By Scott Graber
Many years ago — before the earth had completely cooled — I was a senior (at The Citadel) required to write a thesis in order to graduate. My topic — “The Political Cartoon and the Election of 1932” — was proving troublesome.
A classmate, Ken Tucker, was writing his thesis on the coming invasion from Central America. I thought it was nonsense. But it seems Ken was prescient; although premature; about 50 years ahead of his time.
Let me be clear about the fact that Donald Trump was not my candidate — many know I’m an old, unreconstructed liberal who’s sclerotic, stenotic brain still clings to a “share the wealth” mentality.
Nevertheless the people have spoken; and at least 51% of the electorate want a dramatic change in the way that our government deals with those crossing our Southern border.
The first item on Trump’s to do list will be illegal migrants; and may involve round-ups and removal to transient camps somewhere in the Nevada desert. One envisions vast tent cities and a non-stop shuttle to San Salvador. All of which reminds us of the “internment” of the Japanese-Americans in World War II — an internment we now regret.
But we all understand that this South to North migration is not unique to the United States. This is a problem that effects Western Europe — especially Britain, France, and Germany. It is a problem that dominates political debate in Italy, Austria and Hungary. It is a problem that fuels anger and indignation in most of the world lying below the Equator.
In Europe, the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea create a barrier to migration from Africa. But hundreds of thousands of immigrants die in the dunes, drown in the ocean or are otherwise killed on their way to Europe. Incredibly some somehow survive the trip, arrive dehydrated and penniless, and live in the shadows around Naples and Paris.
In France, there are some who believe that France created this problem when it colonized Western Africa; and that France then removed oil, uranium and cocoa from former colonies like Congo, Senegal and the Ivory Coast. And, along the way, the French also harvested artifacts like masks, sculpture, ceremonial swords and beaded helmets that were thereafter installed in various museums where they were admired by Picasso and Apollinaire.
One particular museum — Musee du Quai Branly on the banks of the Seine — now houses three hundred thousand pieces of art in a new building devoted to Africa, Asia and other places that once were part of the French Colonial Empire. Recently, a young woman, Mati Diop, finished-up a film that tells the story of some of these artifacts.
Julian Lucas, writing in the Nov. 4 New Yorker, says, “Her new film, a fantastical documentary called “Dahomey” chronicles the return of the so-called Dahomey treasures, comprising 26 of the many art works that French troops seized in the 1890s while subjugating the kingdom. (A newspaper of the time crowed that the vanquished natives, whose ‘painted gods’ had failed to defend them, ‘wouldn’t miss the wood.’)”
But in 2018 Emmanuel Macron made it clear that he wanted France out of Africa.; and he agreed to return the 26 treasurers to Benin.
“Diop’s film follows them (the 26 pieces) from Quai Branley to a hero’s welcome in Cotonou, the country’s largest city, where they are discussed by students at a local university after exhibition at the Presidential Palace.
“‘I cried for fifteen minutes,’ one student says after seeing the show. Another declared, ‘What was looted more than a century ago is our soul.’”
In recent years, certain African nations have charged that climate change is also the responsibility of the “North.” They say the droughts, floods and the advance of the Sahara (into neighboring countries) is the fault of the “Industrial North,” who pump millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
And, of course, they want compensation for this negligence, reparations for the industrial revolution, and this fuels more fear in the “North.”
The repatriation of illegals in the United States was the centerpiece of the Trump campaign. It fueled the anger that got many of Trump’s supporters to the polls on Tuesday. It was an issue that Harris tried to deflect by saying that Trump torpedoed legislation that would have solved the problem.
Apparently that deflection didn’t work.
Of the various promises made by Trump, this is the hardest, the most difficult to keep. How he deals with this problem will be watched by Western Europe.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
