Knocking on Europe’s door : How narratives of fear, insecurity and nostalgia shape collective perceptions of immigration

Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (Eds) (2020). Narratives of fear and safety. Tampere: Tampere University Press, 59–90. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-359-014-4 Knocking on Europe’s door How narratives of fear, insecurity and nostalgia shape collective perceptions of immigration Anna Notaro University of Dundee ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3346-1378 We ought to reflect on courage to banish fear (Baruch Spinoza) Europe’s founding ideals In March 2012 former Bonn correspondent for The Observer Neal Ascherson gave a lecture at the British Museum about Europe, its pasts and its possible future for the London Review of Books (Ascherton 2012). The topic was not uncharted scholarly territory, and yet besides the freshness of Ascherton’s first hand observations deriving from spending many years in Germany, Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 60 Anna Notaro which taught him: ‘not to sneer when young Germans said earnestly that they felt European, not German’ because ‘Europe to them meant neutrality, reconciliation, open frontiers,’ there was a lot more of interest to his lecture. It evoked the history of Amikejo, ‘a tiny sliver of land between Belgium and Germany which had been overlooked by the surveyors as they drew new European frontiers after the fall of Napoleon’ (Ascherton 2012)1. The significance of this story, first narrated in a Polish novel and then corroborated by the American historian Steven Press (2010), is for Ascherton that it represented an example of how ‘a tiny Europe could exist sans frontières, or at least without enforcing them.’ It was ‘a wormhole through time into our Europe of the Single Act and the Maastricht Treaty. No customs barriers, no closed frontiers, military conscription almost a memory, no national currency’ (Ascherton 2012). Another overlooked episode in Europe’s political history, Ascherton points out, regards the Resistance Spring between 1943–48. Resistance movements to totalitarian regimes put forward a vision of post-war Europe which was remarkably different from the technocratic model of statesmen like Jean Monnet and Robert Schumann, theirs was a federal Europe of the People of Europe. That vision, Asherton notes, ‘originated in a document drawn up on the Italian island of Ventotene by three men, Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni, who had been interned on the island along with some 800 others opposed to Mussolini’s regime’ (Ascherton 2012). The Ventotene Manifesto, written on cigarette papers and concealed in the false bottom of a tin box, in order to be smuggled off the island had at its core the following ideal ‘A free and united Europe is the necessary premise to the strengthening of modern civilisation, that has been temporarily halted by the totalitarian era’ (Ventotene Manifesto 1941). Such an ideal went 1 For maps of Amikejo see (Jacobs), no publication date available. 61Narratives of fear and safety Knocking on Europe’s door on to influence the Manifesto of the European Resistance which read: The Federal Union must be based upon a declaration of civil, political and economic rights which would guarantee democratic institutions and the free development of the human personality, and upon a declaration of the rights of minorities to have as much autonomy as is compatible with the integrity of the national States to which they belong (Draft Declaration of the European Resistance Movements 1944). In the uk competing and contrasting visions of the European political project and of European ‘ideals’ and ‘values’ have long coexisted, from the Ventotene-inspired one of Winston Churchill who, in 1948 declared: We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think as much of being a European as of belonging to their native land, and that without losing any of their love and loyalty of their birthplace. We hope wherever they go in this wide domain, to which we set no limits in the European Continent, they will truly feel Here I am at home. I am a citizen of this country too. Before concluding: ‘the aim and the design of a United Europe, whose moral conceptions will win the respect and gratitude of mankind and whose physical strength will be such that none will dare molest her tranquil sway,’ (Churchill 1948) to Margaret Thatcher who, in an often quoted passage declared: ‘Europe is not based on a common language, culture and values … Europe is the result of plans. It is in fact, a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 62 Anna Notaro inevitable destiny is failure; only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt’ (Thatcher 2002, 359). It is hard to miss the extraordinary topicality of the above contrasting perspectives, as they perfectly illustrate how the ‘idea’ of Europe and its founding ‘values’ has not only shifted over time – not exclusively in the uk – but also how such shifts underpin what I define as the narratives of fear, insecurity and nostalgia which are shaping European public opinion’s perception (and eu policies) of immigration. It is exactly such shifts which explain the contradictions and apparent lack of unanimity with respect to what such values are in the view of Europeans themselves. In