26 Replies to “Colonial Legacies and New Immigration”
The “Europe Today” reading had me questioning my understanding of the asylum process for member states within the EU. Yes, it appears that there is a single standard by which EU member states can evaluate whether someone qualifies as an asylum-seeker. However, the fact that asylum seekers are only allowed to apply to the EU through the country of which they try to enter seems like an unfair fair burden to those countries that receive more applications, which as King suggests, is often the Southern European countries as they are closer in proximity to Asia and Africa. Moreover, the EU dictates that asylum applicants must receive “a dignified standard of living, wherever they settle in the EEA+ area” which, in addition to being an ambiguous standard, provides an even bigger resource burden on these Southern European nations which are facing more economic difficulty than Northern European countries. To me, the asylum process seems to again highlight the tension of subsidiarity as who, the EU or the member state, has the obligation to provide for these asylum seekers during their application process? Additionally, who then becomes responsible for the the asylum seeker’s well-being, given that the EU mandates that they must have a certain standard of living, if he or she is allowed to enter said EU-nation? Italy, Greece, and Hungary in particular have been having recent frustrations with the EU as a large wave of Syrian refugees have applied for asylum, yet there doesn’t seem to be a definitive solution as to how the EU will support these nations as they deal with the refugee crisis.
Furthermore, the reading of “Europe today” skims over the essential components of what makes someone qualify for asylum, but I’m sure there is much ambiguity in how to define a refugee despite the different categories (maintaining family unity, and access to employment, education, health care, etc) that exist. In my opinion, I feel as if this would make it difficult for judges in Italy vs. judges in say Sweden to rule in favor of asylum status as Southern nations are aware that they can’t economically support all these asylum seekers if they give them refugee status. Then, can we say that this policy of applying to just one EU member state for asylum is truly fair, given that courts aren’t always equal in opinion?
In “Bread and Chocolate,” as it occurs in Switzerland, there is no conflict of subsidiarity in immigration, yet the confusion of asylum status still clearly exists as a plot line throughout the film. I was initially confused as to why Elena’s son wouldn’t be granted asylum as well. Was the concern that Switzerland wanted to limit the number of children they potentially had to care for in the event that the migrant parents couldn’t earn consistent wages? Was it simply a xenophobic fear where individuals would be less willing to assimilate if they came in families rather than alone? We see that the rich Italian industrialist is easily able to bring his children within the country, implying that barriers to immigration are more a class barrier than a cultural barrier, and wealth can more directly influence society than the moral obligation of safety. Nevertheless, in the film, we also see corruption in the form of biased jurisdiction of individual immigration officer who allows Gregory to stay even though he didn’t qualify for asylum under Switzerland’s laws. Going forward, I suppose every country, and the EU as a whole, must figure out not just how to write unbiased, consistent laws, but also how to enforce them in the wake of financial concerns and corruption on an individual and state level.
There is no question that European nations, as individuals and as a collective, have a fear of the outsider. There is an intrinsic need to protect the national and European identity, thus creating a tension between the migrants. In the “Europe Today” piece, I found the section about Muslim population in Europe to be fascinating in that if you heard the media’s portrayal of Muslims in Europe, or if you heard the way Europeans themselves (disclaimed: using Europeans does not assume a generalization that all peoples have the same sentiments), you would think that Muslims were completely taking over the land and culture of the Europeans. But the Muslim population is only at 2.2%. I am in accordance with the article that this number is not high enough to cause as much tension as it does throughout Europe.
But the idea of Europe treating migrants differently has always been a problem, and the root of this problem is the need to protect identity. In Europe, there has always been an expectation of migrants to completely adapt to the culture in order to keep preserve a sense of national identity. I do not necessarily think a “European Identity” has formed per say. I think each country has its own identity and the only thing that connects them to each other is the formation of the European Union. Europeans’ hostility towards outsiders is due to the fact that if they do not have a national identity, there is no real European identity to classify the individual.
With this train of thought, I came across a lot of questions about how Southern Europe fits into this whole picture. Southern Europeans were those immigrants that were considered the outsiders in nations of northern Europe. Southern Europeans were also considered the outsiders in their own nation when they would migrate within the borders. But to complicate it even more, in recent decades, southern Europe has transitioned from being a “waiting room” between destinations to being a destination itself. I am curious as to know the thoughts of southern Europeans on the immigration situation considering their nations have been stereotyped as the migrant Other of Europe, but are now receiving migrants from Asia and Africa. Not only am I curious about their thoughts on immigration, but also I am curious about how their notions of identity contribute to the general European need for national identity.
The readings this week have sparked my interest in the limbo that southern Europe is in in terms of immigration. Do they still have the same intrinsic fear of protecting their national identity, even when their identity has been put down? And the fear does still exist, is it even more prominent because they feel a sense of revenge for how the people of their nation were treated?
The excerpts from “Europe Today” and “Southern Europe in the Changing Map of Immigration” strengthened my belief that the media’s influence and social perception of immigrants far outweighs the academic and statistical explanation of the relation of migrants and Europe when it comes to critical national decisions on immigration.
The two readings outline the complexities and patterns of migration in Europe, including how it affects the labor market, gender relations, social hierarchy and exclusion, policy, and wider notions of security and international relations fueled by a fear of immigrants. Despite the papers taking an objective view of these ramifications of immigration, they both paint a similar picture; immigration is not as pressing of an issue as perceived. Migration is vital to European labor mobility, which in turn boosts the European economy. Furthermore, the migrant share of the European population is surprisingly low at 9.5 % in 2010. In comparison, both North America and Oceania have higher migrant shares at 14.2 % and 16.8 %.
The readings also acknowledge Europe’s struggle to integrate immigrants in past decades. “Europe Today” states that migration was supposed to forge a common European identity, which has not occurred. Immigrants have been subject to social exclusion, low-wage work, and limited opportunities, despite the idealistic notion of a common and welcoming European identity. Instead, European nations have struggled to develop an efficient and coordinated political response to immigration, which I believe is heavily influenced by society’s and media’s perception of immigrants.
The media’s portrayal of immigration in the recent years has been one of chaos within European borders. Europeans constantly see stories of masses of immigrants arriving at borders and authorities not knowing how to solve the situation at hand. Additionally, the fear of an external threat to Europe is amplified by the media’s coverage of European terrorist attacks, which at times are carried out by radical Islamic groups. Couple this with the social perception of immigrants as inferior due to colonialism and observing low-wage work such as street-hawkers, and you get the dangerous illusion and generalization that most immigrants are criminals or out to take jobs from the European population. This in turn, along with other factors, has fueled the rise of devastating policies that blindly look to limit immigration at the cost of families, communities, and economies.
I realize that the excerpts were written before the migrant crisis in 2015, where European nations struggled to cope with the massive immigration to Europe, but the point remains the same. The media is designed to make a story capturing and out of the ordinary, and thus we are always exposed to terrorist plots, attacks, and the overwhelming mass immigration into Europe.
Numerous questions remain as to the media and social perception’s dominance over academia when it comes to European migration. Is the general population fit to make critical national decisions with a generational impact, such as Brexit? Why does media still have an incredible influence on democratic society, despite its obvious flaws? Why do we blindly protect our national identity in the age of globalization, at a major economic and social cost?
You brought up a very interesting point surrounding the reality and the perception/media portrayal of European immigration. I agree that media portrayal of immigration from outside the European borders can be inaccurate at times; however, while this discrepancy exists, when it does happen, I think it is merely an inaccurate portrayal rather than an over-exaggeration of what is otherwise a smaller issue on actual terms. I actually think that Moses’s arguments and statistics understate the gravity of the borders and immigration issue; the article plays into the narrative that European borders have disappeared as a result of the establishment and growth of the EU, when the borders themselves have perhaps just shifted and became external borders instead of internal ones — external borders that are perhaps even more violent.
For example, Moses speaks of the 76 percent of asylum applications that are rejected by the EU, the 60,000 or so refugees who were granted protection by EU member states in 2011, and the “remarkably small” number of refugees that actually enter the EU “in a world mired with political conflicts.” While reading this, I couldn’t help but remember a few chapters from a book called Violent Borders by Reece Jones that I read a while back. There, Jones explained some of the reasons behind this small number of refugees that enter Europe in several ways, one of which is through a case study on the border fence between Spain and Morocco in Mellila. Vox had dubbed this “Europe’s most fortified borders” in Africa.
Moses had mentioned that EU states are obliged to grant TCN migrants certain protections and a chance to plead their case once they have entered Europe; however, because of this, when it comes to Mellila, what we see instead are high fences, barb wires, razor wires, and guards stationed at the borders to prevent migrants from making it through in the first place. Not to mention, though the Spanish side of the fence is more “humanitarian” because it does not feature barb and razor wires, the EU did sign an Advanced Status Partnership with Morocco, giving them advantages in the political and economic realms. As a result, no shortage of EU funding was funneled into reinforcing the Moroccan side of the border. By focusing on the numbers rather than the conditions at the borders, Moses undercuts the gravity of the issue and fails to implicate Europe in its response to many TCN migrants. He further brushes over the process of granting asylum, and speaks of “asylum shopping” in a manner that portrays the migrant themselves as in a more negative light when in reality, many migrants — despite facing horrible conditions at home that are perhaps even life-threatening over the long term — are not granted refugee status because they did not come from a country like Syria with clear political conflicts and persecutions.
Yes, Moses’s article was written before the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe, and yes, media portrayals do sometimes focus on the wrong stories; however, I do think that it is important to distinguish potential inaccuracy from exaggeration, as the external borders of Europe and the relationship with TCN migrants are more complex and perhaps not as minimal as the article makes it seem.
Moses and King’s pieces on immigration throughout Southern Europe highlight the extreme “otherness” of Southern European migrants compared to other migrants moving throughout Northern Europe.
First, in his piece “Southern Europe in the Changing Global Map of Migration,” King discusses the Economic transformation of Southern Europe since the 1970s. He explains that many more immigrants are coming to Southern Europe than migrants are leaving Southern Europe. His reasoning for this phenomenon is telling: because many places in Southern Europe now have “European” or “near-European” levels of income, meaning it is no longer necessary for citizens to migrate to sustain themselves. Here, “European” does not describe anybody living in Southern Europe—it refers strictly to the wealth resulting from the economic boom in Northern Europe. In this case, Southern Europe has been ‘removed’ from the discussion of Europe entirely. Instead, ‘Europe’ becomes something for these Southern Europeans to aspire to, as if they are a completely separate entity.
As Moses tells us in Migration in Europe, physical boundaries throughout Europe further this otherness for those Southern Europeans who have not been able to achieve a “European” wage and still must travel in order to sustain their livelihood. While at first it may seem that the European Union boasts a borderless labor market, this market is largely designed to favor Northern European countries, leaving the migrants in the other countries with much more difficulty to travel, and thus more difficulty to make a wage matching those who are from Northern Europe. According to Moses, original EU members, which comprised of Northern European countries, were “suspicious” of the new members from Southern Europe who had joined, so workers from many of these countries “were not allowed access to the whole of the European labor market until years after joining.” Once again, those living in Southern Europe are excluded from ‘Europe,’ despite their European-ness.
This physical exclusion is much more problematic than the figurative exclusion by wealth, as these strict borders prevent the Southern European migrants from ever catching up to the wealth/labor success of Northern European migrants. In this way, “European levels of income” must continue only referring to Northern European migrants, as the Southern Europeans are not even given the opportunity to change that narrative. Instead, they are trapped in otherness.
The shift, especially in southern Europe, from a primarily emigrating area to one with many immigrants has coincided with a rise in nationalism and right-wing parties. However, while you hear on the news about the invasion of immigrants, Moses paints a very different picture, comparing the number of immigrants to those in North America and Oceania. When placed in this perspective, especially when considering that about a third of the immigrants are from other countries in the EU, it changes the perspective. Also, the number of Muslim immigrants is very low, with the overall Muslim population in Europe at 2.2%. This combined with the paper by King shows that while the immigrant population is not only below that of North America and Oceania, it is necessary in many of the southern nations to support the flexible economy. As birth rates fall in many of these countries and the populations education increases, many citizens refuse to work at the flexible and lower paying jobs, and immigrants are necessary to fill these positions. All of this raises the question as to why there has been an increase in nationalism and xenophobia in the EU; when not only are these immigrants smaller in number then their counterparts in other parts of the world, but also necessary for many of these economies, such as Greece where immigrants hold 10% of the labor force. The economic hardships in the EU, particularly in the southern European countries, are a major contributor to the increased levels of xenophobia and nationalism. Although most of the immigrants are taking jobs that Europeans wouldn’t work in the first place, the sentiment of foreigners taking jobs is still relevant. This combined with the ideas of losing the nations cultural identity and history, especially in nations with lower levels of birthrates, and in countries where they believe the European Union is taking advantage of them and not helping during their economic struggle, all lead to in increase in the political right-wing.
Bread and Chocolate intricately hints at themes of sexuality and class differences in the movie poster. Before watching the film, I saw the two women as equals. They are both nude and being “served” on a platter, which made me initially think that this film was going to portray sexist themes and depict women as objects. But after watching the film, I see the two women as similar but distinct. The women in the back with the brunette hair reminds me of the whore we saw earlier in the film. She is laying down with a flirtatious smile, similar to how the whore in the film carried herself. She represents the objectification of women that I had predicted earlier. The whore in the film also did not seem to be Swiss based on her appearance and her accent. The brunette in the poster is therefore representing nudity as disgraceful, something that the woman should be ashamed of but isn’t because she is low-class. She represents the whores who contribute to the estranged homes. This is juxtaposed directly with the blonde woman on the other side. Her expression is more blank, more natural. While also nude, she is not outwardly sexual, not flaunting her body but also not afraid to be exposed. This reminded me of the scene in the film where the Italians were watching the Swiss undress and frolic in the water. The Swiss were nude, but in a different way from the whore in the beginning. They were elegant, beautiful, and something to be admired rather used. This difference in perception between the two women in the poster raises many questions. Is it possible to justify public nudity in some cases but not others? What makes some things shameful and others empowering? While Bread and Chocolate focused mostly on the male migrant workers, I think that this aspect regarding women provided a different dimension and more holistic view of the tensions between European nations.
