Of Waves and Walls: Climate Change and Structural Racism

September 23, 2009 by Rev. David L. Ostendorf
Filed under: Ecopolitics, Immigration, International 
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In his provocative new book Ultimatum, set in the U.S. in the 2030s, British author Matthew Glass writes that Europe’s low-intensity, climate-related warfare in Africa “…is also a racial war, and the countries prosecuting it are becoming increasingly xenophobic.” Within Glass’ disturbing story of a future environmental and nuclear cataclysm, this observation stands out: climate change and structural racism are inherently inter-related.

Rising seas, drought and other dramatic climate disasters will force migrations of millions of peoples of color. The response of receiving and resettlement nations to their arrival (and survival) will—given the restrictions already imposed by predominantly white nations on immigrants—constitute an extraordinary challenge. As waves of people are forced from their homelands, walls and other barriers will rise to keep them out. Coupled with the anticipated economic and political costs of forced migration, Glass’ fictional portrayal of racial warfare two decades hence is unnerving.

The infamous and ineffective U.S. border wall with Mexico, which has already cost $2.4 billion, is but a harbinger of things to come. Military and law enforcement initiatives to keep immigrants out of Fortress Europe have resulted in thousands of deaths. When millions seek survival in these and other lands wracked by climate change, the reception record to-date does not bode well for their welcome. The unconscionable federal response to Katrina, which forced over a million people from their homes, ought to give pause to doubters. And while community-based responses to evacuees were truly laudable, racist rant about resettling tens of thousands of displaced African Americans exposed the underbelly of the structural racism that marked federal rescue and recovery commitments.

The reality of climate-forced migration is upon us. The Maldives, the Pacific islands nation that lies less than six feet above sea level, is already preparing for the coming rise in ocean levels, literally seeking to buy a new homeland. The nation is going carbon-neutral in its own efforts to stem climate change, and is a leader in the new Alliance of Small Island States pressing urgently for serious and immediate responses to the environmental disaster they confront. A Muslim nation, The Maldives faces perilous prospects as it lays the foundation for the forced migration of its people. And whether it “buys” a new homeland or finds a welcoming nation to receive its people, it will likely have to contend with the harsh realities of structural racism that shroud the prospects for peoples of color forced from their homes by the climate challenge now facing the global community.

H.E. Mohamed Nasheed, the nation’s young and charismatic President, warned this week in New York that “if you can’t defend The Maldives today you won’t be able to defend yourselves tomorrow.” His insight goes far beyond the immediacy of the moment, and drives toward the collective conscience of nations that will, indeed, be unable to defend their actions—and inaction—if they raise walls to keep out the waves of peoples forced by climate change to migrate, and if they fall back to the perils of structural racism for justification in doing so.

Nasheed himself is hopeful: he resolutely declared that “with grassroots movements it is possible to do anything”—a call to be heard and heeded, especially by this nation, immersed as it is in the structural racism that nags its soul by the day, in countless ways and venues, and that stalks its yet-uncrafted response to the urgent challenge of climate change and the coming migrations of people of color.

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Comments

3 Responses to “Of Waves and Walls: Climate Change and Structural Racism”

  1. Jay Taber on September 23rd, 2009 10:16 am

    Of course, we don’t have to wait twenty years to see the genocidal effects of climate change. The world’s indigenous peoples have already been targeted for their forests and resources, and indeed ethnic cleansing is underway from the Amazon to the Yukon. As one of the four countries to vote against the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the US has gone to great lengths to make sure major media pays no attention to the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change.

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  2. Andrew Grant-Thomas on September 24th, 2009 11:26 am

    Outstanding piece on a devastating issue, Dave.

    My mind immediately went to the plight of Somalis fleeing a 20-year civil war in Somalia, many of them trying to bribe their way INTO the world’s largest refugee camp in Kenya: 300,000 people living under hideous conditions in a camp built for 90,000. Overflowing toilets. People sharing space with garbage. Children suffering from malnutrition and dehydration. Rape a common occurrence. Not enough water, not enough medicine.

    From Europe, the US, the UN: some wringing of hands, some talk of resolutions, almost no help.

    So, yes, in re Matthew Glass’ book, there’s abundant reason to fear that the future is now, only worse.

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  3. Jay Taber on September 26th, 2009 3:57 pm

    As fundamental forms of social organization, institutions (church and state) and markets wield considerably more control of most societies than tribes and networks. While not monolithic, the state and market do have near monopolies over finance and communications through control of key centers of power. Perspectives that contest their agendas of privatization and globalization are thus relatively easy to exclude or smother. One of the reasons the world indigenous peoples’ movement (and other anti-globalization players) have had to deploy spectacular initiatives.

    We won’t, of course, hear anything from Secretary Clinton or President Obama about globalization, the main engine driving poverty and displacement in the developing world. Free Trade is neocolonial theft, globalization is mass murder, and the Obama/Clinton team are leading both.

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