I closed my eyes in horror, having already seen what was coming. The pregnant refugee, who had shortly before been given a mobile CT scan by activists, was about to be turned into a projectile: three guards loomed to forcibly release the tortured woman from a truck over the barbed wire fence between Poland and Belarus.
Watch the torturous scene in Green border From one of Vienna's opulent cinemas, I encountered this inhumane act at a comfortable distance – physically distanced and protected by representation. But I still feel that the loss of life was very real at the EU border; Agnieszka Holland's film is based on the events unfolding since Lukashhenka, as of late 2021, began accepting refugees mostly from the Middle East and North Africa into Belarus only to force them to cross into Poland as punishment for EU sanctions. Refugees are herded on both sides of the border, mercilessly moved back and forth between dead-end countries, trapped in a wooded area devoid of people, and forced to survive under squalid conditions.
In an earlier scene in the film, the arrogant chief of operations, briefing Polish border guards, describes the refugees as foreign weapons, not human beings. The physical assault that refugees are subjected to is a clear manifestation of the structural violence perpetrated by border regimes. The film encourages empathy for displaced people and anger at their dehumanization—so vital in questions of oppression haunted by political games.
The debate in Europe over the fate of refugees is a worryingly armed topic. From the UK government's rapidly advancing human rights-violating bill to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, to EU plans to set up migrant processing facilities abroad, European policymaking has taken a defensive stance.
Politeness in asking
Hans Kundnani, in an interview with the Green European Journal, calls this “Europe’s civilizational transformation”: “Between the end of the Cold War and 2010, the EU was in an expansionist and offensive mode…optimistic and outward-looking, imagining a world that could almost be reshaped.” In his own image. He compares this to its current situation of being aware of “threats against European civilization that must be protected.” When discussing the Mediterranean, which Kundani described as a “maritime border with North Africa” and likened it to the United States’ “land border with Mexico,” It indicates the witnessed result of harsh directives:
Human Rights Watch says the EU's migration policy can be summed up in three words: “Let them die.”
This is the disdainful treatment, often leading to brutality, of those who have fled violence. In his essay “Wars of Decivilization,” Hamit Boz Arslan identifies a common denominator linking a series of twentieth-century aggression: impunity. It highlights times when the West turned a blind eye, backed down, or colluded with invading forces.
“In the wake of the horrors of the chemical weapons attack on Ghouta, Putin…seemed to believe that the door had been left open to further his plans for Imperial Russia”; “After occupying Afrin, Turkey returned to the offensive to occupy a new region in Syria, seizing it from Kurdish forces in collusion with the Trump administration.” “Aliyev had the green light to attack Nagorno-Karabakh,” given that the much-vaunted “West was distant and paralyzed”; “Iran remains more convinced than ever that the Westphalian system lends itself to the rule of force and blackmail,” Bouzerslan writes.
He argues that decivilization wars are waged “in the name of…sovereign, non-state ethnic/national entities.” He writes that “civilization imposes constraints” but “in return it allows us to orient ourselves more securely in time and space.”
Violence disguised as protection
Focusing on Gaza, Bouzerslan presents various acts of violence committed by opposing parties that refute or violate general international law. On first reading, it might seem that the only loss of civility described by Bouzerslan is the mutual degradation of societies at war. However, a second reading points to the violation of civility that occurs from within, when raids are launched, whether offensive or purportedly defensive: violence disguised under the guise of “protection” is still violence.
Attacking civilians who have nowhere to flee constitutes a double violation of human rights; Although Israeli hostages are still being held in Gaza, Netanyahu's further escalation of the large-scale military offensive, now targeting Rafah, where displaced Palestinians are taking refuge without recourse to relocation, is already hitting trapped people, internally displaced people, and refugees in their own lands.
Agnieszka Holland knows exactly what she's doing when she portrays an emotionally disturbed Polish border guard who unconsciously turns a blind eye rather than sticking to his unfortunate patrol duty. He curls up in bed, naked, in the fetal position, cradled by his pregnant wife – the deceptive role of protector and privilege of safety made clear.
This editorial benefited from the Eurozine team's recent in-depth meeting on Gaza, as well as comments from colleagues Mars Zaslavsky and Selma Shaka.
