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their lives for many years to come. Yet I, along with the others |
from outside, could get into a car and drive out of the camp, |
return to Taphraya or Aran, drink iced water, eat rice or noodles |
at the roadside restaurant at the comer, and observe life passing |
by. Those simplest parts of life were invested with a freedom I'd |
never valued so highly. |
At the same time, refugees accepted into another country have |
a good chance of establishing themselves and leading a life as |
satisfactory and fulfilling as most of us. Sometimes the interests |
of the refugees in being accepted are as basic as the interest in |
life itself. In other cases the situation may not be one of life or |
256 |
Insiders and Outsiders |
death, but it will still profoundly affect the whole course of a |
person's life. |
The next most directly affected group is the residents of the |
recipient nation. How much they will be affected will vary according |
to how many refugees are taken, how well they will fit |
into the community, the current state of the national economy, |
and so on. Some residents will be more affected than others: |
some will find themselves competing with the refugees for jobs, |
and others will not; some will find themselves in a neighborhood |
with a high population of refugees, and others will not; |
and this list could be continued indefinitely, too. |
We should not assume that residents of the recipient nation |
will be affected for the worse: the economy may receive a boost |
from a substantial intake of refugees, and many residents may |
find business opportunities in providing for their needs. Others |
may enjoy the more cosmopolitan atmosphere created by new |
arrivals from other countries: the exotic food shops and restaurants |
that spring up, and in the long run, the benefits of different |
ideas and ways of living. One could argue that in many ways |
refugees make the best immigrants. They have nowhere else to |
go and must commit themselves totally to their new country, |
unlike immigrants who can go home when or if they please. |
The fact that they have survived and escaped from hardship |
suggests stamina, initiative, and resources that would be of great |
benefit to any receiving country. Certainly some refugee groups, |
for instance the Indo-Chinese, have displayed great entrepreneurial |
vigour when resettled in countries like Australia or the |
United States. |
There are also some other possible and more diffuse consequences |
that we at least need to think about. For example, it |
has been argued that to take large numbers of refugees from |
poor countries into affluent ones will simply encourage the flow |
of refugees in the future. If poor and over-populated countries |
can get rid of their surplus people to other countries, they will |
have a reduced incentive to do something about the root causes |
257 |
Practical Ethics |
of the poverty of their people, and to slow population growth. |
The end result could be just as much suffering as if we had |
never taken the refugees in the first place. |
Consequences also arise from not taking significant numbers |
of refugees. Economic stability and world peace depend on international |
co-operation based on some measure of respect and |
trust; but the resource-rich and not over-populated countries |
of the world cannot expect to win the respect or trust of the |
poorest and most crowded countries if they leave them to cope |
with most of the refugee problem as best they can. |
So we have a complex mix of interests - some definite, some |
highly speculative - to be considered. Equal interests are to be |
given equal weight, but which way does the balance lie? Consider |
a reasonably affluent nation that is not desperately overcrowded, |
like Australia (I take Australia merely as an example |
of a country with which I am familiar; one could, with minor |
modifications, substitute other affluent nations.) In the early |
1990s Australia is admitting about 12,000 refugees a year, at a |
time when there are several million refugees in refugee camps |
around the world, many of whom have no hope of returning |
to their previous country and are seeking resettlement in a country |
like Australia. Now let us imagine that Australia decides to |
accept twice as many refugees each year as it has in fact been |
doing. What can we say are the definite consequences of such |
a decision, and what are the possible consequences? |
The first definite consequence would be that each year 12,000 |
more refugees would have been out of the refugee camps and |
settled in Australia, where they could expect, after a few years |
of struggle, to share in the material comforts, civil rights, and |
political security of that country. So 12,000 people would have |
been very much better off. |
The second definite consequence would have been that each |
year Australia would have had 12,000 more immigrants, and |
that these additional immigrants would not have been selected |
258 |
Insiders and Outsiders |
on the basis of possessing skills needed in the Australian economy. |
They would therefore place an additional demand on welfare |
services. Some long-term residents of Australia may be |
disconcerted by the changes that take place in their neighborhood, |
as significant numbers of people from a very different |
culture move in. More refugees would make some impact on |
initial post-arrival services such as the provision of English language |
classes, housing in the first few months, job placement, |
and retraining. But the differences would be minor - after all, |
a decade earlier, Australia had accepted approximately 22,000 |
refugees a year. There were no marked adverse effects from this |
larger intake. |
At this point, if we are considering the definite consequences |
of a doubled refugee intake, in terms of having a significant |
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