Migration in Europe by Jonathan Moses poses many questions and one it focuses on is the question of state sovereignty vs supranational authority with respect to immigration. While the reading focuses on broad topics surrounding European immigration and integration, one fascinating section highlights alternative policies between Denmark and Sweden and the challenges these differences create. While both Denmark and Sweden are EU member states and reside within the Schengen Zone for passport free travel, they vary greatly on their policy towards third country nationals. While Sweden, at least in 2008, has liberal policies toward third world nationals, Denmark is highly restrictive—prioritizing only extremely high skilled workers and limiting family migration for non-EU residents. The reading notes some of the challenges Denmark has faced in maintaining this restrictive policy. A 2008 European Court of Justice ruling on Danish policy sparked outrage from Danish authorities and contributed to a statement of full border autonomy and immigration authority from the Danish Prime Minister. Moses uses the term “streamline” in reference to EU idealistic immigration policy. Moses would almost certainly support greater authority for the EU on immigration. Moses would advocate for a universal policy for asylum seekers and EU authority and regulation for other immigrants.
Moses understands that Europe is currently in an awkward middle-ground between full autonomous and independent nation states and a federation. While the EU economic foundations and undoubtedly valuable, many countries such as Denmark are opposed to liberal immigration policies the EU advocates. Denmark was the only EU country to opt out of the 825 Million Euro funding package for third country nationals. While the EU policy was certainly helpful for the countries that accepted funding, can the EU call it a full success when a member state defected from funding to helping integrate third country nationals? The Denmark case study is a fascinating example of the supranational EU’s attempt and conflict in “forcing” an unwanted policy on a member state. This is contrary to the Federation that is the United States. While individual states do remain some reserved authority, an individual state cannot (traditionally) object to the federal immigration policy.
While this reading is from 2011, the results of the financial crisis and immigration from war-torn “global southern” regions have proven how nation-states preeminently prioritize the need to retain autonomy over their immigration policy. Political developments from Brexit to the election of Hungarian leader Victor Orban to broad right-wing success across Europe have proven the continued difficulties the EU faces in building an ever-closer union on immigration policy. Many right-wing parties have made huge political strides on platforms focused strictly on limiting immigration to third country nationals and regaining sovereignty from the EU over immigration and borders. This anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment coupled with a stagnant EU economy has left the EU in a fascinating yet precarious position entering European Parliamentary elections later in 2019.
The two questions I will pose broadly today is “Can a nation be independent and considered a nation if it cannot control its borders and immigration policy?” and alternatively “Can the EU ever have real authority if individual nations maintain immigration control and political authority?” These two questions are critical to the founding principles and broad authority of the European Union. Whether or not the EU can “streamline” an immigration policy and get all member states on board with compliance will be a quintessential question in the future success and coherence of the EU on immigration.
One idea we touched on a few times in class on Tuesday that was very interesting to me, was the idea of shame and its role in migrant life. From what I could tell there were three scenes that involved some form of shame or shaming that deserve to be discussed a bit more.
The first is the cabaret scene. This scene was very interesting to watch, most likely because I was not expecting it, but aside from that, the ideas of shame and humiliation are explicitly presented. When the young man became upset I was very intrigued, I did not know what was happening or why he was no longer interested in performing. At first, I thought the song reminded him of something or someone and that he became upset about, like the one man in the audience earlier on. Then, he became angry and refused to think his life would be a constant cabaret scene, and I understood. He was ashamed that the one, and most likely only, job he could find, was one that he was not interested in, one that embarrassed him in front of his fellow migrant countrymen.
The second is the chicken coup scene. As mentioned in class, this scene is a lot to take in and understand after watching it only once, but it is a scene that plays into humiliation quite well. During this scene, the migrant workers who were always around chickens knew how to communicate with them and wanted Nino to see that. There were many reasons discussed in class for why this scene existed, but I believe it was included to show the shame some people will live through, and eventually become complacent with, in order to stay and work in the host country. In order to work, this group of people must live and work with animals so much that eventually, the distinction between humans and animals is blurred. There is also a thematic bit to this scene that is very important when Nino asks if he is like them. Is he comparable to the people who live inside a chicken coup? I would say no, but there are some people in reality who would share a different opinion, one along the lines of ‘all immigrants are the same, animals.’ For example, the people who Professor Dainotto shared with us at the end of Tuesday’s class, who had signs outside of their stores/businesses that said “no animals and no immigrants allowed.”
Finally, there is the last scene in the movie where the audience sees Nino walk out of the tunnel, returning to Switzerland. As mentioned in class, he does this because he can no longer return home without disappointing everyone who was depending on him and his money. If he were to return to Italy, the rest of his family would see his journey abroad as either a waste of time or as much of a failure as he is. Immigration is a double-edged sword for migrants in the way that they will never fit in in their host country, but they are never to return to their home country either. Shame plays a large role in both of those regards. First, immigrants to another country are (almost) always to be part of the “other” that is created by the people of the host country to make the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ clearer. In this case, Nino will never be blond enough, white enough, or rich enough to fit into Swiss culture because he will always be a part of the ‘other.’ Second, they can never return home because their journey and the people themselves would be seen as failures. Living a life of shame that no one knows about it much easier than returning home to a place where even if you did ‘make it’ in the other country, returning home is seen as a failure.
The idea of shame/humiliation shown in this film is not only that of one’s own feelings toward life but also that of other peoples feelings as well. When living as an immigrant in a host country, one must be prepared to work the jobs no one else is willing to work. The jobs that are humiliating to most, but also a way to remain employed and in the host country. One must also always remember the people he/she left behind and what they will think if he/she returned, which is generally seen as a humiliating act of cowardice, or possibly, in this case, he will be seen as a chicken (bad joke, I know). What is always forgotten, is the journey immigrants force themselves to go on because they are not living for themselves, but also for the many people they left behind. It also makes me wonder, if they are forcing themselves to live lives as horrible and humiliating as this, how bad can it be back home? If the home country is as terrible as some think, terrible to the point where even living in a chicken coup is a better option, what can and should be done to help those countries? Why are people so quick to judge immigrants for leaving their home country and taking horrible jobs, but much less willing to do something about it (and by it, I mean helping the home country)? Is the reliance on immigrants so great that host countries are unwilling to help out other less prosperous nations because it could have negative effects on them?
Worker mobility within the European Union is tied to many different threads within the broader topic of immigration and emigration within Europe. The contrast between Moses and the writings of Gialis and Leontidou open up questions about these connections. In his Europe Today piece, Moses makes the claim that there is considerable rigidity within the European labor market as a result of several constraints. These include the requirement that migrants must prove their financial stability and overcome several bureaucratic and legal hurdles. He claims that although there are organizations working towards mitigating these restrictions, there still exists much friction. These frictions are most evident in nations where immigration levels are highest, specifically the PIIGS counties. Moses’ claim intriguingly contrasts with statements within the 2014 article by Gialis and Leontidou on Antinomies of flexibilization and atypical employment in Mediterranean Europe: Greek, Italian and Spanish regions during the crisis. Although the authors concede that the lack of part-time employment in southern Europe contributes to a decrease in labor market flexibility, they also acknowledge that the higher proportion of atypical and lower wage jobs contributes to significantly more job flexibility as well as labor informality than northern Europe. These conflicting observations are intriguing to me as they highlight how complex these topics truly are and make me wonder whether how much variation truly exists within the migrant experiences of southern Europe. According to Russel King’s chapter, the more recent migratory waves in the 80’s and 90’s have included a more diverse socioeconomic range and these peoples have been able in turn to find employment in both low status and service-oriented jobs upon arriving at their destination country. Given the variations in populations, home nations, destinations, and opportunities therein, it seems improbable that many strong generalizations can be drawn. One interesting and related question that this brings up is that of the native unemployment rates in southern European nations. With rates of 2-6 times as much unemployment in the south as opposed to the north, it is fascinating that so many migrants would end their journey in a country with a relatively weaker economy with potentially less opportunity, maybe indicating part of the draw for immigrants to seek inhabitance in Germany and Switzerland.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here as I think it would create some interesting discussion in class. What I write in this blog post does not necessarily my own personal views.
EU member states have every right to restrict or encourage immigration from non-EU member states as they see fit.
Before focusing on the content of this week’s readings, I would like to first point out that Article F of the Maastricht Treaty states: “ The Union shall respect the national identities of its Member States, whose systems of government are founded on the principles of democracy.”
Not allowing each nation to create enforce its own borders is, in my opinion, in direct opposition to this.
I thought the authors comparison of present day foreigner population percentages between Europe and other places like North America and Oceania was completely inappropriate. It makes no sense using the comparison percentages between places with wildly different histories and cultures as a justification for why anti-immigration sentiments in European are overblown/invalid. It makes more sense, however, to compare foreigner population percentages in Europe between now and the past, which the author did do. He pointed out that Europe has historically been a region of net emigration – in other words this is what Europeans are historically used to as normal. So in my opinion, it makes perfect sense there to be cultural weariness and opposition to an increased foreigner population when that has not been the norm historically (not saying it is justified, just saying that one can understand this given Europe’s migration history.
Writing off any and all sentiments to restrict immigration as xenophobic, racist, nationalist far-right extremist is not productive and won’t solve any problems. 2015 saw a massive migrant crisis which the EU was totally and utterly unprepared for, as well as a coordinated mass sexual assaults allegedly carried out on over 1,200 victims allegedly perpetrated by predominantly Middle East and North African asylum seekers and illegal immigrants among other attacks/crimes committed by immigrants. Obviously some of these anti-immigration sentiments can be attributed to xenophobia and political extremism, but there is clearly evidence of there being an immigration problem in Europe. The source of this problem – in my opinion it is how governments have handled the crisis and not the immigrants themselves – is up for debate, as is the solution, but given how:
a) Europe has historically never really had net immigration and
b) recent crimes that have garnered international attention that have been carried out by immigrants in combination with the crisis being handled poorly by the European Union,
it makes sense that national governments should be able to restrict immigration as they please.
Bread and Chocolate is quite the interesting film. After watching it once, then discussing it, I felt that I was able to understand more of it. However, after discussing it a second time, I feel that we have unpacked a lot of important things about the film.
One aspect of film that has always fascinated me is when they come full circle to a scene that, in the beginning, we render unimportant. In this film it is the opening scene with the immigrant returning home from his time working abroad. Driving in his new Mercedes Benz, showing off his expensive and luxurious lifestyle (clearly shown to represent his success as a guest worker). However, come the end of the film, Nino does not even get close to achieving this dream. Instead, he is poor, changed, and ashamed to return home. He elects to stay abroad, partially because it is possible that he can succeed eventually, but very obviously because he is too ashamed to not have that kind of return to home that we saw in the beginning.
In relation to the readings from this week, Moses’s piece displays many possible reasons that this was Nino’s fate. Moses focuses on the rigidity of the labor market when it comes to immigrants. Immigrants often encounter legal obstacles when it comes to working abroad. Proving financial stability and migrating legally are two major problems for guest workers. Moreover, immigrants often stick out from the crowd, and make them an easy target for racism and unjust treatment from authority. This is why Nino dyed his hair, partly. Aside from wanting to assimilate to the seemingly flawless lifestyle of the Swiss, Nino wanted to fit in more to receive the same treatment of those around him.
Migrant workers tend to face hurdles in almost any country. I can testify that they definitely do here in the US, as I have seen it first hand. Through the film and the readings we can also see that there are problems with immigration across Europe as well.
This leaves me with the question of “How will we undo the racial/cross-cultural predjeduce that migrant workers face, when many of them are just trying to make a better life for themselves, not hurt anybody else.”
I believe the most intriguing aspect of “Faceless Killers” by Henning Mankell is how relevant it is to Scandinavian immigration policy and social tension almost thirty years later.
The crime novel begins with the discovery of the vicious murders of Maria and Johannes Lövgren, two rural farmers in Sweden. Detective Kurt Wallander is called in to investigate the murders and realizes quickly the complexities of the crime and societal impact on Sweden the investigation may carry, particularly after Maria’s last word before her death was “foreigner”. Wallander and the investigative team is aware of the rising tension and fear of immigrants in Sweden, and thus decide to withhold this information as a measure to protect innocent refugees. However, Maria’s last word is leaked to the public, which spark several racially motivated attacks in Sweden, including the murder of a Somali immigrant. The complex tensions of immigration are further emphasized through Kurt Wallander’s own experience, as he questions Sweden’s immigration policy, dreams about a black woman repeatedly, observes that his estranged daughter dates a Kenyan immigrant, and tracks down the murderers of the farmers who turn out to be Czech citizens.
What struck me when reading the novel was how relatable it was to today’s balance of liberalism and prejudice when it comes to immigration in Scandinavia. I believe the novel especially draws parallels to the Oslo and Utøya attacks on the 22nd of July 2011 which left 77 civilians dead, most of them teenagers. The 2011 attacks were carried out by Anders Behring Breivik, a far-right nationalist whose primary agenda of the attack was to declare war against the “Muslim invasion of Europe”. Particularly the attack at Utøya demonstrated this view, as he killed members of the Norwegian Labor Party, a party with a liberal view of immigration. However, in the early hours after the attacks, it was not clear who stood behind it. Many Norwegians feared that an Islamic terrorist group was the culprit. This assumption led to several racially motivated attacks towards immigrants the same day of the terrorist attacks.
Thus, Breivik’s view of a “Muslim invasion” is also the foundation of the social tension in “Faceless Killers”, while the racially motivated attacks in Norway in 2011 are mirrored by the ones observed in the crime novel.
The novel and the parallels it draws leaves the reader with several important questions. Was Wallander, Rydberg, and the rest of the investigative team right in withholding the information that Maria Lövgren’s last word was “foreigner”? How do you protect innocent Swedes and refugees during the investigation of this double murder? What would the consequences have been in Norway if the 2011 attacks were committed by an Islamic terrorist group?
