Politics: Exodus and War....Again

Politics

I was reading an article today, in the New York Times, about the Iraqi the middle-classes lining up to leave Iraq. This is usually a sign that the situation, in any country suffering from internal strife, is about to enter into a state of chaos and disintegration.

From Cuba to Vietnam, Iran to the Balkans, and too many countries in Africa, when the middle-classes begin to pack their bags and leave, take their wealth, education, and commercial expertise and fly somewhere more hospitable and welcoming, then that country from which they are fleeing is about to undergo profound change.


As of 2003 there were 11.9 million refugees and asylum seekers worldwide, and 23.6 million internally displaced persons worldwide. This number has undoubtedly increased since then, and more and more of the Western nations are having a hard time coming to grips with the tide of political and economic refugees that are flooding across their borders.

But a middle-class exodus is quite different from the poor and hungry masses that pour into and populate refugee camps around the world. They are also different from the people who cross borders simply to make some money to send to the folks back home, like millions who stream across the southern border of the USA.

A middle-class exodus is the death knoll for any economy. Several dictators in Africa have made the mistake of exiling their merchant classes, ordering them out. They went and they left behind them shops and factories that were soon looted and later lamented.

For all the talk of success in Iraq, this is surely a sign that things are not going well at all. Civil war looms in Iraq and, like many before them the world over, the middle class will flee to safer havens and watch their old world end from some foreign suburban utopia, where they can build again and prosper.


Without their contribution to the economy any nation will fail. Will they return when all is made safe? Will their children even want to?