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'Happiness seekers, a new framework for refugees: Jan Pronk
The former development cooperation minister of the Netherlands, Jan Pronk, was in Indonesia recently at the invitation of a number of NGOs
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he former development cooperation minister of the Netherlands, Jan Pronk, was in Indonesia recently at the invitation of a number of NGOs. He headed the now dissolved Intergovernmental Group on Indonesia. The former Dutch Labor Party politician also led the UN peacekeeping mission in Khartoum, Sudan, and was deputy secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). He now lectures at a number of universities in the Netherlands. The following are excerpts of his interview with The Jakarta Post's Ati Nurbaiti.
Question: Recently 193 nations endorsed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),including a new goal on financing the targets and programs. What are the main obstacles?
Answer: The obstacles are huge. The whole idea of the SDGs came from developing countries ['¦]In all countries you have to become more sustainable ['¦] But sometimes you need assistance.
But['¦] people think there is no reason to assist developing countries.[Yet]you still have many poor people. However, you should be able to tax your rich; to stop tax evasion, corruption; and you need support from other countries which continue with corruptive practices, continue to help rich people from the South to evade taxes, putting their money in banks in the North.
Developing countries have asked in Addis [Ababa, Ethiopia, at the July international financing conference], 'if you do not increase aid, make it possible for us to raise domestic resources; we need an international scheme for taxation rules and principles', which Western countries are not willing to do, which is a shame.
But don't give up because many in the North, the NGOs, are making quite an issue of, for instance, international tax justice, to make it possible for developing countries to raise their resources. During these 15 years [from the SDG time frame of 2015 to 2030] you must continue to put pressure to reform the system.
You cannot, for instance, fight climate change if you don't go for international law-based targets which have to bet met and sanctions on non-compliance ['¦].
After 2007 during the financial crisis, countries backed away from obligations[...] So in Paris [at the December UN summit on climate change] there maybe nothing binding.
What's your view on migration policies in Europe?
We have the right of people to seek asylum in international law. But now many countries are sending people away. We in Western countries are manipulating legal procedures with the aim to receive fewer people. So you need to have procedures whereby you can name and shame countries which do not fulfill obligations, you need appeal procedures for people not getting asylum. In Europe, if you seek asylum in, for instance, the Netherlands and you don't get it, you don't have the right to seek asylum in another country. The resorts of refugees to seek asylum should not be limited.
[Regarding the Netherlands] the Dutch political landscape looks [to be] changing for the worse. We were open to migrants, to refugees. Now a populist party says close the borders. Forbid the Koran. That was not the case in the 1990s and before.
Maybe people in the West fear fewer resources?
The mainstream fear is that Islam is a wrong religion. It's not Europe, it's not [the Netherlands]. So you are afraid of people thinking differently. And if you have bad political leaders who say so, people follow. Then these leaders say they will take your job, your house. But migrants from Syria are quite educated;they are also needed in Europe. So there is a fear based on lack of knowledge, manipulated by politicians.
Indeed in many countries we're cutting public expenditure, like health care for the elderly, and people become afraid of too much competition for scarce expenditure. But that is the government's fault, if it says you have to go the market [private sector] for everything. Poor, weaker people become afraid of being laid off, deprived of access [to public services] and don't want even more competitors.
People leave Syria because of the war ['¦], some go further because countries [of destination] are
over-flooded [with asylum seekers]. So you have to welcome them whether they are Muslims or Christians ['¦].
Based on the international treaty, countries of destination are differentiating refugees with 'a well-founded fear of persecution' from economic migrants.
What is an economic migrant? You are leaving a country because you feel you do not have a future; some leave ['¦] to send money back home to families because there is a future in Europe. You leave either because you are extremely poor, oppressed or escaping violence of war.
We need a new framework. Many from West Africa fleeing to Europe are not competing for jobs because no Dutchman wants to work in cleaning services anyway. Now people say economic migrants are 'happiness seekers'. This frame is very derogatory.
Fleeing unhappiness is completely different from seeking happiness. ['¦] It's different to say 'come, and we shall see', rather than 'stay away'. There are proposals to close the borders. Even walls are being erected. This is extreme. All people should have a right to seek a place where they have a future.
