NITCH

Photo of Zygmunt Bauman

Zygmunt Bauman // “As you rightly point out, refugees end up all too often cast in the role of a threat to the human rights of established native populations, instead of being defined and treated as a vulnerable part of humanity in search of the restoration of those same rights of which they have been violently robbed. There is currently a pronounced tendency, among the settled populations as well as the politicians they elect...to transfer the 'issue of refugees' from the area of universal human rights into that of internal security. Being tough on foreigners in the name of safety from potential terrorists is evidently generating more political currency than appealing for compassion for people in distress... As recently as a few weeks ago, those newcomers may have felt just as safe at home as we do right now. But now, they look at us, deprived of their homes, possessions, security, often their 'inalienable' human rights... No wonder the successive tides of fresh immigrants are resented... They are embodiments of the collapse of order...they reveal insecurities to us... By stopping them on the other side of our properly fortified borders, it is implied that we’ll manage to stop those global forces that brought them to our doors... Such discursive acrobatics leave the causes of these crises unexamined, and those responsible untouched by guilt. In a culture that ennobled the pursuit of self-betterment and happiness...it is nothing less than utter hypocrisy to condemn those who try to follow this precept but are prevented from doing so by lack of means or proper papers.”