Migration in Asia-Europe Relations

There is a remarkable difference between viewing migration as a 'social integration' issue, on the one hand, and migration as a 'social relation'. The idea of ‘social integration’ has unrealistic assumptions that see migration as a one-way process, that societies and human relations are static, and that migrants are mechanical. Policies that are founded on unrealistic assumptions are most likely to generate tensions, conflicts, and contradictions. For a migration process to succeed in forging social harmony and development, it is therefore of decisive and crucial importance to regard migration as a ‘social relation’. This is simply because successful migration has to be a harmonious synergy between the migrants (and also the sending countries where they come from) and the receiving society (and its people). As indicated, migrants enter into the receiving society not merely as a passive commodity but as a social force who are proactively involved in the political, economic, and cultural evolution of the receiving country (as well as the sending countries). Societies evolve; they are not static. A society is like an organism capable of change and constantly engaged in the process of change.