Everyone Believes in Preserving Their Countries from Mass Migration

A revealing little moment in an Atlantic interview with Spanish economist Jesus Fernandez Villaverd. Villaverd’s premise, that the UN is overstating birth rates and that there is an even bigger worldwide decline, is interesting, but gets little meaningful airing, What is interesting is when the economist shows what the impact of mass migration would be on some of the world’s nations.

Japan right now is around 98 percent ethnically Japanese. If we wanted to keep the population of Japan constant in 200 years through immigration, in 200 years Japan will be 5 percent Japanese and 95 percent non-Japanese. This is not about bringing in a few immigrants. This is about changing your country. That country will not be Japan. You may say, “I’m perfectly fine. I’m not attached to the idea of Japan in the abstract.” But I can see a lot of Japanese say, “This is not about being a xenophobe. This is not about being anti-immigrant. This is about not having a country anymore.”

In Spain, in addition to Spanish, we have regional languages like Catalan. The problem is Catalonia is getting a lot of immigrants. The immigrants are not Catalan speakers. Their kids may learn Catalan in school, but they don’t speak Catalan. Given the current level of immigration, Catalan, I have forecast, is doomed as a language. It will not exist. Some people will always speak it in a small village in the mountains, but as a working language of day-to-day life, Catalan is doomed. If you’re a native Catalan speaker, this is existential. So this is not about being anti-immigrant because I’m a nasty guy. This is not about being racist. This is just about saying, “Don’t I have a right to my language to still exist?” I’m an immigrant myself, so it’s not that I’m against immigration. But like everything, it needs to be within a reasonable degree.

Is wanting your country, culture or language to go on existing racist? If so, everyone is a racist.

Jesus Fernandez Villaverd is being reasonably honest about the consequences of mass migration. Most of its proponents aren’t. When Villaverd puts forward more exotic examples, like Catalonia or Japan, it gets a nod, but mention the idea that perhaps eliminating America or England might not be a good thing and you’d get exactly that reaction.

Does French get a right to exist? Does the western canon? Do countries have a right to limit mass migration to preserve themselves without being accused of racism if they want to survive?