The topic of migration systematically resurfaces in public debate.
Anti-immigration slogans largely contributed to the right-wing's rise topower in Poland. Today, liberals are also using them. At the same time,
the situation on Poland's borders remains tense, with violence rife and
deaths occurring. ---- A world without borders ---- Let me begin with a
truism. The history of the world is the history of human migration.
Since the dawn of time, when our ancestors, the black Homo sapiens,
emerged from the heart of Africa and spread across the globe, the
survival of the human species depended on the ability to seek new
habitats where survival was possible. Over time, migrations provided
opportunities for the exchange not only of genes but also of
experiences, skills, knowledge, and, more broadly, culture (including
material culture). Isolated communities were often doomed to extinction.
In the population sense, migration is as natural as procreation.
On the other hand, for most of history, the world knew no borders. While
individual communities guarded their hunting grounds, they were more
often forced to wander after herds of animals. Hunter-gatherer peoples
changed their location on average several times a year. With the advent
of agriculture and sedentary life, territorial divisions did not become
any more obvious. Therefore, if we pick up any historical atlas and see
the marked borders of Rome, Byzantium, the Empire of Genghis Khan, or
the Piast dynasty, we can be certain that this is rather a projection of
our contemporary perceptions of the political map of the world in
distant eras. Borders, in the modern sense of the word, did not exist in
the past.
Only when individual centers of power began to seek to define their
economic and commercial influence, establishing customs houses,
factories, and imposing tariffs, did increasingly precisely defined
borders emerge, along with special units and officials to guard them.
However, given the shortage rather than surplus of labor, the influx of
foreigners was often viewed as a positive phenomenon. Contrary to
appearances, the authorities of the time prioritized control over
people, not territory. Uninhabited areas were still relatively numerous,
populations were scarce, and population density was low. Sometimes it
was easier to enter a given country than to leave it.
Only the so-called demographic overhang, or the emergence of a large
natural increase, triggered truly mass emigration. However, in most
European countries, it did not appear until the second half of the 18th
century and throughout the 19th. The capitalist and nation-state was
already in full bloom. Not only were borders clarified, but also who had
the right to reside within them permanently, based on-indeed,
questionable-ethnicity or language.
In step with the economic situation
At the same time, the modern capitalist state needed cheap immigrant
labor to thrive. Its flow was always regulated by economic cycles. When
the economy was growing, labor was in high demand, and borders opened to
migrants. When recessions struck, immigrants were dismissed and forced
to leave. Moreover, capitalists were not always interested in
regulating, let alone consolidating, an immigrant's legal status.
Illegal immigrants are often the cheapest labor force.
In Western European countries, immigrants constituted 10-20% of the
workforce for decades after World War II. And what about today? As I've
written before[1], structural economic problems caused by neoliberal
capitalism have triggered deglobalization. Barriers have emerged to the
flow of capital and goods (think tariff wars), but also of people.
National particularism is on the rise. The bear market is changing
attitudes toward migration.
However, globally, the number of people living in a country other than
their birthplace continues to grow, both in absolute numbers and
relative to the world's population. In 2024, this number reached 304
million, or approximately 3.5% of the world's population. It can be
estimated that approximately 70% of international migrants worldwide
today are economic migrants. Second are war refugees. And finally, the
third category comprises those forced to leave their countries for
climatic and ecological reasons. Of course, war and climate refugees
also need to work to survive, but we are talking about the reasons for
emigration here[2].
It's worth noting that the number of internal migrants moving within
countries, especially large ones like China, India, Russia, and Brazil,
is several times greater. The logic behind internal population movements
is similar. Migrants most often move from rural areas and join the ranks
of the urban proletariat. They sometimes live in slums, working for much
lower wages and under much worse conditions. Their migrations also occur
in sync with economic booms. When economic downturns strike, they are
often forced to return to their villages to support their families.
Between destabilization and integration
The vast majority of migrants also have a specific class composition.
