Speaker 1: All media. Hell, everyone, welcome to it could happen here.
Speaker 1: Podcasts about things falling apart and people putting them back together.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about a little of both of those things.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Rose, who's a migration activist in the Netherlands,
Speaker 1: and Mick, who has studied migration. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about the EU's border today, and we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about I think a lot of people, especially the bulk
Speaker 1: of our listeners in the United States, won't be aware,
Speaker 1: perhaps of how incredibly cruel and fatal the EU's border is,
Speaker 1: what it does to people, how it does it, where
Speaker 1: it does it. So we're going to talk about that today.
Speaker 1: It's very exciting. There's even more war than we have
Speaker 1: in the United States, so I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 1: And so Hi, Welcome to the show, both of you.
Speaker 2: Hi, Thanks, Hi, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being here. The way we wanted to structure
Speaker 1: this was Mick has like an excellent presentation for We're
Speaker 1: going to structure this over two episodes. First, we want
Speaker 1: to talk about the state of things, and then we
Speaker 1: want to talk about activism in ways that people can
Speaker 1: meaningfully make a difference in this situation. So Nick, Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you'd like to take it away with your with
Speaker 1: your script here wrote and I will interject whenever we
Speaker 1: feel like it.
Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough, let's go.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: The EU border crisis is largely crisis of the Mediterranean
Speaker 2: to see that separates Europe from Africa, and it is
Speaker 2: arguably one of the most deadly borders in the world,
Speaker 2: if not the most deadly border. According to several activists
Speaker 2: organizations such as the United Against Refugee Devs and Abolish Frontex,
Speaker 2: which is the EU border agency in charge of protecting
Speaker 2: the border, over fifty two thousand people have died at
Speaker 2: this border as of June twenty twenty three. This number
Speaker 2: is almost certainly higher to a number of factors, one
Speaker 2: of which is the significant amount of bodies are never recovered,
Speaker 2: which makes it very hard to verify whether or not
Speaker 2: someone has died or is lost somewhere in the migration routes.
Speaker 2: Migration patterns are very hard to keep track of. People
Speaker 2: travel hundreds of kilometers to simply get to a point
Speaker 2: where they can get access to boats or other means
Speaker 2: of being transported across the sea. Yeah, I have a
Speaker 2: picture here that I would like to share with you.
Speaker 2: Listeners can find it in the notes and sources.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll try and describe it, just so you know
Speaker 1: someone's driving or something they can I guess, Yeah, go ahead,
Speaker 1: give me a best shot.
Speaker 2: Okay. It's a map of continental Europe with adjacent to
Speaker 2: it Africa and Eurasia. And it's a bunch of arrows
Speaker 2: coalescing on to certain points that grow bigger and bigger.
Speaker 2: And these represent the migration routes and the number of
Speaker 2: people that take a particular path. As you can see,
Speaker 2: the thick line, the thicker the ligne, the more people
Speaker 2: it represents. The thinner lines come from the Middle East
Speaker 2: and further to the east. In terms of obstacles and danger,
Speaker 2: I think it's safe to say that crossing Iraq or
Speaker 2: Syria is not without risk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've done that. It's yeah, and I've done
Speaker 1: it in cars and with permission, and it's already pretty
Speaker 1: high risk. It's interesting this map is it's a twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen map. Am I seeing that right?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's from the Frontext quarterly reports too, which covers
Speaker 2: April till June twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so maybe this is after the peak of people
Speaker 1: leaving that Iraq and Syria area they like there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, after twenty fifteen Mayhem.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, exactly, not that there are not still significant numbers.
Speaker 1: I mean I speak to people in Syria most weeks
Speaker 1: who are trying to leave Syria. It's become harder and
Speaker 1: harder due in part to the EU making it borders
Speaker 1: harder and harder and more and more deadly to cross,
Speaker 1: and due to a number of other reasons. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think those those lines would have been fatter if
Speaker 1: we'd gone back, like, you know, three or four years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean people in Europe will probably have been familiar
Speaker 1: with this. I mean, of course, says THEE. When was
Speaker 1: the photo taken of the young child who passed away
Speaker 1: that was like Cordy.
Speaker 3: I think that was in the summer of.
Speaker 2: Bottom Yeah, Alan Curdy. Yeah, the boy's name was Alan Curty.
Speaker 2: I think a brother of his ground as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people can look that up if they want to.
