Media; A Medium of Political Control

Media should be the unbiased transmission of information to a mass population. A few decades ago, newspapers and radio broadcasts were relied on to keep up with current affairs. Nowadays, information spreads instantaneously, and has become a common commodity because of the internet. Despite the growth in the number of news sources, people tend to stick to ones that align with their own views and are hesitant in scrutinising that which falls into their comfort-zone. Thus, quantity trumps quality. Few realise the power media holds over one on a day to day basis, and those who do may be powerless to its effects.

With the massive influence media holds, it’s possible to sway an audience into any ideological direction with the subtlety of carefully selected words. And so begins the chain of spoon-fed ideologies and the shaping of people into a “uni-mould” fit. With this homogeneity of thought and behaviour, the burden of controversial, or rather individual, thought becomes one too heavy to bear for many. An extreme example of this was the 1984 “Reagan Landslide”, which was only popular by a 2:3 ratio. Through the distraction and marginalisation of the public, sentiments were divided and contrary to individual opinion, the administration went through (Chomsky, 1991).

A glimpse at the first page of most newspapers show heavily fleshed-out titles, inducing an implied narrative in favour of the news outlet’s position on the political spectrum. Not everyone reads the full story though; for most, the headline is the furthest they get. Thus, the gravity of unbiased reporting is clear. What this means on a large scale is that inadvertently, what was once used as a medium meant to provide the masses with the truth, is now being twisted to create carefully construed narratives. The subjectivity of a reporter’s language enables this. The rippled effects this has on a society as a whole is that a large group of people can now be painted the same shade of fear. Fear? Because sensationalism in media is fuelled by fear. In Europe particularly, many headlines serve to antagonise the public against the Syrian Refugee Crisis. Very much against the notion of acceptance and toleration. Europe, which was the heart of the enlightenment, a movement sparked by similar waves of intolerance over three centuries ago.

I question the purpose of headlines that hone in on social constructs such as race as the sole proprietor of crime without providing intelligent discussion. It’s true; elements such as race, religion, and geographic location can very much affect the occurrence and conditions of crime, yet without an analytic approach, its easy for the layman to (mis)interpret – it may as well be the very intent of an author to paint such a picture – the bigger picture and cherry-pick details that unravel strides of effort into toleration and acceptance.

So the challenge is to fight against the irony. The irony being that we are slowly being united through our analogous divisions. Strip an article bare of its convoluted sentences ad colourful descriptions. Focus on the facts. Question the relevance of unnecessary descriptors. News is created by people after all, and is prone to human error. It’s a secondary source manufactured by a person whose job it is to create a commotion. It’s hard not to be carried away on that wave, but for the sake of a united future, it’s necessary to stand your ground.  

References

Chomsky, N. (1991). Media Control; The Sspectacular Achievements of Propoganda. Seven Stories Press.

Banking on Fear

Banking on Fear:

One of my friends from my home university was coming to visit me in Munich for a weekend when something unexpected happened. I went to the central station on a Thursday at midnight, to receive him and the station was filled with policemen. I was curious about the abrupt increase in security but I presumed it had to do with the late hours at night. The station was fairly empty except for the policemen and a few commuters. As the final destination for the train was Munich, all the 100-150 passengers got off the train as soon as it arrived. I was extremely excited to see my friend after such a long time and after greeting each other we proceeded to walk towards the metro when we were stopped by the police. When the two police officers approached us I was distressed and panicking. I can still recollect the exact moment he approached us and asked us for our IDs. I was taken aback because I had been waiting at the station for about half an hour and I was not questioned but as soon as my German friend arrived we were interrogated. The Police officers immediately called the office to check if our IDs were registered and as I have a Netherlands residence permit, I was anticipating that he would ask for my passport for further validation and I left it at home, but fortunately, he did not. My German is not very fluent but I can maintain a conversation and understand fairly easily so I was able to follow his instructions. After cross-checking our IDs he asked us to show our bags. My friend had a sports bag and a backpack with him and I only had a small wallet. The officer checked every nook and corner of his bags thoroughly for about 20 minutes. We were so dumbfounded during the entire time and the only thing on my mind was if I did or said something wrong at that moment the consequences could be dire. After the thorough check, he finally let us go. This whole event had me questioning if he stopped only us out of all the other 150 passengers because I have a darker complexion? The situation left me startled for following few days. It was at that moment I truly realized the power of authority.