August 2015 German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for eu action on the migrant crisis, suggesting that ‘If Europe fails on the question of refugees, if this close link with universal civil rights is broken, then it won’t be the Europe we wished for’ (Oman Observer 2015).2 As recently as January 9th, 2018 Guy Verhofstadt warned in a tweet that ‘We should be wary of narratives based on the defence of so-called “national values”, which are used to mask racist hate campaigns fuelling anxiety against migrants and refugees’ followed by the #ValuesFirst.3 More on such narratives later, in the meantime suffice to note that Germany has taken the lead, presenting itself as the Weltmeister in the refugee crisis, while also asking for pan-European solidarity (in the form of a redistribution of refugees across the Union), a value Germany inexplicably seemed not to endorse in the case 2 It is worth remembering that in 2013 the then uk Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, and the Home Secretary Theresa May started lobbying for the uk to quit the European Convention of Human Rights, a decision that Ken Clark, former Justice Secretary, described as a ‘political disaster’, because it would unravel ‘fundamental liberties established under Europe’s post-second world war settlement’ (Bowcott 2013). 3 Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt ) is President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group in the European Parliament and Brexit coordinator for the European Parliament. 63Narratives of fear and safety Knocking on Europe’s door of the Greek economic crisis (from late 2009 – ongoing). The country has since 2015 struggled to cope as the first destination of choice for the world’s economic migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, to the point that plans of housing some of them in the Buchenwald barracks, a former Nazi concentration camp have been considered. History, as philosopher Emil Cioran once wrote, is ‘irony on the move’ (2010, 152). While the watershed moment in public opinion caused by the powerful photograph of a dead Syrian child on a Mediterranean beach is welcome, it is unacceptable for eu policies in this area to follow the fickly, populist4 moods of the national electorates. This is exactly what has happened with regard to the immigration debate, which not only has conflated crucial legal distinctions between a migrant, a refugee and an asylum seeker,5 but also has predominantly reflected the views of the populist mob over those of the democratic crowd. As an example of the former I shall consider neoconservative political commentator Douglas Murray (2017) who in a video aptly, from his point of view, entitled “Europe belongs to Europeans”6 links the current refugee crisis to the Jewish one during ww2 while attacking (Holocaust survivor) businessman George Soros for advocating a ‘Europe without 4 An examination of populism is beyond the scope of this article, however it is relevant in this context to mention political economist Francis Fukuyama, who identifies three causes for the rise of populism: 1) globalization 2) weakening of decision making and 3) cultural anxiety. (Münchrath & Rezmer 2017.) Also it is alarming that ‘populism is more widespread than previously assumed. … and debates in tabloid media are not more populist than debates in elite media’ (Rooduijn 2014). See also Rooduijn 2015. 5 According to a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation prior to the Brexit referendum people ‘talked about migrants, refugees and asylum seekers interchangeably’, and ‘felt that immigration created pressure on public services, in which they and their family were likely to lose out’ (Walker 2016). See also Smith 2015. 6 The comments to the video are representative of the intended audience and its distorted and ultimately ignorant view of European history. Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 64 Anna Notaro borders’ which would, as a consequence, attract ‘mass migration from the third world’ (Murray 2017). The images used in the video are a roughly assembled remix of ww2 footage depicting Jewish refugees and rose-tinted, nostalgic views of Europe from the 1950s with white young women happily sipping wine on a sunny day, followed by iconic images of British national identity (Buckingham Palace), before pictures of Houellebecq’s novel Submission (to which I shall return later) and Muslims praying are introduced. The video concludes with a plea: not to give up the only home Europeans have due to ‘pangs of guilt’ they might feel for the continent’s colonial history and past behaviour towards the Jews. Burke’s famous quote ‘history is a pact between the dead, the living and the yet to be born’ is hijacked to remind Europeans of their duty towards future generation not to transform their societies (‘we don’t wish Stockholm to look like Mogadishu!’), while the very last images linger upon street riots, the collapse of the Twin Towers and an isis execution for maximum emotional impact. This is not the place to analyse in depth the root causes of current international conflicts and what is only the latest chapter in humanity’s history of migration and refugees crisis.7 It might be worth recalling though that political scientist Samuel P. Huntington in the article “The Clash of Civilizations?” (1993) put forward a theory according to which: the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating 7 The late Zygmunt Bauman observed that ‘History braids continuity with discontinuity; those two qualities are in an “and-and,” not an “either-or,” relation. Each chapter of history simultaneously preserves and innovates. The current refugee crisis is not – can’t be – an exception to this rule. … “Being another chapter” does not mean that there is nothing different taking place’ (Bauman 2018, 1–3). 