Globalization And The Refugee Movement From Unprotected Territories

In hopeful depictions, globalization is seen as the movement of laborers or wealth freely across the world. This picture of labor and wealth mobility is inaccurate because it is increasingly becoming evident that globalization will be defined rather as the era of the mass mobility of human beings seeking security and safety. This much is seen in the mass movement of refugees, which increasingly looks like being the symbol which defines what globalization stands for. In the new globalization model, the western world will open its borders further not to invite working-age laborers, but to ensure the security and safety of populations seeking respite from warfare or natural disasters. All movement towards the west is a ultimately "refugee movement," it entails a "becoming refugee" of the moving individual or group. 

Any future policy by safer, western societies regarding the increase in immigrants in their territory will have mostly to do with ensuring that these immigrants are provided security and safety, but not much beyond that. Ultimately, as the securing/protecting of the population becomes the major concern, the progress and development of that population takes a back seat, because for securing powers, it is important that the secured population maintain a fixed character, and not become anything more that cannot be handled. In securing, the population is fixed in its level of development and prosperity; the population remains secure but stagnant.

The paternal, protective function which is supposed to be a standard across all territories is today absent in numerous territories; security is not a given right in many nations, mainly because the western peace project no longer goes outward to “fill in” war-torn territories with broad zones of peace, but rather seeks to invite inward to its shores those singular individuals who seek to live. Today peace is a project of protecting fortunate individuals and not the whole of the group which is being persecuted. Additionally, the militarization of the west does not mean that the whole world is a safer place, even though this is how it is usually thought for comfort, but western militarization only implies the safety exclusively of the west's own borders and territories.

The fulfillment of the Foucauldian idea of “construct live,” where the goal for individuals and societies is the prolonging of life and avoidance of death, increasingly requires that populations move away from their territories and move towards other more secure territories because not all territories are secure even though they have authority in place which continues to relay messages celebrating security. “Construct live” needs to be amended for the globalization age: living a longer life comes only if one's territory is abandoned for the west; living longer is only possible with mobility towards the west, with deterritorialization from one's homeland, a deterritorialization which is long-term, perhaps even permanent, because the west does not always give the chance of a proper rehabilitation/reterritorialization. The west itself will soon seek to be known for its protective function above everything else, protecting the few against weak threats being practically easier than actively developing whole weak societies. To protect oneself is not a “natural” aim which originates in the mind of the individual, rather, the west demands that the individual seek protection and hence travel to the west, but, problematically, protection is all the west will give.