The xenophobic lady – CNN Portugal
Once upon a time there was a very altruistic lady, very educated and very participatory; but very xenophobic. You defend everyone’s rights, do volunteer work and say that you encourage support for relatives; but she is xenophobic. You make public appearances, write about social issues and are free to express your opinion; that she is xenophobic. This lady’s problem is that she is so xenophobic that she doesn’t know she is xenophobic.
The xenophobic lady defends that the integration of refugees is something very beautiful and politically correct, but a Portuguese, Italian or German does not have to change their lifestyle because of the entry of other nationalities in their country. But the xenophobic lady doesn’t know that refugees represent only 0.6% of the population of the European Union.
The xenophobic lady argues that uncontrolled immigration harms states’ economies. But the xenophobic lady does not know that a refugee is not an immigrant: she does not choose to leave her country, on the contrary, she has no alternative.
The xenophobic lady demands that whoever enters Portugal must adapt and comply with the law. It seems that the xenophobic lady starts from the assumption that all non-Europeans are marginal and dangerous, in a colonialist perspective so rooted that it makes it possible to think of the global south as subordinate to Western society.
The xenophobic lady mentions that Europe is not a ring for fights between gangs or arms or drug traffickers. Perhaps the xenophobic lady was inspired by the infamous Trumpist discourse of migrants as “violators”; you have to keep them out.
The xenophobic lady adds that justice cannot fail to act when national laws are violated. But what the xenophobic lady ignores is the endless number of times the Human Rights of those arriving in a national territory have been violated; she will hardly know that on the borders of her first water Europe, the international laws and conventions that the Member States have signed are torn up every day in favor of her beloved protectionist discourse.
The xenophobic lady says that Portugal is a gigantic refugee camp and that migration policies need to be urgently rethought. But the xenophobic lady doesn’t know that Portugal never fulfilled the goals it committed itself to for the reception of refugees, even if they were always, from the outset, quite low. Non-Ukrainian refugees in Portugal number no more than 2500; this is not even a third of the occupation, once, of the field of Moria, on the island of Lesbos, in Greece.
The xenophobic lady insists that, because of the reception of refugees, her life changes because Lisbon is overpopulated and dirty like she has never seen it before. But what the xenophobic lady doesn’t know is that a significant part of the refugees in Portugal do not live in the center of Lisbon, where houses are unaffordable for these families. If the city is dirty and overpopulated, you should reflect on other issues such as tourism, gold visas or the municipality’s policies for cleaning and maintaining public spaces.
The xenophobic lady also believes that in Portugal there is a negligible question that is much debated in Europe: what responsibility should we attribute to the countries of origin? How is it ensured that all refugees are independent persons? The xenophobic lady pretends, in fact, raises the suspicion that among the refugees there are usurpers of status and, who knows, criminals or terrorists. But the xenophobic lady doesn’t know that asylum application processes go through long periods of time – several years – in which people are subject to intense scrutiny. Not even Frontex itself, a European border management and control agency, has detected cases that represent such a risk to national security. Regarding the responsibility of the countries of origin of the refugees, it seems total to me, but I propose a deeper reflection: what is the responsibility in Europe in the destabilization of Africa and the Middle East, starting with the definition of borders without regard to the culture or ethnicity of the peoples?
The xenophobic lady resorts to all the themes she can think of, such as populists and nationalists, confusing public opinion, without ever addressing the factual issue: the status of asylum for a refugee. When confronted, the xenophobic lady doesn’t pretend to listen. She is already so convinced of her ideas that nothing will dissuade her from her absolutist convictions that, in the absence of arguments that support them, she initiates the second technique of someone who does not really want to debate the subject in question: victimization. Talking about himself, about his accomplishments, about how he suffered, but always dedicated to the other. Like all populists, she criticizes journalism for ignoring politically inconvenient subjects and preferring leather chairs to wellies and going outside. The xenophobic lady takes advantage of every detail of her existence to place herself in a position of superiority, sometimes because she has a few more years to live in this world, sometimes because she is a Lady and appreciates cordiality in the treatment.
I remind the xenophobic lady that there are also ladies from Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, South Sudan – and from many other countries – who also appreciate the cordiality in the treatment. But a xenophobic lady classifies them as outcasts who live in “musty” places. They will certainly be very different from your leather armchair. This discriminatory discourse creates an insurmountable barrier of prejudice in Western societies where the “other” is always perceived as inferior from a position of privilege. Confessed by the extreme right and omitted (but present) by many other political ideologies of the arch of governance, this way of seeing the status of castra refugee the hypothesis of full integration. There is an indisputable racialization of asylum seekers, particularly Arabs, in the post-9/11 world. In the United States, Donald Trump was the political face of this xenophobia when he imposed a blockade on Muslim countries and, despite the fact that Syrians are legally “white”, dubbed terrorists. This affects not only the sense of belonging during reception, but also causes the end of shame for many xenophobes: it is a license for the public and horrendous expression of unfounded prejudice. In Europe, who is the face of this ideology? Ursula von der Leyen invests European money in fortifying borders, Angela Merkel forced a multi-million deal for Turkey to keep Syrian refugees, Theresa May defended the idea of a “hostile policy” to make life hell for migrants, Emmanuel Macron wanted protecting France from the Afghans after the Taliban took power, Giorgia Meloni refuses to let people rescued from the sea land in Italy, António Costa announced that he wanted to take advantage of the refugees to have them clear the forest.
When these issues are discussed, the xenophobic lady rises up. She is wounded in her cultural identity. She claims to be intellectually honest and assures that she is not afraid of being called names for it. She is xenophobic and perhaps also a little bit racist.