I'm angry about the EU/ Belgian elections

Being an immigrant where the majority of people voted against immigration.

Persepolis (Sony Pictures)

I have been living in Europe for six years.

First I lived in Portugal, then Spain until I landed in Belgium, where I currently reside. Each place I lived, I felt at least once treated differently because I wasn't born there. The majority of things were small, others not so much.

Looking back, it's pretty obvious (and a bit disturbing), that since I'm white (not Scandinavian white, but still), I was only harassed when people could tell I'm from Brazil¹.

For instance, it was more likely that people at restaurants and public services treat me poorly in Portugal than in Spain. This is because they recognized my accent immediately. A "good morning" was enough. Similarly, the only incident that I had in Spain came from a waiter when I committed the crime of saying acá instead of aqui, which immediately singled me out as South American.

But, my worst experiences were in Belgium and Germany².

In Belgium, the owner of the apartment I currently live in made me feel like a criminal when I signed the contract. He searched my whole life online: what I worked with, my LinkedIn, my Instagram, and even my parents and what they did. He aggressively questioned me about all this information showing me printed pages with Google searches. To verify that I didn't lie about where I lived, he printed a photo of the front of my house in Brazil from Google maps. I felt like I was in one of those movies where the cops keep showing the accused their evidence and questioning them about the crime committed. I wonder what the crime was? Wanting to rent an apartment or being foreign?

However, the worst situation was in Germany. My partner lived there for a year and a half, and I often visited him. I was arriving at night on the train, but my phone suddenly didn't have data, so I couldn't tell him I was arriving early. There were also two different stations he could pick me up from, so I was scared we wouldn't find each other.

I noticed this group of women who had been traveling along with me since Brussels. I asked one of them for help, and she offered her phone for me to call. She was OK with that, but the German woman that met them at the station wasn't. The moment she heard me speaking in Portuguese she screamed at me in English. Her words were "These people, you offer them a hand, they take the whole arm." She screamed at me and at the whole station about how awful people like me were for what seemed like an eternity. I just talked as quickly as possible and moved far away from the lady. Then I cried my heart out.

Of course, those are not the majority of encounters, they are rare. In spite of that, it still makes you fear interacting with the locals. It changes your behavior. It definitely made me afraid of the landlord and asking anything of him. It made me afraid of moving again, or asking for help from people on the streets.

And again, I'm at least South-European white. Nothing about my appearance singles me out. I can't even begin to imagine what people who look or dress different have to endure. And even if I'm an immigrant, I am a "premium" immigrant having an EU passport. For all accounts I'm European and my struggles don't even compare with other immigrants and refugees.

The elections

Two weeks ago we had elections for the EU parliament and the Belgian and Flemish governments.

Belgium is a weird country. It is as if there were three different countries in one: Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part), Walloon (the French-speaking) and Brussels (the capital). Each of them has their own parliament and government and can work separately quite well.

The results were pretty bad, especially in Flanders, where I live. The most voted party here was the extreme-right Vlaams Belang with around 23% of the votes. The second most voted N-VA is also conservative, but not as extreme-right as Vlaams Belang. They got 22% of the votes. That means that 45% of voters in Flanders³ voted in favor of the parties with an anti-immigration platform.

Almost half the people here are in favor of anti-immigration measures that include everything from adopting a strict point-based immigration system like Canada and Australia, to directly deporting people who "don't adapt”. Even international students are not welcome according to the extreme-right.

It feels disheartening to be in a country where a majority voted for you not to be here. And an increased feeling of hostility towards immigrants will certainly affect me too. When anti-immigrant sentiment is wide spread, xenophobic attacks are always possible.

Being anti-immigration is stupid

Most European countries' populations are declining. People have fewer children⁴ and live longer. Countries whose populations are not decreasing are only doing so because they're constantly attracting new residents.

Less people and an older population mean less work and work is what makes any economy grow. Immigrants are mostly working-age people and work hard. We pay taxes and social security (in Belgium, A LOT) that supports everyone else in the country. It helps support the welfare state they have here.

Immigrants grow any economy. If all of us left, as some people want us to do, the economy would collapse. A small scale of that happened with Brexit. It's not too difficult to see.

Brexit happened because some British were tired and scared of immigrants. So now, there are fewer immigrants and their economy is declining. There is no doubt that it is not the only cause, but I find it funny that countries like Poland have experienced an economic boom after people returned from the UK. It just proves how critical people are to make any country, no matter where they are from.

Immigrants would happily be in their countries if there were more opportunities

We give up a lot living in another country. We give up being with our friends, families, seeing kids grow. We have to constantly navigate another language, culture, new rules and bureaucracy. Sometimes we have to face racism and xenophobia...it is tiring. We would certainly love to move back if we knew there were the same opportunities and quality of life in our own countries. But there isn't and a lot has to do with hundreds of years of colonialism, imperialism and economic exploitation.