The following day during my anthropology seminar we watched the documentary ‘The Well-Founded Fear’ recorded in the year 2000. The documentary’s title is from the definition of the term refugee where the applications fate of denial or acceptance relies on the truthfulness of existence of a well-founded of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. It reveals the application and interview procedure by following a few US asylum seeking applicants from different nations. If the application is denied after the first interview they can appeal to the court and this process is called ‘deportation trial’; the judgment in made even before the applicant gets a second chance. We had been discussing the role of power in our seminar but the documentary really puts things into perspective so much so that some parts brought me to tears. At the end of the documentary I remembered the incident that took place less than 12 hours ago at the central station and I could only imagine the extent of the multitude and intensity of fear that the applicants have to face during the selection process. They have to recollect and relieve the exact trauma they need freedom from. Is there a better alternate procedure to judge the applicants and decide their fate that doesn’t involve banking on (proof of the existence of ) their fear?

We need change

The most terrible thing is the fear. Fear alternating with hope. 

Do you say the right things in front of the person who is authorized to decide whether you can stay in the country or not? Do you use the right legal terms to get a chance for future? 

My stomach ist aching. I wanna cry but my body is only able to lay on the bed turning to a stone, not thinking, not fearing not hoping anymore. In my mind appears the voice of the lady from the foreigners´ registration office:„We don´t know why people can stay or why not, some cases seem hopeless and than the they decide the person can stay“. I think she want´s to cheer us up with this information but I`am looking at here dumbfounded. These are people lives she is talking about. And these people did risk there lives to come here and left everything behind. In this office it seems to be like a funny roulette, some make it to the target and some not. For me it feels like a dangerous despotism. 

I´m loosing it, i´can´t control it anymore, I don´t know how to fight, I´don´t know how to raise my voice anymore. I do not want to have anything to do with this hole system. People who talk like that, people who look at me, who look at us like that. But it´s not possible - even if I close my eyes this terrible feeling is still there and my hand is intertwined to another hand and in my body there is beating a little heart of a little live that needs to be protected as well as the live of his father.

I don´t know what the future will bring. I can only hope. The fear is a devoted companion but some day we will part from each other.Things will change. 

I-589, Application for Ayslum by Jeschua of Nazareth

This is a fictive Application for Asylum by Jeschua of Nazareth.

 To enlarge the pictures please press "ctrl" and "+"

Decision: I-589, Application for Asylum by Jeschua of Nazareth

Dear Mr. of Nazareth,

Your application did not get granted. The department could not get to a decision and has referred your case to an Immigration Court. You will have to appear to your hearing and get the chance to explain yourself in front of the Immigration Judge. He will make the final decision in your case.

The asylum application has not been granted due to the following reasons:

1.     You have been found to be the leader of a religious sect.

a.     You are preaching and pretending to be the son of god and built a great crowd of followers. In your application is written that your intention is to launch a revolution against the current government. This meets the criteria for building a formation of a fundamental, religious-based terrorist army.

2.     You have been found to be a terrorist.

a.     You have not only had the plan to launch a revolution, you actually admitted having led a strike against the current government of your country, and got imprisoned therefore. This is a terrorist action. This is under no circumstances acceptable and by itself an absolute exclusion criterion for asylum.

3.     You have been found to be illegal in this country.

a.     Currently we are having very strict border controls in this country. Unfortunately, we were unable to find legal documentation of a tourist entrance of Jeschua of Nazareth in our system. Consequently, you crossed the border illegally and are now suspect for further investigation.

4.     Inconsistency.

a.     We could not find any signs of torture on your body. There have been found some marks on the head which might be a result of the crown of thorns, but no injuries which reflect having been pelted with stones.

5.     You have been found having a god-complex.

a.     Due to numerous claims to be the son of god, it seems as there is a profound god-complex. We are afraid this might pose a threat to society and recommend to check into psychological, medical care.

Concluding, the asylum application could not get granted. Your hearing will be on August 17^th, 2018. You will have the opportunity to explain yourself to the Immigration Judge again. For the time until your hearing, we recommend staying at Creedmore Center, Queens Village, New York. It has a beautiful garden and many helpful men in white robes who will follow you in your revolution.