65Narratives of fear and safety Knocking on Europe’s door source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. Dystopian narratives of fear I don’t fully share Huntington’s theory8, however I do believe that literature provides us with the most useful insights into the cultural underpinnings of the complex political phenomena of our time. The Camp of the Saints (Raspail 1973) a French apocalyptic novel depicting a not too distant future when mass migration leads to the destruction of Western civilisation, eerily foreshadows current discussions about European (Christian) values, and their national variants – British values, French (Republican) values and so forth. The Camp of the Saints tells the story of a poor Indian demagogue, named ‘the turd-eater’ because he literally eats shit, and the deformed, psychic child who sits on his shoulders. They lead an ‘armada’ of 800,000 impoverished Indians, inhumanely described as ‘wretched creatures’, sailing to France. European politicians, bureaucrats and religious leaders, including a liberal pope from Latin America, debate whether to let the ships land and accept the Indians or to do the right 8 Criticisms of the clash of civilizations thesis, which I share, is best summed up as follows: ‘The epistemological critique condemns the clash of civilizations thesis on grounds of its realist, orientalist and elitist outlook. The methodological critique attacks its monolithic, inconsistent and reductionist/ essentialist attitude while the ethical critique denounces it for being a purposeful thesis that fuels enemy discourse and, in the process, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy’ (Shahi 2017). Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 66 Anna Notaro thing – in Raspail’s view – recognize the threat the migrants pose and kill them all. As a consequence of the Indian invasion all the non-white people of Earth, the book poses, will rise up and overthrow white Western society. In the end the French government gives the order to repel the armada by force, but it is too late because the army has no will to fight. What was feared happens, the Queen of England is coerced into marrying her son to a Pakistani woman; the mayor of New York is forced to house an African-American family at his official residence, while the defenders of white Christian supremacy all end up dead. As it has been rightly noted (Blumental & Rieger 2017), the book suggests that ‘The white Christian world is on the brink of destruction … because these black and brown people are more fertile, while the West has lost that necessary belief in its own cultural and racial superiority.’ Ultimately, ‘The Camp of the Saints – which draws its title from Revelation 20:9 – is nothing less than a call to arms for the white Christian West, to revive the spirit of the Crusades and steel itself for bloody conflict against the poor black and brown world without the traitors within’ (Blumental & Rieger 2017). As Raspail wrote in the Afterword to the 1982 edition of the novel: ‘Our hypersensitive and totally blind West … has not yet understood that whites, in a world become too small for its inhabitants, are now a minority and that the proliferation of other races dooms our race, my race, irretrievably to extinction in the century to come, if we hold fast to our present moral principles.’ The end result for Raspail will be ‘the certain immolation of France … on the altar of an aggravated utopian humanism’ and the deterioration of ‘“Republican values” … ad infinitum’ (Raspail 1982, 317). In December 1994 The Atlantic Monthly dedicated its cover story to the novel. The piece is so relevant that it might have been written today. Here is its sobering conclusion: 67Narratives of fear and safety Knocking on Europe’s door One thing seems to us fairly certain. However the debate unfolds, it is, alas, likely that a large part of it – on issues of population, migration, rich versus poor, race against race – will have advanced little beyond the considerations and themes that are at the heart of one of the most disturbing novels of the late twentieth century … (Connelly & Kennedy 1994). It has been noted that a ‘Camp of the Saints-type invasion’ has become Stephen Bannon’s – President Trump’s former chief strategist – favourite metaphor to describe the largest refugee crisis in human history (Blumental & Rieger 2017). Bannon is not alone in adopting ‘Camp of the Saints-type’ topoi, right-wing commentators Pat Buchanan (2002) and Ann Coulter (2016) rehearse similar themes in their books. For Buchanan the usa is a conglomeration of peoples with almost nothing in common facing the dangers of: declining birth rates, uncontrolled immigration of peoples of different colours, creed and cultures and a rise of anti-Western culture antithetical to established religious, cultural and moral