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"I told you so"
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– Why of the two current issues: Mass migration and Terrorism –
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Why do we not ask "why" more often? I am asking this in the context of today’s two serious issues: mass migration including human smuggling and refugee, and terrorism.
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I am old enough to remember the UN Conference on Development in 1968 held somewhere in Sweden. That was the year I went to Africa with a bloated sense of self-importance and of my role in Africa. What arrogance!! Consensus at that conference was that a gap between rich and poor nations must be bridged, and the world must work together to enable developing nations to achieve their full potential. It launched the first UN Decade for Development. We were warned that if the world failed to succeed in this endeavor, the consequence would be dire. A dam will burst. We were told that masses of people would try to migrate to the richer part of the world, and anger and frustration of those who stayed poor would be so enormous that nobody could guess what they would do to express their rage. The first Development Decade was not very successful, so it was repeated a few more times. Was it successful?
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I suppose it is fair to term the result mixed. China, India, Korea, and a few other countries have been transformed for the better, to be sure. But a sign of failure is also everywhere. Mass starvation still persists. Meanwhile, serious health problems due to consumption of too much food are evident in the richer part of the world. One factor that was not predicted in 1968 was fury of culturally and spiritually humiliated people. They have formed an alliance with the poor.
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Mass migration of desperate people is truly a serious concern of the most of the western industrialized countries. Anger of frustrated and humiliated people is the root causes of terrorism.
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Hasn’t the 1968 prediction come true? I can hear, "I told you so" from those who made those prognostications. Should we not also be asking more seriously "why is this happening?" Fences and guns alone will not stop the gushing water of migrants and terrorists. The dam is already breached.