{"id":74899,"date":"2019-03-30T23:09:47","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T23:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essays.homeworkacetutors.com\/securitization-theory-for-refugees\/"},"modified":"2019-03-30T23:09:47","modified_gmt":"2019-03-30T23:09:47","slug":"securitization-theory-for-refugees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/securitization-theory-for-refugees\/","title":{"rendered":"Securitization Theory for Refugees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cIncreasingly refugees and Internally Displaced
\nPersons are regarded as harbingers of insecurity, rather than victims of it\u201d \u2013
\nDiscuss with reference to two case studies.<\/h4>\n

In an interview
\nwith the New York Times last year, the late Polish sociologist and philosopher
\nZygmunt Bauman quoted Bertolt Brecht by saying; Immigrants personify particular
\nfears and anxiety in privileged inhabitants of a place, about losing their
\neconomic, cultural and hence political place and status in the world. Bauman
\nexplained that \u201crefugees and migrants bring with them a certain insecurity
\nregarding mysterious and obscure global forces that disturb the stable idea of
\na neighborhood, a habitat. Hence the world\u2019s resentment of dispossessed people,
\nwho are demonized, ironically, for what they do not possess rather than what
\nthey do\u201d. The essay\u2019s main argument follows Bauman\u2019s line of thought and
\nexpands on it in three main ways. Firstly, the mainstream media when is mostly
\nunbalanced when covering refugees and internally displaced persons, often they
\nportray them in a negative manner. Furthermore, those who are fleeing from
\nconflict in the Middle East are viewed as \u201cthe other\u201d, they are made to be
\nfeared by the media and the government, often government officials use
\ndehumanizing language when referring to them. Secondly, the securitization
\ntheory developed by the Copenhagen School explains why this group of people are
\ncategorized as a security threat, they are politicized and generalized as a
\nsecurity threat because of the actions of a few. Thirdly, within this context
\nthere are some countries such as Germany who have opened their borders and have
\ntaken on the responsibility of settling refugees, have to an extent balanced media
\ncoverage and are accepting as a whole. In order to explain these points in
\ndepth, this essay will be using the UK and Germany as a comparison. Therefore,
\nthis paper will agree with the quote \u201cincreasingly refugees and Internally
\nDisplaced Persons are regarded as harbingers of insecurity, rather than victims
\nof it\u201d especially in the current atmosphere of Islamophobia and deadly
\nterrorist attacks that are mostly linked to \u201cMuslims\u201d by the Media and several
\nEuropean governments, it doesn\u2019t help that most refugees seeking refuge in the
\nWest come from the Middle East and North Africa.<\/p>\n

HISTORICAL
\nCONTEXT: <\/h3>\n

In the aftermath of the Cold War, the more utopian prophets of globalization argued that the rise of a new \u201cborderless\u201d world was in the making and national borders would soon become irrelevant and obsolete. Many governments have since then dismantled systems that promote barriers and tariffs in an effort to encourage the free movement of capital and commodities, and engaged in regional and transnational agreements that have renounced traditional tenets of national sovereignty. At the same time, the past two decades have also been regarded as an \u201cunprecedented political concern with borders being viewed as symbolic markers of national identity, and as barricades against the movement of unwanted people\u201d[1]<\/a> (in this case refugees and IDP\u2019s). In various countries, from the United States to Britain, governments continue to reinforce their borders<\/a> with new physical barriers, technologies and personnel. <\/p>\n

The process of
\nsimultaneously softening yet hardening borders has been particularly conspicuous
\nin the European Union. On the one hand, European governments have created a
\n\u201cunited Europe\u201d with the reintegration of Eastern and Western Europe through
\nabolishing internal border checks and the creation of a \u201cvast space of freedom,
\nsecurity, and justice\u201d, which just a few decades ago seemed almost impossible.
\nWithin this space approximately 500 million European citizens can live and work
\nfreely anywhere on the continent. On the other hand, European governments have
\nsimultaneously gone to extraordinary and unprecedented lengths to limit and
\nmonitor the entry of people coming in from outside the continent (particularly
\nrefugees and IDP\u2019s). European governments make sure to have police, soldiers,
\nborder guards, naval patrols and an array of physical barriers and different
\ntechnology at the borders, this amounts to the most extensive border
\nenforcement effort in history. The overarching priority behind the new border
\nregimes is aimed at preventing \u2018illegal immigration\u2019. <\/p>\n

