[D66] Anti-refugee xenophobia and the danger of war

[J.N.]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/02/27/euro-f27.html

Anti-refugee xenophobia and the danger of war
By Peter Schwarz
27 February 2016

In his novel The Death Ship, a scathing critique of capitalist society,
B. Traven describes how Belgian and Dutch border officials secretly
deport stateless individuals across the border into the neighbouring
country at night. “I was not born, had no seaman’s card, could never get
a passport in life, and everyone could do with me what he wanted because
I was no one, was not officially in the world, and could consequently
not be missed,” says Gerard Gales, the protagonist of the book.

Ninety years after the publication of the novel, Europe is again
witnessing similar scenes, on a far more massive scale. Tens of
thousands of refugees who have escaped the hell of war in the Middle
East are being deprived of all rights and any shred of human dignity.
They are being used as pawns in conflicts between the European states.

Barbed wire and guns hinder their onward journey. They are mistreated,
detained under barbaric conditions and deported. They are not considered
human, and certainly not as being in need of protection. They are
treated as “invaders”, “illegal immigrants” or “criminal foreigners.”

 The Western Balkans summit held on Wednesday was the high point to date
of the systematic persecution of refugees seeking asylum in Europe. The
Austrian government invited representatives from nine Balkan states to
Vienna for the purpose of closing down the Balkan route along which most
of the refugees travel from Greece to Central Europe. Greece, where
100,000 refugees have arrived just since the beginning of the year, was
not invited to the summit. Its foreign minister described Greece’s
exclusion as an “unfriendly act”, and the Greek government recalled its
ambassador from Vienna in protest, something without precedent in the
history of the European Union.

Vienna’s unilateral action, which also met with criticism in Brussels
and Berlin, is only the latest development in a surge of nationalism and
xenophobia fuelled by the ruling elites of all the European countries,
beginning with Germany.