What is “Europe”? Where do its borders lie? Who gets to roam freely within them and who is kept forcibly out?
These questions and their shifting answers were on painful display recently as tens of thousands of human beings crossed into Spain’s colonial enclave of Ceuta, on mainland Morocco. Why they did remains a matter of dispute and conspiracy. The truth is probably a combustible mix of factors.
The response, however, has been anything but ambiguous. Much of the European Union, where right-wing populism and nativist securitization increasingly dominate the political mainstream, quickly turned against center-left Spain. Its Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, is already the odd duck within the European establishment for his relatively supportive position on Palestine, openness to migration, and opposition to military spending. Under pressure to act, Sánchez came out looking little better than his less-than-liberal peers.
Although Europe’s visa-free Schengen Area was never at risk, many of the countries that are part of it took unverified panic on social media and chaotic scenes in Ceuta as an opportunity to double down on the civilizational discourse that has gripped European politics. Ironically, many of these countries have themselves called Schengen into question with all but permanent requests for “temporary” border controls.
In the aftermath of Ceuta, dozens of migrants are dead, and Europe is weaker and more divided. Its most racist and belligerent voices have the upper hand in a zero-sum politics of exclusion. It is difficult to argue that international law, due process, and human dignity have much of a place in the European Imaginary anymore.
Instead, it’s clear that more than any Frontex guard or technocratic piece of legislation, what polices Fortress Europe most of all are racially coded boundaries that help determine who “deserves” certain rights and freedoms and who does not.
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