Faceless Killers addresses the issue of the “foreigner” in a homogenous country such as Sweden. While migrant and “foreign” crime rates are actually very low, sentiment still exists rampant throughout Scandinavia, Europe and the world that foreigners perpetrate crime. The fear of the foreigner is present in many aspects of life. This book, written 30 years ago depicts the fear of the foreign murder. Fears of foreign theft, assault and rape have persisted without any substantial evidence. While foreigners, like natives, do commit crimes, foreign crimes are blown far out of proportion compared to native crimes. In many countries, like the United States, foreigners actually commit a lower percentage of crimes than native citizens despite far inferior socio-economic status and opportunity. Despite the statistical inaccuracy, media and the widespread native population portrays foreigners to be drawn to crime, dangerous people, and broadly bad for society.
On a larger scale than small crime, the 21st century has seen foreign terrorism has become a crucial political and safety issue in Europe, the United States and the world. While the terror attacks conducted by foreigners on western countries such as the US and EU nations are horrific acts of violence and warrant the harshest imaginable punishment and safety precaution, these isolated acts are objectively few and far between. The risk of being injured or killed in a terror attack is so statistically miniscule, yet plays such a significant impact on citizen’s actions, fears, and attitude towards foreigners. The disproportionate fear and policy reaction to terrorism places blanket dislike towards the majority of innocent and hard-working foreigners thus altering the European and American immigration landscape.
Contrary to foreign terrorism and the fear and global outrage it provokes, domestic terrorism does not carry the same long-term repercussions. To continue with Colin’s example from a different perspective, in 2011 Anders Breivik a Norwegian national conducted one of the deadliest terror attacks in European history. A combination of a car bomb in Oslo and the horrific shooting of 77 children at a summer camp made the attack the deadliest event in Norway since World War II. While Norwegians were most certainly horrified by the attack, the general population did not suddenly declare that “all early 30s, naturally born Norwegian men were ‘terrorists’ and ‘criminals.”’ Few policy changes resulted from the attack and most sources even say Anders enjoys a relatively nice life in Norwegian prison.
Coverage of the attack was certainly prominent in Norway and the EU, but the American media failed to capture the atrocity that was the attack. The Boston marathon bombing two years later killed 80 fewer people yet received tenfold times the media coverage. Domestic terrorism is harder to “sell” to an audience because many people do not fear domestic terrorism the way they fear “foreigners.” Domestic terrorists are labeled “bad apples” or “troubled” while foreign terrorists define an entire region of people and potential immigrants. While all kinds of terror are awful, despicable, and cowardly, the hypocritical coverage and mentality towards foreign terrorism is unfair. Society should label foreign terrorists as what they are “troubled bad apples” instead of using isolated acts of crime and terror to define populations.
The contradiction between mentality towards domestic and foreign terrorists re-emphasizes the fear of the foreigner that Faceless Killers addressed. It is interesting looking at this issue both on the small scale of rural Sweden 30 years ago and on the broad scale of foreign terror today. The two instances show many parallels and deep-rooted mentality of native view towards foreigners.
The two questions I will pose today are:
Why can’t people label foreign terrorists and criminals as what they are: “bad apples” and “troubled?”
Why is it so easy to call a domestic terrorist and shooter a “bad apple” but a foreigner who commits an act of terror defines an entire region of people?
Throughout “Faceless Killers,” I had difficulty discerning Mankell’s stance on Sweden’s immigration policy. Initially, I thought that Mankell was presenting a relatively skeptical, yet also pragmatic, view of Sweden’s immigration policy as Wallander and his fellow police force are forced to consider who is really a refugee versus those who are just opportunity seekers, or in other terms, economic migrants. The novel never really seems to answer the question of who deserves asylum, but it does seem to suggest that as much as immigration is a problem, lack of resources and coordination on the part of the host country, Sweden, certainly can contribute to the chaos surrounding the immigration issue. Additionally, I believed that Mankell wasn’t against some amount of immigration as the reader sees that Wallander isn’t fundamentally opposed to immigration as he actively tries to save immigrants from the fire that breaks out in their refugee camp and he tries to be proactive in defending them against the terrorist threats that are targeted towards the refugee camp. He is eager, at least as much as possible in his depressive state, to find the killer of the Somalian immigrant that was shot, but it’s also worth noting how despite that eagerness, he never even learns the name of the murdered victim. This is counter to his interaction Lovgren’s case of which he dives deeply into their personal background, indicating that there is certainly strong personal preferences towards Swedish nationals than immigrants.
But then, there are also indications that Mankell is not merely skeptical, but is strongly against foreigners. The most apparent way that this is identified is in Mankell’s choice of the killers of the Lovgrens. Indeed, it could have easily been the case the it was not the Czech immigrants that had killed them, but instead the trope of the vindictive, illegitimate child of Johannes who merely wanted his father’s money. And moreover, the Czech killers were not only seen as murderers, but they were also depicted as brutal and savage in their efforts to find the money that Johannes had hidden. Is Mankell using this novel as gross exaggeration/satire of the way that the media negatively portrays immigrants in Sweden to convince the reader that all media stereotypes are fictional? Or is he genuinely insinuating that immigrants have the potential to be just as bad as anti-immigrant individuals fear? I certainly think, if nothing else, Mankell questions the notion of unlimited asylum, but to what extent he advocates for the restraint of immigration remains unclear to me.
Henning Mankell brings up a very interesting conflict on his book Faceless Killers. The already tense immigrant situation in Sweden is exacerbated by the fact that the only clue to a horrible double murder is the word foreigner. The reason this creates so much anger and aggression is because of the fact that people think only in groups and the fact that one nameless foreigner is accused of the murder is enough for many people in Sweden to associate the whole group with this event. This habit is not limited to this book but is very common in most immigrant conversations today. When discussed by the media, governments, and even by people, immigrants are often discussed as a nameless, faceless, indistinguishable mass and they share the faults of one or a few members. Because the news is mostly sensationalized, only the very bad or very good gets reported, thus associations of drugs, terrorists, and criminals with immigrant populations are reinforced by the media and absorbed by the public. This book sheds some light into this process, and an interesting point to me was that the murderers were foreigners, but this does not change the point that the author is trying to make. Whether or not one or two individuals commit a crime, you cannot generalize an entire group, especially when their only similarity is immigrating to your country. The immigrants in this country came from dozens of different countries, had different languages and different cultures, not to mention each immigrant is their own person. While not trying to personalize the immigrant story like some documentaries or pieces of fiction do, Mankell is still able to present the detriments of the current way immigrants are viewed and adds a useful insight in the discussion of this topic. However, changing the way immigrants are discussed is a very difficult process that needs to be continually addressed, and has no real clear solution at the present.
Throughout Mankell’s exquisite detective novel, I has contradicting thoughts towards Wallander’s position on the whole immigration issue occurring in Sweden at the time. And frankly, I also had questions about his credibility as an interim chief police officer. At the very beginning of the novel (on pg. 41) when Rydberg first tells Wallander about Maria’s final words being “foreign,” he seemed confused at what foreign even means. Wallander asks Rydberg, “What does an un-Swedish person look like?” This was one of the first instances the reader is clued into the immigration debate that will dominate the rest of the novel. I found Wallander quite naive at the beginning to even ask what an un-Swedish person looked like, and felt that maybe he was maybe just naive towards the whole immigration situation in general, but my original thoughts were challenged throughout the rest of the novel.
A few pages later, the reader gets insight into the mind of Wallander that no one else at the police station can get after Rydberg suggests that the refugees committed the double murder. Mankell writes, “Actually I hope it was, he thought. I really hope that the killers are at the refugee camp. Then maybe it’ll put an end to this arbitrary, lax policy that allows anyone at all, for any reason at all, to cross the border into Sweden. But of course he couldn’t say that to Rydberg. It was an opinion he intended to keep to himself” (44). Now here we have the chief of the whole investigation admitting to himself that he hopes the criminals are in fact refugees so that the immigration policy changes in Sweden. Not only did this contradict my original thoughts on Wallander’s stance towards immigrants, but also it tainted my view on Wallander’s character and his ability to be trusted as the lead of this investigation. His own political opinions are infiltrating his judgement on the case. Wallander was also caught breaking the law on multiple occasions (especially when he was caught drinking and driving), but was covered by this own police force. Wallander’s credibility is questioned based on his actions and thoughts we see throughout the novel. I think that Mankell is making a bold statement against the police force and its credibility as an authoritative force in society. Mankell’s stance on immigration policies is still a mystery to me. Part of me wants to see Wallander as a stand in for Mankell’s own opinion, but I have no concrete answers to support that theory.
Another thing I noticed, and had a difficult time deciphering, was the use of dates throughout the novel. Mankell places us on a specific day of a specific year, and continues this throughout the entirety of the novel. It placed the reader on a timeline, and in terms of the case, it was easier to follow the sequence of events that led to solving the murders. The 1988 referendum in Sjobo, which banned immigrants, caused a lot of criticism from the media. A potential theory I conjured for Mankell’s placing us in a specific time period is that it explains the police force denying the search of a “foreign” suspect to not receive criticism from the media that the police force supports the decisions of the referendum.
“A potential theory I conjured for Mankell’s placing us in a specific time period is that it explains the police force denying the search of a “foreign” suspect to not receive criticism from the media that the police force supports the decisions of the referendum.” – Daniela
I agree with the last theory proposed by Daniela in the above blog post, and would like to discuss how this relationship between the police force, specifically Wellander, and the media as a character in the novel relates to the larger immigration question. The media in this novel acts as a somewhat twisted and inflexible lens on the truth of the investigation’s events. Inflexible in this context refers to the direct connection between what the media professes and what the audience, as population of the surrounding areas and beyond, believe about Wellander and his efforts, despite counter-interviews and additional press-releases which Wellander uses to steer the citizenship away from the belief that there exist racist undertones within the police force. There is considerable frustration felt by the officers working the case as a result of this connection, as the implications of the media’s cultural productions within the novel is that their lack of protective behavior towards refugees indicates an alignment with conservative, nationalist, and anti-immigratory beliefs. Though Wellandar laments this implication and views it as false with respect to the investigation, his interior dialogue consistently references such sentiments, if not on a milder or less aggressive scale (as we discussed in class). This creates a very interesting case of dramatic irony in which the interior and exterior, specifically Wellander’s personal vs public ideologies conflict. This adds another key layer of conflict to his character, and perhaps makes him more relatable, as most all people at some point find themselves acting to preserve an exterior expectation which differs from our interior monologue in some respect.
This idea also adds to the argument of his archetype as a detective. I would like to further flesh out this concept. We reviewed the classic definition of a detective as being ‘outside the law’, and usually a consultant or unaffiliated with the police due to unconventional attitude toward the law or general description as an outsider. Wellander is deeply integrated into the local police force which initially seems not to fit the usual formula for a novel of this style. However, can we consider the official enforcement agency to be above the main character, rather than the police force itself? Such as the Ministry of Immigration, or even perhaps the European Courts which ruled upon the referendum that is so relevant to the plot? One would have to carefully think through the politics of each governing body to see how it compares and contrasts with Wellander’s opinions, but in general it’s an interesting thought to consider – how does the individual relate to the national and supranational? Even though it is difficult to formulate what a supranational identity is, or even a national identity, how is it that we can more easily identify when a character does not align with such a proposed identity? Why might this be easier than identifying if a character is aligned with such an identity?
That was hard to watch. If ever there was an aromantic portrayal of Paris, this was it. Violent, raunchy, and rowdy. La haine is a quiet film interrupted almost constantly by the fractures of society. Quiet in that the settings are quite mundane. The plot tracks the travels of a group of 3 delinquent youth across a dreary concrete-scape of Paris’ neglected ‘ghetto.’ In that sense it seems like a rather quiet film. There aren’t big plot events, just a day in the life of some street kids, yet in nearly every interaction in this film there is a rash of emotional fury. It was jarring how disrespectful these kids were. I feel like the audience is usually made to relate to the characters, but I felt no relation. I couldn’t grasp the anger, even if I can locate some of the sources of it. it’s just so overwhelming throughout the film. It makes me ask: how broken is a society when it mass produces violence and hate for its own institutions as viscerally as witnessed in this film? What can inspire such hate? (the title of the film is after all hate)
I have questions after this film still. What on earth was that bit in the bathroom where some little old man tells the story of his friend who died on a Siberian train ride? He was so worried about protecting his decency that he wouldn’t let his pants fall to catch his friend’s hand. Surely it’s some sort of allegory. You sometimes have to be indecent to survive? Maybe. My next question is who fired the bullet at the end? Was it Hubert or the cop? My third question is why were so many people wearing Notre Dame jackets?
To return to the scenery, I referred to it as concrete-scape earlier, which seems in stark contrast to the romantic city of culture typically adorning our movie screens. The characters frequently reference “the project” where I think they live. So I’m guessing this is like the public housing of France. In one shot, it appeared quite evident that there were simply rows and rows of the same kinda crummy apartment layout reaching into the distance. A. that means there are a lot more of these disaffected youth. B. that means there is immense segregation in Paris, where the poor seem to live in the same clustered area, a bit outside of city centre, in a suburb.
Finally, there is an interesting scene where the lads talk about this older chap in a leather jacket riding down the escalator and the lads make some telling comments. They note how the system (the escalator) carries him and he would be nowhere without it, then they indicate he is a racist and probably voted for the far right. This is one of the most clear explications of the discontent in the youth of France. The system doesn’t carry these youth to anywhere, instead they meander through life just as they meander through bleak surroundings and to bleak futures in the film. There is a scene where a billboard says “The future is yours.” An utmost irony to these 3. Siyad changes it to “the future is ours” which sounds revolutionary. The entire movie feels tense and on the cusp of a political, economic, and societal revolution. This society failed these youth so miserably that it needs overthrowing in their eyes.
