Yes, we should use ‘refugee’ not ‘migrant’—but no word can escape racism (Suggestie: "asielzoeker")
Al Jazeera made a thoughtful decision
this week to use the term “refugees” as opposed to “migrants” to refer
to the hundreds of thousands of people seeking asylum in Europe this
year. The argument—which is resonating
in the media’s more insightful corners—is that “migrant” has come to
function as a “blunt pejorative,” dismissing the plight of people who
have risked possible death crossing the Mediterranean Sea to escape
impossible lives under civil war, as in Syria, or dictatorship, as in
Eritrea. “Refugee” is not only more accurate and (hopefully) humanizing,
as Al Jazeera argues, but it emphasizes where the onus of
responsibility must now lie: on the countries where refuge is sought.
I immediately distrust anyone who dismisses an
argument as “just semantics.” The issue at hand here is important
precisely because it is semantic. It takes seriously the point
that we don’t just use language to describe the world but to break up
and shape the world. The semantic act of choosing “refugee” is a
political act.
Al Jazeera’s reasoning focuses on how the terms
used frame how the refugee populations are seen and treated, and that
“migrant” has become dangerously reductive. Many publications had opted
for “migrant” as the most neutral term available, since “refugee”
implies a status conferred by international law, for which not every
displaced person in the current crisis in the Med might qualify
(although the majority would). “Migrant” has indeed become increasingly
pejorative, aided by the pernicious rhetoric which has accompanied the
term in recent months. British Prime Minister David Cameron outrageously
described the estimated 3,000 people living in camps in Calais,
France—largely from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Somalia—as a “swarm”
of migrants. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warned of
“desperate [African] migrants marauding” around Europe. Such language
unequivocally frames “migrant” as the threatening, not the threatened,
subject.
It’s
arguable that we should resist the shift of “migrant” into a pejorative
label. There’s a power in reclaiming terms that have been appropriated
for racist purposes. But if, at best, “migrant” could be reclaimed as a
neutral term—conjuring no metaphors of insects or invading hordes—it is
still less useful in this context than “refugee.” Refugee is not
neutral; it signifies need. Not every person fleeing the Middle East and
Africa by treacherous Mediterranean passage leaves in the same or equal
position of duress. Although, I submit, no one choosing the sort of
journey that has seen 3,573 drown in 12 months just to get to Europe is
doing so from a place of freedom and choice.
To use “refugee” as the default term helpfully
shifts the discourse into one in which the baseline assumption is that
these thousands of people arriving in Europe need help. “Migrant,” even
in its most neutral iteration, carries fewer generous assumptions. As
the Guardian’s Patrick Kingsley
— whose work on this subject has been second to none—wrote, the
“passage [of refugees] cannot be avoided; it can only be better
managed.” A term like “migrant” is certainly unhelpful if it allows
Europe’s leaders to labor under the false premise that the
mass-migration to Europe is something that can be easily avoided, if
only the displaced people would so choose.
I think the term “refugee” is thus primarily
useful here for its potential to frame how we judge the European
countries dealing with the influx of people. It will not, as Al Jazeera
hopes, ensure—even in a small way—that the refugees are accorded more
humanity and dignity in the public imaginary. There is no historical
shortage of refugee populations, labeled as such, being dehumanized and
oppressed. We’re seeing this in Europe right now.
Al Jazeera’s point applies to English language
news, of course. In Germany, the E.U. country which accepts the most
asylum-seekers but can and should accept many thousands more in this
crisis, has seen a difference parlance play out in the media, with no
less racism on the ground. For the most part, the German press has used
the term refugees (“Flüchtlinge”) instead of migrants (“Migranten”).
This weekend, neo-Nazis rioted and attacked a refugee center in the
small town of Heidenau over the weekend, recalling the sickening racist
riots and arson attacks in Rostock in 1992. In Berlin on Saturday, two
neo-Nazis pissed on two children and their mother riding the train while
shouting “Heil Hitler” and “You’re not Aryan.”
No one is suggesting that using “refugee” instead
of “migrant” will mitigate the uptick in such nationalist, racist
violence—no term that categorizes racial or national difference is
immune from infection by racist and nationalist ideology. We certainly
don’t crush racism by simply finding new words every time one term
becomes pejoratively drenched. The shift from “migrant” to “refugee” is
potentially important, then, not as a synonym chase away from racist
usage. Rather, we insist upon “refugee” to demand that refuge is
offered.
Similar semantic challenges attend the discourse
on immigration in the U.S., of course. From this context, we should know
that no mode of reference is perfect, but some are much worse than
others. “Illegal alien” is demonstrably more dehumanizing than
“undocumented immigrant,” even though the latter seems to underplay the
lived difficulty of lacking the legal status to live and work in the
country. We know, to speak to current controversy, that “anchor baby” is
outright offensive, framing a child’s entire existence as no more than
an access to citizenship.
But there’s a reason that even presumably neutral
terms like migrant lend themselves to racist intonation: they were
never really neutral. There can be no neutrality in a framework that
categorizes people according to nation state divisions and who has power
and freedom within them. Semantic acts can be powerful, but they don’t
tear down borders.
Bron: http://fusion.net/story/188726/mediterranean-refugee-crisis/
De term die ze zouden moeten gebruiken is "asielzoeker".
Ook beetje rare opmerking in dat stuk dat de (ik vermoed Amerikaanse schrijfster) of Al Jazeera vindt dat Duitsland meer asielzoekers kan en moet opnemen. Waar halen ze dat idee vandaan? Je ziet in de Duitse kranten staan dat de overheid er niet meer weet wat ze met de enorme toestroom daar aanmoeten. En Al Jazeera is gevestigd in Dubai. Wat doet Dubai of de VS met Syrische vluchtelingen?
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