between new immigrants and established residents, and between workers divided by wage
discrimination. Time and time again, this problem has been declared resolved, or perhaps
supplanted by other supposedly more fundamental conflicts, only to blaze up anew.
(1993:108)The implicit ordering of the difference in terms of race overwhelms every other
consideration of globalization and establishes the myth of the racial other. This ordering
of difference, as Foucault reminds us, permeates every form of knowledge and explains
why the presence of black immigrants is often considered suspect, to the extent of
exclusionary extremities. With this kind of knowledge, it is not surprising that the present
form of imperialism which makes people willingly leave the city of Lagos for London
sucks in the African content without leaving anything behind. Nevertheless, it has
become imperative to rise above the parochial indictment of racism in order to confront
an all-important, crucial question which speaks more pragmatically to the situation on the
ground in the city of London, as in any other city where the pull engendered by the
agglomeration of global capital has resulted in the subsequent agglomeration of labour
from other parts of the world believed to be a major source of such capital accumulation.
To face the fact, the interests at stake here are both those of the migrants and the citizens
of the host nation. As Jon May et al (2007) put it,
But it is less useful in helping to think through the rather more difficult question of how
to address the needs of those previously distant others now ‘here’, without undermining
the equally pressing needs of others Londoners, many of whom were once migrants. Put
simply, how can we champion the cause of Britain’s new migrant workers, and their
dependants elsewhere, without undermining the interests of British workers? (164).For sure, the poser above verges on the domain of the ethical consideration that must be
kept in view and placed at the core of what I prefer to designate as the globalization of
migration. Once the ethical concern is given some thought, it does not take long to realize
how the question of equity which may help to redraw, if not erase permutations of
polarity between the global and non-global cities will apportion to all parties certain
measure of responsibility from each space of home in order to check the disproportionate
flow of both capital and human flow.