In Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move Reece Jones presents a major new analysis of the refugee crisis, focusing on how borders are constructed and policed, examining state efforts to contain populations and control access to resources and opportunities.
We will be joined by a panel of experts to discuss the relationship between security projects, conflict along borders and the refugee crisis.
Chair:
May Bulman is a London-based journalist currently working for The Independent with a main focus on covering the situation in the Calais ‘jungle’ and the wider refugee crisis in Europe. She finished her Masters in journalism at City University in June and has since written on a freelance basis for several publications including The Times, The Mirror and The Independent. She is currently reporting on the imminent demolition of the camp in Calais and the fate of its residents. May believes accurate and effective reporting on the refugee crisis is a crucial job for journalists in Europe and around the world at the moment.
Speakers:
Reece Jones is a Professor of Geography at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, and the author of Border Walls: Security and the War on Terror in the United States, India, and Israel.
Professor Heaven Crawley leads research on migration and human security at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University. She specialises in aspects of international migration, including policy, public attitudes and the experience of refugees and asylum-seekers.
Elinor Raikes is the Regional Representative for International Rescue Committee’s response to the European refugee crisis. Elinor rejoined the IRC into this role after working as an independent consultant for DFID and others in 2014-15. She was previously with the IRC for six years and during that time worked for many years in DR Congo as well as in Chad, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. Prior to the IRC, Elinor worked for Save the Children. IRC’s programming in Europe began in 2015 with a large-scale emergency response in Greece and in Serbia. Today, the IRC has a developed emergency response and is working to expand support to local actors to improve preparedness; and, is expanding its provision of technical assistance working with a large network of partners in order to respond to the unique protection needs of the context; is also developing technical assistance on policy and services to ensure the effective and positive integration of refugees and asylum-seekers.
Richard Savage is the Global Emergency Response Security Manager for Save the Children International. He has provided security analysis and oversight for SCI’s refugee relief efforts in Greece and for the newly established STC maritime rescue operation in the Mediterranean. Richard also has several years’ experience providing security management for INGO relief operations inside Syria and for the regional refugee response. He holds a Master’s degree in Security, Conflict and International Development. In addition to Richard’s extensive experience in the humanitarian sector, he comes with 20 years of security experience including service in the British Army, as well as the private security sector.
]]>“Where can I go to have a decent life?”
On Friday 11 June, Shorts at the Frontline Club took viewers on a cinematic journey that showcased the different ways used to document the world we live in.
The theme: migration and the phases of migration.
Two at the Border by Tuna Kaptan and Felicitas Sonvilla shone a light onto the lives Ali and Nasser. The two friends attempt to make ends meet by helping refugees to the Turkish-Greek border. Ali is Palestinian, traumatised by the violence he has witnessed. “Problems, problems everywhere,” he repeats with bloodshot eyes.
“Where can I go to have a decent live?” Ali asks the universe.
As if replying to Ali, Europe’s response to the rising number of refugees has been increased militarisation of the Greece–Turkey border. The film is dedicated to Naser, who attempted to smuggle himself into Greece. The boat he was on allegedly capsized in the Aegean Sea, and he has been missing ever since.
What can await those who make it across the border to Greece? Xenos documents the desperation of Abu Eyad, whose departure from the Palestenian refugee camp Ain el-Helweh in Lebanon was the subject of Mahdi Fleifel’s award-winning documentary A World Not Ours (2012). Xenos is narrated through a telephone conversation between the two childhood friends. Slowly the reality of life across the border becomes apparent to Mahdi as a bitter nightmare of depression, heroin addiction, sex with men for money and the impossibility of seeing their families again.
The Source by Marcin Sauter spirited the audience to Nagorno-Karabakh, illustrating what it’s like to stay where everyone else has left. The black and white film projected a stylised impression of trauma and loneliness felt by a woman who stayed where no one else could. In a village destroyed and deserted by war.Separation and acute loneliness continued in the film Adrift by Frederik Jan Depickere. We listened to Simu’s story against the stark, industrial visuals of the Arctic. Simu dreamt of becoming a pop singer. In life, his father was tortured to death for founding the anti-government UPF. His older brother suffered the same fate. Simu’s mother disappeared. His sister died of HIV as they were being smuggled from Uganda. He cannot return. As he shovels the snow, he thinks his dream is dead.
The final film of the evening broke slightly from the theme of migration and touched more upon identity. What happens when one plays for a national team and the political context of what you represent changes? The Opposition by Ezra Edelman and Jeffrey Plunkett chronicles the events around the qualification play-off games for the 1974 World Cup between Chile and the USSR. Chilean football players were faced with a choice between staying part of the US-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet’s charade, or using one’s privileged position to represent the oppressed.
Whether directly linked to migration or not, all the films explored the human struggle to live. To live a decent life in dignity.