Evidently this
\ndraconian style system has had devastating consequences for the people it is
\ndesigned to exclude. In the past few years at least 15,000 migrants have lost
\ntheir lives while trying to cross the EU\u2019s maritime and land borders. Migrants
\nhave gone so far as to kill themselves while trying to escape deportation,
\ndetention or simply because they were reduced to stateless destitution \u2013 \u201cIt
\nhas now become an undeclared war that not only views but treats migrants as
\ncriminals, as harmful intruders, as a signal of insecurity and they must be
\nkept at bay through a quasi military enforcement effort\u201d[2]<\/a>. The extensive security
\nefforts undertaken by most European countries during the refugee crisis
\nsuggests that they view those fleeing conflict ridden countries and seeking
\nrefuge in Europe as transporters of insecurity, violence and arguably
\nterrorism. <\/p>\n

THE PERCEPTION
\nOF \u201cTHE OTHER\u201d AND NEGATIVE PORTRAYAL OF THE REFUGEES IN THE MEDIA: <\/h3>\n

In addition to governments playing a vital role in furthering the opinion that refugees and IDP\u2019s are harbingers of insecurity, the media is also undoubtedly an important tool in society. It targets urgent issues of the community. This has an impact on the readers, because many a times their opinions may be shaped or influenced by the media. In the case of the ongoing European refugee crisis, media coverage has given the public an insight in to the refugees escaping the conflict ridden Middle East. However there reporting has been mixed. On the one hand there has been outstanding coverage concentrating on the harsh reality of the struggles faced by those traversing the Middle East then mostly Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and beyond, in search of a safe haven mainly in Western Europe, often with young children in tow. Media outlets such as the Guardian and the Independent have often focused on the human element of the crisis. On the other hand, the right-wing media have in general reacted to this crisis differently, choosing to focus on national security instead. Publications such as The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Daily Mirror have reportedly been shunned on social media for using dehumanising language<\/a> when reporting on the refugee crisis, firstly they often replace the word \u201crefugee\u201d with \u201cmigrants\u201d. The difference in these two terms is crucial and \u201cthe editorial decision to use one term over the other necessarily impacts the tone of the article or feature that it relates to and therefore on how the public may respond to the report\u201d. The United Nations defines refugees as \u2018persons fleeing armed conflict or persecution\u2019. Whereas migrants are defined as people \u2018who choose to move not because of a direct threat of persecution or death but mainly to improve their lives by finding work, or in some cases for education or other reasons\u2019. For example, in 2006 a study was carried out and it was found that the term \u201cillegal immigrants\u2019\u201d was used the most by The Mail (25) and The Times (18), the study found common usage of the term across all national media in the UK. In support of this study, was in the Telegraph when they reported that \u201cDavid Cameron is to insist that illegal immigrants are deported to the European country in which they first arrived\u201d[3]<\/a>. However, these \u201cillegal immigrants\u201d are then defined as \u201cpeople fleeing the troubles in North Africa and the Middle East\u201d. This questions the accuracy of tabloid newspapers when they are unable to differentiate between the given categories \u2013 \u201cIn a climate where the British government is cutting expenditure and there is concern over scarce resources, irresponsible coverage may be opportunistically exploited by anti-immigration groups\u201d[4]<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Furthermore, the terminology employed when discussing refugees and IDP\u2019s is more often than not negative in British Media, this tends to play on the emotions and pre-existing fears of the public as a whole, and could potentially result in a negative response towards accepting refugees. We live in a period where people like Katie Hopkins have a substantial following in British Media can refer to refugees dying in boats as \u201ccockroaches\u201d or when the Prime Minister speaks of \u201cswarms of people, and the foreign secretary denigrates marauding Africans who seek to change our way of life\u201d[5]<\/a>. Refugees in this context are no more than insects, or are subject to crude racial stereotypes. This could suggest why a recent poll conducted by the BBC suggests that attitudes towards allowing refugees into Great Britain have hardened<\/a>. From 31% in September 2015, it has increased to 41% so two in five people of the 2,204 people interviewed by Comres say Britain should accept fewer refugees from Syria and Libya.<\/p>\n

