Identity and immigration priorities

1

The Spanish opposition conservative Popular Party (PP) made public last week its proposed measures on immigration policy as part of its program towards next month´s general election. As it is usually the case in Spain, these propositions were welcomed not with the ensuing debates and discussion such an important issue deserves, but with a cacophony of accusations and contempt from the leftist parties, which in turn triggered new accusations and contempt from the PP. Nothing new under the sun…

The new measures proposed by the PP are twofold. First, a legally binding ‘Integration contract’, whose signature will be mandatory for all new immigrants. Among other prescriptions, this integration contract stipulates immigrants will have to respect the law, pay taxes, and find a job -all of this being already in effect-, but also to learn Spanish and abide by the Spanish customs, without further specification on the latter, though party officials hinted at the prohibition of genital mutilation and the equality between sexes, both of which are already enforced. Failure to comply may result in the immigrant being expelled from the country. The party justified the measure on the need to ameliorate the integration of immigrants by way of them adhering to core Spanish values -”which must be clearly stablished by society as a whole”-, thus improving social cohesion. The need for society to decide in which cases should we all be morally and legally bound and when differences and diversity should be respected was also mentioned.

The second measure consists in the introduction of a new scheme to give out temporary visas and working permits based on a ‘points system’, aiming at facilitating the arrival of high skilled and experienced workers. Along with prioritizing immigrants possesing certain skills or having the high capabilities the Spanish labour market is in need of, those individuals coming from countries “with which we may have special or historical links” would also be favored. According to one leading Spanish newspaper the PP would actually like to toughen immigration policy giving preference to foreigners arriving from Latin America -catholic and Spanish speakers- over those coming from the Maghrib -muslim and Arab speakers-. Also, temporary and working visas would be awarded according to the following criteria: (a) Knowledge of Spanish; (b) Professional skills; (c) Knowledge of the Spanish legal system; and (d) Knowledge of the Spanish culture.

On the left camp, the governmental Socialist Party (PSOE) deemed the announced proposals xenophobic, reactionary and discriminating; the socialist Vicepresident considered they favor rejection and racism, and showed contempt for immigrants, for equality and for diversity; and the post-communist United Left (IU) added they were racist, classist and islamophobic, and that the PP abhors diversity and religious pluralism.

Do measures like those proposed improve immigrants integration and social cohesion, as the PP claims, or else they embody racism and contempt for other cultures, as the left asserts? At this point it would be interesting to look at how other countries are coping with immigration and diversity, and one such interesting comparation, if not the most appropriate, is the Canadian case.

Canada has, right after Australia, the highest proportion of foreign-born population in the world (19,8%). In the five years preceding 2006, the year for which we have the latest available figures, Canada’s foreign-born population increased by 13.6% (the equivalent rate for the Canadian-born population was 3.3% for the same period. Immigrants born in Asia and the Middle East made up the largest proportion (58.3%) of newcomers, followed by those born in Europe (16,1%), Central and South America (10,8%) and in Africa (10,6%). In 2006, just three metropolitan areas -Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver- were home to nearly 70% of all recent immigrants. 70.2% of the foreign-born population is allophone, that is, has as mother tongue neither English nor French. If aboriginal languages are included, one out of five Canadians does not have any of the official languages as mother tongue. Regarding religion, in 2001 Catholics and Protestants made up nearly 70% of the population; another 15% has no religious affiliation, the rest was Othodox, other types of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh and other, in varying percentages.

Commensurately with this astonishing level of diversity, Canada faces enormous integration challenges, and the country has engaged itself in a ceaseless debate on the core values of its social and political system, trying to stablish what being Canadian really means and what this notion of citizenship, if any, implies for the Canadian legal system. Both liberal institutions granting rights and freedoms, the rule of law, and multiculturalism play a relevant role in this debate, the most important one Canada faces nowadays as a nation.

The current Canadian immigration policy is based on the idea that immigration prompts the country’s growth, its prosperity and its cultural diversity. The system also aims at families´reunion and the protection of refugees. Permanent residence is usually granted according to a point system based on several selection factors, such as educational level, abilities in English or French, working experience, age, arranged employment in the country, or potential adaptability (having studied in Canada, having relatives or having previous work there). Immigrants are also subjected to a proof of funds, that is, they must show they are not going to be dependent on the state after their arrival. Residents and citizens may sponsor relatives to immigrate in the country, and it is worth noting that -on a very progressive note and besides dependent children, grandparents, siblings and other relatives- not only spouses but also common-law or conjugal partners are eligible. Finally, let us mention language proficiency and knowledge about Canadian culture plays an important role, but only when applying for citizenship. Broadly speaking, the system aims both at matching the needs of Canadian labour market with both the skills and flows of newcomers, and at facilitating integration by means of a non-restrictive, non-ideological and objective set of selection criteria, and also helping families reunite.

