Fear of refugees is fed by words like ‘tsunami’ and ‘invasion’, says Henk van Houtum. He considers the hard line take by the EU towards refugees to be a betrayal of its own values. Will we offer refugees a room in our inn at Christmas? “It now looks like the answer is no,” says Henk van Houtum, political geographer and coordinator of the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research (NCBR). At the end of 2016 he and migration historian Leo Lucassen published the book Voorbij Fort Europa (Beyond Fortress Europe), in which they strongly criticised the European migration policy. Two years later, the situation has become even worse. “We look the other way. Lots of refugees are kept in terrible conditions in Greece. Others are detained by the EU’s neighbours, which involves sinister deals with Turkey, for example and even Libya. Meanwhile, the crossing for those looking for a safe haven has only become more dangerous. The borders of the EU have become the deadliest on earth.” The European Community was created after the Second World War to encourage peace, guarantee human rights and exclude xenophobia, Van Houtum states. A refugee treaty was signed to offer shelter to people in need. “But we now see that, with its own border policy, the EU is eroding the values for which it was created and that it claims to protect.” Deadly policy Van Houtum points to the created visa border as the main culprit. In his view, this paper border is the least talked about, but also the hardest. “Since 2001 the Union has had a positive and a negative visa list. The negative list contains 135 of the 195 countries in the world, generally Muslim countries and poorer countries. If you were born in a country on that negative list, then it’s extremely difficult to migrate in a normal manner to the EU, even as a refugee. Discrimination on the grounds of country of birth is prohibited by the constitution of the EU member states, but is standing practice in the Union’s policy on outer limits. The paradox is that refugees don’t get a visa and thus can’t travel by plane because they come from a dangerous country, even though that’s precisely the reason why they’re trying to flee that country. So they are forced to look for irregular ways, resulting in human trafficking, deterrent measures, more and more iron fences and tens of thousands of deaths. A cynical and deadly policy.” Xenophobia According to Van Houtum, the fear of refugees is fed by phobic language use. “Water terms like ‘stream’ or ‘tsunami’ and war terms like ‘invasion’ make us forget that we are dealing with people who are migrating to save themselves. And photos of hoards of people or maps with large and threatening red arrows aimed at the EU contribute to this. Even though for decades the number of migrants has been less than three percent of the global population. Throughout time the dominant pattern is that most people don’t migrate. In short, we aren’t dealing with a refugee crisis, but with a refugee protection crisis.” Although he is very critical of the system, Van Houtum retains his faith in people. “The charity shown by citizens in the Heumensoord refugee camp in 2015 was heart warming.” But, as Christmas approaches, charity can’t be the only political solution, in Van Houtum’s opinion. “In essence, it’s about justice, about complying with our own laws and the principles of solidarity laid down in treaties.” "Let’s use Christmas 2018 to reflect on the post-war ideals that we ourselves are destroying. Or let the edifying words of Pope Francis serve as an inspiration. He formulated it very strongly: ‘We save banks, but not refugees. This is the bankruptcy of humanity.’” Henk van Houtum is a political geographer and coordinator of the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research (NCBR).Photo 1: Maria Teneva on Unsplash. Christmas tip Exhibit: Humanity House, The Hague: "This year marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of the treaty on universal human rights. Two exhibits related to this are on view in the Humanity House. The first, entitled ‘Ervaringsreis’ (Journey Experience), lets you momentarily crawl into the skin of a refugee. The second is by the famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. With his iPhone camera he recorded how people fled from repression under one system and then came up against the boundaries and xenophobia of another system.”