And one last point, the recent rioting in France was brought about by something as small as a gas tax change. The results: National monuments defaced, riot police deployed, and stores looted… for weeks. This leads me to think this film is much, much more than a warning, it is a description of the present day. The tension that must exist in Paris, for a mere tax change to ignite immense protests must be so thick, it would hang in the air like a gaseous mist. One spark could topple a society. The institutions have failed in France. The presidency is symbolic of that failure, we’ve just gone from one widely hated president, Hollande, to a new, increasingly similarly hated president, Macron. Le Pen may have lost last round, but she’s winning the long game. Every establishment party has failed France, and the latest revolutionary force of Macron has been seen as more of the same Neoliberal nothingness that failed so many before. France needs to course-correct or else they’ll be the next populist take over.in one the most influential nations of Europe.
After watching “La Haine,” a few things stuck out to me. Sticking with the theme of immigration, I couldn’t help but notice the “trap” the many migrant workers fall into when in new countries. This trap that I refer to is the slum that many migrant workers end up living in when trying to work in new countries. Low wages and a high volume of migrant workers make it easy for city planners and architects to shove immigrants in parts of the city with poor infrastructure, high crime rates, and corrupt police officers. These slums turn into quasi-internment camps where immigrants are targeted and abused by police. This reminds me of the Jewish ghettos that were formed prior to the holocaust.
Within the actual slums, a certain culture is developed in which many immigrants fall into. With the constant presence of crime around them, many people such a Vinz and Hubert are forced into a life of petty crime. This creates a vicious cycle that Vinz is a prime subject of. His involvement with petty crime causes him to be targeted (along with the fact that he is an immigrant) by the police, and he develops a hatred for them. The hatred also stems off of the brutality against his friend who was hospitalized by the the police. This hatred causes him to curse at cops, and often times directly disobey the law, thus fueling the fire and tension between him and the police. This ultimately leads to his demise when he is accidentally shot by the police officer.
The film is a prime example of the constant battle between immigrants and police. This is not limited to Europe. many examples of this can be seen in the US as well. Often times it is not the fault of one single officer, or one single immigrant, rather the culture that has been established over decades of time automatically throws them into a war against one another that it seems neither side ever wins.
I agree with Sam and his usage of the term “vicious cycle.” La Haine is at its core a story about broken systems that continuously oppress people. The first idea I want to talk about is the idea of movement. In the bathroom scene, the man tells an odd story about someone who was left behind to die because the train would not stop for him. We see the exact same parallel when the trio was left behind by the last bus going home, despite their pleas and attempts to pry the door open. Again, at the mall, Hubert talks about the escalator, the system that literally moves and cannot be stopped, and how the rich are able to abuse this system and be literally “carried by the system.” This all conveys the message that nothing in this world will stop for you. The constructs of society like racism and poverty are constantly in affect, trapping you in a vicious cycle. You can choose to adapt to it, or be left behind.
For this reason, the true tragic hero of the story is Hubert. Unlike the others, Hubert dreams of leaving the violent and dangerous neighborhood. He knows that there is more to the world that he wants to experience. Yet he too is trapped. He spends the entire film trying to stop Vinz from senseless violence, yet he himself is an amateur boxer and fighting is a large part of his own identity. He stops Vinz from shooting a cop, but is then forced to punch the cop himself immediately afterwards. When he steals the man from the museum’s credit card, he says “like riding a bike: you don’t forget.” Finally, in the end, Hubert is forced to be the one who points the gun at the cop, despite his efforts to stop Vinz from using the gun.
Why is it so difficult to break free from the cycle? Thinking back to the bathroom scene, the man talks about how his friend was torn between pulling up his pants and reaching out to grab a helping hand. This somewhat humorous dilemma really shows that many times, conserving one’s dignity and being a part of the system are mutually exclusive. What has respecting the system and respecting cops brought Sayid and Hubert? They were unjustly arrested, humiliated, and tortured by them in Paris. Where is the dignity in living that kind of life? For Hubert, the shooting of his best friend marked the end of his threshold. He could not compromise his pride at that point, and was willing to either murder or be murdered. What does this lead to in society? More senseless killing, more tension, and a vicious
If I had to pick two important things a person should know about France, either before going or just to know, they would be (1) the food is amazing and everywhere and (2) there is a very long list of civil unrest that extends into the current day. The movie “La Haine” opens up with a montage of different scenes from the riots that Vinz says he was a part of, though I cannot tell if any of it was staged or if it is actual footage of a riot. It can be hard to watch at times because even if this was staged, during times of civil unrest/disobedience there are police/riot officers who will use horrific amounts of violence with citizens, so there is a strong and very realistic tale of rioting in France, and across the globe, given in the first few minutes of the film.
The first line of the movie was from a man in that montage, someone participating in the riots, he says “You murderers! It’s easy to gun us down! We only got rocks!” As soon as I heard this line I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my blog post in any way I could, even before I thought of the significance behind opening the movie with this quote. This quote presents the thoughts of many who feel resentment toward police and their actions during riots. During a period of ongoing riots, tensions between citizens (“the people”) and authority (the police/government and those who support them) rise. Some people, on both sides, feel entitled to do as they please because they are angry, though in my opinion police brutality is worse than almost anything rioters can do. In the quote I presented above, all of the emotions a rioter can feel toward the situation or the police are pushed into the face of the viewer.
Narratively, this quote is very important because the movie follows a young man, Vinz, who no longer has a rock. The movie, past the opening montage of various scenes from the riot, makes the quote above untrue for some, showing the possibility of what could happen if certain rioters were to have weapons. There are three characters that are not police officers in the film who have at least one firearm. First, Abdel’s brother who fired his gun at a police officer in front of a police station, which does not end well for him, but it is also quite understandable for his character to have such harsh feelings toward police and act in rash ways because his younger brother was brutally injured by police. There was also Snoopy, a criminal that I cannot understand the significance behind. Lastly, there is Vinz, one of the main characters, who finds the gun of a police officer lost in the riot the night before. Vinz is a bit of a hothead who now has a weapon that he desperately thinks he wants to use, but when given the opportunity to do so he can never pull the trigger.
I believe it is important to note that as soon as he gives up his weapon when he gives the gun to Hubert, he is stopped by an angry police officer who subsequently shoots him in the head at very close range. I will say, it did look like the officer was surprised it happened, but that does not mean it would not have happened later or that he is upset it happened. What does this mean? Why is it that as soon as Vinz loses his weapon, which in the movie makes him act irrationally but also gives him some sense of security, he dies at the hands of a police officer, a person who is supposed to always act rationally and provide security to everyone? Is this supposed to be a commentary on what happens in real life during riots? That people on both sides will act irrationally, and trusting anyone to provide you with security is a false reality? Is it supposed to be a commentary on gun laws? I honestly do not know, but I do know that the final scene and the aforementioned quote matter nonetheless.
For a unit that focuses on immigration, I’m surprised at how much this week’s cultural products centers around violence. Before, I never really associated immigration with violence—sure, I associated immigration with backlash and antagonism, which come from the host country’s general populace. However, the presence of violence that appeared in both Faceless Killers and La Haine shifted my perspective, making me question whether it is even possible to divorce violence from the issue of immigration.
From the very first moments of both Faceless Killers and La Haine, readers and viewers are immediately immersed in violence; from the senseless “execution” of the couple and the horrific crime scene at the beginning of the story to the police brutality that landed Abdel in the hospital, violence becomes the centerpiece in both stories. However, the violence featured in these two cultural products are certainly different. The violence that we see in Faceless Killers is clear-cut; it lies in direct opposition to the law and order that Wallander, the protagonist, embodies; La Haine, however, completely flipped this notion on its head from the very beginning of the movie by featuring the riot against the police and the brutality Abdel suffered that became the driving force for the rest of the story. Here, power and authority is not a force that “protects,” but a force that directly participates in, instigates, and perpetuates violence itself. But even more than just violence, what we see in both the novel and the movie is a cycle of violence. In Faceless Killer, Mankell’s choice in making the killer the foreigner is in part to showcase this cycle of violence, as the burning of the refugee camp now holds more substantial of a weight, as violence is magnified and intensified when one “foreigner” becomes representative of all foreigners in the eyes of those who use the foreigner’s action as justifications for continued violence against immigrants as a group. In La Haine, this cycle of violence continues until the very end of the story, and rather than a resolution, we get a gunshot that no matter whose gun it came from, is sure to create ripples of responses that will continue to play into this cycle.
So why is violence such a centerpiece in both of these stories? With the legacy of colonialism that continues to loom over the issue of immigration today, as addressed in the readings, it is clear that violence does not start from the point of which the immigrant enters or attempts to enter the destination country — rather, it starts from the forces that make immigrants out of these populace in the first place. By implicating the police, La Haine reminds us of this violence, which exists on a systematic level rather than just an individual-to-individual basis, and this puts into question not just the police force, but also the governmental forces and every other institution that has a stake in the immigration issue.
In La Haine, Hubert has a different sort bravery, maturity, and protectiveness than his two counterparts that seems it has developed as a result of the longstanding hate that black citizens have endured in Europe even prior to the new wave of immigration.
Towards the beginning of the film, even after his friend has been hospitalized, Hubert knows how to channel his anger in a completely different way than Vinz and Saïd. While Saïd’s frustrations are directly translated, most times throughout the film, to intimidation and fear, Vinz allows the anger to go straight to head. Hubert, on the other hand, channels his anger only to rational sadness, which drives him to want social change, rather than revenge. When he famously says to Vinz “La Haine attire la haine,” it feels as though Hubert has the wisdom of an elder who has already experienced such intense hate throughout his entire lifetime, despite that he is so young. It seems as though Hubert has been forced to change his mindset towards the hatred around him that countless generations before him have endured in order to survive.
In the scene in Paris when Saïd and Hubert are taken in by the two undercover cops, Hubert demonstrates his immense bravery and protectiveness that is so starkly contrasted to Saïd’s lack thereof. The cops clearly take a much more intense hatred towards Hubert than Saïd, with the main cop asserting his dominance over him in a most disturbing, wincing 2-3 minutes, grabbing at his face and neck as if he is an animal. `While indeed the cop grabs at Saïd as well, when the cop does so to Hubert he does it for much longer and much more aggressively. Despite this, the moment the cop touches Saïd, Hubert immediately throws a fit, screaming “Don’t touch him.” Despite the severe aggression the cop shows towards Hubert, he only really allows himself to forcefully resist when it comes to protecting his friend. Again, Hubert demonstrates his maturity in handling these situations of hate, as though he has been prepared for the treatment he would receive by white Europeans throughout his life. I would be interested in learning more about the timeline of immigration of black European citizens in comparison to the movement of Jews throughout Europe and Middle Eastern immigrants, and how that impacts the different way these supposed “outsiders” (from the viewpoint of many Europeans) are treated.
The Tarr article discussed masculinity as being a central theme in banlieue cinema so I thought it would be interesting to talk about how masculinity is represented in La Haine. The film depicts a crisis of masculinity among the three friends in which their masculinity is at stake.
This can obviously be seen in the way they interact with and talk about women. In conversation with one another, they are frequently bragging about their sexual “triumphs” with women in a way that is objectifying and degrading to females. At times these conversations feel like a competition between them, with sex being a sort of metric by which they compare each other to only to feel superior to each other – it is a way of verbally posturing themselves above others/each other. Someone secure in their masculinity would not feel the need to broadcast their sexual experiences to others in order to gain validation about their masculinity. The film also depicts them as being helplessly incapable when it comes to talking to women. Vinz and Sayid speak rudely to his sister, and when they try to chat up some women who they find attractive at an art show in the hopes of “having some fun” with them, things go miserably. Sayid immediately turns the conversation sexual, and when one of the women calls him out for it he feels so threatened that he starts to insult the women. Here Sayid’s masculinity is shown to be so fragile that a mere verbal jab threatens it so much to the point where he feels the need to start insulting the women and make a scene.
The trio uses violence, or rather the idea of violence, to make them feel more masculine. The gun that Vinz finds, an inanimate object, becomes an almost phallic-like source of not just masculinity, but hyper-masculinity for him. There is a clear difference in his actions and mindset before and after he finds the gun. This can be seen in the scene where Vinz imitates the famous “you talkin to me?” scene from Taxi Driver which is as hyper-masculine as it gets, as well as the fact he starts to act more macho and aggressive which we see in the scene where the friends attempt to visit Abdel in the hospital. Kassovitz emphasizes this with the shot where he focuses in on Vinz’s face as they walk down the hallway. Vinz has an incredibly angry, aggressive facial expression during this shot.
But why is the masculinity of the trio in crisis? This is something I would like to discuss in class, but my guess is that it has to do with how they are marginalized in French society. The live almost isolated from the rest of society in housing projects that are not well maintained by the state. It is difficult to find honest and well-paying work, and we don’t see much of an emphasis on education for the most part (seen in how Vinz disregards what Hubert was taught in school, remarking that he was “raised in the streets”, as well has how Sayid’s sister ditches school to hang out in the projects). As a result, the trio feels trapped here, which we get a better view into during the scene when Hubert talks to his mom about the feelings of hopelessness he has and how he wants to leave. The fact that his mom immediately after asks him to do a chore and says nothing pertaining to Hubert’s vulnerable and emotional expression shows that she cares more about doing what she needs to do to make it through to the next day, a mindset created by living in an isolated, poorly kept housing project with minimal access to well paying employment opportunities, than her son’s emotional well being. It is one of the few if any times where we see on of the main characters be open and expressive of his emotions, something that shows security in ones’ masculinity, and is met by deaf ears. How can one be secure in their masculinity and not develop a macho, hyper-masculine mindset where there is no way in the projects, not even one’s own mother, for one to safely express their emotions? Furthermore, they are degraded by police. The emotionally upsetting scene in which they are sadistically abused by police in Paris is a powerful one. It makes perfect sense that such humiliating treatment would make one feel insecure and less masculine. All of these factors combined – unjust violence at the hands of the state, living an environment where the constant struggle to find the means to make it to the next day is center-stage and takes precedence so almost any other problems – create feelings of anger, emasculation and hopelessness that drive the characters to act macho and hyper-masculine as a defense mechanism.
