Is immigration disruptive? The answer all depends on your individual perspective. From my view, you cannot argue for free trade and then put up controls on people who want to immigrate. You cannot use a lack of integration as an excuse to discriminate against immigrants; after all, most colonizers did not integrate into the countries they colonized. Societies prosper when they open their doors, and despite how much the Americans, the British or the French complain about non-Caucasian minorities, they also need to see how much immigrant doctors, engineers and professionals have contributed to their society. Every American who is not a Native American is an immigrant, and one should never forget that no land belongs to anybody in the true historical sense.

This is an interesting question given the recent riots in France, protests in Malaysia by Malaysians of Indian origin, and with human migration generally becoming a more critical subject. Immigration has always been an integral part of the human saga of development, and under various names the phenomenon of people seeking new opportunities in new lands has always been there: in America, in Australia, and so on. In the modern world it has become more of an issue and more 'disruptive,' as nationalist sentiments make one question the rationale of allowing 'other people' into a society. In a number of former colonizing societies – Great Britain, France, The Netherlands – the 'import' of cheaper labor in the post-colonial era resulted in large migrations of people, particularly in England. With higher birth rates and the tendency of such immigrants not to assimilate, one can are England is now facing 'reverse colonialism'; who would have though 50 years ago two members of the House of Lords will be Asian descent.

In the overall scheme of human settlement, the disruptive element of immigration has been nominal. While riots may seem to suggest a catastrophe waiting to happen, the reality is less troublesome. In France it is the French youth who are being hooligans; they happen to be of African or Moroccan descent, but make no mistake: they are born and bred Frenchmen. Immigration is not the issue - our attitude towards people is.