Immigration, parallel societies and ‘Great Replacement’: Any lessons for Sri Lanka?

Twenty years ago, as a budding journalist, fresh out of university and covering the then peace process, I had the fortune to be exposed to, and to some extent ‘indoctrinated’ by the grand promise of multiculturalism, often through seminars and study tours organised by the Scandinavian good Samaritans who had been facilitating the peace process. 

Those were different times. While Sri Lanka was trying to negotiate peace with a maximalist terrorist group and  Global Salafi Jihad was raging with a new venom, having gained new followers and a large receptive audience after the 9/11 attacks, much of the Scandinavian countries were largely unscathed, which also left time and space for do doddery in this part of the world.  

But, fault lines were in the making when Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published Mohammed cartoons, and local Muslims took to the streets, shattering the Danish sense of inviobility of free speech. Around that time, during a study tour to Denmark, a Copenhagen police chief, who was invited to speak to us, went off the script to blame the migrant adolescents for the rising criminality and lack of integration of migrant families. Though our course leader pooh-poohed it in private,  I had a faint realisation that the party would be over sooner than expected. 
Today, the anti-immigration far-right is spearheading across Europe; seven EU countries-  Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands — have hard-right parties in government. In Sweden, the government hinges on the support of the nationalist Sweden Democrats, the second-largest force in parliament. In France, Marian Le Pen’s National Rally came precariously close to winning the majority in the National Assembly. 

With or without far-right

With or without far-right, Europe is walking back on immigration, tightening the refugee laws, deporting failed asylum applicants, and introducing what appears to be two-tier laws that favour Ukrainian refugees over Syrians and Afghans.  Far-right is accused, rightly so, of racism and Islamophobia. However, the far-right did not invent the popular discontent over unchecked immigration and growing parallel societies. Rather borrowed and probably exploited it.

  The immigration debate in America and Europe, though they appear the same, has major underlying differences. In America, Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans have weaponised white working-class despair at the loss of well-paid factory jobs due to globalisation. However, rather than retraining the workforce, which is harder, America’s far-right has found a scapegoat in migrants, who, at best, might be competing for low-end jobs with the native working class. Rather than an existential crisis, what America has is ideology-driven mismanagement that fuels unchecked immigration at the border. 

However, for smaller nation-states in Europe, unchecked immigration presents an often overlooked existential threat. The survival of a nation-state as a viable and functioning unit is predicated upon, more than anything else, cohesion among its ethnic communities. Why Nordic states were a test case for peaceful, blissful status owes a great deal to their homogeneous nature. A major change in the demographic composition in these countries is bound to have long-term, far-reaching consequences,  challenging the way of life and, often, fostering parallel societies. 

This also owes a great deal to the nature of the would-be immigrants, their social and cultural values and their ability to assimilate.

This is where one of the most decried far-right conspiracy theories comes to life, at least partially. The great replacement theory is a conspiracy theory alleging that left-leaning domestic or international elites, on their own initiative or under the direction of Jewish co-conspirators, are attempting to replace white citizens with nonwhite (i.e., Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Arab) immigrants. 

Leave aside the usual far-right invectives of anti-Semitism and anti-left and its emotive grand conclusion, the theory at its bare bones are not without credence, i.e., unchecked immigration is diluting the native population, often undermining Judeo-Christian values that made them, in the first place,  accommodative of strangers from far-flung lands.  

Demographic changes are time-consuming. A recent PEW research projection provides insight into the demographic change in Europe over decades. It estimates Europe’s Muslim population, which accounted for 25 million in 2016 (4.5% of the population), would reach 7.5% in 2050 under the scenario of zero migration, owning to higher birth rates. In the case of regular migration ( where migration would be allowed for others other than those seeking asylum), the Muslim population in Europe would reach 11.2% by 2050. In the condition of high migration, where the migration would continue in the range of 2014-2016 when many countries adopted open door policies, the Muslim population would reach 14%. ( Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/)

 However, countries that have received a large influx of migrants are bound to see a spike in greater numbers. Germany, which introduced short-lived open-door policies, will see its Muslim population reach from 6% in 2016 to 20%. Sweden’s Muslim population, which accounted for 8% in 2016, would grow to 31% in 2050 under the high migration scenario.

Similarly, the demographic composition of  Muslims in the UK (16.7%, France (17%), Italy (12%), and Belgium (15%) would drastically increase by 2050 even under regular- medium migration. 

This brings us to another less talked about and often decried talking point, i.e. that ominous threshold for an ethnic community to change behaviour and escalate the competition with the state.

 
Lessons for Sri Lanka

 At best, the European experience can offer only indirect lessons to Sri Lanka. We are born into a multicultural society, whereas Europe chooses to import it. And we have also learned the hard way the travails of navigating it.
Probably the first lesson that Sri Lanka should learn is not to amplify the minor ethnic and religious differences in the name of fostering a facade of multiculturalism. 

This brings us to another less talked about topic, I.e. ethnic management vis a vis much-hyped political parlance of reconciliation. Average Sri Lankans of all communities do not have a problem that requires them to be indoctrinated in a state and NGO-guided process of reconciliation. Instead, Sri Lanka has a problem of ethnic management where it has continuously failed to hold account for politically motivated self-seeking advocacy that pits minorities against the majority and vice versa. The thirty years of Eelam war had little to do with original grievances of racial discrimination; a case that is hard to argue when the LTTE ambushed and killed 13 soldiers in Jaffna, heralding the Black July,  Inspector General of Police, Attorney General, and J.R. Jayawardene’s chief political advisor were all Tamils.

The origin of ethnic conflict has much to do with amplifying minor grievances to radicalize minorities by their own leaders, who considered being more nationalist than their opponent was the easiest route to win elections. This zero-sum advocacy was fostered by the failure of the Centre to draw clear red lines similar to Singapore or Mahathir Mohamed’s Malaysia. 

Another lesson would be not to upset the delicate status quo of traditional Sri Lankan Islam, which has regained its position after the Easter Sunday attack. As the country is heading for elections, the temptation to appease religious zealots would be high. Sometime back, none other than President Ranil Wickremesinghe, in an event with Muslim leaders, promised to lift the restriction on the import of religious textbooks and visas for Arab theologists, which were subjected to restrictions after the Easter Sunday attack, owing to allegations of their radicalizing effect.
Sri Lanka’s political leaders are not helping the Muslim community by importing extremism from abroad.
Last but not least, Sri Lanka should rein in Sinhala Buddhist ultranationalism, which has lost its appeal after the economic crisis.  

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