A barricaded back road on the border between Belgium and the Netherlands. The Schengen Agreement was put to the test – and it failed.  Credit: Peter Dejong / AP

When the coronavirus disappears, it will leave behind a different world. Not just because social, economic and medical uncertainty has entered our lives and is here to stay, but also because the current pandemic invites us to reexamine the political, economic and social assumptions by which we live.

The first, and most surprising, lesson is that although the coronavirus is a global phenomenon, it reinforces the notion of national sovereignty. The virus does not recognize national boundaries, but the struggle against it reflects a distinct national state of mind. One by one, nation-states are putting their citizens first.

Faced with the prospect of numerous victims at home, countries around the world decided to close their borders, physically separating their citizens from those of other states. The medical logic of such an act is flimsy: An Italian from Milan is probably geographically, economically, culturally and personally closer to a Swiss from Lausanne than to a compatriot from Sicily.

Hence, a more effective strategy might be to map social and economic interaction and ignore national boundaries. And yet, national sentiments prevailed, proving, once again, that in times of crisis, fellow nationals come together. Others – in this case, those residing outside our borders – turn into a threat.

Following Italy, Spain, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Georgia, and Russia closed their borders, even Emanuel Macron, one of the European Union’s greatest champions, came around. Although initially, he declared that the virus “has no passport,” and is devoid of national characteristics, he nonetheless did not withstand the pressure and joined the national choir. A great people, he said, “is one that stands together in times of crisis.”

Angela Merkel also gave in. At first, she preached for maintenance of open borders, but within days she too succumbed to the virus and closed Germany’s borders with its neighbors.

The European Union, for its part, was late to respond. By the time it closed its borders, the national horses had already bolted the stable, and it had no choice but to agree retroactively that every country would decide its own policy. The Schengen Agreement – which created intra-European freedom of movement – was put to the test, and it failed.

In each of the countries facing the crisis, a common ritual ensued, with the leader addressing his or her citizens. Appearing against the backdrop of the national flag, he or she would announce the latest restrictions, before concluding with the encouraging words, “We are strong,” “We stand together,” and of course, “God bless our nation.” The national spirit didn’t pass over the battered Italians, who wrapped themselves in their tricolor flag while they stood on their balconies, singing the national anthem and Italian folk songs.

National solidarity didn’t end with flag-waving. The pandemic sharpened the importance of nationwide services that are capable of coping with emergencies: airlines, health care, emergency-response forces, the education system, and public transportation. The nationalization of an airline – whether Alitalia or El Al – suddenly seems like a reasonable move, as does the partial and temporary nationalization of hospitals, pharmaceutical supply chains and other means of production. And, if the economic crisis worsens, states may also decide to take control of such private services as cash machines, pharmacies, and supermarkets.

The economic crisis that will follow the medical one will also require states to become active players in the employment sector: in labor relations, and perhaps also in offering alternative employment to those left jobless by the crisis. It is the state that will decide who will be rescued, in what manner and for how long. One thing is clear, in contrast to the 2008 crisis: This time the bailout will target working people rather than banks. It will focus on the middle and lower classes and will be expressed through public funding and state institutions.

Kazakh medical workers ready to check passengers for coronavirus symptoms as they arrive from Ukraine in an international airport in Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 27, 2020.  Credit: Vladimir Tretyakov,AP

If in recent decades, both academics and elected officials tended to criticize the public system, characterizing it as too large, inefficient and to some extent immoral, the present pandemic makes it clear that without a solid (and generous) public system, states will not be able to meet their challenges. A country like the United States, which lacks both a national health system and a federally managed educational system, is likely to fail its citizens, and face a disastrous situation as well as widespread anger.

The fact that 30 million Americans do not have health insurance and a similar number of workers do not have paid sick leave is turning into a national problem, rather than one limited to the country’s weaker population groups. The dramatic weakening in Britain of the National Health Service presents a challenge to both the government of Boris Johnson and to the people, no less daunting than that Italy is facing for its lack of public planning. There are other examples, and all teach the same lesson: In times of major crisis, all of us, even the Prince of Wales, will need to rely on the support of the state.

The severity of the pandemic is inducing governments to open their wallets. Until recently, the test of a government’s financial stability was the level of its national debt. In the years ahead, the test of a state’s economic strength will be its ability to kick-start the economy, increase people’s buying power and create new jobs. That message sank in very quickly, and in no time, conservatives, socialists and centrists alike have wrangled over who can transfer more resources to those in need of aid. The “invisible hand” has disappeared, while the state’s active role in coping with economic, social and health crises has now become very visible.

Ironically, the international nature of the plague makes clear that there is no escape. With borders closing one after the other, even high-flying globetrotters have to face the reality that their ability to receive proper treatment depends on their citizenship. The gap between rich and poor has narrowed. If your compatriot’s life is in danger, so is yours. All of us now are members of the class of the vulnerable.

This is important because the wealthy will have to foot much of the bill of the coronavirus crisis; tax planning and tax shelters will be of no help. The independence of the mega-corporations will be limited – and they too will be compelled to contribute their share. Some have already started to send the public messages attesting to their heightened sense of responsibility. Last week the American giant Starbucks published a statement detailing the measures it was adopting for the economic protection of its employees during the temporary closure of its branches. Other companies are likely to follow suit.

