International

The young Dutch filmmaker Morgan Knibbe has brought out a film, ‘Those who feel the fire burning’, which deals with the hardships suffered by immigrants in Greece and Italy. There is a true ‘underworld’ in creation, parallel to the world we know, a world of poverty, violence and a tough battle to survive, a world which we can see in the United States, with its ghettoes and

no-go areas. If we want to prevent this from becoming the common practice here in Europe too, we must stop subjecting undocumented immigrants to further marginalisation but instead maintain contact with them. Offering a bed, a shower and a meal and, where necessary, working out with them how they may return.

It’s some time since I received the invitation from the cinema in The Hague - the Haagse Filmhuis - and the Montesquieu Institute, which describes itself as ‘a multifunctional centre for comparative parliamentary history and constitutional development in Europe’ which ‘supports those involved in fostering and strengthening democracy’. At that time I had no idea that the film and the debate which followed would by the time of the showing have become so topical. While we were watching the film in The Hague, government leaders were in Brussels putting the finishing touches to their agreement on the boat-borne refugees in the Mediterranean. This gave us the opportunity to react immediately to the special European Council’s conclusions.

We were in agreement that the member state governments had in large measure failed: yes, they’d reinforced their border security, all right, but there would be no rescue operations close to the North African coast as was the case until recently in the framework of the Italian Mare Nostrum programme. And still no general plan aimed at working out how to deal with the refugee crisis.

The SP is not in favour of completely open borders. Refugees must be protected, but economic migrants can’t automatically be allowed in. More economic migrants mean that employers have more potential workers to choose from, undermining trade union bargaining power. What follows is that workers see growing pressure on their wages and social provision is further eroded. This is what we of course want to avoid.

That’s why it’s important not only to rescue people but to have at one’s disposal procedures whereby it can be quickly discerned whether the person in question is a political refugee or an economic migrant. The latter category has no right in principle to remain and must return. This means, however, that contact must be maintained with such people, the possibilities for them to return to their own countries must be discussed and a plan worked out. This is what a church in Rotterdam, the Pauluskerk, is doing, out of respect for the human dignity of all men, women and children, regardless of their residence rights or lack of them.

The alternative would be to throw people out on to the streets. Knibbe’s film shows how grim such an existence can be. Poverty, isolation, violence, drug abuse, that’s the harsh reality for undocumented immigrants in Greece and Italy, countries which show little or no concern for them. I think it would be a good thing if right-wing politicians such as those of our own governing VVD were to see this film. In any case I’m going to see if it can be shown at the European Parliament. And while we’re talking about films, in 1985 the movie Brazil was released. I often have cause to think about it, a film in which cities consist of two levels, an ‘over-world’ and an ‘under-world’. Literally. People avoid, if at all possible, the world on the ‘under’ street level, which is characterised by poverty and violence. Perhaps the VVD and others who think like them are up there in the over-world and don’t give two hoots for those who suffer a ‘normal’ life on the streets. But if so they should remember that in the same film terrorists from the under-world make life undafe in the over-world too. Police power can do nothing to help.