norms. Such works contribute to a narrative of fear that feeds on the anxiety of white America and exploits it for political gains. Earlier I noted that Douglas Murray’s video included a reference to Houellebecq’s novel Submission (2015), in the context of the plea to Europeans to preserve Europe as their home. Perhaps more explicitly than in the case of Camp of the Saints, Submission which features the election of an Islamist to the French presidency, against the backdrop of a disintegration of Enlightenment values, is ‘one of those exceptional instances when politics and art arrive simultaneously’ (de Bellaigue 2015). In fact it was an extraordinary coincidence that on the same day of the Charlie Hebdo fatal shooting, Houellebecq’s controversial novel was published and the author himself, represented as a Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 74 Anna Notaro matters and exploited every xenophobic immigration cliché, thus perpetuating old fallacies while stirring new fears. Researchers found negative coverage of the eu increased from 24 per cent to 45 per cent between 1974 and 2013, at the ‘expense of positive and neutral coverage’ (Copeland & Copsey 2017). So it is hardly surprising that, according to an Ipsos Mori study “What Worries the World” (Anonymous 2016) Britain was the country most concerned about immigration than any other polled. The reason for such fear resides, for Barbara Gibson, in the fact that ‘even though there are differences between the bbc and the Express, during the eu referendum campaign they all have driven a narrative of conflict, which inflates fear and creates the feeling of “us against them.’” (In Anonymous 2016.)17 The root cause of such behaviour for Gibson is that ‘the uk, its government and media are “interculturally incompetent’”, which means that they view British culture as ethnocentrically superior. Thus, immigrants have become synonymous with ‘crisis’, they abuse the social benefit system, ‘grab’ the natives’ jobs and ultimately, similarly to the armada in Camp de Saints, they are described as an unstoppable ‘flood’ unless appropriate measures are taken. This was the scope of the ‘Return’ pilot scheme of 2013 which involved two advertising vans with the slogan ‘In the uk illegally? Go home or face arrest’ and a phone number for people enquiring about repatriation to call.18 17 See also Groh and Vishwanath (2016). 18 I first discussed the ‘Go home’ vans in a blog post (Notaro 2013). This article is the culmination of reflections on fear, security and immigration initiated then. 75Narratives of fear and safety Knocking on Europe’s door The securitization narrative I believe that there is a common thread of intolerance which links the 2013 ‘Go home’ vans to the xenophobic billboards of the Leave campaign, only the former ones made use of a ‘fig leaf’, to echo Saul’s concept, represented by the legal versus illegal immigrants distinction, (not all immigrants are bad, only the illegal ones, the legal ones are tolerated) – such a distinction might be missed by the general public. Also, as it has been noted: ‘The vans employed a close-up image of a border guard’s uniform and handcuffs, the juxtaposition of this imagery aligning the Home Office publicity with a securitisation narrative seen to be played out in “the fortification of state borders [and] more aggressive forms of border surveillance and policing’” (Jones 2017, 5). As Didier Bigo (2002) has persuasively argued: Migration is increasingly interpreted as a security problem … the popularity of the security prism is not an expression of traditional responses to a rise of insecurity, crime, terrorism … it is the result of the creation of a continuum of threats and general unease in which many different actors exchange their fears and beliefs … the professionals in charge of management of risk and fear … transfer the legitimacy they gain from struggles against terrorists, criminals … towards other targets, most notably … people crossing borders, or people born in the country but with foreign parents. This expansion of what security is taken to include … results in a convergence between the meaning of international and internal security … particularly important in relation to the issue of migration, and … who gets to be defined as an immigrant (63–92). Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 76 Anna Notaro Security framing adds another crucial element to the narrative of fear drawn up in this article, in fact as political analyst Jeff Huysmans acutely observes, if one frames refugees as a humanitarian question one allows for compassion, whereas framing the same issue as a security question ‘sustains fear of refugees and policies of territorial administrative exclusion’ (2006, xii). Moreover, understanding practices of securisation in Europe in relation to migration is a welcome development in security studies particularly if such a framework includes a consideration of language as playing ‘a central role in the modulation of security domains’ (8).19 For Huysmans the politics of fear plays an important role in structuring insecurity. Securisation is a political and administrative rendering of a domain of policy and politics in which fear of outsiders ‘is both a political currency and an organization principle … it manages detrimental political effects by focusing on dangerous