In case you will not show up to your hearing the asylum application is automatically cancelled.

Best of luck.

Illegal Aliens and Western Double-Standards

by Arttu Uuranmäki

"The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence." 

(Article 31 (1), Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951, UNHCR)

Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees forms one of the most important legal institutions of international refugee regime. As one examines the article 31 of the convention cited above, it is rather clear that, under international law, a person can enter a country with or without proper documentation, such as passport or travelling visa, in the purpose of claiming asylum. Furthermore, it is evident that any mean of entering, whether through governmental border entry point or with the help of a smuggler, are legal as well.

Also, it follows from the article that claiming asylum is not an illegal act (Gomez & McKanders 2017). Travelling in order to claim for an asylum, as well as the claiming process itself, is no more unlawful than my neighbor visiting a grocery store or my friend applying for economic benefits for students from the government.  However, as many publications and a lot of research material have shown, asylum seekers are treated more and more with suspicion and as if they were, indeed, criminals.

This development can be seen most clearly in the US, where detention of asylum seekers upon claiming for asylum is a norm. Detention is expanded to concern unaccompanied minors too: In 2014, 68,541 children were detained at the US-Mexico border. Since these individuals in detention haven't committed a crime by entering the country or by claiming asylum, the arbitary deprivation of their freedom becomes highly questionable. (Gomez & McKanders 2017). Furthermore, detention of children, whether accompanied by an adult or not, is even more questionable.

Detention is also problematic in regards to the obtainability of legal help. As it has been illustrated in class many times by Dr. Tricia Hepner and Dr. Karla McKanders, the detention camps are often located far from the big cities, in which most lawyers hold their practises. Furthermore, since the governmental institutions often regulate heavily communication and visiting from and to the camps, this regulation hinders even further the possibility to find legal help for one's asylum case in a country, in which legal help is not guaranteed by law.

Europe may fare a bit better when it comes to the treatment of asylum seekers, but a detention is a used practice here too. In example, German government issued a law under which the state has the right to detain asylum seekers entering the country if they are travelling from another EU country (Gomez & McKanders 2017). This procedure is justified on the basis of Dublin Regulation. In the official web page of European Commission, in regards to the Dublin Regulation, it is stated: "The Dublin Regulation establishes the Member State responsible for the examination of the asylum application." (European Commission 2017). Based on the web page, it seems that the Dublin Regulation imposes responsibilities on states only, but not on individuals such as asylum seekers. There were no explicit mentions on the obligations individuals, but several on states. As the lack of my resources at this point is limited, this notion is nothing more but highly speculative.* I'm hoping to elaborate this issue furthermore on my term paper.

For a conclusion, I would like to draw a broader picture to which this issue of detention and criminal-like treatment of asylum seekers is part of. Didier Fassin argues in his article Policing Borders, Producing Boundaries that asylum seekers are nationally subjected on more and more suspicion and scrutiny, thus delegitimizing the asylum institution in France. Matthew J. Gibney, in his book The Ethics and Politics of Asylum, elaborates the policies both German and US governments have implemented in order to keep individuals from claiming asylum in the first hand, such as by limiting visa-distribution for certain nationalities in German embassies or intercepting and deporting rafts in the Caribbean sea before they even enter the US waters.

These procedures of limiting successive asylum claims in any means necessary seem to imply strong hypocrisy and double-standards at the level of national asylum policies. On the one hand, as western democracies, states must respect the obligation of the legal basis of society. On another, the moral legitimacy of claiming an asylum is thwarted by any means as long as it is commissioned accordingly to the international law.

If the reason for this direction of action is in the need to be sure that only legitimate asylum claims get accepted, I would like to draw attention to the following analogy as a source of moral reflection point on the issue:

A professor of mine once stated: "For a Finnish, the worst fault the judicial institution can commit is to sentence an innocent. For an American, the worst fault is if a guilty walks free". In consideration to current asylum procedures, which is worse: That a illegitimate claim succeeds or that a legitimate claim doesn't?

And if the reason is something else, well, then maybe we should re-examine our priorities a bit more further.


*This notion is included in the hope that someone more educated in the subject matter reads the article and can assist me with providing further knowledge.