]]>
Where there are borders, attempts will likely be made to cross them in the hope of reaching greener pastures. But the individuals who try are not necessarily welcomed by those who live on the other side. Fences, walls and legislation are thrown up to at least regulate the influx of migrants. And in some cases, borders are made dangerous.
One such place is the border between the US and Mexico, which is now at its most militarised in US history as the US embarked on its “war on immigration”. Mexico, in turn, is both a destination for migrants, as well as a stop on their way north. Ten thousand migrants every year (according to an estimate by Amnesty International) attempt to cross that border, the majority of whom are Central Americans (from Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador in particular). It is not known how many more of these irregular migrants enter Mexico to settle there, or what percentage cross into the US undetected.
Those who do succeed, however, may find themselves in the Arizona desert, or are detained and deported. What is more, these migrants are not only kept from getting into the country: their very journey is thwarted along the way.
Those who are crossomg the Americas towards the US border will often do so on foot, undertaking a dangerous journey. As many of them are undocumented individuals, they must dodge the strict migration controls within Mexico, which means they find themselves on obscure, unsafe routes, along which they may face assault or abuse, or encounter smugglers and traffickers. Large numbers of people are reported missing along these routes and the number of kidnappings is high.
Across the border, migration calls to mind other issues: of employment, housing and social standing. Migration is a complex issue, interlinking the factors pushing people out of their home countries with those that pull them into their new one. Poverty, the lack of opportunities and insecurity at home are reasons for people to leave – while their arrival can have economical, political and cultural consequences. One strong fear is that migrants will take a toll on the local economy and impact the job market. (Although, historically, Mexican migrant workers have been welcomed – as far back in 1850s as field hands in the Southwest, and when the US entered in WW2 in 1942 – albeit on temporary contracts.) This image, of “the other” coming in and “stealing” the locals’ livelihood, or “spoiling” their culture, can become part of polarised political debates, as it has in the US. In a more recent development, many of the policies designed for the enforcement of immigration law, especially detainment, have become privatised, along with the increased militarisation of the border.
This comes down to 650 miles of fence and 21,000 Border Patrol Personnel. In 2012, a total of $18 billion was spent on the enforcement of the border. While there are no hard numbers on the (undocumented) immigrants, their flow towards the US border seems to have slightly decreased – probably partly because of this securitisation, and partly because of the bad economy. Nevertheless, the dangers en route remain. The heightened enforcement along the Mexico–United States barrier does nothing to bring safety to their journey, let alone a solution to the circumstances that made them search for their fortune away from home in the first place.
Migration is a universal occurrence: people have moved away from their homes to settle elsewhere countless times in the course of history, in mass migrations due to wars or natural disasters or as individuals looking to escape poverty and a better future. Human stories are needed to gain a deeper understanding of the issues that come into play in the lives of those who have decided on the perilous undertaking of crossing the border.
In the documentary Who is Dayani Cristal?, Mexican activist Gael Garcia Bernal traces back the trail of one such unfortunate migrant found dead in the Sonora Desert, Arizona. The film, a mix of documentary with fictional elements, was the winner of the Sundance Cinematography Award in 2013. It was screened at the Frontline Club on Monday 7 July, followed by a Q&A with director Marc Silver. For further details of this event, see here.
]]>
Rabbit à la Berlin
Academy Award-nominated documentary Rabbit à la Berlin uses the Berlin Wall rabbit population as a metaphor for the huge transition post-communist societies underwent. For 28 years, the Death Zone between the Berlin Walls was a safe home for wild rabbits: full of grass, no predators, guards protecting them from human disturbance. They were enclosed but happy. When the rabbit population grew to thousands, guards started to remove them but the rabbits survived and stayed until, one day, the wall fell down. The rabbits now had to abandon the comfortable system they had been living in. They moved to West Berlin, where they’ve have been living in small colonies ever since. They are still learning how to live in the free world, just as many citizens of Eastern Europe. Directed by Bartek Konopka and Piotr Rosołowski | Duration: 39’| Year: 2009
EXIT
In October 1989 the East German authorities tightened border security following the exodus of GDR citizens that had started earlier in the summer. Through exceptional and rare footage shot between 10 and 20 October 1989, Exit shows East German refugees who managed to cross the Polish border in order to reach the West German embassy in Warsaw. For the first time they talk openly about life in East Germany, not knowing the world is about to change. Directed by Małgorzata Bieńkowska-Buehlmann | Duration: 30′ | Year: 1990-2009
Oxygen
During the communist dictatorship in Romania (1945-1989), thousands of people risked their lives attempting to flee their country. Despair made them invent the most incredible methods to cross the border illegally. Some of them managed to escape, but many lost their lives in these attempts. Oxygen is a free re-enactment of a real case: a man who tried to cross the Danube illegally using an oxygen cylinder, to escape the communist Romania. Directed by Adina Pintilie | Duration: 30′ | Year: 2010
The screening of Rabbit à la Berlin kindly supported by Deckert Distribution
]]>