Containing the plague is going to be largely a function of a government’s strength and of citizens’ trust in the public system. When the coronavirus period is examined after the fact, we will not be able to ignore the success of centralist governmental systems like China, Singapore or Taiwan in fighting it – nor the difficulties experienced by democracies that sought to preserve the confidence of their populations.

Future discussions concerning the nature of desired forms of government will have to confront these comparisons. When the crisis passes, all of us will be forced to reexamine the most basic concepts – such as sovereignty and borders, social solidarity and social services – and ponder the question of how to rebuild their democracies in a way that makes them more just and effective.

While not ignoring the disastrous effects of the coronavirus, we can take solace in what the epidemic hasn’t done in the meantime: It hasn’t exacerbated tensions between citizens and migrants, between rich and poor, and between residents of the center and the periphery. The fact that the virus started in Hunan, which is an economically developed and rapidly growing region of China, and spread to the richest parts of northern Italy, made it clear that the plague does not differentiate between rich and poor. One can only imagine what would have happened if the virus has started to spread outward from immigrant and poverty-stricken neighborhoods – but it didn’t.

Hence, the coronavirus has succeeded where many other, more well-meaning efforts have failed: It has placed a civil-territorial kind of nationalism at the center of the political stage, reminding us that national identity is deeply rooted in our political cultures, no matter our location on this planet.

It can only be hoped that one global virus will be the trigger for significant shifts: a reinforcement of the nation-state as democratic and inclusive, the return of the welfare state and a desire to forge civil cooperation. There is reason for worry, but also grounds for hope.

Yael (Yuli) Tamir is a professor of political philosophy. She has served as Israel’s minister both of education and of immigration. She is the author of “Why Nationalism” (Princeton University Press, 2019).

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Since the EU declared a “refugee crisis” in 2015 that was followed by an unprecedented number of deaths in the Mediterranean, maps explaining the routes of migrants to and within Europe have been used widely in newspapers and social media.

Some of these maps came out of refugee projects, while others are produced by global organisations, NGOs and agencies such as Frontex, the European Border and Coastguard Agency, and the International Organisation for Migration’s project, Missing Migrants. The Balkan route, for example, shows the trail along which hundred of thousands of Syrian refugees trekked after their towns and cities were reduced to rubble in the civil war.

However, migration maps tend to produce an image of Europe being “invaded” and overwhelmed by desperate women, men and children in search of asylum. At the same time, migrants’ journeys are represented as fundamentally linear, going from a point A to a point B. But what about the places where migrants have remained stranded for a long time, due to the closure of national borders and the suspension of the Schengen Agreement, which establishes people’s free internal movement in Europe? What memories and impressions remain in the memory of the European citizens of migrants’ passage and presence in their cities? And how is this most recent history of migration in Europe being recorded?

Time and memory

Our collective project, a map archive of Europe’s migrant spaces, engages with with these questions by representing border zones in Europe – places that have functioned as frontiers for fleeing migrants. Some of these border zones, such as Calais, have a long history, while other places have become effective borders for migrants in transit more recently, such as Como in Italy and Menton in France. The result of a collaborative work by researchers in the UK, Greece, Germany, Italy and the US, the project records memories of places in Europe where migrants remained in limbo for a long time, were confronted with violence, or found humanitarian aid, as well as marking sites of organised migrant protest.

All the cities and places represented in this map archive have over time become frontiers and hostile environments for migrants in transit. Take for instance the Italian city of Ventimiglia on the French-Italian border. This became a frontier for migrants heading to France in 2011, when the French government suspended Schengen to deter the passage of migrants who had landed in Lampedusa in Italy in the aftermath of the Tunisian revolution in 2011.

Four years later in 2015, after border controls were loosened, Ventimiglia again became a difficult border to cross, when France suspended Schengen for the second time. But far from being just a place where migrants were stranded and forced to go back, our map archive shows that Ventimiglia also became an important place of collective migrant protest.

Images of migrants on the cliffs holding banners saying “We are not going back” circulated widely in 2015 and became a powerful slogan for other migrant groups across Europe. The most innovative aspect of our map-archive consists in bringing the context of time, showing the transformations of spaces over time into a map about migration that explains the history of border zones over the last decade and how they proliferated across Europe. Every place represented – Paris, Calais, Rome, Lesbos, Kos, and Athens, for example – has been transformed over the years by migrants’ presence.

Which Europe?

This archive project visualises these European sites in a way that differs from the conventional geopolitical map: instead of highlighting national frontiers and cities, it foregrounds places that have been actual borders for migrants in transit and which became sites of protest and struggle. In this way the map archive produces another image of Europe, as a space that has been shaped by the presence migrants – the border violence, confinement and their struggle to advance.

The geopolitical map of Europe is transformed into Europe’s migrant spaces – that is, Europe as it is experienced by migrants and shaped by their presence. So another picture of Europe emerges: a space where migrants’ struggle to stay has contributed to the political history of the continent. In this Europe migrants are subjected to legal restrictions and human rights violations, but at the same time they open up spaces for living, creating community and as a backdrop for their collective struggles.

