Europe’s militarization of natural human migration

Gaddafi ran against Europe's "immigration threat?"

Migration is as natural for human beings as walking on two feet…and humans have been migrating and moving for thousands of years. Migration in past eras was undertaken for reasons of human needs.  However,  in the modern age, natural human motivations for migration, (secure basic needs), is being viewed as threatening and even criminal activity.  Natural human motivations for a basic needs  are now placed among security issues. Nowhere is this criminalization of the natural human activity of migration more evident than in the European Union (see International Migration, Health and Human Rights).

Human migration as a European security problem. Viewing  human migration for safety and economic security as a criminal activity and security issue could be the motivation for new European interests to undertake military activities outside Europe. At the beginning of March of this year, France’s European minister,  Laurent Wauquiez, “warned against Libyan migration” and that “we must defend our  frontiers  on a European level.”This secutitization and criminalization of immigration began in largely during Franco Frattini’s tenure as an EU commissioner of Justice and Home Affairs.  The fact that Italy is also an enthusiastic supporter of military action against Libya to partly “stem the immigration emergency” is not an accident and Frattini is probably leading this charge in Italy. In August 2010, Gaddafi demanded 5 billion euro to keep out “Muslim invaders.” In the backdrop of European military action against the Muammar Gaddafi regime is Islamophobia, as well as outrage over the money demand – and amplified in the larger view of “illegal immigration” as a security threat to Europe.It is NO accident that both Frattini and Sarkozy are Islamophobes, who occasionally come out of the closet…

Racism and Islamophobia behind “immigrant emergency.” This secularization and criminalization of migration is also a result of most European democracies allowing racist and hateful “political parties” access to national ballots and national elections.  So some of this of pressure from racist and Islamophobic, crackpot “political parties” is a result of wide-open election systems that provide unhindered ballot access.  The motivations of Sarkozy’s military actions with regard to Libya are said to be motivated by the resurgence of LePen’s National Front “political party” (even after LePen has been convicted of hate speech).Europe’s main problem is not Gaddafi killing his own people, nor the enforcement of a UN Resolution to protect civilians. It’s the “threat of immigrants,” described in racist tones of “turning Christian Europe black”and the “immigration emergency” that has “been caused” by military action in Libya,” along with “support for democracy”  and the tearing down of basic European instruments, like the Schengen Treaty, to “address this emergency.”It is NO wonder that France and Italy – the two combatants in Libya – now want to review the Schengen Treaty …Europeans now have entered a new level of military and security policy with the open military action against Gaddafi’s Libya for purposes of “stemming illegal immigration.”  European soldiers will now bleed and die “fighting” a natural human activity is now viewed as a military threat. “Fighting” so-called “illegal immigration” is like fighting the flow of water in the rivers and seas (IOM Response to the Libyan Crisis).

The “security problem” is not Europe’s, but among the migrants. Immigration to rich Europe is prompted by the same deprivation that has always prompted humans to migrate. That is, to address basic human security needs of  food, shelter and a meaningful life. To view the desire to fulfill these basic needs as “criminal” and “threatening” is inhuman, as well as outrageous!It is the lack of basic human security – both in terms of human needs and despotic regimes – that cause humans to migrate.The answer is to address the real human needs that cause humans to migrate. Migrants are neither criminals or enemies, but real humans with real and legitimate needs – and these needs must be addressed without criminalization or military force. The European use of force against  Gaddafi’s Libya is probably for more than just “democracy and protection of civilians,” but a war against the natural human activity of migration – and we must all be frightened!

Also see:Is the EU policy on illegal immigration securitized? Yes- of course! – D Van DijckThe securitization of migration: Whose justice and whose security? – KF Aas European Union as a Gated Community – Henk van Houtum and Roos Pijpers European Union and the securtization of Migration – Jef Huysmans