Differently from what people think, developing countries are not how they are because they're warm and that makes us lazy.

If you can understand the simple Marxist concept that we as workers produce far more for those who hire us than what we are paid for, and that this difference between what is produced and what we earn is the surplus capital that makes companies rich, you can understand how the global north exploits the global south.

The countries on the periphery provide cheap labor and commodities for the rich countries. All profits from these cheap resources are kept by the Global North. The difference between the profit made from our resources and what we earn back is enormous⁵. It's what allows countries in Europe to have safe cities, workers' rights, a social safety net, free healthcare, reliable public transport, good job opportunities, etc. All the things immigrants come here seeking.

While Europe has superior life quality, our countries are left with weakened rights, jobs that don't pay enough and even slavery. We are left with environmental destruction, pollution and enormous inequality. Foreign companies don't allow our industries and companies to flourish, so we have to buy expensive imported products made from our own materials and work, sent back to us.

And that's been happening for centuries. I won't even delve into colonization's brutality with forced work, flagging, burning villages and severed body parts. Or how our governments are controlled by IMF debts, which makes it impossible to achieve anything. Or that any governor that fights back against imperialism is quickly named "communist" and, if lucky, impeached, if unlucky, killed or bombed.

All of that and much more keeps our countries underdeveloped and serving as cheap labor and a place for cheap commodities to feed capitalism. So, yes, it is only logical that people try to find better lives in Europe and other rich countries.

Europeans immigrated everywhere

You know why I have the European passport I mentioned before? My grandfather was Portuguese. His family immigrated to Brazil in the early 1900s. On my father's side I also have a great-grandmother who came as a baby on a boat from Spain to Brazil in the late 1800s. There are probably more stories like that that I don't even know of.

There were many migration waves from different European countries throughout the centuries. It has been the norm in the Americas. Especially the last two century saw European refugees fleeing hunger, war, or simply looking for a better life⁶.

It's quite interesting how they can relocate anywhere they want, seeking a better life. However, they find it incredibly unacceptable that any of us would do the same.

Even now a days, with the increase of digital nomads, it's quite common to see Europeans living in warm countries such as Bali, Thailand and Mexico. They completely disrupt the economy and culture in these places. There's an unprecedented price rise, locals have to move out. But that's OK, right?

This hypocrisy, combined with the fact that it will actually be a problem for them to not have immigrants and that they have continuously damaged the whole planet for at least 500 years, making our countries almost unlivable, makes me pretty mad.

The stories I told at the beginning of this text are important to emphasize that I am scared of this election as well. Not only for me, but for all of those searching for a better life on the continent that invented racism. If you know a bit of history, it's not too difficult to imagine how dangerous things can turn.

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‘Exterminate all the Brutes’ by Sven Lindqvist

Very well-written and easy to read, although it will certainly make you angry. Lindqvist mixes his own travel diary through the Sahara, with other writers' accounts, mainly Conrad Grant and his character's line in The Heart of Darkness - to 'Exterminate All the Brutes'. While also describing different “civilizational” expeditions done in different countries such as Congo, Algeria, Benin and Nigeria. He also uses many quotes from colonial times, from Cuvier, to Darwin and Churchill to illustrate European attitudes about Africans. Even if you think you have an idea of how this will unfold, I still recommend reading it.

Persepolis (2007)

Persepolis is an autobiographical animated movie that tells the story of Marjane Satrapi and her family. Through her life we can follow the twists and turns of political life in Iran from the 70s to the 90s, and how harsh life was for those from Iran inside and outside of its borders. At some point during her teenage years she lived in Austria and found it really difficult to “adapt” to life there.

Mo

Mo follows Mohammed "Mo” Najjar as he navigates life as an asylum seeker in the United States. The series stars comedian Mo Amer as the titular character. The series is loosely based on Amer's own life as a Palestinian refugee living in Houston, Texas. Although it handles difficult topics, it is still lighthearted, and a second season is coming soon (a rarity these days).

1. Or South American.

2. A country I didn't even live in.

3. When you consider the whole Belgium, things are a little better. Both Flemish conservatives and extreme right got 28.4% of the votes together.

4. A median of 1.5 children per woman

5. If you want to learn more about this topic there's an excellent podcast episode from Upstream called How the North Plunders the South.

6. Not only Europeans. During the last two centuries at least half a million Japanese fled to Brazil. As of today, it's the place with the most Japanese people outside Japan. And, of course, Nipo-Brazilian immigrants who return to Japan are treated as second-class citizens.