The institution of political asylum needs to be scrapped

Is a nation morally obliged to honour current refugee conventions set out by international organizations such as the UN? When considering the consequences of these policies and the severe repercussions they are having on the affected nations the answer has to be a resounding no. No nation should be made to uphold laws and conventions that severely weaken their ability to uphold an orderly society and subsequently surrenders their national sovereignty. To religiously and uncritically follow the recommendations of unelected international organizations without giving the slightest considerations as to whether the recommendations offered by these are beneficial or not cannot be labelled as sound practice and should therefore be rejected on a moral basis. Before any important decision is made in any matter the consequences should always be weighed up against one another. If the benefits exceed the disadvantages then it stands to reason that the decision is a healthy one and vice versa. Unfortunately this principle is no longer held in high regard in the western world. Today important political decisions are largely dictated by emotions rather than reason unlike a couple decades ago when logic was a much more prevalent feature.

Recommendations and laws should always be subjected to strict scrutiny before they are applied in order to avoid undesirable consequences. The current conventions on refugees have become a straitjacket that has been forced upon the nations of the west and one which they seem unable to extricate themselves from. Even hinting about the validity of the laws is equated to racism and is condemned in the strongest of terms. In Europe, the cradle of democracy, new laws have even been introduced to limit and discourage criticism of such politically correct doctrines. We are now at a stage where swift sanctions will be implemented against those countries that are tempted to violate what has been dictated to them by these unelected and highly undemocratic international organizations. The conventions have successfully removed the right of western nations to stake out their own future and thus the right to decide their own fate which flies in the face of the universal declaration of human rights drafted by the UN in the aftermath of WW2. International treaties have become the almighty deity which the righteous elites worship and which cannot under any circumstances be question. It has almost taken on a religious form.

In the western world the principle of offering a safe haven to those who are persecuted for their political beliefs is a noble one which most rational people would agree with. The practice of bestowing indisputable rights to any person entering the west claiming to be persecuted however is not. The reluctance to take on board this simple fact has resulted in the hijacking of these conventions by economic migrants and the organized criminal gangs that make billions aiding them. The conventions have become the most important cog in the economic redistribution machinery in which poor people from the third world are allowed to resettle in the more affluent west at an enormous financial cost to the host nations and with the overhanging threat of severe sanctions against those countries that don’t comply. The refugee conventions have morphed into a system that rewards those on the lower rungs of the social ladder and not those it was intended to help i.e. the ones fleeing political persecution. It’s a system which grants immense rights to the poor at the expense of the middle and working classes.


There is also a racial aspect to it which is largely ignored, as the laws cater solely to ethnic and religious minorities. It’s a paradox that nations claiming to abhor racial discrimination grant political asylum to individuals from Afghanistan with all the financial benefits this entails on the basis that they are poor, but on the other hand vehemently refuse to extend the same favour to poor people from other western nations. It comes across as a discriminatory policy when considering that the element of political persecution has been completely removed from the equation. The system is in fact so flawed that we have now reached the stage where criminals that commit heinous crimes in their native countries cannot be deported on the basis that it’s a violation of their human rights. Even in those cases where they commit violent crimes in their host nations and constitute a real danger for the indigenous population the laws that dictate these matters are so strict that they cannot be deported. The act of granting political asylum to hardened criminals can never be justified morally, nor can it be justified that the act of evading justice has become a criterion for political asylum. If the aim of the conventions was to prevent criminals from being executed one might as well introduce a scheme in which inmates on death row in the third world were allowed to come to the west in order to prevent such penalties. The policy of harbouring fugitives and enabling them to prey upon the law-abiding can never be justified morally.

The current refugee conventions are flawed because they don’t acknowledge that the interest of the nation states has to take precedent and not the interest of the refugees. No one has the moral right to dictate to other nations how they should govern their countries as long as they don’t engage in genocidal policies or in other ways actively engage in brutal persecution of their own citizens. Just as no human has the right to dictate to others what they can and cannot believe in, or to dictate how they should conduct their lives. If a nation refuses to accept asylum seekers, both genuine and bogus, then that’s for them to decide. One can feel morally appalled about such a decision, but the world community should not have the right to force or use sanctions against those nations until they change their ways. If the world community is upset about grave human rights violation then the world community should rather intervene militarily in the country where the alleged abuses are taking place and not punish innocent countries that play no part in such human rights violations. To force a free and democratic nation to accept ideologically driven policies is just as immoral as the decision to refuse to offer a safe harbour for someone who is politically persecuted.

One could also maintain that it is morally unacceptable for asylum seekers to conceal their true identity from the authorities in their host nations in order to receive political asylum. One could easily describe such activities as immoral and criminal. One could also claim that the act of deliberately misleading the authorities in order to receive benefits one isn’t legally entitled to is fraud. Genuine political refugees are individuals who have taken part in activities which aim to democratize the political system in their native countries. Genuine political refugees don’t travel half way across the globe bypassing several democratic countries in the process based on selfish financial considerations which is the case today. Genuine refugees want to return to their native countries when the opportunity arises, unlike today’s asylum seekers whose overriding goal is to relocate permanently to the west based solely on financial considerations. Nor do genuine refugees import undemocratic principles espoused by the regimes they had to flee from, unlike the majority of today’s bogus asylum seekers which overwhelmingly embrace the norms and values of their native countries.  

It’s also a paradox that western governments support and sponsor highly undemocratic regimes, but at the same time acknowledge that asylum seekers fleeing from these regimes are entitled to our protection. How can a government justify granting political asylum to someone who is fleeing from a regime that they are investing huge resources in propping up as is the case with the Afghan regime? It is not immoral to assert that a society has the moral right to stake out its own political path and decide its own future, nor is it immoral to assert that a government has the right to take extraordinary steps to ensure the safety of its citizens. Any international law or treaty that removes this right is a flawed one. The decision has to be made by the nation itself and none other. One could of course dismiss this argument with the assertion that it would be a violation of current international refugee conventions and leave it at that, but one could also try to delve a little bit deeper into the matter and analyse it in a rational way. Unfortunately it’s political incorrect to talk about the very severe repercussions the policies are having for the host nations in the western world. The willingness to uphold the interest of one’s own nation seems to be a thing of the past. It seems that the lack of a tangible external enemy such as the Soviet Union, which was the case during the cold war, have inhibited the west’s ability to see clearly and reject policies that are detrimental to the stability of our societies. It is important that we challenge the political leadership of the west whenever they try to convince us that their hands are tied in these matters and claim that the final decision rest solely with international organizations such as the UN. The refugee conventions are only convenient tools for left leaning governments to implement their own policies which aim to create multicultural societies in the western world, and that is why they should be rejected. Humans are granted inalienable rights maybe it’s time to grant similar rights to nation states too?