The Canadian immigration system has worked reasonably well, is the result of successive approaches to immigration and integration policies throughout decades, and commands a high degree of approval among the Canadian population and the agreement of all political parties. Sure, there are challenges and integration issues in Canada, as mentioned before, such as social tensions regarding some cultural practices or the consecuences of a certain degree of permanent low income among recent immigrants, but, overall, the system has worked efficiently and allowed for the great numbers of newcomers mentioned above to settle successfully in the country -access to citizenship is easy, in international terms, as permanent residents may apply for it after three years, and about 85% of those eligible get naturalized- and share the wealth its arrival has contributed so much to trigger.

Going back to Spain, what does the Canadian experience tell us?

It is strongly advisable for a country subjected to high immigration rates to open a public debate on identity issues, as comprehensive as possible and including immigrant groups. Our society, as those of many other countries, is becoming increasingly multicultural, and cannot do without trying to stablish which is our minimum set of core values, those our legislation must embody and protect, and citizens and residents comply with. However, this is not an easy task, and different parties in the debate may feel the temptation to try to impose their views, resorting either to an elusive concept of ‘ancestral national culture’ -empty and dysfunctional in the face of accelerated social change- or to a multiculturalist notion of citizenship, which relativizes values and may lead to a ghettoization of certain groups and entrenched discriminating practices inside ethno-cultural communities and among them.

When making public their immigration policy proposals, the Popular Party spokesmen mentioned the need to address this debate on core values, and rightly so, but perhaps an electoral campaign is not the best moment to raise the subject, which calls for a quiet, comprehensive and long-term reflection, nor political parties should be its (only) stirring agents, as many other social forces, institutions and individuals ought to have a say in the disscusion.

By choosing to bring up immigration and integration issues just before a general election, the Popular Party looks like he is not so much interested in opening a debate on these extremely important questions but on gaining some political advantage by means of playing with the emotions of voters. Also, the criteria it advanced for stablishing priorities among residency claimants seem to be very subjective and hastily assembled, though consistent with a certain conservative notion of Spanish culture, as if its definition enjoyed an overwhelming consent and needed no further discussion, which is just the contrary of the non-biased reflection mentioned above. Whereas having certain professional skills and at least a working command of Spanish may increase immigrants´chances of finding a job and integrating, it is difficult to grasp how favoring certain countries of origin over other countries or regions -out of culture, religion or historical links- will benefit the Spanish economy. This arbitrariness also reveals an static idea of Spanish culture, insusceptible to change and frozen in time, and it sends the message as well that Spain is an open country not for those wanting to come here to live, respect the laws, progress and contribute to its wealth, but only for the ones who will not challenge the supposedly immutable essence of Spanish ‘culture’.

On the other hand, the socialist government and the rest of the leftist parties are wrong in criticizing the stablishment of priorities in the immigration policies and of certain rules newcomers must observe, since it is perfectly legitimate governments choose which people are entitled to form part of their societies, and doing so in a non-discriminating, open-to-all and reasonable manner is a proper way of conducting public policy.

The reaction of the left lays bare the fact it does not really know how to address the identity and multicultural issues we are facing. Or else, worst still, as in the case of post-communist or post-marxist parties and movements, they know perfectly well, following their desire of detonating the pivotal institutions of our open societies. Regarding integration and identity, it is worth recalling cultures are dynamic and are subjected to constant change; they are not ‘stock’ but ‘flow’, to borrow the language of the economic science. However, we must give sound arguments and reasons to defend or criticize the elements making up a culture and, if we care at all for human rights, rule out any relativist temptations, which prevent us from exercising a rightful critique of cultural practices. Let us not fool ourselves: criminalizing genital mutilation and arranged marriage but leaving intact many other forms of abuse in the name of diversity -something post-marxist movements and even a part the socialdemocratic left support- only shows our selfishness and our disdain for the fate of the individuals we supposedly care for. Avoiding a debate on what constitutes the foundations of our freedom -those deserving uttermost respect on the part of citizens, residents and visitors alike- and, moreover, doing so out of a supposed ‘respect’ for the customs dear to minoritarian ethno-cultural groups also being a part of our society, only demeans our legitimacy to speak for the oppressed and the abused in those groups, and exposes the degree towards which we yield to a sort of post-colonial remorse -conveniently transmited through generations-, and also the fact that we are paradoxically shameful about the accomplishments of our civilization.

