During a recent meeting between Spain’s PM Pedro Sanchez and U.S. President Joe Biden, the latter thanked the Spanish government for agreeing to take on more U.S.-bound immigrants, sharing the burden represented by the southern migration flow into the United States.
Biden was referring to an agreement between the U.S., on the one hand, and Canada and Spain, on the other, to place persons seeking asylum in the U.S. in the other two countries. The deal is open-ended as far as numbers are concerned because, as PM Sanchez put it: “We cannot establish numbers, as this will depend on the needs of Spain’s labor market.”
The deal to receive more migration comes in the context of rising crime rates as a result of growing Latin American gang violence in Madrid and other Spanish cities.
As part of the Spanish socialist-led governing coalition’s ongoing quest to systematically surrender Spain’s geopolitical interests to those of the U.S. (at least so far as the Biden administration conceives of them), PM Sanchez failed to negotiate substantial benefits for his country.
There was some speculation concerning concessions Spain might gain in return for agreeing to take on more migration, specifically in terms of getting the Biden administration to contribute to a cleanup of Palomares, a locality in Spain’s southwestern region of Almeria affected by radioactive materials since a 1966 accident involving the U.S. military. According to Sanchez, progress on this front has been made, but nothing concrete has been reported. Another suggestion referred to having the U.S. lower its tariffs on Spanish black olives. For now, at least, this has also come to naught.
The Spanish Space Agency will, however, work with NASA’s Artemis program, possibly on the latter’s project to return to the moon—for all the scant concrete benefits this entails so far as ordinary Spaniards are concerned.
In a bizarre ideological convergence, some staunch critics of Spain’s government who champion the cultural integration of Spanish-speaking countries, in part as a means to increasing Spain’s geopolitical influence, initially celebrated the deal. In this line, Santiago Armesilla, a prominent communist scholar, referred to the benefits of “hispanizing Spain” (albeit he may have reconsidered, as the tweet seems to have been deleted).
The idea is consistent with that which Argentinian professor Marcelo Gullo advocates in his book Madre Patria, where he proposes socially engineering a new, pan-hispanic, identity through Latin American immigration into Spain:
It is undeniable that Europe’s population pyramid is funerary…. Given this circumstance—one we do not think is alterable—it is evident that only the mass immigration of Hispano-Americans could perform the miracle of allowing Spain to remain Spain.… Dear reader, for Spain to continue to be Spain it is necessary for you and all European Spaniards to remember now—and never again forget—that no Hispanic American … is a foreigner in Spain.
This intellectual trajectory, however, is often excessively critical of assertions of Native American identity, rejects Spain’s participation in the European political sphere, and, in any case, does nothing to address the global, economic pathologies which lead to mass migration. As I have written elsewhere,
Such a project is complicit with whatever dynamics lead to low birth rates in richer countries and emigration-generating economic deprivation in poorer ones. Following the professor, however, it seems that, if there is a solution to this—and, ultimately, there must be—it should only be sought after the desirable feat of social engineering through “mass” (Gullo’s word) immigration has been brought to term.
In contrast, then, Spanish collaboration with Central and South American countries should be understood as a geopolitical project to benefit both sides of the Atlantic, also entailing the rediscovery of cultural and familial ties, but without seeking to use migration as an instrument to redefine the culture of receptive countries:
I support political unity for Hispano (Ibero)-America, commercial ties, joint R&D, etc., all with Spain and Portugal’s participation, who should adopt a far more Ibero-Atlanticist orientation … [but the idea that] such a project ought to correspond with the local and personal identity of an Aymara in the Andes, or that a Spaniard should cease to consider himself part of a European civilizational sphere and conceive of his identity as a vector towards Mexico City or Buenos Aires instead, is as impertinent as it is irrelevant.
In other words, the cynical use of mass migration generated by economic disparity as a kind of ideological fantasy wish-fulfillment to produce a new, desired identity runs counter to resolving the causes of poverty, and ends up being complicit with the approach to migration defended by the prevailing political class. Such should be clearly parsed from the project of building edifying geopolitical and cultural ties between countries, including in the context of rehabilitating imperial legacies.
Mass Migration As Ideological Fetish
President Biden met with Prime Minister Sanchez of Spain in the Oval Office, 2023
During a recent meeting between Spain’s PM Pedro Sanchez and U.S. President Joe Biden, the latter thanked the Spanish government for agreeing to take on more U.S.-bound immigrants, sharing the burden represented by the southern migration flow into the United States.
Biden was referring to an agreement between the U.S., on the one hand, and Canada and Spain, on the other, to place persons seeking asylum in the U.S. in the other two countries. The deal is open-ended as far as numbers are concerned because, as PM Sanchez put it: “We cannot establish numbers, as this will depend on the needs of Spain’s labor market.”
The deal to receive more migration comes in the context of rising crime rates as a result of growing Latin American gang violence in Madrid and other Spanish cities.
As part of the Spanish socialist-led governing coalition’s ongoing quest to systematically surrender Spain’s geopolitical interests to those of the U.S. (at least so far as the Biden administration conceives of them), PM Sanchez failed to negotiate substantial benefits for his country.
There was some speculation concerning concessions Spain might gain in return for agreeing to take on more migration, specifically in terms of getting the Biden administration to contribute to a cleanup of Palomares, a locality in Spain’s southwestern region of Almeria affected by radioactive materials since a 1966 accident involving the U.S. military. According to Sanchez, progress on this front has been made, but nothing concrete has been reported. Another suggestion referred to having the U.S. lower its tariffs on Spanish black olives. For now, at least, this has also come to naught.
The Spanish Space Agency will, however, work with NASA’s Artemis program, possibly on the latter’s project to return to the moon—for all the scant concrete benefits this entails so far as ordinary Spaniards are concerned.
In a bizarre ideological convergence, some staunch critics of Spain’s government who champion the cultural integration of Spanish-speaking countries, in part as a means to increasing Spain’s geopolitical influence, initially celebrated the deal. In this line, Santiago Armesilla, a prominent communist scholar, referred to the benefits of “hispanizing Spain” (albeit he may have reconsidered, as the tweet seems to have been deleted).
The idea is consistent with that which Argentinian professor Marcelo Gullo advocates in his book Madre Patria, where he proposes socially engineering a new, pan-hispanic, identity through Latin American immigration into Spain:
This intellectual trajectory, however, is often excessively critical of assertions of Native American identity, rejects Spain’s participation in the European political sphere, and, in any case, does nothing to address the global, economic pathologies which lead to mass migration. As I have written elsewhere,
In contrast, then, Spanish collaboration with Central and South American countries should be understood as a geopolitical project to benefit both sides of the Atlantic, also entailing the rediscovery of cultural and familial ties, but without seeking to use migration as an instrument to redefine the culture of receptive countries:
In other words, the cynical use of mass migration generated by economic disparity as a kind of ideological fantasy wish-fulfillment to produce a new, desired identity runs counter to resolving the causes of poverty, and ends up being complicit with the approach to migration defended by the prevailing political class. Such should be clearly parsed from the project of building edifying geopolitical and cultural ties between countries, including in the context of rehabilitating imperial legacies.
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