Migrations

In 1954-59 I had a front-line perspective of migrants entering and settling in Adelaide. Some assimilated and others became hyphenated Australians,  adjusting while preserving their original ethnic and cultural identity. I saw the impact of migration on the health of migrants and occasionally, subtle effects of migrants on the health of those who were already there. My first 'scientific' article in the Medical Journal of Australia (1960) was an anecdotal description of a few health problems associated with migration. It was neither epidemiology nor social demography but since 1960, my interest in the application of social demography and epidemiology to studies of migration and my grasp of the issues, have grown considerably. Several of my published papers focus on social demography, e.g. on the migrations out of the UK of British-trained medical doctors in and before the late 1960s, and into the UK after 1945 of doctors and nurses trained in South Asia, Africa and the West Indies. 

In the second half of the 1950s my family doctor role meant close contact with individuals and families.  I brushed up the German I'd learnt at school, and took Italian lessons for a couple of years - a delightful experience - so I could speak in their own language with immigrants in these large linguistic groups.  I never really mastered either language but the fact that I tried, that I reached out a helping hand in this way, made me warmly welcome in immigrants' homes, more so than any of my colleagues, none of whom made comparable efforts. Two of my colleagues were covertly xenophobic. I began as a salaried assistant in that 10-doctor group practice, the lowest man on the totem pole, doing all the scut work nobody else wanted, including all the out of hours calls to see sick immigrants in the hostel where thousands stayed when they first arrived. In that way I met several families who not only became my loyal patients, but in a few instances, notably Dodie and Harald Ziemer, became personal friends. Dodie and Harald became among our closest friends in Australia: we stayed with them when we returned on several visits after we left Australia, and they stayed with us when they made a world tour after Harald retired from his post as registrar of the Lutheran boys' college in Melbourne.  

I've long been interested in the social demography of the great migrations of recorded history, especially those of the past few hundred years: the European migrations into the Americas and Australasia, the transportation of some 20-30 million black African slaves into South, Central and North America, and the rearrangement of populations according to ethnic and cultural characteristics as colonialism ended, and rearrangement of borders and populations in Europe after the 1939-45 World War. Some mass migrations have been peaceful and orderly; others have not.

The great migration of 2015 is chaotic and bloody. For 5 years Syria has been engulfed in a catastrophic war in which at least 3 major factions and several lesser groups have been slaughtering each other with unprecedented ferocity. At least 11 million Syrians have been displaced and the entire nation has been laid waste. Syria is at the epicentre of a massive migration of Syrians into Turkey, Lebanon and further afield, across the Mediterranean by sea mainly via Libya, and by land via Turkey, Greece and Serbia, entering the European Union in Hungary, whence the preferred destinations are Germany and Scandinavia. Today Hungarian security staff blocked the tsunami of refugees that previously had flowed unobstructed beyond Hungary into western Europe.  Germany has taken tens of thousands of refugees. Britain has taken a few hundred. Canada undertook to accept 10,000, but the Harper government has done its utmost to obstruct the flow.  It's very difficult to get facts from the Harper government. Harper says Canada has accepted 11,000 Syrian refugees. The xenophobic minister in charge of the file says 1100. A United Church spokesman responsible for placing Syrian refugees who manage to get to Canada knows of 29 families, just over 100 people. That's better than Australia  which intercepts 'asylum seekers' and incarcerates them in off-shore concentration camps. Among the reasons I hope to see Harper consigned to the dustbin of history after the next election is that whoever follows him will assuredly adopt a more humane and compassionate refugee policy.  

One Syrian who didn't make it: drowned child on a Mediterranean beach

Syria's descent into the barbarism of its civil war was precipitated by unrest that followed several years of failed harvests: climate change was at the root of it. It's a chilling thought that climate related collapse of social order and the flight of multitudes of refugees is certain to become quite commonplace in the near future. What will be the next hot spot? North China? The American Midwest? Southern California? Eastern Europe and Ukraine?  We live in interesting times...