Speaker 1: I'll try not to include it. It's quite a horrible
Speaker 1: thing to have to witness.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's it's not a nice photo to see. Ironically,
Speaker 2: it was one of the few moments where like European
Speaker 2: people could muster some sympathy for refugees, but yeah, that
Speaker 2: wins at some point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always a case like I don't know, I
Speaker 1: am talking about this before speak about again. But like
Speaker 1: the other day, I was out dropping water and we
Speaker 1: came across a little three year old girl and her
Speaker 1: mother from Guinea, and the young girl was very hypothermic,
Speaker 1: Like at first we didn't notice because we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this girl is very quiet, and then we're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: this girl is very very quiet, and perhaps, you know,
Speaker 1: we should be concerned, and like, I don't know how,
Speaker 1: and no one in their right mind would be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is normal and good, and I'm really glad that
Speaker 1: this child is in a place where, you know, if
Speaker 1: left for several more hours, she might die. And everyone
Speaker 1: in that situation, to include people who were just driving by,
Speaker 1: were like, oh fuck, we need to help. But sadly,
Speaker 1: when we abstract it to numbers, which is the way
Speaker 1: it's always reported on, right, it's not stories, it's not people,
Speaker 1: it's not little children, it's fifty something thousand people. You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine fifty something thousand people dying. It's
Speaker 1: easier to feel something for one little boy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's easier to feel something for a child
Speaker 3: or a man. It's easier to feel something for a
Speaker 3: woman than man. And also even the death of Alanchourli
Speaker 3: despite all the yeah, outraged provoked. It was also used
Speaker 3: as a to make the Turkey Deal, which was intended
Speaker 3: to stop people crossing by boat from Turkey to Greece,
Speaker 3: even though that was actually one of the safest migration
Speaker 3: roots we had at the time, and it closed up
Speaker 3: and people started to move to Libya and instead of
Speaker 3: three kilometers of sea, that meant people had to cross
Speaker 3: one hundred or more kilometers of sea, which was obviously
Speaker 3: way more deadly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just did you need to Libya? And that
Speaker 1: time in Libya's where we'll find out later is far
Speaker 1: from risk free.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Libya is a very different place than Turkey.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, significantly worse to be than yeah, Turkey. So
Speaker 2: to get back on track, as you can also see
Speaker 2: from the picture of a vast majority of those migration
Speaker 2: routes crossed the Sahara Desert, people who die in the
Speaker 2: desert or through other dangers on their journey do not
Speaker 2: make it to the Mediterranean and therefore at tend to
Speaker 2: not end up in the statistics of people dying there,
Speaker 2: But I would still argue that it is undeniable that
Speaker 2: those people in fact died due to the migration policies
Speaker 2: that the EU puts in place and enforces. Definitely, it's
Speaker 2: just outside of our purview.
Speaker 3: The United list again of refugee deaths, it's taking into
Speaker 3: account anyone whose death can be attributed to the border,
Speaker 3: So they do also include people dying in the desert,
Speaker 3: but there is much less news about it, So the
Speaker 3: figures of frontacs and of IOM usually do not include those.
Speaker 3: But the number you just mentioned that with fifty two thousand,
Speaker 3: it also includes people who made suicide and detention centers,
Speaker 3: or who died of medical neglecting camps. But it also
Speaker 3: includes people who died further from the European border, but
Speaker 3: still on borders that are controlled are influenced by European policies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the US like to give a sort of
Speaker 1: comparison example that the statistics we have that come from
Speaker 1: border patrol, those are the remains that are found, which
Speaker 1: is a subset of the remains that exist in it,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't take into account people who died crossing
Speaker 1: Mexico creepeople who died as fastus as a Darian gap right,
Speaker 1: which is very dangerous, and it's becoming more so as
Speaker 1: more traffic goes across it. People who died taking boats
Speaker 1: around the Daryan Gap right or for whatever reason didn't
Speaker 1: make it. So we too have this kind of attempt
Speaker 1: to I guess when we get government statistics, we have
Speaker 1: to remember that they come from a government perspective and
Speaker 1: they will try and minimize the obvious cruelty that's happening.
Speaker 2: I think that's a characteristic of almost every government that
Speaker 2: keep the numbers low and don't really engage with the
Speaker 2: actual problems that are at hand. So before we go
Speaker 2: into more specific territories, there are a few things that
Speaker 2: should be made clear. The EU does not follow their
Speaker 2: own rules about migration. Hopefully, at the end of this
Speaker 2: the listeners will also accept that the humanitarian and migration
Speaker 2: crises is much more a product of border policies rather
Speaker 2: than the policies being a consequence of migration. To first
Speaker 2: illustrate this, here is a quote from government dot NL,
Speaker 2: the English version of the Dutch government websites Asylum or Return.
Speaker 2: All refugees entering the EU may apply for asylum. They
Speaker 2: must do this in the country where they enter the EU.
Speaker 2: Asylum Seekers who do not require protection must return to
Speaker 2: their country of origin or to a save third country.
Speaker 2: The EU respects the human rights of refugees, both when
Speaker 2: dealing with their applications and with regard to return. So
Speaker 2: I want you all to keep this in mind when
Speaker 2: we continue, because this phrasing ignores other policies that make
Speaker 2: much harder for migrants and refugees to even enter the
Speaker 2: EU or to be able to apply for asylum. So,
Speaker 2: and before we dive deeper into the atrocities that the
Speaker 2: EU enables, I think it's important to first briefly explain
Speaker 2: how the border system works and the history behind it.
Speaker 2: Europe is no stranger to migration and migrants, and it
Speaker 2: is something that has been happening in the waves over
Speaker 2: the past three to four decades. In the early nineties,
Speaker 2: there were multiple waves of migrants from Albania to other
Speaker 2: European countries. The main cause of this was the isolationist
Speaker 2: policies that were enforced by the communist regime that was
Speaker 2: in charge there, the unrest that followed at the end
Speaker 2: of the regime, and the crisis of Kosovo. For those unaware,
Speaker 2: Kosovo had a war with Serbia for independence and Kosovari
Speaker 2: people are largely ethnic Albanians with the same language, and
Speaker 2: because of this, it was easier for Albanians to merge
Speaker 2: with the Kostafari refugees and use that to migrate further
Speaker 2: and easier into Europe. Other waves are closed by other
Speaker 2: geopolitical events, such as the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, which
Speaker 2: I think Mia and Roberts covered in their episode on
Speaker 2: self immolation. Yeah, okay, and much more down to everyone
Speaker 2: divorce in Syria and Libya.
