it is understood by Xenophobia, in sociopolitical terms, the repulsion or aversion to foreign peoples in a given place or territory. This denomination, first used in the context of psychology and biology, is also seen as a political issue, whose logic is more pronounced in some countries on the European continent, due to the large number of immigrants residing in this continent.
To understand this issue, it is first necessary to understand the logic of the migratory dynamics towards Europe. You main factors that favor the presence of foreigners in European territory are:
The) Economic difficulties faced by underdeveloped and emerging countries. These countries suffer from serious problems of income distribution, which makes the less favored population look for new opportunities in central countries. In this way, Europe becomes an attraction for offering greater mobility between different nations, place where these immigrants perform the most basic services and allocate their savings to their places of origin.
B) Need for immigrants from Europe, since there is a shortage of workers for the most basic functions of society, vacancies that are usually filled by foreigners.
ç) Economic investments in some sectors of the economy are also requested by Europeans from foreigners, since a good part of the entrepreneurs of the old continent choose to invest in other economies. Thus, in Europe, there is the presence of an elite, mainly Islamic, which starts to gain more and more representation in the sphere of power.
d) Advances in the technical-scientific-informational environment at the heart of Globalization they also provided new territorial configurations, enabling and facilitating the rapid transport of people around the world, becoming the ultimate factor to consolidate and intensify migratory flows then existing.
Thanks to these factors, the presence of foreign peoples and non-European cultures and social practices is increasing, even though migratory flows have been decreasing in recent years. With this, the feeling of otherness towards other peoples by the population of some countries in Europe is increasingly lower, increasing cases of racism, religious intolerance (especially with Muslims) and rejection of foreign.
You main factors that motivate the occurrence and periodic increases of xenophobic waves are:
The) Identity crisis which increases as Europe gradually becomes a multi-mixed place, given that most immigrants do not usually return to their places of origin, establishing themselves in the European space and transmitting their genetic heritage to their descendants, causing an ethnic transformation. To aggravate this issue, it is observed that the migratory growth in several European countries is much higher than the vegetative growth, thanks to the sharp drops in birth rates.
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B) The idea that immigrants “steal” Europeans' jobs, as many consider that they perform the same services as the local population, but with lower wages and more degrading working conditions. Although this is true, the presence of immigrants does not reduce the employment rate for the local population, given that foreigners they usually work in areas lacking employment, generally aimed at the lower-income population, in addition to working informally.
ç) the economic crisis which has hit Europe more intensely since 2011, has been contributing to the growth of cases of xenophobia. This is because, with the economic crisis, part of the population started to blame foreign peoples through prejudiced ideas for the economic downturn. Furthermore, with the increase in social problems caused by the crisis, such as unemployment, extreme right parties gained more space in parliaments, gaining strength to spread their fascist, racist and anti-immigrants.
d) Migrants have been trying to maintain their traditions, unlike what happens, for example, in the USA, where the foreign population changes their habits and patterns of behavior and communication to adapt to national values. In Europe, foreign groups, increasingly larger, more influential and more organized, are articulated in order to preserve their traditions, including their languages. This generates a very large social crisis, as native Europeans simply do not understand this idea, generating everyday and social conflicts, which may, in the near future, reverberate into an unprecedented crisis on the continent European.
Considering these reasons, it is possible to notice a growth of xenophobic acts and positions in the context of European societies. These practices, despite being often opposed by laws and public actions, are endorsed by national states, which launch actions and postures to reduce the rights of peoples foreign. An example of this is Switzerland, which has passed laws to expel immigrants convicted of serious crimes after serving their sentences, crimes that involve rape, murder and drug trafficking, in addition to some others considered minors.
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* Image Credits: Eugenio Marongiu and Shutterstock
By Rodolfo Alves Pena
Graduated in Geography
