The Guardian is publishing a series of propaganda pieces in favour of unfettered immigration. This is an example, [1], a story about a woman from Zimbabwe who is claiming asylum in the UK. Just like the kind of propaganda the Guardian produces about foodbanks, and poverty, there is a serious dearth of details, which would enable us, the readers, to make up our own minds. What we get is an ideological narrative; the real people in the articles are being used to prop up that ideology. In many cases there probably is a real, socially important story, though it is not the one presented through the fixed narrative which conforms to the ideology.
So; I have no personal animosity towards the anonymous subject of this article, and hope I would not if I met her. I am not criticising her, but the form of propaganda visible in this article. That said; and for full disclosure, I do wonder about this trend of asylum seeking in the UK. In at least many cases I wonder if it is even in the best interests of the people themselves. For example; last year I met 3 boys who had come to the UK as asylum seekers, from, respectively, Chad, Sudan and Afghanistan. There were all nice young men, polite and at least two of them I can’t even imagine getting into trouble; but, I couldn’t help feeling whether they really had made a good choice, whether, for them, life in the UK was going to better, ultimately, more fulfilling, that the kind of life they might have had in their home countries, even if that was materially more challenging.
From the author’s point of view the main point of the article is that the anonymous asylum seeker has not been able to bring her son over from Zimbabwe to join her. This seems to be aimed at countering apparent new government proposals to limit family reunions for people who have been granted refugee status, though the woman in question has not yet been given refugee status. However; from a journalistic point that which leaps out about the article in question is the lack of details. In fact, it is rather strange. We are told that the anonymous (why?) subject of the article has been in the UK for nine years. At least: “Kim said she was visiting the UK nine years ago, raising awareness of political repression in Zimbabwe, when she was identified as a government critic back home, making it unsafe for her to return.” – which seems to imply 9 years. But; do asylum claims really take 9 years? That seems extraordinary; even if so, then that in itself, is surely a story? And, if there is some other explanation; then that should be part of the story. I don’t know because we aren’t told. But there is something unexplained here. It is just like the articles about people so poor they have to choose between heating and eating. Maybe; but, (and I read a lot of these articles in the Guardian when they were trending last year) , we were never told the details; why were the state benefits not enough? How much was the income and how much the outgoings? For anyone looking to understand social questions, the actual, concrete details are important. But, and this is the point, these articles are not about investigation and reporting on social issues; they are ideological pieces. So, no details.
That is the main point. Otherwise, we have the usual features of this kind of immigration propaganda. The subject’s story about coming to the UK, for a visit, (which seems to imply a visitor Visa?), and, while in the UK realizing that she had been identified as a government critic in Zimbabwe and so couldn’t return, could be true. It could also be a fake story; and the intention all along was to come to the UK and claim asylum. It is a tenet of this kind of reporting that the accounts are always accepted at face value.
The subject is not a supplicant; she is not asking or pleading. She has fully understood that in the UK system what works is having a valid claim, a basis which an official has to acquiesce to. She argues: “Anyone can find themselves in a position where they need help – and the UK isn’t the only country that gives people help, it’s what human beings do for other human beings”. In this case it is her that is asking for help. But apparently Zimbabwe also accepts refugees; so it is all fair. An unassailable logic, though nothing to do with whether or not she has a valid claim for political asylum. However; emotional pressure may work. Who knows?
I think we can expect to see a whole raft of this kind of fact-free immigration propaganda in the Guardian over the coming months.
The interesting question is why progressive-liberals are so attached to unfettered immigration. I put forward two hypotheses. Firstly; unfettered immigration means an infante supply of labour. If the supply of labour is unlimited, then the price of labour will be low. The financial conglomerations and the large corporations, naturally, want a low price of labour. That is one reason why unfettered immigration has been a core policy of all governments in the UK for some time. The second hypothesis is ideological. There are two prevailing, competing ideologies on the world stage. One ideology talks about how “each country has their own path to development”. This is the ideology favoured by “authoritarian regimes” like Russia and China. This ideology, at a philosophical level, asserts that spirituality, humanity’s deepest values, are linked to national culture. Not to one specific national culture, (though such supremacist ideologies do exist, of course). but to a national culture, in each case. There is a nexus of ideology, around authoritarian systems of government, preservation of national culture, and national political control which resists control by global/US financial elites and corporations. On the other hand, there is a globalist ideology, which believes that there is only one set of valid first principles of society, and these are universal. A country either practices them, or is “backward” and has not yet developed to this level yet. This is the ideology of the global/US financial elites and corporations. In this ideology “national culture” is not important. In as much as it is allowed at all it is reduced to a set of values, which anyone can simply adopt after a couple of weeks of induction. This is the ideology of the Microsoft logo; universally appealing and devoid of values, so no one is “excluded”. Indeed, the chief life-value of this ideology is consumption and materialistic hedonism.
In the stories about immigration in the Guardian what we are really seeing is a promotion of the latter ideology, the liberal ideology of universal values, of ‘one system fits all’, the system which can bear no limits; no limits on profit-making, no limits on pleasure-seeking. Supporting unfettered immigration is a key part of pushing the ideology of global liberalism.
“Kim” is simply being used by the Guardian as a tool in a propaganda game. (Though, on a personal, individual level, of course “Kim” might well be riding the wave for some perceived personal advantage).
Notes