Statistically speaking, a larger percentage of them are poor, lacking
material resources (which they lost, for example, during the war),
vulnerable to unemployment, and so on. Although, of course, there is
also significant variation here. The specific class composition of
migrants, combined with uprootedness and alienation, also means that
immigrant communities are more likely to come into conflict with the
law. Above all, however, it should be assumed that the decisive factor
here is socioeconomic, not cultural or ethnic - as the right wing
claims. Ascribing to individuals of a particular faith or nationality a
propensity to break the law and applicable rules is unjustified.
Finally, we must emphasize that a large portion of migrants also come
from countries destabilized by wars initiated or fueled by the West,
such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The geopolitics of major powers is
a significant factor influencing the number of migrants worldwide.
However, states tend to evade responsibility. For example, the Polish
authorities have denied responsibility for the participation of their
troops in the illegal war in Iraq, or earlier in Afghanistan.
Anti-immigration discourse
The situation on Poland's borders has been drawing our attention in
recent months. Activists associated with the left are trying to rescue
migrants who have entered Poland and become stranded in the Bialowieza
forests. They are also trying to facilitate their asylum applications
and settlement in our country. The right, on the other hand, is ready to
defend the integrity of the borders and expel "aliens," while
simultaneously spreading fear. However, the right's actions go hand in
hand with the actions of the state, which violates international
conventions and human rights, which the Polish government has so proudly
upheld until now. Consequently, according to data from humanitarian
organizations, approximately 130 migrants have likely died on the border
with Belarus since 2021. This, for comparison, is roughly the number of
people who died trying to cross the Berlin Wall during its 28-year
existence (1961-1989)[3]. It should be added that since 2014,
approximately 25,000 people have died trying to reach Europe, and
another 25,000 have gone missing[4].
Recently, I've been listening to the debate on migration, which has once
again gained momentum. It's important to acknowledge that it has had
several iterations over the past decades. First, there was the debate on
migration after 2004 (after Poland's accession to the EU), when the
national media was filled with concern for the fate of Polish economic
migrants, who were leaving en masse for Western Europe. (Remember, there
were nearly 2 million of them, according to some estimates). At the
time, every instance of rights violations, exploitation, or racism
against our compatriots was written and spoken about with outrage.
The debate then erupted in 2015, during the so-called migration crisis,
when increasing numbers of refugees from the chaos-ridden Middle East
and North Africa sought to enter the European Union (see, for example,
the situation in Libya, Syria, Iraq, etc.). This led to a radical shift
in Poles' attitudes toward refugees, with demands for closed borders and
isolation from other ethnic and religious groups emerging. This
resentment-largely built on Islamophobia-was fueled and exploited by the
right wing. It's no exaggeration to say that anti-immigration and
anti-Muslim slogans (e.g., "Stop the Islamization of Europe") largely
contributed to the right wing's seizure of power in Poland.
Finally, after February 24, 2022, and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, a
large group of Ukrainian refugees found themselves in our country -
alongside the already existing economic migrants. Initially, as many as
94% of Poles argued that we should "accept Ukrainian refugees from
conflict zones." At the time, the selflessness and openness of Polish
residents in providing aid to war refugees was praised. This enthusiasm
lasted three years. Over time, the percentage of those who expressed
consent to accepting migrants from beyond our eastern border decreased
significantly - to 50% - and anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is gaining
increasing traction[5].
End
We are all migrants-at least potentially. A strong point of the left's
argument has always been to expose the structural forces associated with
power and capital. These also underlie the phenomenon of migration, as
well as the anti-immigration, racist, and violent policies of the state
and the right. Consequently, taking into account economic and social
issues is crucial, and in any case no less important than the issue of
respecting the human rights of migrants.
In addition to the aforementioned objective aspect, there is also a
subjective one: for each and every one of us, there is someone in our
family or closest circle of friends who has moved abroad, most often for
work or economic reasons. Let us not console ourselves that most of them
can move around Europe and the world legally. This is a privilege
resulting from our membership in the Schengen Area. Today, however, we
see that legality in international relations is increasingly relative.
And we do not want racism, exploitation, and lawlessness to affect those
we know and love in the same way it is currently affecting refugees from
Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan on the border with Belarus - bringing
suffering and death.
Jaroslaw Urbanski
www.rozbrat.org
https://federacja-anarchistyczna.pl/2025/08/20/wszyscy-jestesmy-migrantami/
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