Speaker 1: My interest in the border is has always run parallel
Speaker 1: to my interesting conflict in reporting on conflict, and like
Speaker 1: it's just become such a such a recurrent experience to
Speaker 1: either learn about conflicts at the border here because somebody
Speaker 1: is telling me about them, or learn about often like
Speaker 1: repression of ethnic or national or religious minorities because someone
Speaker 1: here tells me about them, or to go somewhere. You know,
Speaker 1: I was in Syria in October, was in Iraq the
Speaker 1: and then return and see people from there at our border.
Speaker 1: And like, as people will be aware the asylum system
Speaker 1: and it will cover it later. The asylum system allows
Speaker 1: people who are very in danger of persecution for various
Speaker 1: categories to apply for asylum. It's not functioning. It's not
Speaker 1: functioning the e U, it's not functioning in the US.
Speaker 1: Like I've seen that persecution with my own eyes and
Speaker 1: the consequences of it, and I've seen people try and
Speaker 1: get away from it. Every single time I'm in somewhere
Speaker 1: like that, people will ask me for help, and it
Speaker 1: is fucking heartbreaking to be like, yeah, the country that
Speaker 1: you see flying the F sixteens or the F thirty
Speaker 1: fives over your head, the planes that cost more than
Speaker 1: this entire town makes in a year. No, we can't
Speaker 1: have a functioning fucking immigration system. Like in the case
Speaker 1: of the US, it's this app which doesn't work and
Speaker 1: you can only use it Northern Mexico City. And it's
Speaker 1: this broken system leads to people. They're not like getting
Speaker 1: in a boat across the Mediterranean, crossing the Darien Gap,
Speaker 1: walking across the mountains of Northern Mexico because they want
Speaker 1: to have like a better iPhone. They're doing it because
Speaker 1: whatever the alternative is seems worse and it's worth People
Speaker 1: are fully aware that they're risking their lives on these journeys.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's not that they live without access
Speaker 1: to news and the internet. They know about the death
Speaker 1: in the Mediterranean, they know about the Dariant Gap. When
Speaker 1: I talk to migrants who haven't crossed the gap, like
Speaker 1: I was talking to group of Colombian migrants two or
Speaker 1: three days ago, and they were coming in to the
Speaker 1: US through It's in an area east of Hocomber, which's
Speaker 1: very rugged and very mountainous, and they were coming into
Speaker 1: an open air detention site where border patrol holds them.
Speaker 1: And I was talking to them, I say, how many
Speaker 1: if you walked, how many if you flew. Most of
Speaker 1: them flew and then were able to work forward. The
Speaker 1: ones who walked. Everyone was like, oh shit, that's horrible,
Speaker 1: Like you must have seen terrible things. Like they're very
Speaker 1: aware of how dangerous these journeys are. The reason that
Speaker 1: they're taking them is because it seems like staying at
Speaker 1: home would be more dangerous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, although I would like to add that it's not
Speaker 3: every migrant is a real refugee, and not every migrant
Speaker 3: has to be a real refugee. Yes, at least as
Speaker 3: the definition was established in the fifties by a bunch
Speaker 3: of pretentious guys who kind of decided this is a
Speaker 3: good reason to migrate and all other reasons are not.
Speaker 3: At first, yeah, at first I worked in Greece and
Speaker 3: that was mainly with people of like what are considered
Speaker 3: like objectively real or good refugees, like people from Afghanistan
Speaker 3: and Iraq and Syria, whereas when I was working in
Speaker 3: Bosnia it was mainly people from Morocco, Algeria, Pakistan. And
Speaker 3: a lack of opportunity can be a very good reason
Speaker 3: to move. I think most white people who moved to
Speaker 3: America did so because of that. Yeah, not because they
Speaker 3: were imminently you know, bombed in their home countries, but
Speaker 3: because they wanted to make something out of their lives
Speaker 3: and they didn't have opportunities at home. And I think
Speaker 3: this whole concept of refugee is meant to distinguish between
Speaker 3: good and bad reasons to move, and good and bad
Speaker 3: people migrants. In the end, people can do really dangerous
Speaker 3: things for giving their children a better life, and if
Speaker 3: their children are not immediate danger. And the other thing
Speaker 3: I would like to stress is that I think the
Speaker 3: migration regime that we see today is very tightly connected
Speaker 3: to colonization and decolonization. For example, specifically in the Midlands,
Speaker 3: Surinam was a Dutch colony and one of the reasons
Speaker 3: why the Dutch government agreed with decolonization was because the
Speaker 3: Dutch society started to get worried about all the black
Speaker 3: people showing up. So and the same something similar happened
Speaker 3: with the independence word that Algeria fought against France. France
Speaker 3: preferred to give them independence rather than give them equal
Speaker 3: rights and access to the French territory. Like creating those
Speaker 3: barriers and keeping people in the Global South after these
Speaker 3: countries became independent is very tighly connected with ecolonization, but
Speaker 3: of course especially with new colonization and new ways of
Speaker 3: controlling people in the Global South and exploiting them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if we look at like the US context, the
Speaker 1: United States government has managed to engineer this sort of
Speaker 1: compromise where capital travels freely across the Americas and people
Speaker 1: don't right, so it's possible for them to exploit lower
Speaker 1: wage labor, for US companies to exploit lower wage labor
Speaker 1: in Mexico and other countries to the south, but not
Speaker 1: for those people to come and seek a better way
Speaker 1: to better way of living in the country that is
Speaker 1: consuming the products of their labor and so like this
Speaker 1: is obviously not new to people, right, this is a
Speaker 1: thing that's appartist to highlighted in nineteen ninety four and
Speaker 1: it's been the case for thirty years. But yeah, we
Speaker 1: have in the US because the United States and colonialism
Speaker 1: like kind of a in a somewhat less overway, although
Speaker 1: often in a pretty over way. It's facilitated undemocratic regimes
Speaker 1: and a low quality of life for people all across
Speaker 1: specifically the Americas, but also the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: And it's now seeking to prevent those people from coming
Speaker 1: here after it destabilized to their countries, right or in
Speaker 1: the case of climate change, again, like the consumption habits
Speaker 1: of certain countries that have had an impact on people
Speaker 1: all around the world, to include people in more dieconomic circumstances.
