Shahrar Ali, Deputy Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, is to speak at the Stop the War Coalition’s Conference ‘Confronting a World at War’ this afternoon. He will speak on the subject of war and migration
The conference brings together writers, activists and politicians from around the world to analyse recent conflicts and current foreign policy approaches.
Shahrar Ali said:
The Green Party will contribute to this important debate about conflict resolution with an analysis of unjust war as a major cause of displacement of peoples. Too often governments fail to recognise the long-term impact of foreign policy disasters on the lives of untold families, forced to flee from persecution or from the destructive power of arms these governments have sold abroad or used themselves.The Green Party has opposed recent UK interventions in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, and holds that the UK needs to rethink its current defence policy. In particular, the Green Party advocates the abolition of Trident.
The UK must not add to the suffering of those fleeing from war with the imposition of arbitrary restrictions on movement, which often have inhumane consequences. We must hold to our collective obligations as a common humanity and take joint responsibility for instability we have directly caused or are implicated in.
We have clear policies on dialogue, peace, diplomacy and international cooperation which aim to tackle forced migration at source, to grant communities both the capability to live in peace and also the right of return.
1 comment:
At a fundamental level the politicker Shahrar is not a green representative but betrays core principles of a genuine green policy. Due to this it's insane immigration policies and the catastrophic effects that this will have on any conception of the sustainability of the United Kingdom (also within the context of their abject failure to even consider the fundamental problem human overpopulation) the party that he misleads is fundamentally THE LEAST GREEN PARTY of any major political group in England and Wales. UKIP and, yes, both the tories AND labour are certainly FAR GREENER.
The unavoidably sad fact is that countries with high population densities (such as many in Europe and exemplified by the UK) already have need to import vast amounts of food simply so as to feed their own burgeoning and inflating populations. Much of this food is already imported from a wide range of countries including those from which people are leaving. Many of these countries, especially in locations from Africa to Afghanistan, have exceedingly high birthrates. This is very clearly illustrated on the map of countries by fertility rate presented at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate .
In comparison, the relatively slow natural population growth of European countries remains much more closely in line with the rate of improvement in food production. Never-the-less, the population of the UK is already way in excess of the environmental factor of "overshoot". See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(population) and https://populationmatters.org/documents/overshoot_index_2011.pdf
The UK is already far from being anywhere near a sustainable situation. This in even in a situation in which we use a relatively very small proportion of our agricultural area for the production of fuel. Our sustainability situation will be critical in any conceivable situation in which we may imagine the UK as being beyond its dependency on non-renewable resources. In short, we already have way to many people. Until we are in a situation in which we stop importing food, It makes no sense to import yet more people.
In comparison rates of population growth in many of the countries that people are leaving are way in excess of rates of improvements in food production techniques.
It also makes absolutely no environmental sense to take people from countries where per capita resource use is low and allow the import of such people into countries where per capita resource use is high. It makes no sense to import both people and food into the same densely populated areas. People should have support and opportunity in their own countries of origin. Destabilizing and prejudiced regimes that prompt attempts at migration should be opposed. Population concern organisations (such as at www.populationmatters.org/) should be urgently referenced and supported.
If anything potential migrants should be informed of the relevant facts regarding the global economic and environmental situation because, every migrant that makes it into countries like the UK, just adds to the problem of the global situation. Problems need to be solved at source. High stands of general education needs to be encouraged with particular attention given to the education and equal empowerment of women across the world, both because these issues are of fundamental importance for human rights as well as because the education and empowerment of woman has been proven to check the spiraling growth of population. Groups that oppose these principles and who act so as to displace populations, themselves, need to be opposed.
For the related David Attenborough documentary search on: How Many People Can Live On Planet Earth
Quote: 'Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.' Kenneth Boulding
Whether we like it or not there are limits
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