Free spirit! Wikicommons\/Pranjal Kumar. Some rights reserved.\u201cFreedom is that possession which
\npermits the enjoyment of all other possessions\u201d, wrote Montesquieu. Yet,
\ntoday we are led to believe that the only way to enjoy personal safety within
\nsociety, and guarantee our individual and collective freedoms, is through
\npreventive security and reinforced controls. <\/i><\/p>\n
How have we arrived at a situation where our reasoning has been so
\nthoroughly turned on its head that the movement of millions of people is now
\nbeing brought into question in case it might \u2013 owing to the way it is organised
\nand its great speed \u2013 lead either to the departure of combatants abroad (so
\ncalled foreign fighters) or the entry of clandestine groups with violent
\nintentions? <\/p>\n
How is it that, instead of regarding freedom as a principle on the basis
\nof which state interference in terms of security needs to be limited, we have,
\nlike in a game of \u2018Othello\u2019,
\nwitnessed the development of a topsy-turvy rhetoric in which freedom has become
\nnothing more than the limit-point of security, which has itself been redefined
\nas a necessary and indeed vital level of suspicion? There is now an obligation to place everything under tight security.<\/p>\n
There is now an obligation to place everything under tight security: our
\nliving-spaces, our cities, our transport systems, our movements, our bodies,
\nour writings and our ideas. The constant anxiety that, whether outside our
\nborders or among us, people are using freedom of movement and the trusting
\nnature of a societal space in which the presumption of innocence (still)
\nconstitutes the guiding principle behind the social bond, is now deeply
\nengrained in the ways in which we see and think about the world. <\/p>\n
These perceptions are fed by ever-more catastrophic scenarios which
\npresent two equally sinister alternatives: the inevitable destruction of
\ncivilisation in the future, or the prevention of this coming danger in the
\npresent. <\/p>\n
When prevention is presented as the entire set of measures which aim not
\nonly to guarantee the integrity and continuity of institutions, but also
\nmaintain social order, then complete territorial and digital coverage, along
\nwith the targeting of whole populations and individuals alike, become its
\nhallmark.<\/p>\n
All those who move thus become somehow guilty by association, for moving
\ntoo much, for creating flows that are becoming uncontrollable due to their
\nscale, especially when they are fleeing or are prevented from travelling by air
\nand instead arrive by sea or overland. <\/p>\n
As Zygmunt Bauman pointed out, the face of the terrorist enemy has
\nchanged.[1]
\nIt is now not so much that of an infiltrating danger hidden among refugees and
\nmigrants, who are themselves under rigorous surveillance, but that of an
\ninfiltrator amidst the travellers and tourists that we ourselves are, the
\ncouples who have found love abroad and have brought their partner and family
\nwith them. <\/p>\n
Whereas territorial security coverage focuses on a continuum of insecurity
\nwhose limits are determined by varying levels of alterity, in contrast, the
\nlogic of security which applies to movements and mobility focuses on the self,
\non the private, intimate sphere, on the untraceability of potentially violent
\nintentions, as well as on the idea that we are consequently all suspects \u2013 on \u201cprobation\u201d,
\nas it were.<\/p>\n
The masquerade that is the spectacle of the security apparatus at our Restricting the limits of alterity, redefining nationalism using While freedoms, such as the principles of equality and The collateral effects of this relegation matter little, as they are Consequently, both the notion of freedom as the However, the simple fact is that more and more governments see However, what is increasingly being spoken of in terms of \u201cgenuine Let us therefore cast our minds back over how, in the space of 30 years, It was quite clear, as the 1980s went on, that this idea of a political The official history of the Schengen area is worded in such a way that This idea of a deficit needing to be compensated, of vulnerability Yet this metaphor is dangerous and dishonest, for the representation it promulgates Rejecting the metaphor of the tipping scales is one thing, but is it not We need to remove free movement from the vicious circle of security. Whether An opportunity, and also a virtuous circle. Surely, reinforcing free [1] Zygmunt Bauman, \u201cFrom Free spirit! Wikicommons\/Pranjal Kumar. Some rights reserved.\u201cFreedom is that possession which permits the enjoyment of all other possessions\u201d, wrote Montesquieu. Yet, today we are led to believe that the only way to enjoy personal safety within society, and guarantee our individual and collective freedoms, is through preventive security and reinforced controls. How have we arrived…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nborders and in our streets, which deploys a certain form of violence made
