On Freedom of Movement

I have just finished planting some jasmine, which arrived in plastic pots that will probably be in landfill for the next ten thousand years. The richly-scented jasmine was planted behind the swing bench my wife and I recently bought so that we can sit out in our garden on warm summer nights, talking and enjoying a glass of wine together.

This simple pleasure seems so mundane, yet in the grand historical sweep it is really a remarkable feat. Throughout history few would have been able to enjoy such hours of leisure. Owning a private garden is a privilege few in the past would have had. You would be unlikely to be enjoying a secure tenure and the extensive set of rights we take for granted today.

Take for example the right to move away. You may be a medieval serf, tied to the land. Imagine how few opportunities await as you toil another’s land for a subsistence wage. In the next town there may be riches to be had, but not for you. The breaking of this tie, and the resulting freedom of movement, was an essential step towards the opportunities we have today. The right to seek your fortune in the world is as fundamental a requirement for prosperity as any I can imagine.

Each advance in the freedom of the masses to migrate has seen, without exception, a general advance in the human condition. Those who migrated to the Americas built the leading nation of the 20th century. Migrations under way today have the ability, if unchecked, to save millions from poverty and repression. Understanding this fundamental truth should see us all promote and celebrate every advance in the freedom of movement at every level.

Yet we are seeing this freedom under attack from those who would see us confined to our assigned nation states. They have managed to portray freedom of movement as an existential ethnic threat rather than a key requirement for the full emancipation of humanity. This may appeal to unsophisticated people fearful of their place in an ever faster-changing world, but the interests bankrolling this are far from unsophisticated, nor are they tied to nation states.

The picture emerging of those behind the national populist movements throughout the liberal democracies today is an interlinked one. A network of influencers and wealthy individuals with links to organised crime and mafia states cross borders with an ease they would deny the rest of us. Why are wealthy international interests be so keen on promoting ethnic nationalism?

Maybe I am reading too much into this, and the ethno-nationalist rhetoric is an insignificant part of a classic divide and conquer strategy by those seeking to frustrate joined-up cooperation between the world’s democracies. I do worry it is more than this, that their purpose is the same as that of the feudal lords, and the fate planned for us is to be chattels bound to the land once more.

Anyway I must remember to water the jasmine, enjoy the wine, and put the future out of mind for now.