Edward Said offers one explanation as to why refugees from the Middle
\nEast and North Africa are treated as \u201cthe other\u201d, the above paragraph has shown
\nhow they are referred to in dehumanising language and Said argues this is
\nbecause there have always been negative connotations\/ascribed terms attached to
\nthe Arabs and although they may have changed according to the times, they still
\nbelittle the Arabs. For example, in the past Arabs and Muslims were spoken
\nabout in the West with terms like \u201cerotic\u201d, \u201cprimitive\u201d, \u201cignorant\u201d, \u201cslave
\ntraders\u201d among other derogatory terms. Recently these words have been replaced with
\nterms such as \u201cterrorist\u201d, \u201cfundamentalist\u201d, and \u201cblood thirsty\u201d.\u00a0 Such expressions when adopted by the
\nmainstream media at large tend to play on the fears that some may already have,
\nthus not only do they view the Muslim refugee as the \u201cother\u201d but they view them
\nthrough a negative lens and fear them even more. As a result, Howden claims
\nthat the flurry of inaccurate or misleading reports had drowned out all context
\n\u2013 \u201cthe presence of openly racist and xenophobic stances among individuals,
\npolicy makers and political movements is only part of the problem. Even the
\nmore civilized and political correct is often very confused and poorly
\ninformed\u201d[6]<\/a>.
\nLee and Lynn in support of this studied the way in which refugees and asylum
\nseekers were constructed in the UK media, through analysing letters from
\nmembers of the public discussing the asylum debate. They found that asylum
\nseekers and refugees were constructed in a negative way within these
\ndiscourses. This was achieved \u201cthrough a reconstruction and repositioning of
\nthe social order of the other groups in society so as to position them as
\noutside of society\u201d.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

Said\u2019s theory may prove to be true following the treatment of refugees
\nin Calais. In April 2009, a raid was conducted at the camp, French authorities
\narrested 190 peoples and used bulldozers to destroy tents. The arrests were
\nmade because they were \u201cillegal inhabitants\u201d even though they are\/were
\nrefugees. \u00a0Said once noted that the West
\npromotes a deep-rooted hatred for Islam, today Islam is \u201cpeculiarly traumatic
\nnews in the West\u201d. Especially since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 caught
\nWestern attention, the media have portrayed Islam in a very misleading way \u2013
\n\u201cIn many instances Islam has licensed not only patient inaccuracy, but also
\nexpressions of unrestrained ethnocentrism, cultural and even racial, deep yet
\nparadoxically free-floating hostility\u201d[8]<\/a>.
\nWhich could explain why the Calais Jungle is so often described as an Islamic
\ninvasion (Berlusconi\u2019s Italy, extreme right wing politicians have called it an
\ninvasion) which specifically targets Middle Eastern and North African refugees
\nas well as IDP\u2019s because it is seen as an Islamic invasion that threatens to
\nundermine European culture and civilization. <\/p>\n

THE SECURITIZATION OF MIGRANTS: <\/h3>\n

\u00a0An alternative explanation given
\nto understand why refugees are regarded as transporters of insecurity is the
\nsecuritization theory. The Copenhagen School has contributed greatly to the
\nformulation and advancement of the securitization theory; they contend that
\nthere are choices involved when deciding what should be categorized as a
\nsecurity threat. In this way, \u201cwhether or not issue is a security issue is
\ntreated not as a result of its objective qualities but rather as a result of
\nwhat different people subjectively identify as security threats\u201d. In this case,
\nthe securitization of refugees is a clear indication that they are perceived as
\nsecurity threats.\u00a0 This section will thus
\nargue that Europe as a whole has to a great extent politicized migrants and asylum-seekers,
\nresulting in them being portrayed as a \u201cchallenge to the protection of national
\nidentity and welfare provisions\u201d[9]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Over the past few decades, public discourse in the UK has for the most
\npart shaped the concept of asylum in negative terms, many have gone so far as
\nto cast refugees and IDP\u2019s as a security threat to the UK and its residents.
\nOften refugees and IDP\u2019s have been categorised with undocumented workers or
\n\u2018illegal immigrants\u2019. This association has resulted in them being viewed as a
\nthreat to British society and its values, as well as a cause for concern for
\nthe human security of state residents, such as the \u201chealth and welfare
\nservices\u201d. Although reasonable security measures are often necessary as part of
\nimmigration policy, the issue at hand is the securitization of refugees and
\nIDP\u2019s. Undoubtedly, characterization has negative implications for the group,
\nit also impacts the resident population. In this case, the conflation of
\nrefugees with terrorism has \u201cpotentially serious implications as terrorism is,
\nby nature, intended to induce fear\u201d[10]<\/a>.
\nSecuritizing actors therefore, risks aggravating fears of terrorism by
\nconnecting asylum seekers with terrorists and also claiming that they are
\npresent in large numbers in the country. <\/p>\n

The securitizing move in the UK rests on the basis that they are \u201ca
\nliability, a risky group that needs to be prevented, contained and preferably,
\nrepatriated is one that permeates liberal democracies\u201d[11]<\/a>.
\nTherefore, among other negative characteristics, asylum seekers are most likely
\ndangerous and are capable of carrying out terrorist attacks against residents
\nof the UK, \u201cthus threatening the existence of the referent object of security\u201d.
\n\u201cSince terrorism has become a part of the institutional framework of security,
\ndrawing an association between asylum and terrorism greatly facilitates the
\nease with which asylum itself can be securitized\u201d[12]<\/a>.
\nTherefore, refugees and IDP\u2019s are viewed as dangerous. Terrorist concerns are
\nparamount in the security arena for contemporary and categorizing a certain
\ngroup of people as security concerns undoubtedly securitizes them as well as
\ngeneralizes them. <\/p>\n

