Syrian refugees arrive on Lesbos. Demotix/Björn Kietzmann. All rights reserved.Over thirty years ago Michel Foucault spoke to the refugee crisis of his day. Today another refugee crisis, the largest since WWII, is spilling out from Syria and North Africa. And tomorrow, Foucault anticipated, there will be yet another current crisis.
The eternal return
In his 1979 interview Foucault addresses the question: What is “the origin” of the refugee crisis that killed thousands of Vietnamese and Cambodian people? He refuses to point his finger at a particular enemy or culprit, but traces conditions that give rise to the terrifying cycle of forced migrations we see repeated today. These violent migrations, he says, are symptoms of historical developments. They arise from bordering practices that police us/them relations inherited in the colonial present. Until these conditions foundational to our global politics change, mass displacement of peoples will remain not just a “sequel of the past, but a presage of the future.” Until these conditions foundational to our global politics change, mass displacement of peoples will remain not just a “sequel of the past, but a presage of the future.”
As I read Foucault’s words the familiarity of this tragic eternal return renders me cold. Numb. The stories of human beings abandoned "at death's door" and bodies washed up on shore resound with an ongoing trauma. Foucault speaks of transit centers housing Vietnamese asylum seekers in the late 70s—waiting zones that were concentration camps in everything but name. Just this morning, I read about how Germany’s former concentration camps are being used to house today’s asylum seekers.
