By Destine Nde
For some time, now, the hottest topic in the European Union Parliament has been migration. In fact, it is one of the most controversial topics on the agendas of every parliament in the West. This is the issue that determines which parties become popular, or not. Every presidential candidate knows that his or her stance on this issue will determine his electoral appeal.
Europe, indeed the entire West, says it has have been labouring under increasing levels of migration for some time now, and it has become overwhelming. Anti-immigration sentiments are at an all-time high.
In fact, over the past few years, levels of immigration into western European countries have declined; according to Frontex, the European border agency, this was about 5.1 million in 2022, 4.3 million in 2023, 239 000 in 2024, and 166 000 in the first nine months of 2025.
This is a significant decrease, yet the complaints about immigrants are many and diverse, ranging from accusing them of committing crimes of all kinds—political, religious, sexual and financial—and causing cultural disintegration. Every aspiring politician in the West now uses this issue to ingratiate him- or herself into the hearts of voters, making appalling anti-humanitarian threats and promising to take extreme measures to completely solve or at least significantly alleviate the problem. Some extreme measures have indeed been introduced, because this determines whether a leader will remain in power or be ousted.
The European Parliament, where the immigration issue has been hotly debated.
Donald Trump, for example, has built a costly wall along the US-Mexico border, and his ICE have deported thousands of immigrants. In a statement published on 20 January 2025, titled Protecting the American People Against Invasion, the White House said: ‘Over the last four years, the prior administration … oversaw an unprecedented flood of illegal immigration into the United States. Millions of illegal aliens crossed our borders … Many of these aliens unlawfully within the United States present significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous crimes against innocent Americans.’
Similar sentiments are making the headlines: ‘German party leaders are united against immigration’, wrote The Conversation. ‘German far right meet to discuss mass deportation’, announced the BBC. A few days ago, the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said anyone with daughters would agree with him in championing ‘very large-scale’ expulsions of immigrants from cities. When criticized for this, he said, ‘I have nothing to take back.’ In fact as early as 2016, Nigel Farage of Britains’s Reform party used this issue to help win the Brexit referendum.
In recent weeks, huge anti-immigration rallies have blossomed all over the United Kingdom. ‘Over 100 000 joint anti-immigration protesters rally in London’, one headline said. ‘Anti-immigration protests in UK leave many black and brown Britons living in fear’, read another.
Once masses of people start separating themselves on the basis of ‘us versus them’, the world cringes, and the powers that be must begin to worry. There is no other time bomb as deadly as this.
Hotels housing migrants are now easy targets across Europe. ‘Dublin Riots: Police attacked as thousands target hotel for asylum’, said a headline. ‘Hundreds of anti-immigrant protesters burn vehicle, attack police in Dublin’, announced Al Jazeera.
‘People want these hotels to be shut down, and so do I’, said the British prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and continued: ‘I get it, I absolutely get it. I just want to do it as soon as possible and in an orderly fashion.’
Countries are even willing to leave the EU simply because of this issue. They feel their power to manage the crisis is restricted by EU laws—which Matteo Salvini, Italy’s Northern League Leader, describes as ‘mad European policies’.  Salvini has even accused Maeto Renzi – a former prime minister and the leader of Viva Italia – of subordinating the country’s interest to those of the EU. He has described the governments immigration policies as ‘disaster’’, and told his supporters that Renzi had been the ‘foolish servant’ of Brussels. Analysts say Salvini could emulate other right-wing European leaders and capitalise on growing resentment against immigration.
In May, about 400 far-right activists from across Europe convened in Gallarate, Italy, for a summit advocating the ‘remigration’ of foreigners, including descendants of foreigners. Featured speakers decried multiculturalism and warned of the ‘extinction’ of the West’.
Some have described all this as the politics of blame and fear: when economies sputter, when public services are strained, when communities feel fragmented, immigration becomes the symbol for everything wrong with globalisation. It offers politicians a visceral, easy-to-grasp story.
This has resulted in what has been described as a ‘global, far-right rallying cry’, namely: ‘Your housing is unaffordable because of them. Your hospital is overcrowding because of them. Your jobs are threatened because of them. Your beliefs are dying, your people’s morals are corrupting, and your children are rebellious because of them.’