outsiders … it buys political and professional legitimacy’ (52). This is because ‘Fear is not simply an emotion that security framing instigates in social relations’ Huysmans posits, ‘It is … an organizing principle that renders social relations as fearful. An important characteristic of this principle is that it arranges social relations by objectifying an epistemological fear of the unknown through the identification of existential dangers’ (54). Therefore, Huysmans concludes ‘the politics of insecurity is always also a politics of knowledge that is not simply about what is dangerous but also about sustaining the epistemological certainty that what is identified as dangerous is indeed dangerous’ (54). Links between security politics and identity politics are also established in Huysmans’ work, in particular on the issues of European and/or Western values and their 19 This is an important point which chimes with this article’s interest in the role of language, both in its visual and textual expression. 77Narratives of fear and safety Knocking on Europe’s door contradictions discussed at the start of this article. Huysmans notes how ‘articulating an Islamic threat, for example, facilitates nurturing an idea of unity without having to make its concept explicit (52).20 The nostalgia narrative The reference to ‘nurturing an idea of unity’ is a suitable conduit to the final piece of the narrative puzzle under construction here, that is the role that nostalgia plays in ‘nurturing’ false truths about the past, while fuelling contemporary political agendas. Svetlana Boym (2007) distinguishes between two types of nostalgia: ‘Restorative nostalgia does not think of itself as nostalgia, but rather as truth and tradition’ whereas ‘Reflective nostalgia dwells on the ambivalences of human longing and belonging and does not shy away from the contradictions of modernity. Restorative nostalgia protects the absolute truth, while reflective nostalgia calls it into doubt’ (13). Boym highlights an inherent paradox in modern nostalgia, in that, the universality of its longing can make us more empathetic towards fellow humans, and yet the moment we try to repair that longing with a particular belonging – or the apprehension of loss with a rediscovery of identity and especially of a national community and unique and pure homeland – we often part ways with others and put an end to mutual understanding. Algia (or longing) is what we share, yet nostos (or the return home) is what divides us (9). 20 Huysmans’ reflections are reminiscent of Foucault’s conceptualization of the monster, the one whose very presence violates the laws of society and threatens the accepted ‘order of things’ (Foucault 2005). Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 78 Anna Notaro As observed elsewhere (Notaro 2018), the above passage is not only persuasive, but exemplary in its understanding of contemporary intolerance towards migrants and related, misguided intentions to build walls, ‘unreflective nostalgia can breed monsters,’ (10) Boym writes echoing Goya’s motto for his famous etching “The Sleep of reason produces monsters” of 1799. For Boym it is apropos that the ‘global epidemic of nostalgia’ has appeared when we are at most fascinated with cyberspace and the virtual global village. In fact ‘there is a yearning for a community with a collective memory, a longing for continuity in a fragmented world.’ In this sense, nostalgia works as ‘a defence mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life and historical upheavals (10). The historical upheaval most relevant to our discussion regards what I earlier described as the latest chapter in humanity’s history of migration and refugees crisis. On this issue Zygmunt Bauman (2018) pertinently remarked that it was Umberto Eco who asked the crucial question: ‘Is it possible to distinguish immigration from migration when the entire planet is becoming the territory of intersecting movements of people?’ Eco’s reply: ‘What Europe is still trying to tackle as immigration is instead migration. The Third World is knocking at our doors, and it will come in even if we are not in agreement … Europe will become a multiracial continent – or “colored” one … That’s how it will be, whether you like it or not’. Bauman then recalls Ulrich Beck’s observation that ‘we have been, collectively, cast in a cosmopolite situation (in the sense of becoming irretrievably dependent on each other and bound to exercise reciprocal influence) but we haven’t yet started in earnest to develop … a matching cosmopolitan awareness’ (Bauman 2018). To expand upon Beck’s insightful comments, I would suggest that just like we have still to develop legal, ethical and cognitive frameworks to deal at best with contemporary (and forthcoming) 79Narratives of fear and safety Knocking on Europe’s door technological advancements, we also urgently require a new global understanding of social phenomena like migration (in Eco’s definition of the term). The globalization of economic markets has not been tantamount to the cosmopolitanism of the marketeers’ minds. Only intercultural competence, to use Barbara Gibson’s definition, can sustain such ‘heroic migration narrative’ and save us from the pitfalls of ‘restorative nostalgia’, the kind of which is behind the description of plans for Britain’s post-Brexit trading