migrants are willfully irrupting into a scene for too long dominated by a callous, indifferent mega-state and its corrupt, vassal satellites. As such, it constitutes a visible, defiant, form of increasingly organized social resistance and rebellion.
Today's Central American refugees are consciously challenging, through their (up to now nonviolent) caravans heading north, the unacceptable and failed economic and security status quo and all states involved - those of origin, transit, and destination. And without attending root causes, it is unstoppable. It's a specific type of what the social scientist Karl Polanyi called "society's self-protecting mechanism" against the ravages of an unregulated market imposed by a superpower.
This type of refugee migration flows cannot be blocked, caged, or repressed anymore, not without generating even more exodus and even more radical forms of social rebellion - which, if provoked and repressed enough, may and will turn to violent forms of resistance.
Trump's cruel, imperial, repressive approach - pressuring the failed satellite states under his boot to stop the continuing formation of caravans or face deep cuts of aid - will only generate more chaos, and out-migration. That Trump is doing this primarily to sustain his extreme right domestic political support, and secondarily out of his imperial hubris, does not make it any less foolish, counterproductive, and reckless.
The new Mexican government's proposal to jointly launch a massive investment program in the three countries and in southern Mexico to stem further human migration, has fallen on deaf ears, with Trump now angry at Mexico, too - even threatening to shut down the ports of entry of the U.S.-Mexico border next week if *Mexico* does not stop the caravans.
But Mexico is in no position to do that either, especially in today's social media ecology. In the past, Mexico did intercept and deport these refugees for Uncle Sam - at a price. But that was before the migrants organized themselves into very visible, massive caravans to protect themselves from criminal organizations AND the Mexican police/immigration agencies.
In today's political and social media conditions, it is not a viable option for the AMLO government. The Mexican people, itself well-acquainted of immigration injustices perpetrated against their kin, will support their Central American brothers and sisters if openly attacked.
Finally, the U.S., with all its coercive power, cannot effectively stop asylum seekers either. Immigration is not a domestic, national security or public safety issue; it's an international labor mobility, human rights issue, more so in this era of fast regional economic integration.
But for too long, the political class in Washington has been in denial of the interrelated nature of migration, economic, and geopolitical dynamics, compartmentalizing free trade, regionally-integrated production and unencumbered investment policies in one box, geopolitical interventions in other, and the evermore restrictive labor mobility/refugee policies in another. Politics, economics, and human rights are and have been out of phase with each other for a long time in North America.
The real solution to the growing migration chaos and the profound economic asymmetries in the region is to face up to the regional nature of the phenomenon of labor and refugee migrant flows, its deep relationship to trade, production, and investment, not to mention wars, and begin the arduous shared project among all stakeholder states and social and economic actors of creating a more symmetrical, sustainable, equitable, peaceful, and shared development project for ALL of North America - from Alaska to Panama, including the Caribbean.
It can't be addressed effectively in any other way. Those that think otherwise might as well get a whip and join Emperor Trump, as he lashes furiously, to no avail, at the waves of a disobeying sea. (Look up the metaphor in the Bible)
But to-date, there has been no U.S. political will anywhere to be found - certainly not now under the present administration - to pursue this regional, multilateral path of balanced development. Quite the opposite. With Trump, we even have the dual assaults on regional economic integration itself, via mercantilist economic policies, AND the most extreme restrictionist, xenophobic, aggressive posture of any regime in American history.
The time to change the vision for the region of North America is long overdue. We must envision our shared regional future, taking into account, of course, the enormous size and power of the U.S., but also the unmet needs of its neighboring countries, whose pauperized, economically and physically insecure populations are neither improving or going away - other than north! -; not afraid of defying all inhumane, restrictive, unjust commands to remain still in their misery and their extreme insecurity. They won't obey any more.
Central Americans are on the march, ever more organized and resolute, voting with their feet for a new North America, harbingers of a new vision, and if they cannot have it, they are determined to disrupt the unjust status quo. Now, how's that for defying tyranny and, engaging in courageous, audacious, truly participatory (regional) democracy!
Lo que irrumpe en la hoy desquiciada Norteamérica de las élites privilegiadas y sus corruptos estados es la resistencia organizada de los de abajo y a la izquierda, el desafío de los pobres móviles, los desesperados inquietos, los que rehúsan ser los olvidados de siempre, y los aterrorizados que huyen.
Ya no se quedan callados ni quietos: ¡Exigen ser tomados en cuenta! ¡Exigen atención, exigen justicia! - ¡o con su andar y transgresiones colectivas nos anuncian que no habrá ni paz ni prosperidad para nadie hasta que les hagan caso!
#RefugeeLivesMatter #ImmigrantLivesMatter #LetThemIn #AnotherWorldIsPossible #AnotherNorthAmericaIsNecessary
ARTICLE: Trump Turns U.S. Policy in Central America on Its Head
