“Once we leave Spain, we never look back.” Those are the words of a newly naturalized U.S. citizen who was born and raised in Spain. His words came to mind while watching Kenneth Branagh’s very excellent (and plainly autobiographical) new film, Belfast.
There’s a joke in Belfast that will surely be mangled by me. It’s about why so many Irish leave Ireland: so that the world will have cops is the answer, or something like that. It comes off much better in what is a truly uplifting movie.
Belfast takes place in late 1960s Northern Ireland. It’s shot in black and white to presumably set a mood. The Belfast of fifty years ago wasn’t the prosperous one of today. It was violent and bereft of opportunity. It was bleak.
At the same time, people are people. There was happiness. Even though the city was desperately poor, even though its unemployment rate was extraordinarily high, even though religious violence had come to define the city, there was still joy.
This is of importance given the decision that young Buddy’s parents face. Buddy is presumably based on Branagh himself. Buddy’s father works for a company in London, and he’s on the way up. London is where the opportunity is. As previously mentioned, the rate of unemployment in Belfast is nosebleed high. Buddy’s father, Pa, sees the family every two weeks upon return from England. This isn’t ideal, but he owes back taxes to the government, plus earnings options in Belfast are scant. The choice faced by Buddy’s family is whether to stay or go.
The main thing is that the choice isn’t an easy one. This is useful to bring up given the oft-stated lament about theoretically open borders that if the U.S. opened its own, the whole world would show up. No, it wouldn’t. It’s not easy to leave all that you know. West Virginians are free to move to any U.S. state not West Virginia, but the Mountain State isn’t empty. What’s true domestically is true globally.
Which speaks to Branagh’s shooting of life in Belfast as not all misery. Buddy’s beautiful mother, Ma, does not want to leave Belfast. She loves it. And she loves it despite knowing what little it offers economically, and how much it would limit the futures of her kids, Buddy and Will. They don’t want to leave either. Life goes on even amid intense violence and misery that includes outdoor plumbing. Buddy’s family is happy.
This is worth keeping in mind when the unwashed make their way to the U.S. now. It’s not an easy decision to pick up everything and move. It’s obviously a scary one to give up what you know in order to start all over. About this, some are no doubt thinking that the Irish who left Ireland for something better were somehow “better,” more “civilized,”more “acculturated,” and more “American,” “British,” “Canadian.” They certainly weren’t viewed that way at the time. As Benjamin Disraeli put it about the Irish in the 19th century, “They hate our free and fertile isle. They hate our order, our civilization, our enterprising industry, our sustained courage, our decorous liberty, our pure religion. This wild, reckless, indolent, uncertain, and superstitious race has no sympathy with the English character.” People emigrate to improve themselves.
The main thing is that the courage to “get up and go” is rare indeed. Buddy’s father wants something better for himself, but most of all for his kids. Despite this, Belfast is defined by back-and-forth about what to do.
Ultimately economic prudence wins out. In retrospect, it’s easy to be grateful for Branagh’s parents caring enough about him and his siblings to get out of Northern Ireland. The simple truth is that if he’d spent all his days in Belfast, Kenneth Branagh would not be Kenneth Branagh. Belfast’s loss was the world’s gain. Still, let’s not forget why they moved. Opportunity. It’s fun to imagine immigrants just coming for free stuff, but few would risk it all for the meager offerings of any government, including the one in the U.S. Furthermore, we know from the work of the Wall Street Journal’s Mary O’Grady that during periods of slow U.S. economic growth, border crossings decline substantially. Immigrants are strivers, not takers. And then it’s worth remembering that these are human beings coming to the United States, and they’re generally coming because their situation is desperate.
After which it’s useful to remind immigration skeptics what the inflow of strivers says about the country receiving the inflow. It’s the ultimate market signal. And it’s a positive one. Belfast vivifies this truth. Branagh’s family did not want to leave, but Pa kept bringing home brochures about Australia, Canada, and other British Commonwealth countries where jobs were more plentiful.
Looked at from an American angle, we’ll know the U.S.’s best days are behind it when the world’s ambitious stop coming to the United States, or when they look back upon coming to the United States. It will be a very pure market signal of a country in decline such that those looking to rise up no longer view it as the place to maximize their talents. So far, that’s not true. For this we should be grateful. To be clear, the mess on the southern U.S. border right now is a signal of government failure. The people at the border are a sign that opportunity here is still abundant.
At the conclusion of Belfast, when Pa takes his family to a new life in England, Granny (played by Judi Dench) sees them off at the bus stop. She’s not sad. She knows they’re making the right choice. “Go now,” she says. “I love you. Don’t look back.” An unwillingness to look back explains why immigrants have been improving their chosen countries for centuries, and why they’ll continue to.