References:

European Commission; 2017; https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum/examination-of-applicants_en

Fassin, Didier; 2011; Policing Borders, Producing Boundaries. The Governmentality of Immigration in Dark Times 

Gibney, Matthew J.; 2004; Chapter 3: The Federal Republic of Germany: the rise and fall of a right to asylum & Chapter 5: The United States: the making and breaking of a refugee consensus; in The ethics and Politics of Asylum: Liberal Democracy and the Response to Refugees

Gomez, Valerie & McKanders, Karla Mari; 2017; Refugee Reception and Perception: U.S. Detention Camps and German Welcome Centers

UNHCR; 1951; Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Article 31 (1)

Bureaucracy and Human Rights - made by humans for humans

In my student job at the KVR in the foreigners office, where I am supposed to help international students and scientists with bureaucracy matters, I am constantly confronted with the interaction of bureaucracy and human claims. 
Students have to go the KVR to apply for a residence title or extend it, if they want to change their subject or university, when they have finished their studies and want to apply for a job searching visa etc. In this job my task is to go through the queue (that lines up to get a waiting number that allows them to see one of the officers) and check whether they have brought all needed documents with them, to answer some questions (if I can, because I haven’t really been taught all this visa background knowledge) and (very importantly) to tell them when they are in the wrong queue. International students that come to the KVR are often nervous because they are worried that they might not get an extension of their residence title, a permit to work etc.   

During my time at the KVR I have been able to get an insight into bureaucratic practices and how German administrations deal with internationals. Most of the time it is really exhausting and in the beginning I was a bit horrified about the terrible queuing situations there, as there are far too less officers. The asylum department had to be moved to another building, as the KVR is so overcrowded that there wasn’t enough space. Besides that, I also experienced a change about myself. As in this job I have to speak to a lot of different people, switching between English, German (and sign language) from 8 in the morning until 6 in the evening, I noticed that in the beginning of the day I was still very fresh, friendly and willing to pay attention to every single problem. In the afternoon I noticed that I started to get impatient and annoyed at people and closed myself up more to their problems.In the beginning of my job I tried to solve every individual problem, asking the officers every single detail. But this started to become so exhausting and as a consequence I was not able to speak to everyone in the queue, but in my job it is expected of me to speak to everyone and check whether they have brought all their documents before they reach the service point. So I see myself in a conflict situation as I want to be friendly and show them that I am there for them but when I am too open and caring, people feel that they can take me up with every single problem. I once had a situation when after I have finished my work and just wanted to go home, people started following me to the underground and kept asking me questions. At that point I decided, that I had to be more closed up and just consequently have to say „no“ sometimes but this also makes me feel bad. 

What about people that have to work there everyday? They have to take decisions about other people’s lifes everyday. Of course they need to close themselves up and this is why they seem so cold and distant sometimes. To take this a bit further: what about a judge that has to take a decision about an asylum claim and has heard 10 different stories during his day and then he or she is tired and exhausted and just wants to go home? So then as the judge is also just a human, it might come to the point that he just wants to get over with this decision very quickly and some important facts might be left out. This might lead to the fact that for example people are treated differently in the morning than in the afternoon or the other way round.

The rules and orders of this bureaucratic system are made from above by the government. So both, the officers and the students, could be seen as „victims of bureaucracy“. Once there was a situation, when a girl, that had queued for hours in the wrong line and then had to queue again at another place, exclaimed under tears, that she felt violated in her human rights. Of course it wasn’t the officer’s fault as she was just doing her job, but I can really understand the feeling that being stuck in a bureaucratic system (where nobody seems to be responsible for you) makes you feel like being in a different- kafkaesque- dimension because you are totally dependent on that system and you can’t take matters into your own hands. And yet, we somehow need a bureaucratic apparatus to structure people’s lifes and get things sorted, otherwise it would get out of control. So how can human rights and a bureaucratic system interact with each other? Can they? 

However, from my experience, officers at the KVR are most of the time trying their best to help people, although, especially in the foreigner’s office, there are sometimes some cultural or language barriers that make things complicated. This is were the anthropologist can come into play…

Rules of the Game - ILC

There exists a prevalent saying, currently inscribed on the banner of the President of Czech Republic, which states “the truth prevails”. It asserts the belief that finding and defending the truth is the ultimate, superior goal for resolving conflicts of life. As morally pure and correct this notion may be, ethnography seems to never fully and ably reinterpret the truth about refugees’ livelihood and status. Heath Cabot emphasised this view when she stated ethnographic writing can never deliver “the real lives and voices of the persons we seek to write”.  In many situations, when the absolute truth can’t prevail, in addition to other reasons, a political game naturally develops as a means of resolving the disputes involving the participating players, each with unique strategies and goals. An example of such game affecting refugees is the asylum process, described as a “socio-political process” in which various strategic objectives interface. The players of this game are multitudinous, namely, the refugees, lawyers, experts, and asylum officers. One can boldly attempt to summarise the entire game.