THE OTHER SIDE: <\/h3>\n

Although quite a significant number of European countries have adopted a hard-line policy towards refugees and IDP\u2019s as well as making it significantly difficult for them to apply for refugee status, Germany in contrast considered to be accommodating and willing to provide for refugees<\/a>. Syrian refugees especially prefer Germany as a destination because they think of it as a wealthy, welcoming land that will provide them with housing, schooling for their children, and an abundance of jobs. There is a willingness to help Syrian refugees in the nation. In comparison to the UK, Germany\u2019s response to the refugee crisis has been a lot more balanced and positive. Berlin has proposed a quota system where thousands of Germans have volunteered to help refugees, and press coverage has been more balanced; this cannot be said for the overall population as a whole but in contrast to Britain\u2019s hardliner policy on refugees, Germany is strikingly accepting. <\/p>\n

In Germany\u2019s political discourse and conversation, a clear distinction
\nhas been made between immigration and asylum whereas in Britain, ministers
\nafter having witnessed the unfolding refugee crisis gripping Europe have not
\nmade this distinction. For example, in an article by Theresa May who was the
\nhome secretary at the time, promised a tough new approach to immigration. She
\ntalked about \u201cthe events of this summer\u201d but refrained from using the word
\nrefugee. Critics have claimed that the government is intentionally blurring the
\nlines between the two separate categories (refugees and immigrants)[13]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When examining private engagement in Germany, thousands of German
\ncitizens have volunteered to help the refugees arriving on a daily basis. Many
\nfill up their cars and homes with food, clothes and other basic needs. Others
\nhave offered to teach German, translation and babysitting. This sort of
\nwelcoming attitude is reiterated when an MP from Merkel\u2019s CDU party Martin
\nPatzelt, housed two refugees from Eritrea. Whereas in Britain the refugee
\ncrisis has not garnered such overwhelming support from the public. Although
\nlots of citizens do want to contribute, it is not the same. <\/p>\n

Furthermore, two newspaper cuttings have highlighted the differences in
\ntabloid attitudes between the UK and Germany. In Britain, the likes of Katie
\nHopkins writing for the Sun compared refugees crossing the Mediterranean to
\ncockroaches. Contrastingly, Germany\u2019s best-selling newspaper, printed a picture
\nof two refugee children captioned \u201cWe are helping\u201d as their headlines. The
\ndifference could lie in the fact that even right-leaning tabloid newspapers in
\nGermany have a balanced coverage when covering migration, some might even argue
\nthat it is sympathetic coverage. Whereas in Britain, the \u201ctone of much tabloid
\ncoverage has been remorselessly negative\u201d. In May the Daily Mail printed \u201cHow
\nmany more can Kos take?\u201d, and then continued \u201cthousands of boat people from
\nSyria and Afghanistan\u201d had set up a migrant camp on the Greek Island, adding
\nthat British holidaymakers found the situation \u201cdisgusting\u201d[14]<\/a>.
\nIt is quite clear when analysing how UK and Germany compare on migration that
\nGermany is trying make room refugees and does not perceive the presence of
\nthese groups as a threat to security as much as the UK does. <\/p>\n

As Dr Martin Luther King, JR said \u2013 the nation\u2019s security is undeniably
\nan important end, however to refuse protection to vulnerable refugees, who have
\nbeen the victims of violence and terrorism, \u201cdoes not advance this end: it
\nundermines it\u201d. The threat to human security should supersede any threat to
\nnational security. In conclusion this essay has shown how refugees and
\ninternally displaced persons are regarded as transporters of insecurity
\nespecially in the United Kingdom, where the tabloid media and the government
\nnot only portrays them through a negative lens, but they fail to differentiate
\nbetween migrants and refugees, they use dehumanising language when referring to
\nthem and have painted the whole group with the same brush. It has also shown
\nhow the securitization theory helps us in understanding the way in which
\nrefugees are chosen and categorized as a security threat. Finally on the flip
\nside, it has shown how some countries such as Germany have a more balanced
\nmedia coverage in comparison to the UK, and do not have such a hardliner border
\npolicy when it comes to refugees in need of protection. <\/p>\n

REFERENCES: <\/h2>\n