Speaker 1: And it shouldn't be any less should we shouldn't have
Speaker 1: any less empathy or solidarity with those people because no
Speaker 1: one's bombing them and they just want to chance for
Speaker 1: their kids to do the same shit. Like I moved
Speaker 1: to America and I was twenty one because they want
Speaker 1: many jobs for me at home, Like there's something.
Speaker 3: Very arrogant about thinking that you can decide whether someone
Speaker 3: else has a right to exist totally. And I think
Speaker 3: that's kind of what migration policies are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as you pointed out, they were established after
Speaker 1: the Second World War with a very narrow set of categories.
Speaker 1: Don't include not only do not include climate change, but
Speaker 1: also like generalized violence, right, the generalized veru. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually it's like seeing from a war is not making
Speaker 3: you a real refugee according to international.
Speaker 1: Law, yeah, yeah, which is.
Speaker 3: Something people don't know. So like an average sharing refugee
Speaker 3: is actually legally not.
Speaker 1: A refugee, right, Yeah, they are in.
Speaker 3: Discriminate violence, but not like they don't have like political
Speaker 3: they don't have a right to political asylum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or like people in Ecuador will will talk to
Speaker 1: talk to people from Ecuador a lot, you know, and
Speaker 1: they'll be like, well, you've seen men they took over
Speaker 1: the TV station. So there's some gangs took over a
Speaker 1: TV station there recently, and it's kind of an armed takeover.
Speaker 1: And then like, as you can see, would you want
Speaker 1: your child growing up there? You know, if you had children,
Speaker 1: And of course it's a very compelling argument and if
Speaker 1: I was in their position with young children. Guy I
Speaker 1: met the other day his son needed medical care that
Speaker 1: he couldn't obtain in his country. You know, like that's
Speaker 1: a perfectly valid reason for coming here. But none of
Speaker 1: those things count for asylum to those people that I'd
Speaker 1: a lumped into quote unquote economic migrants, which is still
Speaker 1: you know, like people have a right to a living
Speaker 1: wage and to be able to pay for their family,
Speaker 1: to have the things that they need to survive and thrive.
Speaker 1: You're right, the asylum system is very narrow, and we.
Speaker 2: Should also not forget that, even if we're excluding war,
Speaker 2: you can't really separate migration from the things the West
Speaker 2: has done in those other countries to maintain that neocolonial
Speaker 2: relationship and you know, keep those keep those people dependent
Speaker 2: on whatever whims there are in the West, and whether
Speaker 2: that's for resources, whether that's for because there were like
Speaker 2: the communist regimes there that we weren't happy with. Like,
Speaker 2: you can't separate that. You can separate the conditions that
Speaker 2: are happening there right now to things that have been
Speaker 2: decided in the West years prior.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very true, All right, we're back. Have you enjoyed
Speaker 1: those adverts products and services following our discussion on how
Speaker 1: capitalism has made life unlivable in certain parts of the world.
Speaker 1: So Mick Kail, let's pick up with you explaining this
Speaker 1: to EU border to us well.
Speaker 2: I found a very nice scholarly article that breaks down
Speaker 2: how the EU borders work and makes a very clear
Speaker 2: distinction between the different layers that protect fortress Europe. These
Speaker 2: layers will be called the paper border, which largely consists
Speaker 2: of visa policies and similar bureaucracy that regulates movement to
Speaker 2: the EU and within it. Then we have the iron border,
Speaker 2: which is exactly what you imagine it to me, it's
Speaker 2: the physical structures and forms of control that we put
Speaker 2: up to keep people out. And then we have the
Speaker 2: post border, and that's about the reception of migrants, migrant
Speaker 2: shelters and similar constructions that keep migrants and refugees ostracized
Speaker 2: and isolated even after being allowed access into the EU
Speaker 2: and having started a asylum process. For those stories, we
Speaker 2: should turn to Rose when we get there, because she
Speaker 2: is much more on the ground experience than I have
Speaker 2: with this, So we'll start with the paper border. During
Speaker 2: the mid eighties, the EU started to propose and enact
Speaker 2: a series of treaties and policies that in effect strengthened
Speaker 2: the external borders and loosened the borders within Europe. I
Speaker 2: think no one is particularly interested in this series of treaties,
Speaker 2: so I will name the only one is the Shangan Treaty.
Speaker 2: This treaty essentially unites the external borders under EU command
Speaker 2: rather than as a task for individual states. In practice,
Speaker 2: this also means that you citizens who have a proper
Speaker 2: documentation can move really between countries who are who have
Speaker 2: signed the sang In Treaty for holidays or work loose.
Speaker 2: You and I we could move to Germany tomorrow if
Speaker 2: we wanted to, and I have little to know obstacles
Speaker 2: in terms of like documentary.