The “Europe Today” reading had me questioning my understanding of the asylum process for member states within the EU. Yes, it appears that there is a single standard by which EU member states can evaluate whether someone qualifies as an asylum-seeker. However, the fact that asylum seekers are only allowed to apply to the EU through the country of which they try to enter seems like an unfair fair burden to those countries that receive more applications, which as King suggests, is often the Southern European countries as they are closer in proximity to Asia and Africa. Moreover, the EU dictates that asylum applicants must receive “a dignified standard of living, wherever they settle in the EEA+ area” which, in addition to being an ambiguous standard, provides an even bigger resource burden on these Southern European nations which are facing more economic difficulty than Northern European countries. To me, the asylum process seems to again highlight the tension of subsidiarity as who, the EU or the member state, has the obligation to provide for these asylum seekers during their application process? Additionally, who then becomes responsible for the the asylum seeker’s well-being, given that the EU mandates that they must have a certain standard of living, if he or she is allowed to enter said EU-nation? Italy, Greece, and Hungary in particular have been having recent frustrations with the EU as a large wave of Syrian refugees have applied for asylum, yet there doesn’t seem to be a definitive solution as to how the EU will support these nations as they deal with the refugee crisis.
Furthermore, the reading of “Europe today” skims over the essential components of what makes someone qualify for asylum, but I’m sure there is much ambiguity in how to define a refugee despite the different categories (maintaining family unity, and access to employment, education, health care, etc) that exist. In my opinion, I feel as if this would make it difficult for judges in Italy vs. judges in say Sweden to rule in favor of asylum status as Southern nations are aware that they can’t economically support all these asylum seekers if they give them refugee status. Then, can we say that this policy of applying to just one EU member state for asylum is truly fair, given that courts aren’t always equal in opinion?
In “Bread and Chocolate,” as it occurs in Switzerland, there is no conflict of subsidiarity in immigration, yet the confusion of asylum status still clearly exists as a plot line throughout the film. I was initially confused as to why Elena’s son wouldn’t be granted asylum as well. Was the concern that Switzerland wanted to limit the number of children they potentially had to care for in the event that the migrant parents couldn’t earn consistent wages? Was it simply a xenophobic fear where individuals would be less willing to assimilate if they came in families rather than alone? We see that the rich Italian industrialist is easily able to bring his children within the country, implying that barriers to immigration are more a class barrier than a cultural barrier, and wealth can more directly influence society than the moral obligation of safety. Nevertheless, in the film, we also see corruption in the form of biased jurisdiction of individual immigration officer who allows Gregory to stay even though he didn’t qualify for asylum under Switzerland’s laws. Going forward, I suppose every country, and the EU as a whole, must figure out not just how to write unbiased, consistent laws, but also how to enforce them in the wake of financial concerns and corruption on an individual and state level.
There is no question that European nations, as individuals and as a collective, have a fear of the outsider. There is an intrinsic need to protect the national and European identity, thus creating a tension between the migrants. In the “Europe Today” piece, I found the section about Muslim population in Europe to be fascinating in that if you heard the media’s portrayal of Muslims in Europe, or if you heard the way Europeans themselves (disclaimed: using Europeans does not assume a generalization that all peoples have the same sentiments), you would think that Muslims were completely taking over the land and culture of the Europeans. But the Muslim population is only at 2.2%. I am in accordance with the article that this number is not high enough to cause as much tension as it does throughout Europe.
But the idea of Europe treating migrants differently has always been a problem, and the root of this problem is the need to protect identity. In Europe, there has always been an expectation of migrants to completely adapt to the culture in order to keep preserve a sense of national identity. I do not necessarily think a “European Identity” has formed per say. I think each country has its own identity and the only thing that connects them to each other is the formation of the European Union. Europeans’ hostility towards outsiders is due to the fact that if they do not have a national identity, there is no real European identity to classify the individual.
With this train of thought, I came across a lot of questions about how Southern Europe fits into this whole picture. Southern Europeans were those immigrants that were considered the outsiders in nations of northern Europe. Southern Europeans were also considered the outsiders in their own nation when they would migrate within the borders. But to complicate it even more, in recent decades, southern Europe has transitioned from being a “waiting room” between destinations to being a destination itself. I am curious as to know the thoughts of southern Europeans on the immigration situation considering their nations have been stereotyped as the migrant Other of Europe, but are now receiving migrants from Asia and Africa. Not only am I curious about their thoughts on immigration, but also I am curious about how their notions of identity contribute to the general European need for national identity.
The readings this week have sparked my interest in the limbo that southern Europe is in in terms of immigration. Do they still have the same intrinsic fear of protecting their national identity, even when their identity has been put down? And the fear does still exist, is it even more prominent because they feel a sense of revenge for how the people of their nation were treated?
The excerpts from “Europe Today” and “Southern Europe in the Changing Map of Immigration” strengthened my belief that the media’s influence and social perception of immigrants far outweighs the academic and statistical explanation of the relation of migrants and Europe when it comes to critical national decisions on immigration.
The two readings outline the complexities and patterns of migration in Europe, including how it affects the labor market, gender relations, social hierarchy and exclusion, policy, and wider notions of security and international relations fueled by a fear of immigrants. Despite the papers taking an objective view of these ramifications of immigration, they both paint a similar picture; immigration is not as pressing of an issue as perceived. Migration is vital to European labor mobility, which in turn boosts the European economy. Furthermore, the migrant share of the European population is surprisingly low at 9.5 % in 2010. In comparison, both North America and Oceania have higher migrant shares at 14.2 % and 16.8 %.
The readings also acknowledge Europe’s struggle to integrate immigrants in past decades. “Europe Today” states that migration was supposed to forge a common European identity, which has not occurred. Immigrants have been subject to social exclusion, low-wage work, and limited opportunities, despite the idealistic notion of a common and welcoming European identity. Instead, European nations have struggled to develop an efficient and coordinated political response to immigration, which I believe is heavily influenced by society’s and media’s perception of immigrants.
The media’s portrayal of immigration in the recent years has been one of chaos within European borders. Europeans constantly see stories of masses of immigrants arriving at borders and authorities not knowing how to solve the situation at hand. Additionally, the fear of an external threat to Europe is amplified by the media’s coverage of European terrorist attacks, which at times are carried out by radical Islamic groups. Couple this with the social perception of immigrants as inferior due to colonialism and observing low-wage work such as street-hawkers, and you get the dangerous illusion and generalization that most immigrants are criminals or out to take jobs from the European population. This in turn, along with other factors, has fueled the rise of devastating policies that blindly look to limit immigration at the cost of families, communities, and economies.
I realize that the excerpts were written before the migrant crisis in 2015, where European nations struggled to cope with the massive immigration to Europe, but the point remains the same. The media is designed to make a story capturing and out of the ordinary, and thus we are always exposed to terrorist plots, attacks, and the overwhelming mass immigration into Europe.
Numerous questions remain as to the media and social perception’s dominance over academia when it comes to European migration. Is the general population fit to make critical national decisions with a generational impact, such as Brexit? Why does media still have an incredible influence on democratic society, despite its obvious flaws? Why do we blindly protect our national identity in the age of globalization, at a major economic and social cost?
You brought up a very interesting point surrounding the reality and the perception/media portrayal of European immigration. I agree that media portrayal of immigration from outside the European borders can be inaccurate at times; however, while this discrepancy exists, when it does happen, I think it is merely an inaccurate portrayal rather than an over-exaggeration of what is otherwise a smaller issue on actual terms. I actually think that Moses’s arguments and statistics understate the gravity of the borders and immigration issue; the article plays into the narrative that European borders have disappeared as a result of the establishment and growth of the EU, when the borders themselves have perhaps just shifted and became external borders instead of internal ones — external borders that are perhaps even more violent.
For example, Moses speaks of the 76 percent of asylum applications that are rejected by the EU, the 60,000 or so refugees who were granted protection by EU member states in 2011, and the “remarkably small” number of refugees that actually enter the EU “in a world mired with political conflicts.” While reading this, I couldn’t help but remember a few chapters from a book called Violent Borders by Reece Jones that I read a while back. There, Jones explained some of the reasons behind this small number of refugees that enter Europe in several ways, one of which is through a case study on the border fence between Spain and Morocco in Mellila. Vox had dubbed this “Europe’s most fortified borders” in Africa.
Moses had mentioned that EU states are obliged to grant TCN migrants certain protections and a chance to plead their case once they have entered Europe; however, because of this, when it comes to Mellila, what we see instead are high fences, barb wires, razor wires, and guards stationed at the borders to prevent migrants from making it through in the first place. Not to mention, though the Spanish side of the fence is more “humanitarian” because it does not feature barb and razor wires, the EU did sign an Advanced Status Partnership with Morocco, giving them advantages in the political and economic realms. As a result, no shortage of EU funding was funneled into reinforcing the Moroccan side of the border. By focusing on the numbers rather than the conditions at the borders, Moses undercuts the gravity of the issue and fails to implicate Europe in its response to many TCN migrants. He further brushes over the process of granting asylum, and speaks of “asylum shopping” in a manner that portrays the migrant themselves as in a more negative light when in reality, many migrants — despite facing horrible conditions at home that are perhaps even life-threatening over the long term — are not granted refugee status because they did not come from a country like Syria with clear political conflicts and persecutions.
Yes, Moses’s article was written before the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe, and yes, media portrayals do sometimes focus on the wrong stories; however, I do think that it is important to distinguish potential inaccuracy from exaggeration, as the external borders of Europe and the relationship with TCN migrants are more complex and perhaps not as minimal as the article makes it seem.
Moses and King’s pieces on immigration throughout Southern Europe highlight the extreme “otherness” of Southern European migrants compared to other migrants moving throughout Northern Europe.
First, in his piece “Southern Europe in the Changing Global Map of Migration,” King discusses the Economic transformation of Southern Europe since the 1970s. He explains that many more immigrants are coming to Southern Europe than migrants are leaving Southern Europe. His reasoning for this phenomenon is telling: because many places in Southern Europe now have “European” or “near-European” levels of income, meaning it is no longer necessary for citizens to migrate to sustain themselves. Here, “European” does not describe anybody living in Southern Europe—it refers strictly to the wealth resulting from the economic boom in Northern Europe. In this case, Southern Europe has been ‘removed’ from the discussion of Europe entirely. Instead, ‘Europe’ becomes something for these Southern Europeans to aspire to, as if they are a completely separate entity.
As Moses tells us in Migration in Europe, physical boundaries throughout Europe further this otherness for those Southern Europeans who have not been able to achieve a “European” wage and still must travel in order to sustain their livelihood. While at first it may seem that the European Union boasts a borderless labor market, this market is largely designed to favor Northern European countries, leaving the migrants in the other countries with much more difficulty to travel, and thus more difficulty to make a wage matching those who are from Northern Europe. According to Moses, original EU members, which comprised of Northern European countries, were “suspicious” of the new members from Southern Europe who had joined, so workers from many of these countries “were not allowed access to the whole of the European labor market until years after joining.” Once again, those living in Southern Europe are excluded from ‘Europe,’ despite their European-ness.
This physical exclusion is much more problematic than the figurative exclusion by wealth, as these strict borders prevent the Southern European migrants from ever catching up to the wealth/labor success of Northern European migrants. In this way, “European levels of income” must continue only referring to Northern European migrants, as the Southern Europeans are not even given the opportunity to change that narrative. Instead, they are trapped in otherness.
The shift, especially in southern Europe, from a primarily emigrating area to one with many immigrants has coincided with a rise in nationalism and right-wing parties. However, while you hear on the news about the invasion of immigrants, Moses paints a very different picture, comparing the number of immigrants to those in North America and Oceania. When placed in this perspective, especially when considering that about a third of the immigrants are from other countries in the EU, it changes the perspective. Also, the number of Muslim immigrants is very low, with the overall Muslim population in Europe at 2.2%. This combined with the paper by King shows that while the immigrant population is not only below that of North America and Oceania, it is necessary in many of the southern nations to support the flexible economy. As birth rates fall in many of these countries and the populations education increases, many citizens refuse to work at the flexible and lower paying jobs, and immigrants are necessary to fill these positions. All of this raises the question as to why there has been an increase in nationalism and xenophobia in the EU; when not only are these immigrants smaller in number then their counterparts in other parts of the world, but also necessary for many of these economies, such as Greece where immigrants hold 10% of the labor force. The economic hardships in the EU, particularly in the southern European countries, are a major contributor to the increased levels of xenophobia and nationalism. Although most of the immigrants are taking jobs that Europeans wouldn’t work in the first place, the sentiment of foreigners taking jobs is still relevant. This combined with the ideas of losing the nations cultural identity and history, especially in nations with lower levels of birthrates, and in countries where they believe the European Union is taking advantage of them and not helping during their economic struggle, all lead to in increase in the political right-wing.
Bread and Chocolate intricately hints at themes of sexuality and class differences in the movie poster. Before watching the film, I saw the two women as equals. They are both nude and being “served” on a platter, which made me initially think that this film was going to portray sexist themes and depict women as objects. But after watching the film, I see the two women as similar but distinct. The women in the back with the brunette hair reminds me of the whore we saw earlier in the film. She is laying down with a flirtatious smile, similar to how the whore in the film carried herself. She represents the objectification of women that I had predicted earlier. The whore in the film also did not seem to be Swiss based on her appearance and her accent. The brunette in the poster is therefore representing nudity as disgraceful, something that the woman should be ashamed of but isn’t because she is low-class. She represents the whores who contribute to the estranged homes. This is juxtaposed directly with the blonde woman on the other side. Her expression is more blank, more natural. While also nude, she is not outwardly sexual, not flaunting her body but also not afraid to be exposed. This reminded me of the scene in the film where the Italians were watching the Swiss undress and frolic in the water. The Swiss were nude, but in a different way from the whore in the beginning. They were elegant, beautiful, and something to be admired rather used. This difference in perception between the two women in the poster raises many questions. Is it possible to justify public nudity in some cases but not others? What makes some things shameful and others empowering? While Bread and Chocolate focused mostly on the male migrant workers, I think that this aspect regarding women provided a different dimension and more holistic view of the tensions between European nations.