It is also where they find solidarity with European citizens who have sympathy with their plight. These border zones highlighted by our map have been characterised by alliances between citizens and migrants in transit, where voluntary groups have set up to provide food, shelter and services such as medical and legal support.

So how does this map engage with debate on the “migrant crisis” and the “refugee crisis” in Europe? By imposing a time structure and retracing the history of these ephemeral border zone spaces of struggle, it upends the image of migrants’ presence as something exceptional, as a crisis. The map gives an account of how European cities and border zones have been transformed over time by migrants’ presence.

By providing the history of border zones and recording memories of citizens’ solidarity with migrants in these places, this map dissipates the hardline view of migrants as invaders, intruders and parasites – in other words, as a threat. This way, migrants appear as part of Europe’s unfolding history. Their struggle to stay is now becoming part of Europe’s history.

But the increasing criminalisation of migrant solidarity in Europe is telling of how such collaboration disturbs state policies on containing migrants. This map-archive helps to erode the image of migrants as faceless masses and unruly mobs, bringing to the fore the spaces they create to live and commune in, embraced by ordinary European citizens who defy the politics of control and the violent borders enacted by their states.

 This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Martina Tazzioli is a Lecturer in Geography at the Swansea University.

Source: https://qrius.com/migration-new-map-of-europe-reveals-real-frontiers-for-refugees/

The post Migration: new map of Europe reveals real frontiers for refugees first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The German Interior Ministry said it had reached an agreement with Greece on Friday that will see it send back certain asylum seekers.

Germany is seeking to strike a number of deals with southern European countries that would allow the federal government to return migrants who have already lodged an asylum request in another country.

What does the German-Greek compromise look like?

• Athens will agree to take back all asylum-seekers who initially applied in Greece but ultimately moved to Germany by passing through the German-Austrian border.
• It remains unclear what Greece will receive in return. However, in a similar deal with Spain, Berlin pledged to help curb the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Morocco.
• The deal is unlikely to affect many refugees. According to the German Interior Ministry, only 150 migrants who applied for asylum elsewhere have entered Germany through Austria since mid-June.

Fleeing war and poverty

In late 2014, with the war in Syria approaching its fourth year and Islamic State making gains in the north of the country, the exodus of Syrians intensified. At the same time, others were fleeing violence and poverty in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia, Niger and Kosovo.

Seeking refuge over the border

Vast numbers of Syrian refugees had been gathering in border-town camps in neighboring Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan since 2011. By 2015, with the camps full to bursting and residents often unable to find work or educate their children, more and more people decided to seek asylum further afield.

A long journey on foot

In 2015 an estimated 1.5 million people made their way on foot from Greece towards western Europe via the “Balkan route”. The Schengen Agreement, which allows passport-free travel within much of the EU, was called into question as refugees headed towards the wealthier European nations.

Desperate sea crossings

Tens of thousands of refugees were also attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean on overcrowded boats. In April 2015, 800 people of various nationalities drowned when a boat traveling from Libya capsized off the Italian coast. This was to be just one of many similar tragedies – by the end of the year, nearly 4,000 refugees were reported to have died attempting the crossing.

Pressure on the borders

Countries along the EU’s external border struggled to cope with the sheer number of arrivals. Fences were erected in Hungary, Slovenia, Macedonia and Austria. Asylum laws were tightened and several Schengen area countries introduced temporary border controls.

Closing the open door

Critics of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “open-door” refugee policy claimed it had made the situation worse by encouraging more people to embark on the dangerous journey to Europe. By September 2016, Germany had also introduced temporary checks on its border with Austria.

Striking a deal with Turkey

In early 2016, the EU and Turkey signed an agreement under which refugees arriving in Greece could be sent back to Turkey. The deal has been criticized by human rights groups and came under new strain following a vote by the European Parliament in November to freeze talks on Turkey’s potential accession to the EU.

No end in sight

With anti-immigration sentiment in Europe growing, governments are still struggling to reach a consensus on how to handle the continuing refugee crisis. Attempts to introduce quotas for the distribution of refugees among EU member states have largely failed. Conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere show no signs coming to an end, and the death toll from refugee sea crossings is on the rise.

Author: Rachel Stewart

Remnants of a government crisis: Germany’s spate of bilateral migrant deals with southern European states come in the wake of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s compromise with her interior minister, Horst Seehofer, which ended a week-long disputed that threatened to split the ruling coalition. Seehofer initially threatened to shut Germany’s southern border to halt the flow of migrants into the country before allowing Merkel to attempt to strike her own deals with the Mediterranean states.

Read more: Will Italy’s refugee stance bring down the EU?

Deal with Italy still some way away: Berlin is still seeking to reach a similar compromise with Italy. A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry has said negotiations are well advanced, although Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who heads the anti-migrant League party, could be unwilling to compromise. Merkel indicated last week she would be willing to travel to Italy to negotiate herself if necessary.

dm/kms (dpa, AFP, KNA)

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-and-greece-seal-migrant-return-deal/a-45116674

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