[国际新闻] 世界在移动 The World on Move

在西非外海的小国维德角，几乎可看到全球人口迁徙现状的的所有面向：将近一半人口选择向外移民，留下来的人几乎都有亲人旅居欧美，海外侨民汇回来的钱振兴当地经济，政治局势受海外选票左右，移民活动造成骨肉分居两地，咖啡馆里有关海外发展机会、假结婚、伪造文档等话题随处可闻。. L3 }+ U# i3 ^, P0 K
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有学术报告称当前为「移民时代」。当前全球约有两亿人退出出生地，在其他国家长住。移民即使没有促使开发中国家壮大，至少也帮助这些国家维持现况。全球移民去年共汇款三千亿美元回祖国，几乎是国际间援外预算的三倍。这些海外汇款成为帮助全球穷人优化生活不可忽视的力量。
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现年32岁的挪威地理学家卡林长期住在维德角研究当地历史和移民现象，他表示，维德角是全球移民活动矛盾与冲突的缩影，须仰赖人口外移活动去和越来越不欢迎移民的世界打交道。

如果没有移民活动，可能就没有维德角。这个国家由10个小岛组成，直到15世纪才有人居住，被葡萄牙当作欧洲人往来非洲大陆和买卖黑奴的跳板。19世纪末期，捕鲸船将维德角黑奴带向北美新英格兰地区。二次大战后，欧洲百废待举，亟需外来的临时劳力协助战后重建，这些临时工后来就在欧洲落脚。

维德角在一九七五年脱离葡萄牙独立，民众继续通过合法与非法管道向外移民，甚至深以海外侨民比留在本国民众还多自豪。卡林估计，维德角当前有46万人口，海外侨民却多达50万，其中廿六万五千人旅居美国。
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在大量移民协助下，现在维德角国民平均所得是一九九○年的两倍，达两千一百美元，在非洲名行前茅。但移民风气导致维德角人彼此间关系薄弱，例如夫妻分居两地造成婚姻破裂、学生和劳工对周遭事物漠不关心。卡林说，维德角人仰赖外来汇款维生，加上有朝一日自己也可能移民他国，导致民众对周遭环境产生疏离感。' D; E( r1 `  N; q  d

维德角人积极出走，却有不少其他国家的人移往维德角，这正是移民时代的另一个特征，全球移民中，半数是从一个穷困国家移往另一个穷国。例如，在维德角的圣文森特岛，就有许多中国移民开设店铺，也有许多非洲穷国人民到这里讨生活，希望找机会到欧洲。17年前从加纳移往维德角的卡斯林说出移民的心声：「如果一个地方不好，就到另一个地方去。」1 R: N5 c/ H# v+ E

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Stenio da Luz dos Reis, 17, lives in Cape Verde but longs to join his mother in the Netherlands. She moved there in 2001 to find work.

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In a World on the Move, a Tiny Land Strains to Cope

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MINDELO, Cape Verde — Virtually every aspect of global migration can be seen in this tiny West African nation, where the number of people who have left approaches the number who remain and almost everyone has a close relative in Europe or America.2 F/ ?3 V& |, U d* |+ m) J! b2 h

西非外海小国维德角

Migrant money buoys the economy. Migrant votes sway politics. Migrant departures split parents from children, and the most famous song by the most famous Cape Verdean venerates the national emotion, “Sodade,” or longing. Lofty talk of opportunity abroad mixes at cafe tables here with accounts of false documents and sham marriages.
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The intensity of the national experience makes this barren archipelago the Galapagos of migration, a microcosm of the forces straining American politics and remaking societies across the globe.8 y- a7 C$ F, S" I# h  E6 R

An estimated 200 million people live outside the country of their birth, and they help support a swath of the developing world as big if not bigger. Migrants sent home about $300 billion last year — nearly three times the world’s foreign aid budgets combined. Those sums are building houses, educating children and seeding small businesses, and they have made migration central to discussions about how to help the global poor. A leading academic text calls this the “Age of Migration.”3 U' t0 b- J) ^  V3 A# t* j; Q

But it is also the age of migration alarm, as European ships patrol African coasts to intercept human smugglers and new fences are planned along the Rio Grande. Countries that want migrant muscle and brains also want more border control. Many of them see illegal migrants as a security threat, especially in a terrorist age, and worry that large-scale migration, even when legal, can undercut wages, require costly services and subject national identities to bonfires of religious and cultural conflict.csuchen.de9 B! i9 ]7 O( {# Q  A

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LEFT BEHIND Steven Ramos, 11, with one of his nieces in Mindelo, Cape Verde. His mother works in Portugal, his father in the Netherlands.

A FAR-FLUNG FAMILY Maria Cruz, left, who took part in a recent religious festival, has four children who left Cape Verde to work in the United States, Portugal and the Netherlands.
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[ 本帖最后由日月光于 2007-6-25 18:40 编辑 ]

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