It is good – only human beings as such are relevant …. — … at least this is what the statistics suggest.
I am just working on a report about recent developments in Ireland and looking at the CSO-figures for migrants. The table on the Components of the annual population change, 1987 – 2014 provides the figures for
- Births
- Deaths
- Natural increase
- Immigrants
- Emigrants
- Net migration
- Population change
- Population
Now, if it would be really this way
ONLY HUMAN BEINGS COUNT
independent of their status, religion … etc. it would be great.
If, as in reality there is surely a difference between well-off immigrants obtaining secure jobs, migrants who are desperately searching for work and refugees who are ending up in so-called Direct Provision (see on the latter for instance Herrmann, Peter/Dorrity, Claire: Racism – the State’s Fear of Loosing Control Over the Own Citizens; in: Okyayuz, Mehmet /Herrmann, Peter (eds.): Migration – Global Processes Caught in National Answers; Vienna: WVFS, 2014). And it surely would be honest though not to include but at least it make directly visible those who are refused entry before they even arrive – as we learn from the INIS-website
Deportations/Removals from the State. Approximately, 2,360 persons were deported/removed from the State in 2014. This figure comprises some 2,147 persons who were refused entry into the State at ports of entry and were returned to the place from where they had come. In addition, 111 failed asylum seekers and illegal migrants were deported from the State, 87 EU nationals were returned to their countries of origin on foot of an EU Removal Order and 17 asylum seekers were transferred under the Dublin Regulation to the EU member stated in which they first applied for asylum.
And with the famous grain of truth the same can be applied for emigrants: there is a difference between those who are – for different reasons – “forced” and those who leave voluntary – and in both cases the question is again: where do they end up.
The grain of truth – the Latin expression reads cum grano salis, the grain of salt. And this salt is what gives the special taste to the soup. That may also be applied when it comes to statistics …. Leaving the details out, means denying the colour and taste: be it the adventurous and exotic pleasures of the privileged or the blood and mordant sweat of those who loose their freedom and possibly lifes.
COMMEDIA DELLA VITA OR PÁNTA RÊI'S FIRM GROUND 