London refugee slogan

Globalization is not new at the end of the 20th century. /kloc-The communication and traffic revolution in the 0/9th century and the Internet wave in this century have brought great changes to the world. On a global scale, the uneven distribution of benefits brought by free trade at the end of last century seems to be no different from that before World War I, especially when international trade rules are formulated by powerful countries.

But Europe does feel a little different in globalization. At the end of last century, in order to adapt to the new economic trends, western European countries continued to reorganize and improve their macro-control ability to the economy. The scale of currency overshoot and cross-border capital flow is also unprecedented. The total annual loan of all international banks is $324 billion, which has risen to 7.5 trillion by 199 1. At the same time, through mergers, acquisitions and overseas production, the production and distribution of goods often go abroad, and large enterprises begin to operate globally step by step.

Although these measures have brought prosperity to Europe, their shortcomings are also obvious. In order to pursue profits, former manufacturing powers like France, Britain and Germany set up factories in Brazil, Nigeria, Romania and other countries with low labor costs, produced and assembled locally, and then sold the finished products directly to the world, which is more cost-effective than introducing cheap labor from poor countries (so-called deindustrialization). However, this measure has directly caused long-term unemployment in many parts of Europe and increased the expenditure on unemployment subsidies and social security.

During 1984-2004, France lost150,000 jobs. Spain is not much better. After joining the European Union, 600,000 jobs were lost in 20 years. In the mid-1990s, Spain reached the peak of economic recession, and 44% of the country's labor force under the age of 25 was unemployed.

For western Europe with developed welfare, unemployment is not a fatal problem, and its destructive power to society is far less than that of war. However, the high unemployment rate appears at the same time as the rapid economic growth. In addition, many people became rich overnight in the wind of privatization and the opening of financial markets, especially in London and Barcelona. At that time, computers and electronic media had become popular, and all kinds of news soon spread all over Europe.

This gap between rich and poor, risk and prosperity has shaken Europeans' confidence in free markets and globalization (although they are also indirect beneficiaries of these changes). In addition, unconsciously, Western Europe gradually formed a "four-level" class system.

At the top are elites, including super businessmen, rich people and senior intellectuals, who are closely related to banks and financial institutions and are the beneficiaries of the new global economy. The second layer is the core executives of the public sector or various enterprises. Their jobs are well guaranteed and they can also enjoy dividends or other material benefits.

The third level is mostly composed of small businessmen and people engaged in life service, including convenience store owners, tour guides, tailors, domestic workers, maintenance workers and so on. , mostly by immigrants and their descendants. They are Arabs in France, Turks or Kurds in Germany, and South Asians in Britain. Behind the above three levels, we have to add a lot of typical "southern European gray economy" with families as the unit.

For example, in Italy, 1997, the economic contribution of "gray industry" accounted for 1/4 of GDP. In Portugal, the GDP of the formal sector accounts for 22%; However, in other areas, such as the northern town of Braga, informal workers account for 45% of the local labor force.

The fastest growing population is the fourth level: hired workers, whose jobs are neither stable nor long-term, and they do not enjoy the dividends brought by economic growth. Many workers who can't live on low wages have to turn to the state's welfare security. In Britain, radical Thatcherism has pushed140,000 people into poverty, including 4 million children. 1/6 people rely on income subsidies and family credit programs to barely stay above the poverty line.

Homeless people are also a big problem. In London alone, the number of homeless people in Thatcher's era increased by 10 times, and by the mid-1990s, the number had reached 80,000. A few miles away from London's high-end rich areas, it is very similar to the Victorian "Wanderer's London".

In the past, high economic growth could help many people get rid of poverty and get rich, or at least get a secure job. Now this situation no longer exists. In other words, the economic growth in Europe has brought about an increasingly large underclass, which is huge but on the edge of social life.

In Europe, as in the United States, it is not only poverty and unemployment that push a person into the lower class, but also the race he belongs to. In the mid-1990s, the unemployment rate of black youth in London was 5 1%. Many dark-skinned Dutch, Germans or Britons were born in Europe, even descendants of immigrants from Morocco, Turkey or Pakistan.

Big cities in Europe (such as London) became truly international cities in that year. High-paying jobs in cities are almost exclusive to European whites, and only low-paying jobs such as street cleaners or child care workers are reserved for "minorities" such as blacks or brown people. According to official statistics, during the period of 65,438+0,992-2002, the number of foreigners living in London and southeast England increased by 700,000, but the actual number should be higher.

Although immigration has been strictly controlled in western Europe, it is still a demographic factor that cannot be ignored: in London 1998,13' s children's first language is not English. Usually these children are either refugees or "asylum seekers", especially the Yugoslav war, which makes the number of asylum seekers surge; However, there are also many migrant workers from East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, many of whom are illegal immigrants and have not been recorded by the authorities.