Far from being an exercise on ‘neo-colonialist’ imposition and ‘contempt’ for diversity and pluralism, to judge by the left´s initial reaction to the Popular Party immigration measures -the point not being how good or ill-conceived they are-, vindicating the very values and institutions that make us all equal before the law and grant us, among many other things, the freedom to engage in the cultural practices of our election or the abandonment of them, is the only way of organizing a multiethnic, multicultural and diverse society for the good of its members. For all of them, current and prospective.

Photo: School friends, 2007 © Woodleywonderworks

On marriage and homosexuals

My fellow bloggist Dhavar has published a post claiming homosexuals have no right to marry. His main arguments are: (1) marriage is a social institution whose goal is reproduction; (2) homosexual unions are not reproductive; (3) the reason some entitlements, such as inheritances and widow pensions, are legally linked to marriage only lays in them being created to allow for the provision of children (nourishment and education); and (4) homosexuals want to be able to marry to missappropriate those funds, towards which they have no rights.

Since I totally disagree with him on this subject, here are my two cents to the discussion.

Firstly, marriage is nowadays not based on reproduction (moreover, it never was, but proving this would lead us to a complex antropological discussion). According to Eurostat, in 2006 there were nine countries in the EU in which the number of children born out of wedlock reached a proportion of 40 per cent or higher (Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Latvia, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom), and in four of these the proportion was 50 per cent or higher (Bulgaria, Estonia, France and Sweden). In Norway and Iceland, two countries of the region, the figures are 53 and 65,72 per cent, respectively (2006 in the Norwegian case and 2005 in the Icelandic one). In the U.S., roughly 40 per cent of children were born outside marriage in 2005. The Spanish figure for 2006 is wrong in the Eurostat table. According to the Spanish National Statistics Institute, unwed mothers gave birth to a 26,57 per cent of the children born in Spain in 2005, though given the trend, the figure for 2007 should be around 30 per cent. In all cases the figures show an increasing drift without any exception.

In most countries, and certainly in all of the above mentioned, children of single parents enjoy the very same rights those of married parents do.

Secondly, marriages without children are considered everywhere as fully legitimate ones, and they enjoy the same legal status everywhere as well. If procreation was their essential aim, they should be considered defectived or failed marriages, but we do not deem them so, do we?

Therefore, marriage nowadays is not about granting reproduction.

On the other hand, reproduction does not only imply giving birth, but also caring, loving and providing, and both heterosexual and homosexual couples or individuals are equally fit for these tasks. Homosexual couples cannot procreate, but they may bring up as parents a child born of one of the members, or adopted, thus qualifiying as parents. Heterosexual couples may do the same, by the way.

I also want to avoid a long historical account on the development of inheritance as an institution (a ‘pension’ is not even an institution in the proper sense of the word but a public policy choice), so it suffices to say nowadays it serves no such goal as provision for children in the absence of their parents, since in that case, or when family income is below a treshold, welfare state policies may apply.

Nearly everywhere, only spouses, children, parents or some other members of a deceased person´s family (in this order) are entitled to inherit her property, but not her partners or lovers. That is, the family may inherit property paying no taxes, or very few ones, whereas non-family members have to pay much more. Homosexuals who want to marry do not want to do so because they aim to embezzle the rights those people are entitled to by “artificially” becoming spouses, as Dhavar´s convoluted argument goes. They want to be able to marry to publicly and simbolically show mutual love (this reason seems quite strange to me, but it applies just the same to heterosexual marriage) and enjoy the same rights heterosexuals do. Period.

My suggestion here is that fiscal policy should be neutral regarding civil status, that is, individuals, other things being equal, should pay the same taxes whether married, single or in a civil union. Moreover, rights should be granted to individuals per se, not as bearers of a particular civil status.

There are also important simbolic aspects in the right of homosexuals to marry. By legalizing homosexual marriage, society eliminates yet another discrimination form, sending a message out that homosexuals should enjoy the very same rights their fellow citizens do, thus reasserting them as full members of their polity.

I hope to have shown this discrimination is only based in prejudices against a particular sexual orientation and also on atavistic fears, i.e., that society as we know it will just disappear if some supposedly essential institutions do not remain immutable.

The recent amendment to the Spanish civil code, allowing for marriage between individuals of the same sex and adoption by homosexual married couples, only redresses the lengthy legal discrimination suffered by Spanish homosexuals. It was high time.