Migration in Europe by Jonathan Moses poses many questions and one it focuses on is the question of state sovereignty vs supranational authority with respect to immigration. While the reading focuses on broad topics surrounding European immigration and integration, one fascinating section highlights alternative policies between Denmark and Sweden and the challenges these differences create. While both Denmark and Sweden are EU member states and reside within the Schengen Zone for passport free travel, they vary greatly on their policy towards third country nationals. While Sweden, at least in 2008, has liberal policies toward third world nationals, Denmark is highly restrictive—prioritizing only extremely high skilled workers and limiting family migration for non-EU residents. The reading notes some of the challenges Denmark has faced in maintaining this restrictive policy. A 2008 European Court of Justice ruling on Danish policy sparked outrage from Danish authorities and contributed to a statement of full border autonomy and immigration authority from the Danish Prime Minister. Moses uses the term “streamline” in reference to EU idealistic immigration policy. Moses would almost certainly support greater authority for the EU on immigration. Moses would advocate for a universal policy for asylum seekers and EU authority and regulation for other immigrants.
Moses understands that Europe is currently in an awkward middle-ground between full autonomous and independent nation states and a federation. While the EU economic foundations and undoubtedly valuable, many countries such as Denmark are opposed to liberal immigration policies the EU advocates. Denmark was the only EU country to opt out of the 825 Million Euro funding package for third country nationals. While the EU policy was certainly helpful for the countries that accepted funding, can the EU call it a full success when a member state defected from funding to helping integrate third country nationals? The Denmark case study is a fascinating example of the supranational EU’s attempt and conflict in “forcing” an unwanted policy on a member state. This is contrary to the Federation that is the United States. While individual states do remain some reserved authority, an individual state cannot (traditionally) object to the federal immigration policy.
While this reading is from 2011, the results of the financial crisis and immigration from war-torn “global southern” regions have proven how nation-states preeminently prioritize the need to retain autonomy over their immigration policy. Political developments from Brexit to the election of Hungarian leader Victor Orban to broad right-wing success across Europe have proven the continued difficulties the EU faces in building an ever-closer union on immigration policy. Many right-wing parties have made huge political strides on platforms focused strictly on limiting immigration to third country nationals and regaining sovereignty from the EU over immigration and borders. This anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment coupled with a stagnant EU economy has left the EU in a fascinating yet precarious position entering European Parliamentary elections later in 2019.
The two questions I will pose broadly today is “Can a nation be independent and considered a nation if it cannot control its borders and immigration policy?” and alternatively “Can the EU ever have real authority if individual nations maintain immigration control and political authority?” These two questions are critical to the founding principles and broad authority of the European Union. Whether or not the EU can “streamline” an immigration policy and get all member states on board with compliance will be a quintessential question in the future success and coherence of the EU on immigration.
One idea we touched on a few times in class on Tuesday that was very interesting to me, was the idea of shame and its role in migrant life. From what I could tell there were three scenes that involved some form of shame or shaming that deserve to be discussed a bit more.
The first is the cabaret scene. This scene was very interesting to watch, most likely because I was not expecting it, but aside from that, the ideas of shame and humiliation are explicitly presented. When the young man became upset I was very intrigued, I did not know what was happening or why he was no longer interested in performing. At first, I thought the song reminded him of something or someone and that he became upset about, like the one man in the audience earlier on. Then, he became angry and refused to think his life would be a constant cabaret scene, and I understood. He was ashamed that the one, and most likely only, job he could find, was one that he was not interested in, one that embarrassed him in front of his fellow migrant countrymen.
The second is the chicken coup scene. As mentioned in class, this scene is a lot to take in and understand after watching it only once, but it is a scene that plays into humiliation quite well. During this scene, the migrant workers who were always around chickens knew how to communicate with them and wanted Nino to see that. There were many reasons discussed in class for why this scene existed, but I believe it was included to show the shame some people will live through, and eventually become complacent with, in order to stay and work in the host country. In order to work, this group of people must live and work with animals so much that eventually, the distinction between humans and animals is blurred. There is also a thematic bit to this scene that is very important when Nino asks if he is like them. Is he comparable to the people who live inside a chicken coup? I would say no, but there are some people in reality who would share a different opinion, one along the lines of ‘all immigrants are the same, animals.’ For example, the people who Professor Dainotto shared with us at the end of Tuesday’s class, who had signs outside of their stores/businesses that said “no animals and no immigrants allowed.”
Finally, there is the last scene in the movie where the audience sees Nino walk out of the tunnel, returning to Switzerland. As mentioned in class, he does this because he can no longer return home without disappointing everyone who was depending on him and his money. If he were to return to Italy, the rest of his family would see his journey abroad as either a waste of time or as much of a failure as he is. Immigration is a double-edged sword for migrants in the way that they will never fit in in their host country, but they are never to return to their home country either. Shame plays a large role in both of those regards. First, immigrants to another country are (almost) always to be part of the “other” that is created by the people of the host country to make the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ clearer. In this case, Nino will never be blond enough, white enough, or rich enough to fit into Swiss culture because he will always be a part of the ‘other.’ Second, they can never return home because their journey and the people themselves would be seen as failures. Living a life of shame that no one knows about it much easier than returning home to a place where even if you did ‘make it’ in the other country, returning home is seen as a failure.
The idea of shame/humiliation shown in this film is not only that of one’s own feelings toward life but also that of other peoples feelings as well. When living as an immigrant in a host country, one must be prepared to work the jobs no one else is willing to work. The jobs that are humiliating to most, but also a way to remain employed and in the host country. One must also always remember the people he/she left behind and what they will think if he/she returned, which is generally seen as a humiliating act of cowardice, or possibly, in this case, he will be seen as a chicken (bad joke, I know). What is always forgotten, is the journey immigrants force themselves to go on because they are not living for themselves, but also for the many people they left behind. It also makes me wonder, if they are forcing themselves to live lives as horrible and humiliating as this, how bad can it be back home? If the home country is as terrible as some think, terrible to the point where even living in a chicken coup is a better option, what can and should be done to help those countries? Why are people so quick to judge immigrants for leaving their home country and taking horrible jobs, but much less willing to do something about it (and by it, I mean helping the home country)? Is the reliance on immigrants so great that host countries are unwilling to help out other less prosperous nations because it could have negative effects on them?
Worker mobility within the European Union is tied to many different threads within the broader topic of immigration and emigration within Europe. The contrast between Moses and the writings of Gialis and Leontidou open up questions about these connections. In his Europe Today piece, Moses makes the claim that there is considerable rigidity within the European labor market as a result of several constraints. These include the requirement that migrants must prove their financial stability and overcome several bureaucratic and legal hurdles. He claims that although there are organizations working towards mitigating these restrictions, there still exists much friction. These frictions are most evident in nations where immigration levels are highest, specifically the PIIGS counties. Moses’ claim intriguingly contrasts with statements within the 2014 article by Gialis and Leontidou on Antinomies of flexibilization and atypical employment in Mediterranean Europe: Greek, Italian and Spanish regions during the crisis. Although the authors concede that the lack of part-time employment in southern Europe contributes to a decrease in labor market flexibility, they also acknowledge that the higher proportion of atypical and lower wage jobs contributes to significantly more job flexibility as well as labor informality than northern Europe. These conflicting observations are intriguing to me as they highlight how complex these topics truly are and make me wonder whether how much variation truly exists within the migrant experiences of southern Europe. According to Russel King’s chapter, the more recent migratory waves in the 80’s and 90’s have included a more diverse socioeconomic range and these peoples have been able in turn to find employment in both low status and service-oriented jobs upon arriving at their destination country. Given the variations in populations, home nations, destinations, and opportunities therein, it seems improbable that many strong generalizations can be drawn. One interesting and related question that this brings up is that of the native unemployment rates in southern European nations. With rates of 2-6 times as much unemployment in the south as opposed to the north, it is fascinating that so many migrants would end their journey in a country with a relatively weaker economy with potentially less opportunity, maybe indicating part of the draw for immigrants to seek inhabitance in Germany and Switzerland.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here as I think it would create some interesting discussion in class. What I write in this blog post does not necessarily my own personal views.
EU member states have every right to restrict or encourage immigration from non-EU member states as they see fit.
Before focusing on the content of this week’s readings, I would like to first point out that Article F of the Maastricht Treaty states: “ The Union shall respect the national identities of its Member States, whose systems of government are founded on the principles of democracy.”
Not allowing each nation to create enforce its own borders is, in my opinion, in direct opposition to this.
I thought the authors comparison of present day foreigner population percentages between Europe and other places like North America and Oceania was completely inappropriate. It makes no sense using the comparison percentages between places with wildly different histories and cultures as a justification for why anti-immigration sentiments in European are overblown/invalid. It makes more sense, however, to compare foreigner population percentages in Europe between now and the past, which the author did do. He pointed out that Europe has historically been a region of net emigration – in other words this is what Europeans are historically used to as normal. So in my opinion, it makes perfect sense there to be cultural weariness and opposition to an increased foreigner population when that has not been the norm historically (not saying it is justified, just saying that one can understand this given Europe’s migration history.
Writing off any and all sentiments to restrict immigration as xenophobic, racist, nationalist far-right extremist is not productive and won’t solve any problems. 2015 saw a massive migrant crisis which the EU was totally and utterly unprepared for, as well as a coordinated mass sexual assaults allegedly carried out on over 1,200 victims allegedly perpetrated by predominantly Middle East and North African asylum seekers and illegal immigrants among other attacks/crimes committed by immigrants. Obviously some of these anti-immigration sentiments can be attributed to xenophobia and political extremism, but there is clearly evidence of there being an immigration problem in Europe. The source of this problem – in my opinion it is how governments have handled the crisis and not the immigrants themselves – is up for debate, as is the solution, but given how:
a) Europe has historically never really had net immigration and
b) recent crimes that have garnered international attention that have been carried out by immigrants in combination with the crisis being handled poorly by the European Union,
it makes sense that national governments should be able to restrict immigration as they please.
Bread and Chocolate is quite the interesting film. After watching it once, then discussing it, I felt that I was able to understand more of it. However, after discussing it a second time, I feel that we have unpacked a lot of important things about the film.
One aspect of film that has always fascinated me is when they come full circle to a scene that, in the beginning, we render unimportant. In this film it is the opening scene with the immigrant returning home from his time working abroad. Driving in his new Mercedes Benz, showing off his expensive and luxurious lifestyle (clearly shown to represent his success as a guest worker). However, come the end of the film, Nino does not even get close to achieving this dream. Instead, he is poor, changed, and ashamed to return home. He elects to stay abroad, partially because it is possible that he can succeed eventually, but very obviously because he is too ashamed to not have that kind of return to home that we saw in the beginning.
In relation to the readings from this week, Moses’s piece displays many possible reasons that this was Nino’s fate. Moses focuses on the rigidity of the labor market when it comes to immigrants. Immigrants often encounter legal obstacles when it comes to working abroad. Proving financial stability and migrating legally are two major problems for guest workers. Moreover, immigrants often stick out from the crowd, and make them an easy target for racism and unjust treatment from authority. This is why Nino dyed his hair, partly. Aside from wanting to assimilate to the seemingly flawless lifestyle of the Swiss, Nino wanted to fit in more to receive the same treatment of those around him.
Migrant workers tend to face hurdles in almost any country. I can testify that they definitely do here in the US, as I have seen it first hand. Through the film and the readings we can also see that there are problems with immigration across Europe as well.
This leaves me with the question of “How will we undo the racial/cross-cultural predjeduce that migrant workers face, when many of them are just trying to make a better life for themselves, not hurt anybody else.”
I believe the most intriguing aspect of “Faceless Killers” by Henning Mankell is how relevant it is to Scandinavian immigration policy and social tension almost thirty years later.
The crime novel begins with the discovery of the vicious murders of Maria and Johannes Lövgren, two rural farmers in Sweden. Detective Kurt Wallander is called in to investigate the murders and realizes quickly the complexities of the crime and societal impact on Sweden the investigation may carry, particularly after Maria’s last word before her death was “foreigner”. Wallander and the investigative team is aware of the rising tension and fear of immigrants in Sweden, and thus decide to withhold this information as a measure to protect innocent refugees. However, Maria’s last word is leaked to the public, which spark several racially motivated attacks in Sweden, including the murder of a Somali immigrant. The complex tensions of immigration are further emphasized through Kurt Wallander’s own experience, as he questions Sweden’s immigration policy, dreams about a black woman repeatedly, observes that his estranged daughter dates a Kenyan immigrant, and tracks down the murderers of the farmers who turn out to be Czech citizens.
What struck me when reading the novel was how relatable it was to today’s balance of liberalism and prejudice when it comes to immigration in Scandinavia. I believe the novel especially draws parallels to the Oslo and Utøya attacks on the 22nd of July 2011 which left 77 civilians dead, most of them teenagers. The 2011 attacks were carried out by Anders Behring Breivik, a far-right nationalist whose primary agenda of the attack was to declare war against the “Muslim invasion of Europe”. Particularly the attack at Utøya demonstrated this view, as he killed members of the Norwegian Labor Party, a party with a liberal view of immigration. However, in the early hours after the attacks, it was not clear who stood behind it. Many Norwegians feared that an Islamic terrorist group was the culprit. This assumption led to several racially motivated attacks towards immigrants the same day of the terrorist attacks.
Thus, Breivik’s view of a “Muslim invasion” is also the foundation of the social tension in “Faceless Killers”, while the racially motivated attacks in Norway in 2011 are mirrored by the ones observed in the crime novel.
The novel and the parallels it draws leaves the reader with several important questions. Was Wallander, Rydberg, and the rest of the investigative team right in withholding the information that Maria Lövgren’s last word was “foreigner”? How do you protect innocent Swedes and refugees during the investigation of this double murder? What would the consequences have been in Norway if the 2011 attacks were committed by an Islamic terrorist group?
