Idea for a novel

[WICKES]

A little while ago I read a work on politics and economics. In the final chapter the author gives his predictions for the coming decades. He notes that Africa's birth rate is booming and is by far the highest in the world (the average African woman has 5 children). This year, Spain and Italy have both reported record numbers of Africans illegally landing on overcrowded boats. Sub-Saharan Africa remains by far the most corrupt, inefficient and backward place in the world, while Asia and South America are developing their economies and societies at an amazing pace and leaving Africa behind. The author expects that in the coming decades, especially as global warming takes effect, Europe is going to be swamped by a mass migration of literally tens of millions of sub-Saharan Africans. He forsees clashes within the Mediterranean between European navies and armed African migrants that would resemble a war. The other worry is that African governments are encouraging their worst criminals to join the migrants in a sort of revenge on their ex-colonial masters.

I was wondering about attempting a thriller based on this. What do you think? It would be set 10 or 20 years in the future and revolve around escalating clashes between European navies and the migrants themselves, who are growing ever more desperate, angry and violent.

[Emil Miller]

Were you to write it, you would be condemmed as racist (there goes that word again for the twenty billionth time) but it's nice to know that Vince Cable is ..... "quite relaxed about immigration".
Having just returned from a shopping expedition in London, which is literally heaving with millions of people, I don't think your quoted writer is far off beam. But never say die, in times such he has described, the hour produces the man. If not, then it's time to start beefing up the Royal Navy methinks.

[Marbles]

Do not discount a fair amount of scaremongering with these predictions; if it smells too much of Enoch Powell, there's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy at work. Because it's not just prediction anymore if the powers that be chase policies which inevitably lead to a bloodied conflict of this nature and proportion. These people seem to come from a new paranoia European politics is cultivating these days. (The bit about African ex-colonies encouraging criminals to migrate to Europe to spite ex-masters is utter hogwash; typical stuff for a flashy thriller but nothing to do with reality). If this paranoia is not checked Europe will end up exactly with what it feared all along.

That said, big changes are in the offing, most certainly. The nation-state system based on one race/ethnicity/language or any combo thereof that Europe so meticulously developed, and which reached its full potential by the middle of the 20th century, began to be challenged as soon as Europe thought it had settled the matter: migration from ex-colonies started in 1960s onwards as Europe wanted manpower to run its factories. With the rise of globalised economics since at least the decade of the 1980s came real surge in global migration. If capital moves, so does labour; the leaders of globalisation didn't figure that out early enough. Now, this changes the demographics radically, but does Europe need to fight this change? Currently Europe unanimously agrees that it should.

To counter this the nation-state will mount a final defence which will cause friction between communities, possibly leading to a large scale social unrest or even war at home turf (this is precisely where the prediction comes to fulfill itself). Currently the nation-state is defending its 'purity' by a new apartheid system based on citizenship/passports as opposed to old methods of discrimination based on race/religion/language, but it is still a very new thing for people to see it as apartheid, but it is slowly but definitely developing into an organised apartheid apparatus. Take one case as example. From as back as 2005, London police killed Brazilian national Charles de Menezes (spelling?) by mistaking him for a terrorist with bombs. It was in the aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings. I perfectly understood and accepted that police made a mistake in identification at a time of high tensions in the city. But this is not what worried me. What worried me were the commentaries on that Brazilian's death. It appeared that he had overstayed his visa and at the time of his killing was an "illegal alien" in the UK. (just consider this dehumanising terminology for reflection's sake). The commentary, of intellectuals and commoners alike, was as much concerned with his expired visa as by his innocent and unjust killing. I remember one particular comment which was, "but he was not supposed to be in the UK!". Note the 'but'. Doesn't matter if a young man in his 20s was mistaken for a bomber and killed by the police. The only thing that mattered to many people was that his visa had expired. Citizenship apartheid I said. These attitudes have only strengthened over time, over the decade, across the Europe.

Will this passport/citizenship defence shield work in the long run? I don't think so. One way or the other, the nation-state based on old model is no longer tenable in the future, given the socioeconomic changes the global world is going through. and that's the idea for your novel, and should you decide to follow up on it, be prepared to be dubbed a fringe leftist :D

[Kafka's Crow]

Well Europe is finally becoming multi-cultural at last. Shock to the system can be seen everywhere. The reactionary mechanisms against this major change are visible everywhere. Europe has a long history of isolationist and racist reactions to the outsiders, be it the persecution of Jews everywhere from Germany to Scottland or the destruction of Gypsies in the East of this continent. Just heard the news that UKIP won the by-election in Clacton on Sea. UKIP is another manifestation of this xenophobia. They have absolutley no decent policy to talk of but they are winning everywhere just because they are riding the wave against multiculturalism. Their little England mentality is symptomatic of the general desire to go back to the times when only the English lived in England and people with funny accents did not exist.

Marbles has given a good description of the rise and the imminent demise of the nation state. With recent developments in technology which have opened up the world for everybody, keeping sealed borders and nationalism will become more and more anachronistic. You can't flaunt your lavish lifestyle and don't expect the poor to crave the luxuries that you enjoy.

Strangely there are socieities in Asia that have been multicultural for centuries and this free movement of people has only enrichened those societies. The fast-disappearing poverty in those societies is due to bad adminsitration and governance and not multiculturalism.

Wickes, could you please give us the name of this book you've been reading?