My comments in the third part above are general and do not necessarily refer to Dhavar, whose post does not seem to contain prejudices against homosexuality per se.

Photo: Pink ad in a street of Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2007 © Loudsoul

Not so modern now

Watching Charles Chaplin´s Modern Times (1936), I wonder how accurately it reflects daily life in the thirties, at least for the average American people. Though it may not be the main argument of the movie -I think it points more toward the confussion and perplexity of the common folk in a whole new social and economic environment-, I guess it gives a rather precise portrait of the difficulties -stagnant unenployment, great numbers of working individuals living in sheer poverty, 12-hour workdays, repetitive tasks in the working line, a biased system of criminal justice- the working masses had to face back then. However, and contrary to what many collectivists would like us to believe, this is not the situation we witness today. At least in the Western world -obviously, in other regions things are quite different, but nevertheless their way out is just the same- knowledge is the main characteristic of labour markets. In developed economies -and let us not forget our modern socioeconomic systems necessarily grew out of the one Chaplin shows in his movie- aiming to produce high value goods and services, and whose markets strive to find out the tastes, needs and desires of a wide variety of consumers, independent enterpreneurs, individually taylored careers, and high skilled, flexible workers are needed in great numbers, and less so massive unskilled work. Paramount among other factors, this development has changed for good labour markets and industrial relations, often blurring distinctions between bosses and subordinates, thus making collectivist forces -trade unions, socialist parties, enemies of globalization, advocates of a much dreamed radically egalitarian paradise, and the like- look anachronistic and out of touch with reality, with all their rethoric of working classes vs. capitalistic tycoons and views of wage earners as common fellows crushed by the whimsical wishes of greedy proprietors. Very seldom tales of good and evil succeed in accounting for a complex world which is best described by its multiple shades of grey.

Photo: Charles Chaplin in the set of Modern Times, 1936 © Max M. Autrey

A measure of progress

No relativism, no nihilism. No march towards any kind of socialism. No plans for vast planetary income redistribution. No big-scale welfare state. No forced enlightenment of the masses by the ‘Avangarde des Proletariats’. No substitution of ‘God’ for ‘Science’. No huge increase in GDP´s. No revolution…

If humankind is to show any degree of moral progress, it should take the form of Richard Rorty´s insightful definition: human solidarity, understood as “the ability to see more and more traditional differences (of tribe, religion, race, customs, and the like) as unimportant when compared with similarities with respect to pain and humiliation - the ability to think of people wildly different from ourselves as included in the range of ‘us’” (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 192).

Isonomia today

May a socially and economically unequal society enjoy politic and civil equality? By ‘politic and civil equality’ I mean all citizens are equal before the law and enjoy the same chances of participating in government tasks. The Athenian polis gave an affirmative answer to this question. It did not employ a single definition of equality but many of them. Isonomia (equal political rights), isegoria (equal right to address the political assemblies), isomoria (equal distribution of land, which we might compare to income redistribution policies in our time), and so on. Of these, isonomia and isegoria were paramount in the Athenian political system, and while isomoria was claimed by most Athenian peasants and poor citizens, the city never granted it. The farthest it went in this regard was to engage in some public works, which meant jobs for the poor, and to pay some money (obol) to those attending the assemblies, for the polis was committed with the idea of equal political and civil rights for its citizens, not with their economic well-being. Here we have a functioning egalitarian political system despite its citizens basic material inequality. Nowadays things seem rather different. While libertarians and classic liberals claim equality before the law is the only possible equality we may attain without jeopardizing the very idea of freedom, egalitarian liberals, socialdemocrats, the few remaing republicans, and even conservatives -or collectivists in disguise, for some observers-, the latest for reasons dealing more with the maintenace of status quo, consider that without some basic economic and social equality there can be no equal political participation because political power will always rest on the hands of the economically powerful. Roughly speaking, they are committed with the idea of equality, because without it one cannot fully enjoy political freedom, or because if one has to devote most energy to satisfaying basic needs there is no time left for participation, or because in a socially unequal world some will always dominate others, preventing them to become full citizens. Since the goal of achieveing material equality in a society is a perfect recipe for disaster (think of all the collectivist projects in human history), but given the fact that a generalized economic insecurity entails a very biased power distribution and very restrictive patterns of political participation, the questions are: how much economic equality may we attain without putting at risk our basic liberties and our economic development potential? Which degree of material equality is needed to enjoy a meaningful sense of freedom? Is there a trade-off between political equality and social equality? Is isonomia possible in today´s world?