Fleeing from war into subjugation; the politics of migration

As the new year starts and we begin to index major themes that dominated the news, ‘migration’ emerges as preponderant theme.  We were confronted with the sad photograph of Aylan Kurdi – a body of a child, fleeing war, washed ashore, lifeless.  Media outlets displayed images of thousands of refugees pressing through Anatolia to make their way to Europe – it came to be known as the ‘European’ Migrant Crisis.  In the US, Republican presidential candidates swear they will ‘protect’ American citizens from ‘moving’ Muslims, even if those Muslims happen to be Americans.  More could be said: Deals between the EU and Turkey, continued demographic shifts in Iraq and Syria and the ongoing plight of Palestinians.  ‘Movement’ is powerful and political.

“If people are physically and morally uprooted, they are more easily moved and when they are easy to move, they are more easily rendered physically and morally superfluous.” - Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion

In the above quote, Asad is commenting on observations made by Hannah Arendt regarding totalitarianism; ‘dominant power realizes itself through the discourse of mobility,’ Asad explains.  The convergence of social media, conventional media and global crises has rendered this discourse vivid.  And movement always involves displacement – demographics change in not only one place, but several places.  Accompanying each demographic change, the contours of domestic politics shift as well. 

The so-called European ‘migrant crisis’ is a telling example of the politics of movement.  Milos Zeman, president of the Czech Republic exclaimed, "I am profoundly convinced we are facing an organized invasion and not a spontaneous movement of refugees.”  Zeman likened such an ‘invasion’ to a Nazi invasion.  Naturally, such a comparison is not only unwarranted, but manipulative and intellectually frightening.  It should concern people who are serious about freedom and democracy that a president could compare weaponless, freezing, starving victims of power to the aggressors – Nazis no less. 

In the United States, similar charges about refugees are made.  Donald Trump is the most theatrical in opposing refugees and undocumented immigrants – in other words – people from other places; roughly 75% of Trump supporters fervently support deportation for the undocumented and reject asylum for Syrian refugees.  Chris Christie, another Republican hopeful, famously declared that even refugee orphans ‘under the age of 5’ should not be admitted.  Picking on orphans under five years of age was not an arbitrary choice; Christie was making a deliberate point – the stateless nature of these refugees makes them something else, inhuman, unworthy of humanitarian consideration.  "We need to put the safety and security of the American people first," Christie said.  Indeed, but can an orphan’s needs come at least second?   

The presence of the powerless always presents an opportunity to the powerful.  When Carl Schmitt searched for an irreducible essence of politics, he concluded that politics – at its core – was the ability to distinguish ‘friend from foe.’ Or ‘us’ and ‘them.’  Nothing connotes otherness than coming from some other place. By extension, politics is the ability to privilege some, while denying privilege to others on this basis – it is a discriminatory process by necessity and nature.  In the very act of distinction arises power.  Once I am able to tell you, “you” have rights and “they” do not, I not only exercise power, but in fact also create it.

Ibn Khaldun defined government as ‘that which prevents injustice, except the injustice it itself commits;’ at the heart of power is the double standard.  If we test Asad’s theory, that movement renders persons superfluous, the refugee crisis is no doubt a case in point.  The plight of the Syrians was reduced by many – though not all – to the burden of movement and in this instance, the immobile were privileged, not with any material gain, but simply by the belief that their lives mattered more than the refugee. 

Movement and Humanity in the Middle East  

Syria absorbed many Iraqi, mostly Sunni refugees from neighboring Iraq, who were the target of Iranian backed militias cleansing Baghdad of Sunnis (movement the US was aware of but looked the other way).  Now Syrians – fleeing the combined bombing campaigns of Russia and Bashar Assad, have changed the demographics of neighboring Lebanon and southern Turkey.  These demographic changes in the host country will affect the region for years to come.  For example, in Lebanon, a delicate but constantly combustible ‘balance’ of power exists between Lebanon’s Sunnis, Shi’is and Christians, as well as Druze.  Lebanon can experience no influx without being politically affected.  The devastating civil war of 1975-1990 can be attributed to, in part, the influx of Palestinian refugees. 

The term ‘Lebanonization’ is a political adjective that refers to fragmentation along sectarian lines; in a sense, the mass movements in the region of the 21^st century have ‘Lebanized,’ the whole Arab world.  But even sectarianism in the region relies on the myth of mobility to actualize its malevolence: Sunni partisans in the region accuse Shi’i forces of being loyal to non-Arab (i.e. ‘foreign’) Iran.  Shi’i partisans see Saudi Arabia as an ‘extension’ of the foreign West, including Israel.  In other words, neither Arabia nor Iran is treated as a native regional entity with antique roots and valid concerns.  More importantly, sectarian loyalty does not hold up if I treat my Sunni, Shi’i, Druze, Christian or Aliwite neighbor as a ‘native,’ it is only when I conceive of them as a foreigner does their sect embody their ‘difference.’  Only when I pretend they are from somewhere else, can I render them ‘superfluous.’

The most striking instance of movement and meaning is the plight of the Palestinians.  In 1948, Jewish extremists employed terror and subterfuge in their battle to create a Jewish state.  Many Palestinians fled with their families, temporarily leaving their homes to escape bullets and bombs.  As is well known, these Palestinians were never permitted to return.  They still hold deeds to homes, now occupied by Jewish families.  The simple fact that they were ‘uprooted’ made it impossible for them to be rooted again; their ‘rights,’ they very thing that confirms their humanity, were/are denied. 

It seems Arendt and Asad are right.   



Laith Saud is a writer and scholar. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University and co-author of An Introduction to Islam for the 21st Century (Wiley-Blackwell). Follow him on Twitter: @laithsaud

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.