2. “Migrants” vis-à-vis “Refugees”: Towards a “Rationalisation” of Migration Control and Management

At this point, it should be highlighted that the term “migration flows”, which has dominated the public discourse during the last years, is quite revealing of the dominant way of thinking regarding migrants. Of course, as it is rightly underlined, “[t]he fluid and turbulent force of migration is not a new discovery. Societies have always feared the turbulence and irregular movement of migrants and have described them in the same fluid terms” (Nail 2015: 224). Within this frame, twenty-first-century “migration flows”, represented as “flooding” the European space, appear to crystallise the properties of liquids. More specifically, the fact that liquids always acquire the shape of the space they take up or through which they move, as well as the fact that no segmentation is observed in liquids when external forces are exercised; on the contrary, they flow continuously. Migrants’ representation as “liquids” and “flows” has not been restricted exclusively to a symbolic and rhetorical level; European border politics has literally treated migrants as “flows”. “Migration flows” are directed through particular pathways, changing direction or becoming blocked like a liquid flow, whereas migrants, having lost their human substance, are becoming a liquid mass, perpetually in motion.

It is estimated that around 75 million people across the world are today in a position of a so-called forced displacement for several reasons (Agier 2016).

We should keep in mind that, within a rapidly globalised world, there is noted a significant rise in human mobility, in general; even those, who consider themselves “invulnerable” to dichotomies and tend to regard migrants as “dangerous” and “miasmatic” Others are quite often obliged to constantly move for business, and so on. On the new conditions of globalisation and mobility in Western societies, see Cresswell (2006); Sassen (1996).

This has been exactly the rhetoric used by the Golden Dawn, the Greek ultranationalist extreme right party, leading to a series of murderous attacks against migrants that culminated in the murder of the 34-year-old anti-fascist musician Pavlos Fyssas, on 18 September 2013. Unfortunately, the racist attacks are still continuing, whereas in the (September) 2015 national elections the Golden Dawn won 6.2% of election vote.

An indicative example is the History textbook for the 3rd Grade of General Lyceum (High School), in Greece. The book’s writers reproduce the dominant xenophobic views, attributing to “illegal migrants” the rise of criminality and the consequent insecurity of the Greek citizens: “[…] the sudden and uncontrolled rise of illegal migrants and economic migrants are creating serious problems of security to the Greek society” (Givalos et al. 2010: 200).

It should not be considered as accidental that we now speak of “Crimmigration Law”; namely, the institutionalisation of laws on migration that proceed to a conjunction of migratory and penal legislation (Stumpf 2013). A typical example has been, among others, the Greek legislation on migration (Baldwin-Edwards 2009; Sitaropoulos 2000). Also, for an interesting analysis of the dominant metaphors in legal texts on migration, see Cunningham-Parmeter (2011).

As it has been rightly asserted by C. Cantat, “with the start of the economic depression in the 1970s, followed by the fall of the Soviet Union, migrants became key figures of difference against which people of the EU member states could be argued to share a common ‘Europeanity’” (2015: 16).

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than one million people arrived to Europe by sea in 2015. Specifically, more than 850,000 migrants, primarily from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, reached the Greek shores (UNHCR 2016; Council of Europe 2017).

Besides, the process of relocation plays an extremely significant part in European migration politics. As Jean-Claude Juncker stated on 13 September 2017: “People who have no right to stay in Europe must be returned to their countries of origin. When only 36% of irregular migrants are returned, it is clear we need to significantly step up our work” (European Commission 2017a).

And, in March 2017, the EU launched a €34 million Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, in order to enable around 230,000 refugee children to attend school in Turkey (European Commission 2017b).

For a brief presentation of the structure and operation of FRONTEX, see also Kasparek (2010).

In November 2017, five hotspots are in operation in Greece; more specifically, on the Aegean islands of Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos (European Commission 2017c). The recent law on migration, passed on 3 April 2016 by the Greek parliament, put a special emphasis on the facilities, function and staffing of hotspots and other centres for migrants’ identification and recording (Law 4375/2016).

Regarding his statement “No registration: no rights”, Juncker also commented on his Twitter account: “Truly, I am Europe’s progressive voice on migration” (2015).

These dominant stereotypes regarding non-Western nations have, usually, little to do with the culture and the distinct characteristics of these nations. As Said rightly highlights: “Orientalism is – and does not simply represent – a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with ‘our’ world” (1977: 12).

It is a fact that the new control mechanisms do continuously block and reduce these “illegal” passages. And, as long as these passages are getting fewer and fewer and as long as the surveillance mechanisms are intensified, the number of migrants who cannot survive their journey is steadily rising. According to some estimates, for every migrant’s dead body found at the coast line of the “developed” world, at least two more deaths are not recorded, whereas one out of four persons has perished during the journey to Europe (Brian and Laczko 2014; Spijkerboer 2007; Grant 2011).

Quite characteristically, on 28 June 2017, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has called for an end to the “negative rhetoric” about migrants, since “ungrounded fears” have enabled some politicians and media to present “a distorted image of migration as a threat”. Of course, according to PACE, this is deemed as necessary, since migration can potentially contribute to Europe’s “economic growth, demographic renewal and cultural diversity” (2017).