Speaker 3: Were economically independent though, like that is very crucial about
Speaker 3: your friend. Enough movement is conditional on.
Speaker 1: You making money, yeah, having enough money to support yourself.
Speaker 1: But you can move like this is very funny. Pissed
Speaker 1: off British people who are living in Spain right when
Speaker 1: they when Britain brexited, because they hadn't realized that they
Speaker 1: would impact them. They you know, like.
Speaker 3: Was only the Polish that we yeah, like the undesirable migrants,
Speaker 3: but yes, assume themselves to be desirable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, I don't think we use the word
Speaker 1: expat right like Bridge would use the word expected its
Speaker 1: describe a migrant from Britain to Spain like it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's reallyiculous. I mean, I've lived in front in Spain,
Speaker 1: of fift in Belgium and I was, I guess, somewhat
Speaker 1: economically independent. Made twelve thousand years a year as a
Speaker 1: bike racer, but that was you know, I could do that.
Speaker 1: It's very easy for me, but it is.
Speaker 3: I do think it's important because I think it's one
Speaker 3: of those post border things that what we see for
Speaker 3: some point in analyts is that most homeless people here
Speaker 3: are not the undocumented migrants. They are not the refugees
Speaker 3: or Dutch people that they're EU migrants. So people have
Speaker 3: low paying jobs, break their legs, get kicked out of
Speaker 3: their houses and their jobs, and are not welcoming to
Speaker 3: homeless shelters because an endlands says, well, you are not
Speaker 3: economically independent. There were, Yeah, so this is also part
Speaker 3: of the migration regime, and this is also part of
Speaker 3: keeping migrants exploitable. Even if you use citizens have the
Speaker 3: right to work, they don't. They're only allowed to work.
Speaker 3: We only want them if they bring in econo profits.
Speaker 3: We don't want them when they're sick or neat or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then mostly we want them for jobs that
Speaker 2: we feel too good to actually do. When I was younger,
Speaker 2: I used to work in a greenhouse, and there's an
Speaker 2: immense amount of people from like Poland or other Eastern
Speaker 2: European countries coming there because Dutch people tend not to
Speaker 2: want to work in a greenhouse. It's one of those things.
Speaker 1: It's an extension of that, like a colonial perspective, right
Speaker 1: that like, these are not jobs for.
Speaker 2: Us exactly because you get your hands dirty and we
Speaker 2: can't have that here. To put the whole thing about
Speaker 2: the paper border into less academic term, the EU started
Speaker 2: to act like a nation state and started to make
Speaker 2: sharp distinctions between native and non native European citizens. I
Speaker 2: think it's worth pointing out that what counts as EU
Speaker 2: is also a how was it? European identity. It's very
Speaker 2: closely tied to geographical location and therefore also implicitly linked
Speaker 2: to Christianity. Countries that are largely non Christian but connected
Speaker 2: to Europe tend to be excluded. Turkey is partially in
Speaker 2: Europe but not part of the EU, and Bosnia Herzegovina,
Speaker 2: which is a majority Muslim country, is also excluded from that.
Speaker 2: But much like Turkey is being tempted with the whole
Speaker 2: maybe you can join if you do this and that,
Speaker 2: but we're not really committing to that. That, however, is
Speaker 2: a story for another time. Maybe The point that I
Speaker 2: want to make here is that the visa program for
Speaker 2: Europe is based on geographical discrimination. Countries outside the geography
Speaker 2: of Europe are blacklisted and cannot gain access to the
Speaker 2: papers that they need to legally enter the EU. This
Speaker 2: bureaucracy prohibits people from entering the EU before fences or
Speaker 2: border guards have even entered the equation, hence the paper border,
Speaker 2: since entering or crossing without a paper visa is nigh impossible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would like to add, of course, like it
Speaker 3: is geographical discrimination, but of course indirectly it is discrimination
Speaker 3: based on class and race, So it is people of
Speaker 3: color but not the super rich people of color, and
Speaker 3: it is yeah, it is. It is formerly colonized countries
Speaker 3: that are largely that even have an obligation to get
Speaker 3: a visa, so people from the US can travel visa free,
Speaker 3: same for people from Australia. So it is like it
Speaker 3: is very ironic. I find that it's in Europe it's
Speaker 3: considered legal to discriminate based on nationality, even though it
Speaker 3: is very clearly a very smart way to discriminate actually
Speaker 3: people based on the color of their skin and their
Speaker 3: economic status.
Speaker 2: Exactly what you said, Rose, Like all the countries that
Speaker 2: are backlisted are like from the the global South, so
Speaker 2: I have to speak almost all of them. But I
Speaker 2: talked to about this with a professor of mine a
Speaker 2: while back, and I think if you can put down
Speaker 2: like thirty thousand euros, then you can get a visa
Speaker 2: even if you're from those countries.
Speaker 3: Exactly. So the super rich. Actually, the super rich have
Speaker 3: freedom of movements, yeah, but the it is always the
Speaker 3: poor migrants whose movement is problematic and whose.
Speaker 1: Movement is Yeah. In Britain and in the US, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of discourse about like open borders. I've noticed like, oh,
Speaker 1: the border is open, right, Like the border has always
Speaker 1: been open to people like me. I live in the
Speaker 1: United States, right, I am a US citizen. Now I'm
Speaker 1: also a British citizen. I've lived and worked in Spain,
Speaker 1: I've lived and worked in France, I've lived and worked
Speaker 1: in Belgium. I can go, and I can get a
Speaker 1: visa to i Rack. I can get a visa to
Speaker 1: anywhere I want. The borders have always been open to
Speaker 1: white people who have financial means. What they're saying when
Speaker 1: they're saying open borders is implicitly border is open to
Speaker 1: people who are not white, not wealthy, perhaps not Christian.