Every headline on global crises are being made by far-right conservatives. It’s hard to find reports on any events organised by far-left organisations. Even quasi-left parties like Germany’s AfD have been forced to adopt the ‘remigration’ policy. Merz of Germany’s CDU/CSU has even clasped hands with AFD’s Alice Weidel.  Angela Merkel had said ‘yes we can do it’, but the West has shocked her with an emphatic no. She must be shuddering.
One can scarcely behold this disturbing crisis without recalling to mind why the infamous Berlin Conference was held. In the last quarter of the 19th century, European powers embarked on a mission to invade and colonise the rest of the ‘uncivilized’ world. It was literally a militaristic, cultural, political and economic onslaught against the entire non-European world. It reached a climax in Africa, whore various European powers began to scramble for territories—the notorious or infamous ‘Scramble for Africa’.
The widespread disorder that ensued began to breed distrust and quarrels among the European powers. Thus, in order to restore order and obviate future altercations, Otto von Bismarck, then the German Chancellor, convened a meeting in Berlin to lay down strict protocols to be followed in respectg of colonisation. This took place on 15-26 February 1884, and is known as the Berlin Conference. It was attended by representatives from 14 European powers, including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium, and was presided over by Bismarck.
It is therefore quite interesting to see the same thing happening today, only in the reverse direction and, for the opposite reasons. Thus far-right activists are campaigning against Europe’s ‘colonization’, and the defence of the continent’s ‘indigenous’ population’.
It seems as if porous borders and uncontrolled influx will no longer be tolerated. As a result, the same European powers that gathered at the Berlin conference have met in the European parliament to lay down rules and procedures for the lawful, safe and smooth entry of non-Europeans into Europe. This has resulted in the European Union Migration Pact, which was approved on 10 April 2024, and is due to take effect in June 2026.
The UK is an apt case study: first, it tried to draw many non-European nations into the British Common Wealth of Nations; today, it is striving towards the direct opposite, namely to withdraw as far as possible from the world and onto its ancestral soil, even from the European Union itself (in the form of Brexit, and the Britain First movement). The same goes for Italy and many other European countries. With its rising ‘self-first’ propaganda, Europe seems to have come full circle.
Now the distinctive and greatest difference between these two opposite waves of migration is this, namely: the first scramble for non-European lands was chiefly for national enrichment and empowerment, to broaden their dominion and increase their international influence by imposing their cultures on others (religion, language, ideas, customs and tastes); whereas the present scramble for a place in Europe is predominantly for self-improvement. There were. of course, a few cases of personal motivation in the first just as there are also a few cases of national interest in the second, but these are all exceptions, nonetheless, and not the norm.
Could it be that the immigration crisis Europe faces today has largely been caused by its prior desire to subjugate and ‘civilize’ the rest of the world? Put differently, is the current state of affairs in Europe a legacy of colonisation? Probably. At the Berlin Conference, Africa was arbitrarily divided among European powers without any profound considerations; neither national boundaries nor the incompatibility of certain cultures were considered. Histories of friendliness or hostility, peace and war, among the various different ethnic and linguistic groups were ignored.
In the place of ancestral borders, entirely artificial ones were drawn, based on the merits and demerits of the claims made by each European power. Much of what cripples postcolonial Africa can be said to have resulted from the Berlin Conference. A nd this is the reason why Africans are now emigrating in droves to Europe in search of a better life, often facing great difficulties and living under subhuman conditions as refugees, continually anxious about deportation.
If these are the symptoms, it is profoundly important to address the causes; for focusing on the symptoms without tackling the underlying causes is like treating the malaria in your household without bothering about the mosquito-infested pools around your house.
Paying immigrants to return to their home countries is not a wise recommendation. A change of regime in Syria, for example, has single-handedly caused the number of asylum applications in the EU to drop by an astonishing 23 per cent in the first half of 2025.
Generally, Europe went into the world to conquer, to teach and to govern; now the world is going to Europe to yield, to learn and be governed. At first the chicken was a wild bird. Then a farmer entrapped and domesticated it. Now, no matter how far the chicken roams, it always comes back to roost behind the farmer’s house. Previously, Europe set out to conquer and civilise the ‘Third World’. Now, entrapped by the remnants of European civilization, the Third World is coming home to roost.
FEATURED IMAGE: An anti-immigration demonstration in Aberdeen, Scotland. (Wikimedia Commons)
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