Dictators Cause More Migrations than Climate Change
From a Google Image Search – Reuters Ukrainian ruins
Dictators cause more migrations than climate change. At present dictators, gangs, violence, civil war, or just plain old war are the causes of most refugees fleeing their homes to rely (hopefully) on the hospitality of another nation. This may not always be the case. Climate change threatens to become a bigger cause of migrations than human aggression in all its forms.
The Civil War in Syria (in which Russia allied with Assad) displaced millions with Turkey hosting the largest number, 3.7m, and refugees sheltered in 51+ other countries. Jordan has 665K+, Lebanon – 855K, Netherlands – 32K+, Norway – 14K+, Iraq -244K+, Egypt – 131K+, Canada – 70K, Austria – 53K+, Sudan – 93K+, Sweden – 114K, UK, 11K+, US – 8K+ and smaller numbers in other nations (According to Wikipedia). Cities in Syria were reduced to rubble. This is the style of war favored by Russia.
In October 2022 the UN listed 7.6m Ukrainian refugees across Europe. 2.85m are in Russia, sent there by Russian occupiers and reports say subject to executions and torture. This makes one man, Putin, and his chosen ally , Bashar al Assad responsible for over 10 million refugees who have had to flee their homelands because of war, civil war, war atrocities and fear of capture, the use of chemical warfare in the case of Syria and threats of nuclear attacks in Ukraine.
In October 2022 ongoing economic and political crises in Venezuela have resulted in 7.1m refugees fleeing their homes. 80% are hosted by 17 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-63279800
Since the military coup on 1 February, 2021 70,000 have fled Myanmar, 1 million have been internally displaced and 1 million Muslim Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh.
Gang violence, threats and climate changes have resulted in 597K fleeing from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. 3.5m have fled Haiti because of political upheaval, economic chaos, and natural disasters. 2m+ are in the US. Recently 26K Haitians trying to flee from either Haiti or South America have been returned to Haiti.
https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/displacement-in-central-america.html
Recently, with Fidel Castro gone and Cuba suffering severe national disasters and economic failure, 22K people have fled Cuba, a number which will probably grow.
https://www.worlddata.info/america/cuba/asylum.php
Every one of these countries are or were ruled by a dictator, or had their leader deposed by a coup. People leaving their home countries have suffered existential fears and physical deprivations. There is no place like home. Even if this quote comes from a fictional philosophical fantasy (The Wizard of Oz) it is a heartfelt sentiment around the globe.
The threat of violence or being overrun by others causes people to choose authoritarianism, as our current wave of dictators promising to uphold “Nationalism” suggests, and yet authoritarianism is the cause of almost all of the violence people are seeking to escape. The world is stuck in a vicious cycle, and it looks like nations that have never been authoritarian nations want to sign up for this disastrous form of governance.
Strong men exact a price when they promise to fix everything, make all your problems go away. It seems that they make the problems you thought were serious go away because they get replaced by problems that are far worse. (And they steal all your country’s money.)
If we don’t find a way to end migration due to violence and we add to it migration due to climate change, worldwide chaos truly will ensue, and it will doom any attempts to use science and logic to solve the changing climatic realities we are about to face. If indeed people want to stay home we need to help them adapt to the changes in their climates that are making it almost impossible to stay at home. War and disorder, dictator’s disease, are our enemies in fighting climate change and we do not have any scientific, logical solutions.
Since going to war to end authoritarianism will simply exacerbate the current global dilemma it seems hopeless that we will be able to stop the spread of “dictator’s disease” from being the worst world pandemic ever. Experts say that Putin is losing but will there be anything left of Ukraine when he realizes that he has lost. And what will he do next. He is really, really angry. I don’t think he will be able to just float his anger away in a red balloon.
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