Speaker 1: And what one can infer from that is a great
Speaker 1: deal of bigotry and a great deal of like unease
Speaker 1: about living, you know, alongside people who you feel like
Speaker 1: are not like the same quote unquote as you, which
Speaker 1: is particularly run in the United States, right in a
Speaker 1: country which is itself a settler colony.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all very very uplifting stuff. I do want
Speaker 2: to end this particular bit with the quote from that article, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I think it it says it much more fancy
Speaker 2: than I ever could, Rather than guards with guns, this
Speaker 2: first border. If the EU is watched over by bureaucrats
Speaker 2: armed with paper and entrenched in far away embassies. Through
Speaker 2: this political technology, all citizens of a large group of
Speaker 2: nations bart to view are blacklists. This means in practice
Speaker 2: that most of the citizens of these blacklisted countries cannot
Speaker 2: acquire the visas they require to legally travel to the EU.
Speaker 2: The implication is that the paper border of the EU
Speaker 2: remotely and invisibly cages people in the inequitable or tree
Speaker 2: of birth end quote. I think it's very much worth
Speaker 2: highlighting that if you're as we've established, unless you're like
Speaker 2: wealthy or white, you cannot legally enter the e EU.
Speaker 2: And even though our politicians keep saying no, no, we're
Speaker 2: just against the illegals, now there is for a lot
Speaker 2: of people there simply is no way to enter legally.
Speaker 2: It's impossible, and it's a large part of the conversation
Speaker 2: that we conveniently ignore because it doesn't fit like the
Speaker 2: political narratives that people want to spread.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course most refugee conventions allow for people
Speaker 1: to enter between ports of entry in whichever way they
Speaker 1: can to claim asylum, Like one does not have to
Speaker 1: and turn a certain way to claim asylum, despite what
Speaker 1: the discourse might suggest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think this border is like probably the
Speaker 3: most overlooked because it doesn't create any dramatic pictures, right
Speaker 3: it is indeed, it's just people sitting in an office
Speaker 3: and looking at papers and deciding no. But these are
Speaker 3: like in Dutch. Yeah, these are people working at the
Speaker 3: immigration office. And these are the people who then decide
Speaker 3: that's the only option for people is to go on
Speaker 3: a boat. So these these are policies and the people
Speaker 3: who are executing them are super crucial in enforcing people
Speaker 3: onto dangerous.
Speaker 2: Routes exactly because there is no way to do it legally. Therefore,
Speaker 2: I have to set foot on that soil and then
Speaker 2: you know, apply for asylum because the other route is
Speaker 2: like before I even tried, already closed off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I really like that term, the inequitable of birth.
Speaker 3: We call it like support hides. Yeah, but it's one
Speaker 3: of the most insane or like most fundamentally unjust things
Speaker 3: that we see, that we are living with and that
Speaker 3: we don't see or like that many people don't see.
Speaker 3: So just because we were born, like I was born
Speaker 3: in one of the richest countries of in the world.
Speaker 3: My parents had a Dutch passport. That's how I got
Speaker 3: a Dutch fasport. I did literally nothing to get that.
Speaker 3: It is impossible for me to lose my Dutch passport.
Speaker 3: I commit I can commit like the worst crimes and
Speaker 3: they will not, you know, they will not lead me
Speaker 3: to lose my passport. Whereas other people who are born
Speaker 3: in countries where life expectancy is crazy low, or where
Speaker 3: there's no healthcare or no proper education or jobs, they
Speaker 3: too did absolutely nothing to be born there or to
Speaker 3: be assigned to that nationality. And so somehow this border
Speaker 3: and this passport is legitimizing the fact that some people
Speaker 3: just die and we're fine with that, and other people
Speaker 3: have insane privileges and opportunities, and the nationality is kind
Speaker 3: of a justification because if you really think about it,
Speaker 3: there is no reason why the midium wage in Ethiopia
Speaker 3: should be lower than in the Netlands, Like there really isn't.
Speaker 3: The only reason is that they have a different nationality,
Speaker 3: and somehow that makes it normal. And it's just yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just this injustice in just structures that are so
Speaker 3: invisible and that are not questioned or talked about enough.
Speaker 3: So I'm glad we're talking about it today.
Speaker 1: But yeah, good, it's such a stark reality when you
Speaker 1: live on the border. That guy live on the US
Speaker 1: Mexico border, and like what on earth, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: the justification for being like oh yeah, this person should
Speaker 1: arn less money and they can't come here, but you
Speaker 1: can go down there and buy stuff at the same price, ake,
Speaker 1: and that's fine, Like, it's totally fine. Yeah, An, we're
Speaker 1: going to build a giant fuck off wall. And it's
Speaker 1: just such when I spend a lot of time in
Speaker 1: the more remote parts of the US border, and for
Speaker 1: most of the time that border country to what you
Speaker 1: might have seen on the news is a one meter
Speaker 1: high cattle fence with a single strand above wire. And
Speaker 1: it's so obviously just a light like very often cattle
Speaker 1: will cross the border, and like they will have to
Speaker 1: be herded back right, like the it's just a notional
Speaker 1: line in the sand. When they built the border wall,
Speaker 1: it really fucked up the migration habits of jaguars, bears, deer.
