Immigration Inception
Monday, August 30th, 2010
What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed – fully understood – that sticks; right in there somewhere. (source: Inception quotes at IMDb)
The scientific study of human evolution places the anatomically modern humans in Africa about 195,000 years ago. The research also located the origin of modern human migration in south-western Africa, near the coastal border of Namibia and Angola. (source: Human evolution at Wikipedia)
As we can see the idea to immigrate took hold almost at the origin of Homo sapiens and if it wasn’t for this resilient idea we would not exist today. To deny immigration is to deny our own humanity. To criminalize immigration is to prosecute the original idea that took us to every corner of the world.
Why are some people so afraid of immigrants? Why is xenophobia in vogue and tolerated?