relationship with the Commonwealth as ‘Empire 2.0,’ or a minister’s preposterous claim, in a tweet, that ‘The United Kingdom, is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not need to bury its 20th century history’ (Andrews 2017). It is restorative nostalgia that underpins the obsession with ‘decline’ or decadence which in countries like France has become a booming industry (Donadio 2017).21 The power of (restorative) nostalgia as a historical emotion cannot be underestimated, hence it becomes even more pressing to debunk the myths on which it is based and construct alternative narratives, this is exactly the task of scholars, novelists and artists alike. I find political scientists Christina Boswell and James Hampshire’s suggestions particularly useful when they argue that false beliefs about immigrants will not be shifted by bombarding voters with data, since people rarely change their minds when presented with contrary evidence. Paradoxically, therefore, a more rational debate about immigration cannot be purely rationalistic. Instead, politicians who want to challenge ignorance and prejudice need to construct narratives about immigration and its place in our society which 21 Although not mentioned in Donadio (2017), one could include Houellebecq’s Submission among the spate of books describing a narrative of French decadence. It is also worth noting that the word ‘déclinisme,’ or ‘declinism,’ entered France’s Larousse dictionary in 2016. Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 80 Anna Notaro draw on existing public philosophies of openness and inclusion. These public philosophies do exist and they have been mobilized in the recent past. They can and should be resuscitated (emphasis mine) (2017).22 In line with the need for new migration counter-narratives is Shada Islam’s exhortation to all countries across the globe ‘to develop a new, more heroic migration narrative in which diversity is lauded and living together is not only viewed as necessary, but also embraced’ (2017). Debunking myths A myth in urgent need of being debunked is the one according to which ‘large swaths of displaced populations – from Syrians to Nigerians and Afghanis to Eritreans – are picking Europe as their destination of choice. As international security expert Vicki Squire (2017) points out, ‘research … indicates that this assumption is a myth. While some people do of course leave their homes in order to reach Europe, many do not. This myth needs to be rejected so that the wider public debate on migration can move beyond a politics of fear’. Fear finds its best expression in dystopian narratives, à la Camp de Saints where past mythologies about national identity are mourned and ‘decline’ inspired ones à la Submission and yet, as novelist Moshin Hamid notes, ‘One thing that art and literature can do is imagine futures for us’. Unfortunately what we are seeing at the moment, he continues, is ‘a failure of imagination. 22 Ford (2018) has noted that ‘the data suggest the electorate is more receptive to a positive case for migration than it has been for many years – yet these polling findings are not widely known and discussed’. 81Narratives of fear and safety Knocking on Europe’s door No-one is articulating plausible desirable futures for us as human beings. What we are hearing articulated is dystopias – that life will be terrible in the future – or vehemently nostalgic, divisive, chauvinistic visions’ (in Green 2017). Hamid has contributed himself to an alternative narrative about migration with his latest novel Exit West (2017) which reflects his firm belief that ‘inevitably humanity is going to come to a place where the notion that people can move and choose where they live will be thought of as a right that is as fundamental as the right to speak as we want or worship as we want’ (in Green 2017). Some artists have taken to task the eu migration policies with regard to the right to freedom of movement for everyone, in fact they have argued that, by ignoring article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which reads: ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state,’ a ‘necropolitics of leaving some [migrants] to drown, others to be turned back’ has come about.23 This is an interesting point which connects to the initial discussion about Europe’s founding ideals and values, and shows how the eu legal framework (the European Convention of Human Rights 1953), might not be perfectly aligned with universal ideals of human rights.24 However, art itself is not immune from inconsistencies when tackling as sensitive a topic as migration, this is what emerges from Maya Ramsay’s “Reframing the debate: The art of Lampedusa” (2016) which considers the art that has been produced in relation to the subject of migrant deaths at sea, with a focus on artworks that refer to the island of Lampedusa. Critics 23 This is the concern underpinning many of the artistic works produced in the context of the ahrc financed programme “Responding to Crisis: Forced Migration and the Humanities in the Twenty-First Century” (Chambers 2017). 24 I don’t intend to labour the legal issue, however it is worth referring the reader to Ahmed and de Jesús Butler (2006). Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 82 Anna Notaro and audiences alike have been divided as to whether some of the work produced has turned into a tourist attraction, not to mention the ethical issues tied up with making art from objects that belonged to dead migrants, or simply the work has been deemed not ‘aggressive enough’ in light of the scale of the migration tragedy. Even renowned artist and political provocateur Ai Weiwei has not been immune from criticism when he posed as drowned toddler Aylan Kurdi to raise awareness of the plight of Syrian refugees.25 I don’t fully share some critics’ ‘wider critique on the ability of contemporary art to deal with such sensitive subjects’ (Dabashi quoted in Ramsay 2016), in fact in spite of the occasional sensationalism there are plenty of artistic examples which address the migration tragedy with the universal pathos that it deserves. This is the case of Maya Ramsay’s own Countless project (2016–18), which includes a series of graphite rubbings made from the graves of unnamed migrants who died whilst trying to reach Europe by boat,26 and Mimmo Paladino’s Porta d’Europa (Door to Europe). In Ramsay’s own description of the piece: Installed in 2008 … this open portal symbolizes both a warm welcome towards migrants and a modern day ‘Door of No Return’. With its enticing golden surface Porta d’Europa combines both beauty and horror. At the top of the gateway are a series of jumbled numbers, 25 In a video for the un Refugee Agency, Ai Weiwei stated: ‘Refugee issue is not a local or regional issue. It’s a human rights issue, it’s about fundamental values which touch everybody’ (Cafolla 2016). 26 The Countless project can be viewed at https://www.mayaramsay. co.uk/work.php?s=countless-graves. Also commendable was the European Commission-funded research project on “Museums in an Age of Migrations” (2011–15) reflecting eu concerns about migration as a critical issue for Europe, http://www.mela-project.polimi.it/. One of the contributors, Christopher Whitehead (2018), writes in particular about the implications of using lifejackets as exhibits to think through immigration in museums. 83Narratives of fear and safety Knocking on Europe’s door ‘98357345’–, referring to the unknown numbers of migrant deaths. Heads, hands, shoes and broken bowls project from the sculpture, like archaeological finds unearthed from the seabed … Porta d’Europa functions as a memorial on the island, a place for people to gather and to reflect on the subject – as the doors to Europe close ever tighter (Ramsay 2016). Emanuele Crialese’s Terraferma (2011) is another successful example. Set in the beautiful island of Lampedusa the film tells the story of a poor family of fishermen who defy the law of the state, according to which only the local police patrol can rescue illegal immigrants at sea, and follow the traditional ‘Law of the Sea’ thus becoming unwitting criminals. The moral dilemma that the Lampedusa fishermen, (and Europe), face is reminiscent of the one rehearsed in the classic tragedy Antigone by Sophocles. According to the Law of the state Antigone’s brother, viewed as a traitor, could not be buried and yet in a scene that has lost none of its poignancy, under a bright mid-day sun Antigone wildly flings handfuls of dirt on the rotting corpse of her slain brother declaring that ‘great unwritten, unshakable traditions’ take precedence over the laws of the state. In Antigone Sophocles asks which law is greater, the gods’ or man’s; in devising our migration laws, the film seems to suggest, we should make sure that the moral imperative of one does not come into conflict with the algid, in-humane character of the other. In conclusion, this article has demonstrated how narratives of fear, insecurity and nostalgia contribute to construct a distorted image of immigration which exploits comprehensible anxieties with regard to European and national identities in order to achieve specific political aims (as in the case of the Brexit Leave campaign). The article has also crucially hinted at broader debates concerning the distinction between immigration and Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 90 Anna Notaro Tharoor, I. (2015, September 2). Europe’s fear of Muslim refugees echoes rhetoric of 1930s anti-Semitism. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ worldviews/wp/2015/09/02/europes-current-anti-migrantrhetoric-carries-echoes-of-1930s-anti-semitism/?utm_ term=.6d6faf356b65 Thatcher, M. (2002). Statecraft. New York: Harper. Tobin, J. S. (2015, November 16). Religious Tests and Terrorism. Commentary Magazine. https://www.commentarymagazine. com/terrorism/religious-tests-refugees-terrorism/ Travis, A. (2016, June 24). Fear of immigration drove the leave victory – not immigration itself. The Guardian. https://www. theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/voting-details-showimmigration-fears-were-paradoxical-but-decisive Ventotene Manifesto (1944). http://www.altierospinelli.org/manifesto/ en/manifesto1944en_en.html Walker, P. (2016, December 15). Poorer voters’ worries on immigration fuelled Brexit vote, study finds. The Guardian. https://www. theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/15/poorer-voters-worriesimmigration-fuelled-brexit-vote-study-finds?CMP=share_ btn_tw Whitehead, C. (2018, January 24). Radical Objects: Migration and Museums: A Response. History Workshop. http://www. historyworkshop.org.uk/radical-objects-migration-andmuseums-a-response/