Why do they come here?

Lessons of human nature

Source of the picture: The Atlantic

“Why do we want all these people from shithole countries coming here?”, was the million-dollar question by the US President Donald Trump at a closed-door meeting. After the publication of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, which talks about the White House’s different fractions leaking sensitive information and gossips, I can easily imagine that this time Trump is innocent. But knowing his harsh criticism on immigration and oversimplified way of thinking, I can also imagine that he was indeed wondering the causes of the most subconscious human behavior, the need of survival.

Still, Trump is Trump, and the Unites States are the United States. Or at least, this is what we think at the other side of the Atlantic, after having seen some victories against nationalistic populism in 2017. But I am not sure if European politician would be so dramatically different from the super blunt businessman leading the US. Neither are we, the European citizens who elect them.

This week, Austria’s interior minister – who happens to be the member of the far right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) – has promised “very, very tough asylum policies”. As Herbert Kickl explained, it means “to avoid a large mass of people entering the country in an uncontrollable manner.” What resonates pretty well in the ears of his voters, but might be a bit obsolete knowing that border fences have been blocking the migrant routes to Austria for years, courtesy of its neighboring countries.

For those, who might notice this controversy, Kickl offers other appealing ideas. He proposed to accelerate deportations of refused asylum-seekers, to check the migrants’ mobile data to gather information about the routes to Europe and to use mandatory X-rays in order to determine the asylum-seekers age. Vice-chancellor and FPÖ leader Heinz-Christan Strache also suggested a week ago that asylum seekers should be subject to a curfew and be housed in military barracks.

In the early 2000s, European countries announced a boycott against the Austrian government coalition featuring the FPÖ. Less than twenty years later, they simply congratulated on the old-new alliance between the far right and the center-left Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). Yes, there is a difference between Strache and the at-that-time leader Jörg Haider. But still, these recent proposals on asylum policy leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has also elaborated his theory of migration this week, explaining to the German newspaper Bild that most of the migrants do not flee from war or dangerous conditions, but come to Europe in a hope for a better life. Therefore, they are “Muslim invaders”.

“I can only speak for the Hungarian people, and they don’t want any migration,” he said. “In my understanding, it’s not possible for the people to have a will on a fundamental issue and for the government not to comply with it.” Orbán expressed his hope that this year we will see “the restoration of people’s will” and his European counterparts will follow his path.

It is deeply rooted in human nature to be afraid of strangers because they might do harm to us. It is also amazing to be a top dog. No one can deny the truth of evolutionary psychology. But politicians often play on that to increase their own popularity.

By now, a great part of people in Austria and Hungary really want to get rid of migrants. Just look at the comments on the news reporting on Austria’s first 2018 baby coming from an immigration background or the bittersweet stories on Hungarian countryside people calling for the police when they accidentally see a dark-skinned person.

So, the people’s strong will to oust migrants really exist, and Trump, Strache or Orbán can reasonably say they are just doing what their voters want. Fair enough. But let’s imagine for the moment that they have implemented all of their restrictive migration policies and there are no strangers left in Europe. Who will be the next underdog then?