\nentirely discretionary through its varied range of practices \u2013 but which
\nprevents nothing and arrests and dissuades no-one \u2013 merely generates unease,
\ntransforming a potential danger into a permanent state of anxiety which is then
\nrelayed ad nauseam<\/em> by the games of
\nthe media. <\/p>\n
\nalarmist discourse and counter-measures which seek to purify a reinvented
\nidentity based on a traditional past, stripping individuals of their
\nnationality as a means of preventive banishment, instead of subjecting them to
\nsurveillance, judgment and punishment \u2013 these are the ingredients of the
\npolitical recipe now followed by right- and left-wing governments alike. <\/p>\n
\nnon-discrimination, the presumption of innocence and respect for privacy,
\nundoubtedly still exist, they have been relegated to the margins, to the
\nlimit-points of security, which seeks to be internal and external, repressive
\nand preventive, protective yet discriminatory. This
\nmaximum level of security, which aspires to be global, total and unlimited, and
\nprojects itself into the future in order to forestall any uncertainty, is a
\npolitical idea which has now usurped autonomy as a value.<\/p>\n
\nperceived as negligible insofar as they only affect others, our enemies and not
\nourselves. This maximum level of security, which aspires to be global, total
\nand unlimited, and projects itself into the future in order to forestall any
\nuncertainty, is a political idea which has now
\nusurped autonomy as a value. <\/p>\n
\nconstitution of the self through the recognition of the other, his existence,
\nhis human rights, and the notion of security as a means of guaranteeing a
\nharmonious dynamic amidst heterogeneity and the Brownian movement of an economy
\nof differences have almost disappeared. In this latter
\nperspective, freedom is replaced by the fact that the use of force remains always
\na possibility, even if it must be subordinated to the principle of justice.
\nThis balance between the use of force and its justification, its necessity and
\nits proportionality has so far been upheld by judges, in those intermediary
\nbodies which still believe in the separation of powers as a means of avoiding a
\nform of despotic power spelling the end for freedom. <\/p>\n
\nthemselves as tutelary powers which no longer have citizens, but rather
\nsubjects. Subjects who are beholden to their origins, to old ideas, to their
\nhome turf, and who no longer move around.<\/p>\nRemembering Schengen<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nsecurity\u201d is in no way a necessity imposed by the \u2018terrorist threat\u2019 and an
\nanswer couched in surveillance and suspicion; it has a history that must be
\nmobilised in order to recall the time, before this \u2018voluntary servitude\u2019; when a
\npositive history of individual and collective freedom was still possible and
\ndesirable. It does exist, even though it is increasingly caricatured as a
\n\u2018constraint\u2019. <\/p>\n
\nour collective vision of free movement in Europe has changed profoundly. One no
\nlonger visits the European Union, but rather enters the Schengen area. Or
\nindeed does not enter it. One can also be expelled or turned away from it. The
\nlittle Luxembourgian village of Schengen, with its population of 600, can thus
\nlay some claim to being the centre of attention since the signing in 1985 of
\nthe eponymous agreement which aims to establish a zone of freedom and security.
\nIndeed, on the anniversary of the agreement in June 2015, the President of the
\nEuropean Parliament, Martin Schulz, reminded his audience that \u201cSchengen may be
\na small village, but it is a big idea\u201d. There can be no doubt that in Schengen,
\nin the depths of rural Luxemburg, on the banks of the Moselle and not far from
\nthe German and French borders, Europe in 1985 became more than an economic
\nreality by embracing the political dimension of free movement. So how is it
\nthat the glowing pages of the history of free movement within the European
\nUnion have dulled over time, and the realities and practices of the Schengen
\narea, together with our thinking on it, are now being articulated through a
\ngrammar of security rather than one of freedom?<\/p>\n
\nEurope underpinned by the free movement project, was accompanied by misgivings
\non the part of certain states which perceived the opening of borders as a
\nrenunciation of the very idea of sovereignty. While certain agencies \u2013 chief
\namong them customs officers \u2013 were worried about the future of their
\nprofessions, Schengen also marked the concrete realisation of one law-enforcement
\ndream, namely the ability to pursue individuals from one side of the continent
\nto the other in an entirely legal manner, no longer having to rely on networks
\nof discreet connivance and cooperation between different national agencies.
