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Conveniently timed to coincide with the second annual European Day of Action, let this be a discussion of the problems of undocumented migrants (sans papiers, if you will) in Europe.
First, a couple of facts:
There are roughly 55 million undocumented migrants in Europe alone (160-200M in the world, but that's a discussion for another thread).
Europe has a network of refugee/detention camps designed to accomodate migrants until the government decides what to do with them.
There is a large political reaction against migrants even as the European economies lag and population rates continue to decline. Le Pen and whoever the guy was in the Netherlands are the most prominent examples of this, but right wing and even centrist parties are taking up the banner.
And now for the biased bit:
The concept of human rights has been tied unjustly to the rights of the citizen. In the case of these undocumented migrants, they "belong" to no state, and therefore, they have no larger body to protect their rights. Any rights they may accrue during their sojourn in a particular country are "granted." They are a privilege. Given that privileges are something that one can take away, this is an unfortunate development.
Concerning the system of camps: apparently, these are not pleasant sites. People are put into them, and often remain there for as long as two years, they are stripped of any human dignity they once possessed. They have no voice, and at times go to extreme measures to regain that voice (some guy sewed his lips together to symbolize his voicelessness. Others assuredly engage in similar activities).
Even outside of these camps, there is an aura of oppression surrounding treatment of these people. In Brescia, Italy, migrants are, through housing policies, forced to only buy houses in one particular area, now known as Little Darkar. There is a system of police harrassment, in effect a trampling of rights.
Essentially, two trends have been going on in Europe. First, as internal borders are loosened, exterior borders are being strengthened. There have been major initiatives monitor the entire Mediterranean, using a very expensive system of ships, aircraft, and land-based radar networks (operation Ulysses, now cancelled, is a prime example). Borders are also being thickened. Morocco essentially functions as a border, in that Europe runs refugee camps inside Morocco, and puts huge economic pressure on Morocco to heavily patrol its southern border.
Second, inside Europe, people are being made to live as borders. It does not matter how long people have been living in Europe, they are deemed "not European" and shunned from the culture. This has the effect of forcing these people to band together, and discourages them from adopting to local cultures, thus propogating fears of the right. The new international focus on terrorism has made many governments view these people as potential terrorists, and to label them all as "dangerous classes."
Naturally, the less these people are granted rights, the more these people are stereotyped, the more these people are harrassed, the more they are likely to resort to violence. Violence has always been assumed to be the last refuge of the voiceless (look at the mideast - completely voiceless young men instantly transform themselves into international headlines by blowing themselves up), and the more European policies continue in this trend, the more likely it is that Europe will start to experience more of these sorts of incidents.
But most of that is coming out of a liberal arts college. What do we know? I am curious to hear the viewpoint of Europeans on this issue.
First, a couple of facts:
There are roughly 55 million undocumented migrants in Europe alone (160-200M in the world, but that's a discussion for another thread).
Europe has a network of refugee/detention camps designed to accomodate migrants until the government decides what to do with them.
There is a large political reaction against migrants even as the European economies lag and population rates continue to decline. Le Pen and whoever the guy was in the Netherlands are the most prominent examples of this, but right wing and even centrist parties are taking up the banner.
And now for the biased bit:
The concept of human rights has been tied unjustly to the rights of the citizen. In the case of these undocumented migrants, they "belong" to no state, and therefore, they have no larger body to protect their rights. Any rights they may accrue during their sojourn in a particular country are "granted." They are a privilege. Given that privileges are something that one can take away, this is an unfortunate development.
Concerning the system of camps: apparently, these are not pleasant sites. People are put into them, and often remain there for as long as two years, they are stripped of any human dignity they once possessed. They have no voice, and at times go to extreme measures to regain that voice (some guy sewed his lips together to symbolize his voicelessness. Others assuredly engage in similar activities).
Even outside of these camps, there is an aura of oppression surrounding treatment of these people. In Brescia, Italy, migrants are, through housing policies, forced to only buy houses in one particular area, now known as Little Darkar. There is a system of police harrassment, in effect a trampling of rights.
Essentially, two trends have been going on in Europe. First, as internal borders are loosened, exterior borders are being strengthened. There have been major initiatives monitor the entire Mediterranean, using a very expensive system of ships, aircraft, and land-based radar networks (operation Ulysses, now cancelled, is a prime example). Borders are also being thickened. Morocco essentially functions as a border, in that Europe runs refugee camps inside Morocco, and puts huge economic pressure on Morocco to heavily patrol its southern border.
Second, inside Europe, people are being made to live as borders. It does not matter how long people have been living in Europe, they are deemed "not European" and shunned from the culture. This has the effect of forcing these people to band together, and discourages them from adopting to local cultures, thus propogating fears of the right. The new international focus on terrorism has made many governments view these people as potential terrorists, and to label them all as "dangerous classes."
Naturally, the less these people are granted rights, the more these people are stereotyped, the more these people are harrassed, the more they are likely to resort to violence. Violence has always been assumed to be the last refuge of the voiceless (look at the mideast - completely voiceless young men instantly transform themselves into international headlines by blowing themselves up), and the more European policies continue in this trend, the more likely it is that Europe will start to experience more of these sorts of incidents.
But most of that is coming out of a liberal arts college. What do we know? I am curious to hear the viewpoint of Europeans on this issue.
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