Carlos, once again taking up the subject of peace treaties, what conditions are needed to make them solid and long-lasting?
What we should look for are the foundations to establish relations for internal justice and relations for international justice. When there are disputes which are not resolved in accordance with justice, the conflict remains and goes on. It is like a tumour which has not been operated on.
Many of the present-day problems come from disputes which have been badly resolved in the past. The disaster in the Balkans which we experienced not long ago was a result of badly resolved conflicts.
A problem concerning bad ethnic integration. A subject which is beginning to take on importance here, in Spain.
We cannot continue to take the wrong direction, we must look towards integration. We should try to resolve problems peacefully and as fairly as possible, bearing in mind something which is very important: problems concerning the assimilation of minority groups always have two sides to them. One which we could say is rational, and the other, emotional. The rational one should always prevail, but without ignoring that there are emotional elements rejecting those who are different. Problems within heterogeneous communities, if they are properly approached, end up by dissolving in time, all by themselves. On the other hand, if they are not properly approached, they will never be solved.
We can see this in Spain. If we don’t look for fair solutions to the problem, immigration will turn into a “time bomb”. Yet, if the solutions are fair, the minority groups will end up becoming part of the majority groups. But, if they are not offered means for work, integration and equal opportunities, they will turn into a tumour because they will remain segregated, without becoming part of the general organization.
Some people think immigration encourages delinquency.
That’s a mistake. Delinquency is not connected to these groups, but to poverty and a lack of opportunities. That is what it is connected to.
If you give them work, homes to live in and possibilities to form families, those people will not go out on the streets with a gun. On the other hand, if all you do is allow them to put a blanket on the groung to sell disks and, on top of that, the police are after them every day, it is normal that a percentage of them find it easier to rob people in the streets.
Don’t you think we have to go further back to find the solution to this problem? To act in the countries the immigrants come from.
That would be the perfect solution. Because immigration is a malfunction. People feel they have to emigrate, they don’t emigrate for the sake of it. It’s not a question of my preferring to live in Brazil and so I decide to go and live in Rio; that would be fine. But no, people have such a bad life in Morocco that they want to go to Seville as soon as possible, that is what’s bad.
Of course we must act within the poor countries, but nowadays this doesn’t seem to be possible. And so those migratory impulses appear. They won’t stop coming even if put wire fencing all around Europe because it is uncontrollable.
What provokes the need to emigrate?
The poor countries of the world have serious problems. Some of them they have created themselves, like the existence of power groups with hardly any social conscience, groups which favour personal gain for the privileged minority groups which control the country’s government, wealth and power, and leave most of the population in poverty.
But another problem is an external one for which they are not guilty and this is the permanent aggression, sometimes direct, other times indirect, on behalf of rich countries, in order to take advantage of them, making the people work in subhuman conditions, trying to absorb all the sources of wealth and raw materials to feed the first world industries and so creating more inequality which prevents development.
And if, besides, they look at the luxury surrounding the people who live in rich countries…
The mass media (television, internet, etc.) spreads ways of life which are better than those which people in those countries have. In other words, there are huge layers of underprivileged people who are seeing examples of extraordinary wealth “within reach” and which, however, they will never achieve in their country. And so there is a tremendous explosion towards the wealthy countries.
The power of attraction the big European department stores have over underprivileged populations is uncontrollable. The Berlin wall fell, to a large extent – metaphorically speaking - , because opposite it was the KDG, a huge department store on the other side. So, the obsession was to be able to cross the wall to buy something that couldn’t be bought in Berlin. In other words, that impulse towards consumerism, towards comfort, is an element which wields an irresistible attraction over those populations.
It will be necessary to keep on working on integration.
Yes indeed, it is a social problem which needs solving.