\nSchengen is also the visa document which bears its name, that magic key which
\nfilters, opens or blocks the doors of the European Union and represents the crystallisation
\nof the latter\u2019s efforts to control immigration, including, and indeed
\nespecially beyond European borders, far from our eyes and from any possible
\nlegal recourse or even any legal protection. Schengen is, finally, the ambiguity
\ninherent in this culture of security which has come with the project for the
\nfree movement of capital, goods and people, these compensatory measures which
\naim to strengthen external border checks just as free movement has been
\nestablished within the zone. Almost as if we were frightened by the project, we
\nwere willing to give with one hand while taking away with the other, offering concessions
\non the security front in order to make swallowing the excessively libertarian
\npill of border-free movement that bit easier.<\/p>\n
\nthis concern for security, presented as an inevitable corollary of the end of
\ninternal borders, is essentially taken as read, glossed over in summary
\nfashion. A Europe of free movement is a fine aspiration, but a borderless
\nEurope is necessarily weak and vulnerable. Is it not therefore logical to
\ncompensate for this vulnerability with greater internal cooperation and a
\nstrengthening of external borders? <\/p>\n
\nneeding to be nursed, is more than just the flipside to the implementation of
\nfree movement. It is in fact the core maxim, the very epicentre of the Schengen
\narea, around which those who cherish the fundamental freedoms, the rights of
\nindividuals and the right of free movement, are forced to contort themselves. This
\nmaxim takes the metaphor of a set of scales, weighing security against freedom,
\nas both its raison d\u2019\u00eatre and its ultimate realisation. In 2001, Lord
\nStrathclyde, the leader of the Conservatives in the House of Lords, elegantly
\ninvoked this metaphor when he declared that it was necessary to find \u201cthe right
\nbalance between the need for security and the protection of liberty\u201d
\n(Bigo-Tsoukala-2008). Surely greater freedom requires greater security, as the
\nscales must be kept in balance? It matters little that this metaphor is
\nerroneous and contributes to producing profound shifts in our relationship to
\nthe political sphere and the notion of citizenship. For it has set down
\npermanent roots deep in our collective imagination thanks to its simplicity \u2013
\nafter all, who would be foolhardy enough to argue against a theory based on
\nbalance and proportion? Weighing up civil liberties in response
\nto violent events is a calculation based on short-term political gain. How many
\nabsurd decisions were taken in reaction to 9\/11?<\/p>\n
\nundermines those very civil liberties which, in the context of our liberal
\ndemocracies, are fundamental and non-negotiable. Civil liberties are
\nessentially and fundamentally normative, providing a framework for state legal
\nsystems, and are not subordinated to the whims of events, no matter how violent
\nor frightening these may be. Weighing up civil liberties in response to violent
\nevents is a calculation based on short-term political gain. How many absurd
\ndecisions were taken in reaction to 9\/11? \u201cExceptional circumstances require
\nexceptional measures,\u201d we are increasingly often being told. This is a maxim based
\non raison d\u2019\u00e9tat and, while it undeniably possesses a strong rhetorical appeal,
\nit is in truth little more than a piece of off-the-shelf, default policy for
\nwhoever wishes either to show themselves to be capable of reacting in the face
\nof adversity, or to reinforce practices of suspicion towards, or outright
\nrefusal of the liberal practices of our liberal regimes. <\/p>\n
\nmore urgent to first repudiate all of those interpretations which are cast from
\na mould of catastrophic extinction and a heuristic of fear? A fear of what might
\nhappen, first of all, of a continuing escalation of violence that is always
\npossible in which each new attack would act as the harbinger of the end of
\ndays. Then, a fear of numbers, as successive waves of migrants and refugees
\ncrash against the gates of Europe, each bringing its share of corpses. Finally,
\na more general fear of the Other, in which we all retreat into our little nationalistic
\nbubbles, breathing new life into the weird idea that some identities and
\ncultures are naturally compatible, while others are not.<\/p>\nFree free movement<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nwe are talking about tourism, programmes to assist mobility among students and
\ntrainees, legal protection or victims\u2019 rights, the Europe-wide harmonisation of
\nlegal aid for the most vulnerable individuals, or the setting of a ceiling on
\ntelephone charges throughout the European Union, free movement is an
\nopportunity. We need to remove free movement from the
\nvicious circle of security.<\/p>\n
\nmovement would create an opportunity for curiosity and, by doing so, help open
\nminds? What else is the driving principle behind free movement if not the
\nconcrete demonstration that diversity is not a problem but, in a very real
\nsense, a solution? In our toxic political climate, fearful and inward-looking
\nas it is, the free movement of people and ideas could very well contribute as
\nmuch to the fight against radicalisation as it could to the fight against
\nselfish nationalisms, truly the most important political issue for all of our futures.<\/p>\n
\n
\nPilgrim to Tourist \u2013 or a Short History of Identity\u201d, in, Stuart Hall and Paul
\ndu Gay (eds), Questions
\nof Cultural Identity<\/em>, London, Sage publications, 1996, pp.18-36.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"