In many European countries, immigrants are socially excluded: those who don’t have access to education or count with necessary sanitary services; those who are exploited at work without a contract or are threatened by unfair businesspeople. Not to mention those who are ill-treated because of the color of their skin or those trapped in inhumane slavery networks, or those who are forced and induced to commit crime, taking advantage of their poverty. Human Rights associations in many European countries work against those xenophobic attitudes.
Some people consider immigrants as outcasts along with the homeless, drug addicts or prisoners. However, immigrants are people with a normalized life in their countries and the only thing they are after is a job to improve their living conditions.
NGO’s provide many assistance services that should be demanded from public administrations. The role of humanitarian organizations should focus on the promotion of cultural exchange values. Volunteers are asked for an attitude of comprehension and respect when they participate in awareness activities to help people look at immigrants without prejudice.
It’s fair just that each country organizes its legal structures to regulate immigration and to adapt it to its social, political and economic circumstances. But it is not fair to look at the new barbarians as a threar to the limes (frontier in the Roman Empire) of this expired European Empire, rather than as an incentive. We should get closer to listen to them, to respect them and to share their knowledge without imposing on them a cultural model that makes them quit their own or, even worse, to try to absorb them.
The emigrant always has powerful reasons to leave his land. One must remember why millions of Europeans and Spaniards left, of which almost two millions still live outside.
Anything belonging to immigrants by right will be taken away from us forcefully in the name of that same justice. Neocolonialism and paternalist aids are not welcome anymore, nor the pretended salvation of their souls while we steal their resources. It will soon be necessary to question the concept of “aid for development” to focus problems from necessary reparation and from the commercial relations between equals. Solidarity is necessary as a strong and constant determination to work for everybody’s well being. Also for the well being of us old European mixed breeds.

José Carlos García Fajardo
Profesor of Contemporary Social and Political Thought. CCS Director
fajardoccs@solidarios.org.es