Europe’s deadly border theatre is back

On July 10, Thanos Plevris, the Greek curate for migration, announced caller authorities that would efficaciously contradict asylum to those who scope the Greek shores pursuing a treacherous travel done the Mediterranean from Africa. “Greece volition not tolerate the uncontrolled introduction of thousands of irregular migrants from North Africa,” Plevris said during an interview. Reactions against Greece’s caller authorities were immediate: Human rights organisations described it arsenic amerciable and called for its withdrawal. The Plenary of Greek Bar Associations emphasised that denying the close to asylum is simply a usurpation of planetary and EU legislation.

On the aforesaid day, but connected the different broadside of the continent, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer outlined a “ground-breaking deal” with France, which helium said would people tiny boats and smuggling gangs and nonstop “a wide connection that these life-threatening journeys are pointless”. The UK-France woody has been criticised by each sides of the governmental spectrum. Organisations specified arsenic Doctors Without Borders called it “reckless”, “ill-fated” and “dangerous”, portion the Migrants’ Rights Network emphasised that the caller statement volition not forestall radical from trying to transverse to the UK.

Greece and the UK’s caller plans to curb migration are acceptable to fail, and the crushed is simple: migration deterrence does not work.

A decennary ago, successful the summertime of 2015, the European Union faced a situation it did not expect and for which it had not prepared. The emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, besides known arsenic ISIS), Syria’s brutal civilian warfare and instability successful Afghanistan led thousands of radical to question information and information successful the European Union. The “long summertime of migration” marked the opening of the alleged exile situation successful the EU. Yet the EU did not person a wide plan; the European Agenda for Migration, which had been agreed upon successful May 2015, had not yet been tested.

Today, the communicative of a situation continues to signifier migration argumentation crossed Europe. In Greece, it has served to warrant restrictive deterrence measures since 2015, making caller crackdowns unsurprising. For Greece’s neoliberal government, migration is simply a blemish connected the communicative of its economical success. In the UK, it is utilized to substance far-right sentiment. In some cases, migration argumentation is crafted not lone to deter arrivals but besides to fulfill home governmental demands.

Neither migration program should beryllium viewed successful isolation from the emergence of the acold close crossed the continent. The adoption of far-right rhetoric surrounding the illegalisation of migrants has been utilized successful some countries to warrant inhumane policies. The justification for Greece’s caller argumentation centres connected a questionable communicative of an “invasion” from Africa – a trope the Migration Minister has invoked repeatedly. For Greece’s curate of migration, the Greek border, and by hold the European border, indispensable beryllium reinforced truthful that lone “real refugees” tin bask the benefits of European protection. For the British government, tiny boats person the powerfulness to “undermine [the country’s] borderline security”, according to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and should truthful beryllium prevented from entering.

Although each migration program is the merchandise of antithetic governmental processes successful Greece, the EU and the UK, their plan and the narratives utilized to warrant them are akin successful respective ways. They some conceptualise the migrant and the borderline successful akin terms. For each state, the migrant is seen arsenic a menace to the border, and the borderline is viewed arsenic successful request of protection. The migrant who reaches each country’s shores is criminalised, and the word “illegal migrant” has gained prominence among authorities officials. The border, successful turn, is seen arsenic a information mechanics that indispensable beryllium defended against those trying to scope it. Together, these approaches make an “us versus them” communicative of division. Migrants are reduced to their migratory identity; they are seen arsenic a mass, and their idiosyncratic experiences nary longer matter. As such, migrants go worthy oregon unworthy of planetary protection, desirable oregon undesirable to the Western nation-state. Only those perceived arsenic “real refugees” are deemed deserving of planetary protection. The “undesirables” are turned into thing and are expelled by the border. As a result, a communicative of fearfulness is promoted and a situation is manufactured.

Although the events astatine the European borderline became known arsenic a “refugee crisis”, they were, successful fact, a situation of the European border.

During the borderline crisis, the European borderline authorities emerged stronger than ever before, and the EU’s neoliberal imaginativeness of a borderless satellite collapsed. Walls were erected passim the continent, caller borderline technologies were deployed to deter and expel the “undesirables”, and pushbacks, quality rights violations and unit were normalised. Death continues to loom implicit the European continent’s borders. The UK-France woody whitethorn person been described arsenic ground-breaking, but the EU-Turkiye woody successful 2016 paved the mode for specified “swap” policies. These agreements fail. The EU-Turkiye woody whitethorn person reduced the fig of radical crossing the Aegean Sea successful the abbreviated term; however, it did not halt them. Instead, it shifted migratory routes, opened caller ones, and made migratory journeys much analyzable and dangerous.

The crushed for their nonaccomplishment is simple: quality question cannot beryllium controlled. Arguably, it tin beryllium prevented oregon delayed, but it cannot beryllium stopped.

These policies are rooted successful racism and are deliberately designed to make division. Their main purpose is to abstracted quality beings and find who is worthy of surviving successful information and who should beryllium expelled from Western territory. They should not beryllium viewed successful isolation from the EU’s and the UK’s assemblage and capitalist pasts. At the aforesaid time, the spectacle of the borderline is afloat staged: It produces the illusion of power implicit a manufactured situation that cannot genuinely beryllium controlled. In reality, the essence of migration deterrence is not to win but to person citizens that it is necessary.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the authors’ ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.