Speaker 1: I've seen animals unable to comprehend. Like, but no, that's
Speaker 1: where I go and get my water, right, Like, it's
Speaker 1: such an arbitrary distinction that that results in so much cruelty.
Speaker 3: But we do build walls better than you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good segue to the European iron border.
Speaker 3: One thing we are more cruel at than the Americans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's finally something we can beat the American sets.
Speaker 1: I'm mad. We're working on it, believe me.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, not too hard. We want we want to
Speaker 2: keep this trophy for a while.
Speaker 1: You know what else is competing to be the most
Speaker 1: cruel Mick, No, it's it's it's potentially the production services
Speaker 1: support this show. All right, we're back. We hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed those products and services. Hopefully it wasn't for like
Speaker 1: a border surveillance technology or you know, something similar walls.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the next part is the Iron Border. This
Speaker 2: is very similar to what people already think of, but
Speaker 2: but somehow worse. The Iron Border is a collection of fences, walls,
Speaker 2: barbed and razor wire, or even fortified enclaves such as
Speaker 2: Suta and Melilla in Spain. Sorry for butchering those names.
Speaker 2: It is both the Trent and a performance. It's meant
Speaker 2: to project security for people within the walls. It shows
Speaker 2: that EU uses an iron fist to protect Europeans from
Speaker 2: irregular or illegal immigrant migration. What is more important to
Speaker 2: highlight it also makes for very good outreach media for
Speaker 2: right wing and fascist platforms. Refugees will continue to breach
Speaker 2: those fences and the photographs and videos of it made
Speaker 2: for very good propaganda about how borders need to be strengthened.
Speaker 2: The fenced borders of Europe have increased from three hundred
Speaker 2: kilometers in twenty fourteen to a shocking two thousand and
Speaker 2: forty eight kilometers in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's substantially than the US we have. Of course
Speaker 1: it's America, so it's miles. But the most generous estimate,
Speaker 1: based on pre existing war repairs Trump wall building is
Speaker 1: seven hundred and forty eight miles. That was actually I
Speaker 1: would say about seven hundred and fifty because I've seen
Speaker 1: construction happening since then, so that's what like eleven hundred kilometers,
Speaker 1: And it's you know, we're just just behalf of what
Speaker 1: the EU has.
Speaker 3: And I think for me, like when I when I
Speaker 3: was at the physical borders, like the border walls, I mean,
Speaker 3: it feels like a military zone, like I was on
Speaker 3: the Hungarian border. There's drones, there's super heavily weaponed soldiers
Speaker 3: walking around, like helicopters flying around. It's like it's a
Speaker 3: very intimidating feeling. But if you talk to the people
Speaker 3: crossing the fence, the fence is kind of a joke
Speaker 3: like you can just bring Yeah, you can just go
Speaker 3: to a gardening shop and buy a stairs or like
Speaker 3: a ladder and just put it over the fence. You
Speaker 3: can buy a super simple scissor that you would use
Speaker 3: in the garden to cut your vegetables and you kind
Speaker 3: of cut the fence open with it. People were building tunnels,
Speaker 3: like of course it is. It takes time to us
Speaker 3: and it's so in that sense, it's it's a hindrance.
Speaker 1: But the entire.
Speaker 3: Promise that if a wall holl stop people is indeed,
Speaker 3: it's just a political game, and the politicians know that
Speaker 3: it's not true. It's it's just a way to show
Speaker 3: how tough they are and how rough they are. And
Speaker 3: at the same time, I think this is a good
Speaker 3: one to instant some Palestine to the discussion. So most
Speaker 3: of the European borders are equipped with razor wire, and
Speaker 3: that is literally like knives wire, you know, like it
Speaker 3: is like it's razors blades. Yeah, and this is designed
Speaker 3: by the Israeli army and weapons industry, and the aim
Speaker 3: of these this razor wire is to gut as deeply
Speaker 3: as possible into people's skin without causing pain. So people
Speaker 3: don't realize how realize how heavily wounded they are, in
Speaker 3: order to make them bleed as much as possible. This
Speaker 3: has been tested in Gas and it is really are
Speaker 3: weal liked it, And now it's sold in Europe to
Speaker 3: sometimes stuff the same people leaving Flea and Gaza trying
Speaker 3: to reach Europe. So the border in one hand is
Speaker 3: kind of useless, but at the same time it is
Speaker 3: really built to be as cruel and as harmful as possible.
Speaker 3: And I know a lot of people with a lot
Speaker 3: of scars on their bodies just from those razor wires.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if we want to draw that connection further,
Speaker 1: like Lbit Technologies has massive, multi tens of million dollar
Speaker 1: contracts for border surveillance where I live. Right, the same
Speaker 1: things that are surveilling people in Gaza are surveilling you
Speaker 1: if you go for a hike in East County, San Diego,
Speaker 1: they're also surveilling migrants. Right. The raiser ware that you
Speaker 1: mentioned is everywhere out here. Right. It doesn't work, it
Speaker 1: gets cut eventually, it gets blankets thrown over it, but
Speaker 1: in the meantime it hurts people and the wall. It's right,
Speaker 1: there's also walls between it's rail and Palestine, between Kurdistan
Speaker 1: and Turkey. What they, at least these larger ones do
Speaker 1: is is they force people. The US Wall is also
Speaker 1: one that's entirely breachable. I've seen people climbing it. I've
Speaker 1: seen people climbing again this week. I've seen people go
Speaker 1: under it, I've seen people go through it. I've seen
Speaker 1: people go around it. But what it does tend to
Speaker 1: do is force people into the more remote areas where
Speaker 1: they didn't build wall, and those areas are where you're
Speaker 1: more likely to die. And every year that we've built
Speaker 1: more wall, we've seen more deaths. And as someone who
Speaker 1: engages in mutual aid, every year that they build more wall,
Speaker 1: we have to think about where will people go, how
Speaker 1: will they get there, what state will they be in,
Speaker 1: How can we make this journey less deadly? And that
Speaker 1: becomes harder and harder for us. You know, we did
Speaker 1: a water drop on Sunday. It took us five hours
Speaker 1: to hike a very small section of this trail that
Speaker 1: people hiked in order to surrender themselves, just as they
Speaker 1: would if they could come through a port of entry.