Faceless Killers addresses the issue of the “foreigner” in a homogenous country such as Sweden. While migrant and “foreign” crime rates are actually very low, sentiment still exists rampant throughout Scandinavia, Europe and the world that foreigners perpetrate crime. The fear of the foreigner is present in many aspects of life. This book, written 30 years ago depicts the fear of the foreign murder. Fears of foreign theft, assault and rape have persisted without any substantial evidence. While foreigners, like natives, do commit crimes, foreign crimes are blown far out of proportion compared to native crimes. In many countries, like the United States, foreigners actually commit a lower percentage of crimes than native citizens despite far inferior socio-economic status and opportunity. Despite the statistical inaccuracy, media and the widespread native population portrays foreigners to be drawn to crime, dangerous people, and broadly bad for society.
On a larger scale than small crime, the 21st century has seen foreign terrorism has become a crucial political and safety issue in Europe, the United States and the world. While the terror attacks conducted by foreigners on western countries such as the US and EU nations are horrific acts of violence and warrant the harshest imaginable punishment and safety precaution, these isolated acts are objectively few and far between. The risk of being injured or killed in a terror attack is so statistically miniscule, yet plays such a significant impact on citizen’s actions, fears, and attitude towards foreigners. The disproportionate fear and policy reaction to terrorism places blanket dislike towards the majority of innocent and hard-working foreigners thus altering the European and American immigration landscape.
Contrary to foreign terrorism and the fear and global outrage it provokes, domestic terrorism does not carry the same long-term repercussions. To continue with Colin’s example from a different perspective, in 2011 Anders Breivik a Norwegian national conducted one of the deadliest terror attacks in European history. A combination of a car bomb in Oslo and the horrific shooting of 77 children at a summer camp made the attack the deadliest event in Norway since World War II. While Norwegians were most certainly horrified by the attack, the general population did not suddenly declare that “all early 30s, naturally born Norwegian men were ‘terrorists’ and ‘criminals.”’ Few policy changes resulted from the attack and most sources even say Anders enjoys a relatively nice life in Norwegian prison.
Coverage of the attack was certainly prominent in Norway and the EU, but the American media failed to capture the atrocity that was the attack. The Boston marathon bombing two years later killed 80 fewer people yet received tenfold times the media coverage. Domestic terrorism is harder to “sell” to an audience because many people do not fear domestic terrorism the way they fear “foreigners.” Domestic terrorists are labeled “bad apples” or “troubled” while foreign terrorists define an entire region of people and potential immigrants. While all kinds of terror are awful, despicable, and cowardly, the hypocritical coverage and mentality towards foreign terrorism is unfair. Society should label foreign terrorists as what they are “troubled bad apples” instead of using isolated acts of crime and terror to define populations.
The contradiction between mentality towards domestic and foreign terrorists re-emphasizes the fear of the foreigner that Faceless Killers addressed. It is interesting looking at this issue both on the small scale of rural Sweden 30 years ago and on the broad scale of foreign terror today. The two instances show many parallels and deep-rooted mentality of native view towards foreigners.
The two questions I will pose today are:
Why can’t people label foreign terrorists and criminals as what they are: “bad apples” and “troubled?”
Why is it so easy to call a domestic terrorist and shooter a “bad apple” but a foreigner who commits an act of terror defines an entire region of people?
Throughout “Faceless Killers,” I had difficulty discerning Mankell’s stance on Sweden’s immigration policy. Initially, I thought that Mankell was presenting a relatively skeptical, yet also pragmatic, view of Sweden’s immigration policy as Wallander and his fellow police force are forced to consider who is really a refugee versus those who are just opportunity seekers, or in other terms, economic migrants. The novel never really seems to answer the question of who deserves asylum, but it does seem to suggest that as much as immigration is a problem, lack of resources and coordination on the part of the host country, Sweden, certainly can contribute to the chaos surrounding the immigration issue. Additionally, I believed that Mankell wasn’t against some amount of immigration as the reader sees that Wallander isn’t fundamentally opposed to immigration as he actively tries to save immigrants from the fire that breaks out in their refugee camp and he tries to be proactive in defending them against the terrorist threats that are targeted towards the refugee camp. He is eager, at least as much as possible in his depressive state, to find the killer of the Somalian immigrant that was shot, but it’s also worth noting how despite that eagerness, he never even learns the name of the murdered victim. This is counter to his interaction Lovgren’s case of which he dives deeply into their personal background, indicating that there is certainly strong personal preferences towards Swedish nationals than immigrants.
But then, there are also indications that Mankell is not merely skeptical, but is strongly against foreigners. The most apparent way that this is identified is in Mankell’s choice of the killers of the Lovgrens. Indeed, it could have easily been the case the it was not the Czech immigrants that had killed them, but instead the trope of the vindictive, illegitimate child of Johannes who merely wanted his father’s money. And moreover, the Czech killers were not only seen as murderers, but they were also depicted as brutal and savage in their efforts to find the money that Johannes had hidden. Is Mankell using this novel as gross exaggeration/satire of the way that the media negatively portrays immigrants in Sweden to convince the reader that all media stereotypes are fictional? Or is he genuinely insinuating that immigrants have the potential to be just as bad as anti-immigrant individuals fear? I certainly think, if nothing else, Mankell questions the notion of unlimited asylum, but to what extent he advocates for the restraint of immigration remains unclear to me.
Henning Mankell brings up a very interesting conflict on his book Faceless Killers. The already tense immigrant situation in Sweden is exacerbated by the fact that the only clue to a horrible double murder is the word foreigner. The reason this creates so much anger and aggression is because of the fact that people think only in groups and the fact that one nameless foreigner is accused of the murder is enough for many people in Sweden to associate the whole group with this event. This habit is not limited to this book but is very common in most immigrant conversations today. When discussed by the media, governments, and even by people, immigrants are often discussed as a nameless, faceless, indistinguishable mass and they share the faults of one or a few members. Because the news is mostly sensationalized, only the very bad or very good gets reported, thus associations of drugs, terrorists, and criminals with immigrant populations are reinforced by the media and absorbed by the public. This book sheds some light into this process, and an interesting point to me was that the murderers were foreigners, but this does not change the point that the author is trying to make. Whether or not one or two individuals commit a crime, you cannot generalize an entire group, especially when their only similarity is immigrating to your country. The immigrants in this country came from dozens of different countries, had different languages and different cultures, not to mention each immigrant is their own person. While not trying to personalize the immigrant story like some documentaries or pieces of fiction do, Mankell is still able to present the detriments of the current way immigrants are viewed and adds a useful insight in the discussion of this topic. However, changing the way immigrants are discussed is a very difficult process that needs to be continually addressed, and has no real clear solution at the present.
Throughout Mankell’s exquisite detective novel, I has contradicting thoughts towards Wallander’s position on the whole immigration issue occurring in Sweden at the time. And frankly, I also had questions about his credibility as an interim chief police officer. At the very beginning of the novel (on pg. 41) when Rydberg first tells Wallander about Maria’s final words being “foreign,” he seemed confused at what foreign even means. Wallander asks Rydberg, “What does an un-Swedish person look like?” This was one of the first instances the reader is clued into the immigration debate that will dominate the rest of the novel. I found Wallander quite naive at the beginning to even ask what an un-Swedish person looked like, and felt that maybe he was maybe just naive towards the whole immigration situation in general, but my original thoughts were challenged throughout the rest of the novel.
A few pages later, the reader gets insight into the mind of Wallander that no one else at the police station can get after Rydberg suggests that the refugees committed the double murder. Mankell writes, “Actually I hope it was, he thought. I really hope that the killers are at the refugee camp. Then maybe it’ll put an end to this arbitrary, lax policy that allows anyone at all, for any reason at all, to cross the border into Sweden. But of course he couldn’t say that to Rydberg. It was an opinion he intended to keep to himself” (44). Now here we have the chief of the whole investigation admitting to himself that he hopes the criminals are in fact refugees so that the immigration policy changes in Sweden. Not only did this contradict my original thoughts on Wallander’s stance towards immigrants, but also it tainted my view on Wallander’s character and his ability to be trusted as the lead of this investigation. His own political opinions are infiltrating his judgement on the case. Wallander was also caught breaking the law on multiple occasions (especially when he was caught drinking and driving), but was covered by this own police force. Wallander’s credibility is questioned based on his actions and thoughts we see throughout the novel. I think that Mankell is making a bold statement against the police force and its credibility as an authoritative force in society. Mankell’s stance on immigration policies is still a mystery to me. Part of me wants to see Wallander as a stand in for Mankell’s own opinion, but I have no concrete answers to support that theory.
Another thing I noticed, and had a difficult time deciphering, was the use of dates throughout the novel. Mankell places us on a specific day of a specific year, and continues this throughout the entirety of the novel. It placed the reader on a timeline, and in terms of the case, it was easier to follow the sequence of events that led to solving the murders. The 1988 referendum in Sjobo, which banned immigrants, caused a lot of criticism from the media. A potential theory I conjured for Mankell’s placing us in a specific time period is that it explains the police force denying the search of a “foreign” suspect to not receive criticism from the media that the police force supports the decisions of the referendum.
“A potential theory I conjured for Mankell’s placing us in a specific time period is that it explains the police force denying the search of a “foreign” suspect to not receive criticism from the media that the police force supports the decisions of the referendum.” – Daniela
I agree with the last theory proposed by Daniela in the above blog post, and would like to discuss how this relationship between the police force, specifically Wellander, and the media as a character in the novel relates to the larger immigration question. The media in this novel acts as a somewhat twisted and inflexible lens on the truth of the investigation’s events. Inflexible in this context refers to the direct connection between what the media professes and what the audience, as population of the surrounding areas and beyond, believe about Wellander and his efforts, despite counter-interviews and additional press-releases which Wellander uses to steer the citizenship away from the belief that there exist racist undertones within the police force. There is considerable frustration felt by the officers working the case as a result of this connection, as the implications of the media’s cultural productions within the novel is that their lack of protective behavior towards refugees indicates an alignment with conservative, nationalist, and anti-immigratory beliefs. Though Wellandar laments this implication and views it as false with respect to the investigation, his interior dialogue consistently references such sentiments, if not on a milder or less aggressive scale (as we discussed in class). This creates a very interesting case of dramatic irony in which the interior and exterior, specifically Wellander’s personal vs public ideologies conflict. This adds another key layer of conflict to his character, and perhaps makes him more relatable, as most all people at some point find themselves acting to preserve an exterior expectation which differs from our interior monologue in some respect.
This idea also adds to the argument of his archetype as a detective. I would like to further flesh out this concept. We reviewed the classic definition of a detective as being ‘outside the law’, and usually a consultant or unaffiliated with the police due to unconventional attitude toward the law or general description as an outsider. Wellander is deeply integrated into the local police force which initially seems not to fit the usual formula for a novel of this style. However, can we consider the official enforcement agency to be above the main character, rather than the police force itself? Such as the Ministry of Immigration, or even perhaps the European Courts which ruled upon the referendum that is so relevant to the plot? One would have to carefully think through the politics of each governing body to see how it compares and contrasts with Wellander’s opinions, but in general it’s an interesting thought to consider – how does the individual relate to the national and supranational? Even though it is difficult to formulate what a supranational identity is, or even a national identity, how is it that we can more easily identify when a character does not align with such a proposed identity? Why might this be easier than identifying if a character is aligned with such an identity?
That was hard to watch. If ever there was an aromantic portrayal of Paris, this was it. Violent, raunchy, and rowdy. La haine is a quiet film interrupted almost constantly by the fractures of society. Quiet in that the settings are quite mundane. The plot tracks the travels of a group of 3 delinquent youth across a dreary concrete-scape of Paris’ neglected ‘ghetto.’ In that sense it seems like a rather quiet film. There aren’t big plot events, just a day in the life of some street kids, yet in nearly every interaction in this film there is a rash of emotional fury. It was jarring how disrespectful these kids were. I feel like the audience is usually made to relate to the characters, but I felt no relation. I couldn’t grasp the anger, even if I can locate some of the sources of it. it’s just so overwhelming throughout the film. It makes me ask: how broken is a society when it mass produces violence and hate for its own institutions as viscerally as witnessed in this film? What can inspire such hate? (the title of the film is after all hate)
I have questions after this film still. What on earth was that bit in the bathroom where some little old man tells the story of his friend who died on a Siberian train ride? He was so worried about protecting his decency that he wouldn’t let his pants fall to catch his friend’s hand. Surely it’s some sort of allegory. You sometimes have to be indecent to survive? Maybe. My next question is who fired the bullet at the end? Was it Hubert or the cop? My third question is why were so many people wearing Notre Dame jackets?
To return to the scenery, I referred to it as concrete-scape earlier, which seems in stark contrast to the romantic city of culture typically adorning our movie screens. The characters frequently reference “the project” where I think they live. So I’m guessing this is like the public housing of France. In one shot, it appeared quite evident that there were simply rows and rows of the same kinda crummy apartment layout reaching into the distance. A. that means there are a lot more of these disaffected youth. B. that means there is immense segregation in Paris, where the poor seem to live in the same clustered area, a bit outside of city centre, in a suburb.
Finally, there is an interesting scene where the lads talk about this older chap in a leather jacket riding down the escalator and the lads make some telling comments. They note how the system (the escalator) carries him and he would be nowhere without it, then they indicate he is a racist and probably voted for the far right. This is one of the most clear explications of the discontent in the youth of France. The system doesn’t carry these youth to anywhere, instead they meander through life just as they meander through bleak surroundings and to bleak futures in the film. There is a scene where a billboard says “The future is yours.” An utmost irony to these 3. Siyad changes it to “the future is ours” which sounds revolutionary. The entire movie feels tense and on the cusp of a political, economic, and societal revolution. This society failed these youth so miserably that it needs overthrowing in their eyes.
