Immigrants and the West

I read of this Italian town called Monfalcone that banned (surprise, surprise) cricket! Why? And who even plays cricket in Italy? Therein lies a tale. In the 1990’s, the town had a need for labourers to build ships. The locals (and most Europeans) weren’t interested, and so the role went to Bangladeshis, most of whom were Muslims. Thus, a third of the town are foreigners.

“In Monfalcone, Italians in Western clothes mingle with Bangladeshis wearing shalwar kameez and hijabs. There are Bangladeshi restaurants and halal shops.”

 

The culture difference, the Islamic angle, the rise of the right wing in Italy… cricket was the last straw in this town. Outsiders, not integrated, and now insisting on playing their “national sport” – it was just too much for this town.

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It reminded me of Shruti Rajagopalan’s post on an unrelated topic – the young population of India and its global ramifications.

“Globally, one in five people below 25 is from India. 47% of Indians, about 650 million, are below the age of 25.”

 

Most of the West and Japan, on the other hand, is ageing. An older population creates multiple effects – ever increasing pension bills, and not enough young people to foot those bills. Allowing more immigration is, theoretically, a solution.

 

People with STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering and Maths) are the most sought after, and obviously add value to the recipient country. But Indians with those skills prefer to move to English speaking countries and/or countries with a favourable history towards immigrants – the US and UK check those boxes; but most of Europe and Japan don’t.

 

But the US has a per-country quota on how many green cards can be issued to any one nation per year. As the wait time for green cards for Indians keeps increasing (well into decades today):

“Top STEM talent today (from India) is reluctant to move to the US and deal with immigration problems for decades.”

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All of which brings me to the thread that ties both of the above topics. STEM Indians assimilate well, and they’re (mostly) not Islamic. But they don’t fit the historical influx stereotype for a country like America – they’re not white or Christian. Plus, their average wealth is very high. Politically, that combo (brown, Hindu, and wealthy), if allowed to expand too much too fast, would change the country, its politics, its policies, and eventually its language. Just look at what the Hispanic immigrants are already doing on those fronts.

 

This then seems to be the dilemma of the West. They’re ageing, people don’t want to have kids (too expensive), and social welfare systems can’t work without the younger tax paying folks. But the biggest sources of young immigrants are non-white, non-Christians. Accepting them would be a severe culture shock, hardly an appealing prospect. Even America isn’t finding the choice easy, so just imagine how much harder it will be for the rest of the West, except probably the UK.