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Coherent Selves, Viable States: Eastern Europe and the “Migration/Refugee Crisis”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2017

Dace Dzenovska
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Abstract

This essay argues that what is at stake in debates about the difference between eastern and western Europe in the context of migration and asylum politics is the definition of a politically- and ethically-acceptable threshold of “too many,” which takes on concrete contours in relation to historically-formed understandings of coherent selves and viable polities. The argument derives from placing analysis of the alleged political and ethical failures of eastern Europe alongside those limits of refugee/migrant intake that are considered politically legitimate and ethically justifiable from the mainstream liberal democratic perspective. The essay proposes that in order to understand the European political landscape in relation to migration, it is necessary to undertake relational analysis of the different configurations of the Europe-wide tension between inclusion and exclusion, as well as analysis of the modes of power that differentiate between these configurations of inclusion and exclusion on moral grounds.

Type
Critical Forum: The East European Response to the 2015 Migration Crisis
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , Summer 2017 , pp. 297 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 2017 

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References

1. Some of the ideas in this essay are drawn from my book: Dzenovska, Dace, School of Europeanness: Tolerance and Other Lessons in Political Liberalism in Latvia, (forthcoming, 2018)Google Scholar.

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8. It should be noted that the nature of the crisis has been highly contested. Some argue that it is a humanitarian crisis, others that it is a crisis of Europe. It is also politically consequential whether one uses the term “migrants” or “refugees,” for the European governments’ openness to accepting people crucially depends on a strict separation of deserving refugees from undeserving migrants. For interventions that emphasize eastern Europe's moral and political failures in the midst of crisis, see Rick Lyman, “Eastern Bloc's Resistance to Refugees Highlights Europe's Cultural and Political Divisions,” The New York Times. September 12, 2015, at www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/world/europe/eastern-europe-migrant-refugee-crisis.html (last accessed February 15, 2015); Jan Т. Gross, “Eastern Europe's Crisis of Shame,” Project Syndicate, September 13, 2015, at www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/eastern-europe-refugee-crisis-xenophobia-by-jan-gross-2015–09?barrier=true (last accessed February 16, 2017); Michal Simecka & Benjamin Tallis, “Fighting the Wrong Battle: A Crisis of Liberal Democracy, Not Migration,” Open Democracy, September 4, 2015, at www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/michal-simecka-benjamin-tallis/fighting-wrong-battle-central-europe%E2%80%99s-crisis-is-o (last accessed February 16, 2017); Jacques Rupnik, “The Other Europe,” Eurozine. September 11, 2015, at www.eurozine.com/articles/2015–09–11-rupnik-en.html (last accessed February 16, 2017); Ivan Krastev, “Eastern Europe's Compassion Deficit,” The New York Times, September 8, 2015, at www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/opinion/eastern-europes-compassion-deficit-refugees-migrants.html?_r=1 (last accessed February 16, 2017); Rayyan Sabet-parry and Karl Ritter, “Scant Sympathy for Refugees in Europe's Ex-communist East,” The Business Insider, September 11, 2015, at www.businessinsider.com/ap-scant-sympathy-for-refugees-in-europes-ex-communist-east-2015-9?IR=T (last accessed February 16, 2017); Paul Hockenos, “The Stunning Hypocrisy of Mitteleuropa,” Foreign Policy, September 12, 2015, at http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/10/the-stunning-hypocrisy-of-mitteleuropa-refugees-poland-hungary-czech-republic/ (last accessed February 16, 2017); Gustav Gressel, “Understanding Eastern European Attitudes on Refugees,” European Council on Foreign Relations, September 11, 2015; at www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_understanding_eastern_european_attitudes_on_refugees4019 (last accessed February 16, 2017); Gérard Roland, “Why the Rift between Eastern and Western Europe on the Refugee Crisis?,” The Berkeley Blog, September 9, 2015, http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/09/09/why-the-rift-between-eastern-and-western-europe-on-the-refugee-crisis-2/ (last accessed February 15, 2016).

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10. For examples from Latvia, see: Nikolā Ozano, “Ārzemju skatītāja vēstule slavenam režisoram,” Satori, December 16, 2015, at http://www.satori.lv/raksts/10483/Arzemju_skatitaja_vestule_slavenam_rezisora (last accessed February 16, 2017); Dmitrijs Golubevs, “Bēgļu jautājums: Satversmes preambula un Latvijas vērtības,” Ir, August 21, 2015, at http://www.irlv.lv/blogi/politika/beglu-jautajums-satversmes-preambula-un-latvijas-vertibas (last accessed February 16, 2017); Ilmārs Šlāpins, “Man arī bēgļi nepatīk,” Satori, September 21, 2015, www.satori.lv/raksts/9983/Ilmars_Slapins/Man_ari_begli_nepatik (last accessed February 16, 2017); Andris Saulītis, “Savējie bēgļi,” Satori, September 7, 2015, www.satori.lv/raksts/9889/Andris_Saulitis/Savejie_begli (last accessed February 16, 2017); Andris Šuvajevs, “Pieraksti par bēgļiem,” Delfi, August 5, 2015, www.delfi.lv/news/comment/comment/andris-suvajevs-pieraksti-par-begliem-2.d?id=46298381 (last accessed February 16, 2017).

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13. Boundary-thinking may not be universal, as argued by Fredrik Barth, but it is a feature of European understandings of self and modes of organizing collective life, which Barth links to the institution of private property. See Barth, Fredrik “Boundaries and Connections,” in Cohen, Anthony, ed., Signifying Identities: Anthropological Perspectives on Boundaries and Contested Values, (London, 2000), 17–36 Google Scholar; see also Anderson, Bridget, Us and Them?: The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Control (Oxford, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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24. Following European Union enlargement in 2004, many citizens of the new member states moved to live and work in older member states, especially those, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden, that did not institute a seven-year transitional ban on freedom of movement. Many UK citizens consider that the migration flow was too large.

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26. In 2005, the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons about Muhammad under the title of “The Face of Muhammad.” This triggered protests among Denmark's Muslims, who considered the cartoons a blasphemy. The protests became international in 2006. The editor of the paper justified the decision to publish these cartoons by invoking the right to free speech, which, he thought, was becoming endangered. For analysis of the Danish cartoon scandal, see: Mahmood, Saba, “Religious Reason and Secular Affect: An Incommensurable Divide?,” Critical Inquiry 35, no. 4 (Summer 2009): 836–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Keane, Webb, “Freedom and Blasphemy: On Indonesian Press Bans and Danish Cartoons,” Public Culture 21, no. 1 (Winter 2009): 47–76 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For criticism of migrant conduct on the Balkan route, see: “The Refugees Telling other Refugees to Stop Dropping Rubbish,” BBC, September 9, 2015, www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-34199602 (last accessed February 16, 2017). For a report on the cologne attacks, see: “Cologne Sex Attacks: Women Describe “Terrible” Assaults,” BBC, January 7, 2016, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35250903 (last accessed February 16, 2017).

27. For example, see: Laila Lalami, “Who is to blame for the Cologne sex attacks?,” The Nation, March 10, 2016, www.thenation.com/article/who-is-to-blame-for-the-cologne-sex-attacks/ (last accessed February 16, 2017); see also Žižek, Slavoj, Against the Double Blackmail: Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with Neighbours (London, 2016)Google Scholar for an argument that these are ritualistic acts of violence by the dispossessed.

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