Speaker 1: No more deadly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's kind of sum sort of most
Speaker 3: migration policies or migration like obstacles to migration in Europe
Speaker 3: as well, they don't actually stop migrants, but they do
Speaker 3: hurt them, and they do push them into danger or actual.
Speaker 2: Deadly Yeah, because you're never going to stop it, but
Speaker 2: you can use like quote unquote deterrens in the hopes
Speaker 2: that will all slow down, but you're just going to
Speaker 2: get people hurt and killed.
Speaker 3: Yea. Yeah, that is like how incredibly cynecle the border is.
Speaker 3: I think that the main deterrence is the people dying,
Speaker 3: and that this is part of the political game to
Speaker 3: disencourage migrants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you can and then you can use
Speaker 2: other policies that we'll get to to present yourself as
Speaker 2: the good guy for wanting to make sure that people
Speaker 2: don't cross those walls or across the meta Seradian and
Speaker 2: you can present yourself as the good guy trying to
Speaker 2: prevent those steps that your policies are causing.
Speaker 1: I think that's why we're going to endit for today.
Speaker 1: We'd plan for this to be a one part episode,
Speaker 1: but we really enjoyed talking and we had a lot
Speaker 1: in comment, so this is going to be a two parter.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow we will be back to discuss the EU's external
Speaker 1: border and how it has not one EU countries enforcing
Speaker 1: its border in ways that are very detrimental, damaging and
Speaker 1: deadly to migrants. So I hope you look forward to
Speaker 1: that and we'll see you again tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 1: Everyone, it's me James, and I just wanted to read
Speaker 1: you this today. I'm going to put it in our
Speaker 1: episode this week because it's a cause that's important to us,
Speaker 1: and so we thought it would be something that might
Speaker 1: be important to you too as well. On the tenth
Speaker 1: of June twenty twenty four, Leonard Peltier, an m robed
Speaker 1: member of the Turtle Band of Chippewa of Lakota and
Speaker 1: Ojibwai ancestry and the longest serving political prisoner in the
Speaker 1: United States, will be appearing before the US Parole Commission
Speaker 1: for the first time since two thousand. He faces staunch
Speaker 1: opposition from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies due
Speaker 1: to having allegedly killed two FBI agents in a firefight
Speaker 1: on the twenty sixth of June nineteen seventy five, after
Speaker 1: the agents appeared on reservation land to execute a pretextural warrant.
Speaker 1: The initial firefight occurred during the quote reign of Terror
Speaker 1: on Pine Ridge in the wake of the occupation of
Speaker 1: Wounded Kney, a time of extreme violence when federal law
Speaker 1: enforcement installed a puppet tribal chair and was arming vigilantes
Speaker 1: who targeted Indigenous traditionalists every since leaving up to these events,
Speaker 1: as well as subsequent investigation and mister Peltier's tradition, trial, conviction,
Speaker 1: and sentencing were characterized by gross misconduct on the part
Speaker 1: of law enforcement, the prosecution, and the courts. Mister Peltier's
Speaker 1: co defendants were separately tried and acquitted on grounds of
Speaker 1: self defense. Mister Peltier was railroaded, and his case is
Speaker 1: tainted by discrimination at every level, ranging from the withholding
Speaker 1: of exculpatory evidence to a torture and coercion of extradition
Speaker 1: and trial witnesses, and from the refusal of the judge
Speaker 1: to dismiss and vowedly racist Dura, to the apologetic gymnastics
Speaker 1: of the courts affirming his convictions in the face of
Speaker 1: meritorious legal challenges and admitted evidence ab outrageous government misdeeds.
Speaker 1: Mister Peltier has been in prison for more than forty
Speaker 1: eight years and he's almost eighty years old. He suffers
Speaker 1: from chronic and potentially lethal conditions for which he receives
Speaker 1: insufficient and substandard medical care. If you want to take
Speaker 1: action to hashtag free Leonard Peltier, you can call the
Speaker 1: US Parole Commission at two zero two three four six
Speaker 1: seven zero zero zero. And if you'd like to find
Speaker 1: more information on how to support, you can go to
Speaker 1: this url. It's http colon slash slash n d NC
Speaker 1: dot c c slash free Leonard Peltier. That's free l
Speaker 1: e O n A R D P E l t
Speaker 1: I e R, or you can follow n d N
Speaker 1: Collective on social media for more ways to support him.
Speaker 1: More information on Danna Peltier, listen to Margaret's podcast on
Speaker 1: the Lakota Nation, a read in the Spirit of the
Speaker 1: Crazy Horse by Peter Mathewson.
Speaker 4: It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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