And one last point, the recent rioting in France was brought about by something as small as a gas tax change. The results: National monuments defaced, riot police deployed, and stores looted… for weeks. This leads me to think this film is much, much more than a warning, it is a description of the present day. The tension that must exist in Paris, for a mere tax change to ignite immense protests must be so thick, it would hang in the air like a gaseous mist. One spark could topple a society. The institutions have failed in France. The presidency is symbolic of that failure, we’ve just gone from one widely hated president, Hollande, to a new, increasingly similarly hated president, Macron. Le Pen may have lost last round, but she’s winning the long game. Every establishment party has failed France, and the latest revolutionary force of Macron has been seen as more of the same Neoliberal nothingness that failed so many before. France needs to course-correct or else they’ll be the next populist take over.in one the most influential nations of Europe.
After watching “La Haine,” a few things stuck out to me. Sticking with the theme of immigration, I couldn’t help but notice the “trap” the many migrant workers fall into when in new countries. This trap that I refer to is the slum that many migrant workers end up living in when trying to work in new countries. Low wages and a high volume of migrant workers make it easy for city planners and architects to shove immigrants in parts of the city with poor infrastructure, high crime rates, and corrupt police officers. These slums turn into quasi-internment camps where immigrants are targeted and abused by police. This reminds me of the Jewish ghettos that were formed prior to the holocaust.
Within the actual slums, a certain culture is developed in which many immigrants fall into. With the constant presence of crime around them, many people such a Vinz and Hubert are forced into a life of petty crime. This creates a vicious cycle that Vinz is a prime subject of. His involvement with petty crime causes him to be targeted (along with the fact that he is an immigrant) by the police, and he develops a hatred for them. The hatred also stems off of the brutality against his friend who was hospitalized by the the police. This hatred causes him to curse at cops, and often times directly disobey the law, thus fueling the fire and tension between him and the police. This ultimately leads to his demise when he is accidentally shot by the police officer.
The film is a prime example of the constant battle between immigrants and police. This is not limited to Europe. many examples of this can be seen in the US as well. Often times it is not the fault of one single officer, or one single immigrant, rather the culture that has been established over decades of time automatically throws them into a war against one another that it seems neither side ever wins.
I agree with Sam and his usage of the term “vicious cycle.” La Haine is at its core a story about broken systems that continuously oppress people. The first idea I want to talk about is the idea of movement. In the bathroom scene, the man tells an odd story about someone who was left behind to die because the train would not stop for him. We see the exact same parallel when the trio was left behind by the last bus going home, despite their pleas and attempts to pry the door open. Again, at the mall, Hubert talks about the escalator, the system that literally moves and cannot be stopped, and how the rich are able to abuse this system and be literally “carried by the system.” This all conveys the message that nothing in this world will stop for you. The constructs of society like racism and poverty are constantly in affect, trapping you in a vicious cycle. You can choose to adapt to it, or be left behind.
For this reason, the true tragic hero of the story is Hubert. Unlike the others, Hubert dreams of leaving the violent and dangerous neighborhood. He knows that there is more to the world that he wants to experience. Yet he too is trapped. He spends the entire film trying to stop Vinz from senseless violence, yet he himself is an amateur boxer and fighting is a large part of his own identity. He stops Vinz from shooting a cop, but is then forced to punch the cop himself immediately afterwards. When he steals the man from the museum’s credit card, he says “like riding a bike: you don’t forget.” Finally, in the end, Hubert is forced to be the one who points the gun at the cop, despite his efforts to stop Vinz from using the gun.
Why is it so difficult to break free from the cycle? Thinking back to the bathroom scene, the man talks about how his friend was torn between pulling up his pants and reaching out to grab a helping hand. This somewhat humorous dilemma really shows that many times, conserving one’s dignity and being a part of the system are mutually exclusive. What has respecting the system and respecting cops brought Sayid and Hubert? They were unjustly arrested, humiliated, and tortured by them in Paris. Where is the dignity in living that kind of life? For Hubert, the shooting of his best friend marked the end of his threshold. He could not compromise his pride at that point, and was willing to either murder or be murdered. What does this lead to in society? More senseless killing, more tension, and a vicious
If I had to pick two important things a person should know about France, either before going or just to know, they would be (1) the food is amazing and everywhere and (2) there is a very long list of civil unrest that extends into the current day. The movie “La Haine” opens up with a montage of different scenes from the riots that Vinz says he was a part of, though I cannot tell if any of it was staged or if it is actual footage of a riot. It can be hard to watch at times because even if this was staged, during times of civil unrest/disobedience there are police/riot officers who will use horrific amounts of violence with citizens, so there is a strong and very realistic tale of rioting in France, and across the globe, given in the first few minutes of the film.
The first line of the movie was from a man in that montage, someone participating in the riots, he says “You murderers! It’s easy to gun us down! We only got rocks!” As soon as I heard this line I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my blog post in any way I could, even before I thought of the significance behind opening the movie with this quote. This quote presents the thoughts of many who feel resentment toward police and their actions during riots. During a period of ongoing riots, tensions between citizens (“the people”) and authority (the police/government and those who support them) rise. Some people, on both sides, feel entitled to do as they please because they are angry, though in my opinion police brutality is worse than almost anything rioters can do. In the quote I presented above, all of the emotions a rioter can feel toward the situation or the police are pushed into the face of the viewer.
Narratively, this quote is very important because the movie follows a young man, Vinz, who no longer has a rock. The movie, past the opening montage of various scenes from the riot, makes the quote above untrue for some, showing the possibility of what could happen if certain rioters were to have weapons. There are three characters that are not police officers in the film who have at least one firearm. First, Abdel’s brother who fired his gun at a police officer in front of a police station, which does not end well for him, but it is also quite understandable for his character to have such harsh feelings toward police and act in rash ways because his younger brother was brutally injured by police. There was also Snoopy, a criminal that I cannot understand the significance behind. Lastly, there is Vinz, one of the main characters, who finds the gun of a police officer lost in the riot the night before. Vinz is a bit of a hothead who now has a weapon that he desperately thinks he wants to use, but when given the opportunity to do so he can never pull the trigger.
I believe it is important to note that as soon as he gives up his weapon when he gives the gun to Hubert, he is stopped by an angry police officer who subsequently shoots him in the head at very close range. I will say, it did look like the officer was surprised it happened, but that does not mean it would not have happened later or that he is upset it happened. What does this mean? Why is it that as soon as Vinz loses his weapon, which in the movie makes him act irrationally but also gives him some sense of security, he dies at the hands of a police officer, a person who is supposed to always act rationally and provide security to everyone? Is this supposed to be a commentary on what happens in real life during riots? That people on both sides will act irrationally, and trusting anyone to provide you with security is a false reality? Is it supposed to be a commentary on gun laws? I honestly do not know, but I do know that the final scene and the aforementioned quote matter nonetheless.
For a unit that focuses on immigration, I’m surprised at how much this week’s cultural products centers around violence. Before, I never really associated immigration with violence—sure, I associated immigration with backlash and antagonism, which come from the host country’s general populace. However, the presence of violence that appeared in both Faceless Killers and La Haine shifted my perspective, making me question whether it is even possible to divorce violence from the issue of immigration.
From the very first moments of both Faceless Killers and La Haine, readers and viewers are immediately immersed in violence; from the senseless “execution” of the couple and the horrific crime scene at the beginning of the story to the police brutality that landed Abdel in the hospital, violence becomes the centerpiece in both stories. However, the violence featured in these two cultural products are certainly different. The violence that we see in Faceless Killers is clear-cut; it lies in direct opposition to the law and order that Wallander, the protagonist, embodies; La Haine, however, completely flipped this notion on its head from the very beginning of the movie by featuring the riot against the police and the brutality Abdel suffered that became the driving force for the rest of the story. Here, power and authority is not a force that “protects,” but a force that directly participates in, instigates, and perpetuates violence itself. But even more than just violence, what we see in both the novel and the movie is a cycle of violence. In Faceless Killer, Mankell’s choice in making the killer the foreigner is in part to showcase this cycle of violence, as the burning of the refugee camp now holds more substantial of a weight, as violence is magnified and intensified when one “foreigner” becomes representative of all foreigners in the eyes of those who use the foreigner’s action as justifications for continued violence against immigrants as a group. In La Haine, this cycle of violence continues until the very end of the story, and rather than a resolution, we get a gunshot that no matter whose gun it came from, is sure to create ripples of responses that will continue to play into this cycle.
So why is violence such a centerpiece in both of these stories? With the legacy of colonialism that continues to loom over the issue of immigration today, as addressed in the readings, it is clear that violence does not start from the point of which the immigrant enters or attempts to enter the destination country — rather, it starts from the forces that make immigrants out of these populace in the first place. By implicating the police, La Haine reminds us of this violence, which exists on a systematic level rather than just an individual-to-individual basis, and this puts into question not just the police force, but also the governmental forces and every other institution that has a stake in the immigration issue.
In La Haine, Hubert has a different sort bravery, maturity, and protectiveness than his two counterparts that seems it has developed as a result of the longstanding hate that black citizens have endured in Europe even prior to the new wave of immigration.
Towards the beginning of the film, even after his friend has been hospitalized, Hubert knows how to channel his anger in a completely different way than Vinz and Saïd. While Saïd’s frustrations are directly translated, most times throughout the film, to intimidation and fear, Vinz allows the anger to go straight to head. Hubert, on the other hand, channels his anger only to rational sadness, which drives him to want social change, rather than revenge. When he famously says to Vinz “La Haine attire la haine,” it feels as though Hubert has the wisdom of an elder who has already experienced such intense hate throughout his entire lifetime, despite that he is so young. It seems as though Hubert has been forced to change his mindset towards the hatred around him that countless generations before him have endured in order to survive.
In the scene in Paris when Saïd and Hubert are taken in by the two undercover cops, Hubert demonstrates his immense bravery and protectiveness that is so starkly contrasted to Saïd’s lack thereof. The cops clearly take a much more intense hatred towards Hubert than Saïd, with the main cop asserting his dominance over him in a most disturbing, wincing 2-3 minutes, grabbing at his face and neck as if he is an animal. `While indeed the cop grabs at Saïd as well, when the cop does so to Hubert he does it for much longer and much more aggressively. Despite this, the moment the cop touches Saïd, Hubert immediately throws a fit, screaming “Don’t touch him.” Despite the severe aggression the cop shows towards Hubert, he only really allows himself to forcefully resist when it comes to protecting his friend. Again, Hubert demonstrates his maturity in handling these situations of hate, as though he has been prepared for the treatment he would receive by white Europeans throughout his life. I would be interested in learning more about the timeline of immigration of black European citizens in comparison to the movement of Jews throughout Europe and Middle Eastern immigrants, and how that impacts the different way these supposed “outsiders” (from the viewpoint of many Europeans) are treated.
The Tarr article discussed masculinity as being a central theme in banlieue cinema so I thought it would be interesting to talk about how masculinity is represented in La Haine. The film depicts a crisis of masculinity among the three friends in which their masculinity is at stake.
This can obviously be seen in the way they interact with and talk about women. In conversation with one another, they are frequently bragging about their sexual “triumphs” with women in a way that is objectifying and degrading to females. At times these conversations feel like a competition between them, with sex being a sort of metric by which they compare each other to only to feel superior to each other – it is a way of verbally posturing themselves above others/each other. Someone secure in their masculinity would not feel the need to broadcast their sexual experiences to others in order to gain validation about their masculinity. The film also depicts them as being helplessly incapable when it comes to talking to women. Vinz and Sayid speak rudely to his sister, and when they try to chat up some women who they find attractive at an art show in the hopes of “having some fun” with them, things go miserably. Sayid immediately turns the conversation sexual, and when one of the women calls him out for it he feels so threatened that he starts to insult the women. Here Sayid’s masculinity is shown to be so fragile that a mere verbal jab threatens it so much to the point where he feels the need to start insulting the women and make a scene.
The trio uses violence, or rather the idea of violence, to make them feel more masculine. The gun that Vinz finds, an inanimate object, becomes an almost phallic-like source of not just masculinity, but hyper-masculinity for him. There is a clear difference in his actions and mindset before and after he finds the gun. This can be seen in the scene where Vinz imitates the famous “you talkin to me?” scene from Taxi Driver which is as hyper-masculine as it gets, as well as the fact he starts to act more macho and aggressive which we see in the scene where the friends attempt to visit Abdel in the hospital. Kassovitz emphasizes this with the shot where he focuses in on Vinz’s face as they walk down the hallway. Vinz has an incredibly angry, aggressive facial expression during this shot.
But why is the masculinity of the trio in crisis? This is something I would like to discuss in class, but my guess is that it has to do with how they are marginalized in French society. The live almost isolated from the rest of society in housing projects that are not well maintained by the state. It is difficult to find honest and well-paying work, and we don’t see much of an emphasis on education for the most part (seen in how Vinz disregards what Hubert was taught in school, remarking that he was “raised in the streets”, as well has how Sayid’s sister ditches school to hang out in the projects). As a result, the trio feels trapped here, which we get a better view into during the scene when Hubert talks to his mom about the feelings of hopelessness he has and how he wants to leave. The fact that his mom immediately after asks him to do a chore and says nothing pertaining to Hubert’s vulnerable and emotional expression shows that she cares more about doing what she needs to do to make it through to the next day, a mindset created by living in an isolated, poorly kept housing project with minimal access to well paying employment opportunities, than her son’s emotional well being. It is one of the few if any times where we see on of the main characters be open and expressive of his emotions, something that shows security in ones’ masculinity, and is met by deaf ears. How can one be secure in their masculinity and not develop a macho, hyper-masculine mindset where there is no way in the projects, not even one’s own mother, for one to safely express their emotions? Furthermore, they are degraded by police. The emotionally upsetting scene in which they are sadistically abused by police in Paris is a powerful one. It makes perfect sense that such humiliating treatment would make one feel insecure and less masculine. All of these factors combined – unjust violence at the hands of the state, living an environment where the constant struggle to find the means to make it to the next day is center-stage and takes precedence so almost any other problems – create feelings of anger, emasculation and hopelessness that drive the characters to act macho and hyper-masculine as a defense mechanism.
I like the way you break things down. How helpful!