Asylum! A socialist view of the refugee crisis

Across the world tens of millions of people are fleeing war, persecution and terror; hunger and environmental disaster. And the numbers involved will only grow as climate change bites ever deeper. Yet the rich Western countries are building ever-higher walls — and more of them — to protect their imperialist fortresses and keep out the victims of their policies in the Third World.

Over the past two decades, the Australian government’s appalling treatment of asylum-seekers has set a benchmark for cruelty. But this horrible record is simply an example of the West’s overall response. Refugees desperate to escape oppression and misery in their homelands have not found shelter and comfort here but instead have been subjected to soul-destroying incarceration and loss of all hope.

Refugees have been scapegoated and demonised in order to deflect people’s growing discontent with their deteriorating quality of life — away from the capitalist system which is directly responsible and instead onto to its Third World victims.

This pamphlet aims to provide activists and those concerned with securing human rights for refugees not only with basic facts and arguments, but also with an analysis of the imperialist roots of the global refugee crisis.