On the refugees’ side, the objective is to achieve legal entry into the country they are seeking asylum in. Regardless of the truth for seeking asylum, the key strategy is to develop a compelling case for well-founded fear of persecution. A vital component to achieve this is a lawyer who can help navigate the legal documents and procedures. A participating anthropologist or expert of the like is also important for strategic essentialisation, which entails contextualising “the movements and claims of refugees and asylum seekers”.

On the judicial and bureaucratic side, the aim is to scrutinise and validate the refugee case. Given the breadth and depth of cases, asylum officers must also rely on experts to quickly understand the conflicts in the refugees’ homeland. Refugee claims must be dissected and asylum officers must answer to the often-harsh restrictions immigration policies enforce.

This is the game. Games create winners and losers. No matter how unfair or unjust the outcome may be, this game will always command the decision-making process. Should we then aspire to make a game that is as fair and objective as possible? Possibly. This entails having players and rules which are fair and objective. Cynthia Mahmhood discusses the importance of objective experts aiding with the refugee claims. One would then expect the same from asylum seekers. This requires they are knowledgeable enough to talk about their case, but also be truthful in what they say for the sake of the asylum officer, something probably unachievable given the desperation to not return to their country of origin. Lawyers must also follow similar restrictions. This is a tough task, yet trivial compared to the fairness expected from legal systems completely influenced by governmental politics of interest. This could only ever change in the long run. The decisions taken by those players are what rule society. Should these changes ever be achieved, then the truth just might prevail. 

Reverse Colonialism - Ussy101

I first heard of reverse colonialism while reading Ghassan Hage’s article on a ‘Dying Domesticating Colonialism’ partly to gather ideas for an essay topic and partly because reading up on colonialism is always a great way to procrastinate. Reverse colonisation, as Stephen Arata defines it, includes narratives of the “‘civilised world’ being overrun by ‘primitive forces’” and the ‘coloniser (consequently) find(ing) himself in the position of the colonised.’ This definition describes the general sentiment that characterises recent coverage of ‘refugee crises’ with displaced people being referred to as ‘floods’ and ‘waves’ infiltrating or ‘invading’ – as one headline put it – Europe.

This fear and feeling of being ‘besieged’ by these refugees is particularly interesting when the majority of people are fleeing from countries that have being both historically and currently experienced military interventionism or at least, some form of indirect meddling, by Western states. The United States’ refugee ban which prohibits displaced people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, under the pretence of terrorism (despite no terrorism being committed on U.S. grounds by people of those nationalities) is interesting in light of the increased military involvement of the U.S. in Libya, Syria and Yemen. So ironically, it is the Eurocentric colonising world that have benefitted for centuries and continue to benefit from some refugee-producing states, that are experiencing their culture being ‘colonised’ by a minority of refugees.

This fear is particularly espoused when a refugee commits a crime or expresses their culture or faith (in particular Islam). When some Sudanese refugees in Australia committed robbery in gangs, the Australian immigration minister essentialised Sudanese refugees to be incompatible with the Australian way of life, without even considering the factors involved in youth criminality. Similarly, when a refugee commits an act of sexual assault in Australia, it is reduced to their ‘culture’ and religion that encourages it, while disregarding the rates of sexual assault committed by Australia’s local population. When more Muslim refugees enter France, especially Middle Eastern, France’s culture is increasingly perceived to being subjugated by Islam to the point where it is necessary to ban the two thousand women (out of a population of sixty-six million) in France that adopt the burqa.

Thus, the Western world’s hostility towards refugees stems from this contradictory sentiment of feeling besieged by a culture when their economic, political and cultural power has colonised many of these refugee-producing nation-states.

References:

Hage, G. (2016). Etat de siege: A dying domesticating colonialism? American Ethnologist, 43(1), 38-49.