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

[J.N.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_Ship
https://libcom.org/files/DeathShip.pdf

The Death Ship (German title: Das Totenschiff) is a novel by the
pseudonymous author known as B. Traven. Originally published in German
in 1926, and in English in 1934, it was Traven's first major success and
is still the author's second best known work after The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre. Owing to its scathing criticism of bureaucratic authority,
nationalism, and abusive labor practices, it is often described as an
anarchist novel.

"“But see here, gentlemen, you are all mistaken. I
do not wish to go to Holland, because the Dutch
— "



On 02/27/2016 08:30 AM, J.N.  wrote:
> 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.
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