Germany has always been generous to immigrants, and the refuge facilities are the most luxurious in Europe. However, it is still very difficult for refugees to become German citizens. According to statistics, by the end of the 20th century, only 5 million immigrants (including their families) had obtained citizenship. 2/kloc-in the 20th century, most of the people who applied for German refugees came from Iraq, Turkey and the former Yugoslavia, but more and more refugees came from Iran, Afghanistan and Russia.

Fearing that Western Europe will be flooded by "refugees" and illegal immigrants, Europeans generally lack enthusiasm for "EU eastward expansion". In the 1980s, there were a large number of undocumented Polish construction workers in Britain and Germany. At this point, Poland seems to be poor. But even in Poland, which is not rich, there are a large number of refugees from Romania, Bulgaria and the former Soviet Union. By 1992, there were 290,000 "irregular" immigrants in Poland. Hungary, with a population of only100000, has also become the home of more than100000 asylum seekers.

In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, life is very hard, but it can be maintained. The gap between them and Western Europe is narrowing, albeit slowly. But life in Central and Eastern European countries is not so bad. By the end of 1990s, the average monthly wage in Poland and the Czech Republic was close to 400 dollars, while that in Belarus, Ukraine and Romania hovered around 80 dollars, and that in Bulgaria was less than 70 dollars. In Moldova, only 30 dollars, 48% people still live on the land. The situation in the countries of the former Soviet Union is not like Poland, or even worse than Bulgaria: by 2000, one in every two Moldovans had an annual income of less than $220, that is, a monthly income of only 19.

In this case, Moldovans, Ukrainians, and many Russians outside the metropolitan area, their only way out is to find jobs in Western Europe. As a result, a large number of immigrants were transported to western Europe after many twists and turns, and they were in good condition, working as contract workers in factories and restaurants.

The worst, especially female immigrants, often fall into the hands of criminal groups and eventually become prostitutes: in Germany, Italy and Bosnia, well-paid Western European soldiers, officials and "aid workers" are their clients. These "migrant workers" from Moldova and Ukraine have therefore joined the ranks of Gypsies and are at the bottom of the multicultural melting pot of the European continent.

Most of the victims of sex trade are difficult to find, because they are easy to integrate into the local society and are not easy to be found by the police and social service agencies. But most of the excluded immigrants are obvious. These people are not unemployed, but lack "turning over opportunities": they are excluded from the mainstream economy, their children cannot receive a good education, and their homes are in shacks on the edge of the city, with no shops, social services and transportation facilities.

In 2004, a survey report of the French Ministry of the Interior pointed out that about 2 million such immigrants lived in urban fringe areas, which were increasingly reduced to slums due to social exclusion, racial discrimination and serious domestic violence. In some communities, the unemployment rate of young people is as high as 50%, and the descendants of Algerians and Moroccans suffer the most.

Usually, these lower classes are distinguished not by color, but by religion. In the European Union, there are more and more religious categories, Christians still account for an absolute majority, and Jews are only more in Russia and France. But Hindus, especially Muslims, are widely distributed in Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, as well as Scandinavia, Italy and Central Europe. Among the many world religions in Europe, the number of Muslims is rising rapidly.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Muslim population in France (from North Africa) and Germany (Turks and Kurds) reached about 6 million. Together with 2 million Muslims in Britain (Pakistanis and Bangladeshis) and Muslims in Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy, the Muslim population in the EU has reached150,000.

There are many long-standing social problems in Muslim communities. For example, should religious costumes be allowed in public schools? Should the government support the development of multicultural organizations? Should the authorities promote the process of cultural integration? The French government encourages cultural integration, but prohibits the display of religious symbols in schools. In other countries, especially Britain and the Netherlands, cultural differences and strong religious self-awareness are much more tolerant.

The most prominent political influence of immigration (refugees) is the rise of European populism and far-right groups. They play the national card, make a big fuss about immigration and stimulate people's xenophobia, which is a typical xenophobic party. Among these political parties, the famous ones are the French National Front, the British National Party, the Austrian Liberal Party, the Danish People's Party, and the Dutch "Pim Futing Special Party".

In the mouth of these organizations, immigrants are often dismissed as "criminals", "addicts" and "foreign thugs" who infringe on their own people. And often attract voters' attention with slogans such as banning "foreigners", expelling "foreigners" and restoring white citizenship.

Indeed, with the continuous economic downturn in Europe, the tight employment situation and the rising crime rate of immigrant groups, the views of far-right parties have been recognized by a large number of voters, and even several dazzling political stars such as Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jurg Haider have appeared.

However, their political opinions not only aggravated religious hatred and stimulated racial violence, but also did not help solve practical problems, and even gave birth to successive terrorist attacks. The beheading of a French teacher a few days ago is a typical example. Until today, European countries still have no solution to how to face the increasing number of refugees and immigrants and how to balance the relationship between the two major religions.