Beyond Walls and Cages: Malta: where hysteria is no answer to the plight of refugees

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Malta: where hysteria is no answer to the plight of refugees

Aidan Jones in Valletta The Guardian, Tuesday 30 December 2008

[...]

Since 2002 the Maltese government has processed 11,500 refugees and economic migrants, a figure, it says, equating to about 1.7 million arriving in France, Italy or the UK. The tensions are palpable. Anti-immigrant daubings have sprung up amid the sandstone walls of Valletta, Malta's fortified 16th century capital; Africans say they frequently suffer racism, and a prominent Jesuit charity has been the victim of arson attacks for its outspoken support of migrants.

"There's an ugly xenophobia developing here and I think the government carries some responsibility for that," says Dr Neil Falzon, the local representative of the United Nations high commissioner for refugees. "It is selling the idea that Malta can't cope. The truth is it has to. There's already a settled African population on this island, they just live in a different reality to the rest of Maltese society. The government should be leading the process of integrating them with jobs, education and homes instead of taking part in this kind of national hysteria."

Criticism of Malta's detention policy is mounting. The island is the only EU nation to automatically detain all illegal migrants for a legal maximum of 18 months: there are currently 2,000 in ramshackle camps. The UNHCR has voiced concerns over whether the policy could violate the Geneva Convention, while other NGOs are urging Malta's government to soften its attitude to migrants.
READ MORE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/30/malta-refugees

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Beyond Walls and Cages

Bridging Prison Abolition and Immigrant Justice Movements

Description and Purpose:
In the US, some 2.4 million people are imprisoned while 1.6 million migrants have been deported since 1996. On a world scale, while most people’s movement is constrained by a system of global apartheid, policing strategies are shared across national borders that are commonly used to crack down on political organizing and dissent. What are the connections between the prison industrial complex and migration policies that are symbolized by deadly cages and walls? How do these different state policies both divide and connect different groups of people across nationality, citizenship, race, class, gender, and sexuality? What work do these sturdy tools of division, isolation, and control do at this moment of economic crisis? What are the ideologies that make walls and cages seem so durable, and what cracks in these edifices can movements for social justice and liberation open up?

Making links between prison policies and migration policies is important for being able to understand and challenge white supremacy, US imperialism, capitalism, and militarization. We want to understand the ways in which the prison abolition and immigrant justice movements are opposing state violence and the creative ways in which they are working to build a world without walls and cages. How might organizing around the “right to stay” be a way of bridging communities who face economic dislocation – whether through free trade policies or gentrification – and repressive state policies alike?

How did we put this book together?
We called for papers and solicited contributions for a book that brings materials from people who are directly affected by these systems together with work from organizers, activists, advocates, artists, poets, and researchers. We edited these contributions and found a press that was interested in publishing them.

In September and October, 2009, we also took to the road to get a closer look at the ways in which immigrant detention is building on the system of mass incarceration in the South and Southwest. How are these systems shaping the livelihoods and organizing of communities who are most affected by hyper-policing? And what changes, if any, is the current economic crisis having on these systems?

About the editors:
Jenna Loyd is a writer and researcher who is based in Syracuse, NY. Matt Mitchelson is a geographer researching imprisonment and working with former prisoners. Andrew Burridge is a geographer and activist working towards freedom of movement within the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and beyond.

If you are interested in learning more about or contributing to this project, please contact us at nowallsnocages@gmail.com.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Malta: where hysteria is no answer to the plight of refugees

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