Close Reading

This report sounds like only activists were consulted. Not at all the mood in Canada. Mass immigration severely damaged the fabric of the nation.

During the 1930's media in various countries made immigrants and asylum seekers out to be this horrible thing and demonised them. This came after a huge recession in 1923, the Wall Street crash, and the subsequent dramatic rise of far right parties in various countries, specifically Italy, then Germany and Spain. \nFast-forward to modern times. 2008 saw another global recession. Once again politics swung massively to the right with countries like Italy (once again), Hungary, Austria, Poland and Sweden, voting in right wing governments, France ending in a run off that narrowly defeated the far right, Belgium and Spain looking likely to be heading into heavily right wing governments at the next elections, whilst the US and UK governments both saw their politics swinging far further in that direction, especially the UK right now whilst led by an unelected leader who is demonising people in ways that would make Trump look soft. One of themajor rallying calls: immigration. The way media report on this becomes increasingly demeaning and hateful. During the 1930's much of the European media and even as far as the UK was ramping up the scorn against the ever increasing influx of Jewish immigrants coming from Germany. Even into 1944 there was a vast amount of demonisation of them seeking asylum, despite the knowledge by this point that there were horrific conditions in camps where extermination was becoming ever more apparent. The Nazi German government in 1936 passed laws that enabled them to revoke citizenship and stripped away laws on human rights. It would be great to say that these poor souls who were being demonised in their own country were accepted into nations who could see what was going on and who wanted to help, but that just wasn't the way it went. Media played out as it is now, leading to rejection and a greater number of deaths as a result of this. The way the UK government is currently working, it actually sounds like the maxi government of the mid 30's during the time of the Nürnberg laws. \n \nThe world feels far smaller now with double the amount of people and with things like social media playing a huge role in the lives of many. The ease of access to people around the world has made issues seem to stretch to far more countries now, whereas back then it was a time of empires. I get that there will be many here who support Trump, many who support Biden, there will be Brit's who support Sunak and the rather vicious words of Suella Braverman, whilst others will be more on the side of Starmer (I'm well aware of all the other parties but they don't stand to gain as much). There will be French people backing Macron, whilst others back Le Pen. We could go through each country all the way to the battle between Fujimori and Castillo in Perú, and the stories are much the same, but how will history judge us when people look back to this time? Will it be another occasion where we demonised those trying to escape the horror of the place they had the bad luck to be born in whilst we were luckier? \n\nI know there is hardship everywhere. I'm struggling more than most and I know I can't keep living this way. However, I don't want to be a part of history people look back at and say ‘if only they did something to help prevent this.’. I would rather be a part of history people look back upon and say; ‘that was a boring time period where nothing important happened’. It's already too late for that. Instead I try to remember that, though I was born into a family who never really wanted me, I was lucky enough to be born into a country that could support me during the hardest times. When you look at immigrants, remember that every one of us has immigrants in our family tree somewhere.