A PLURINATIONAL SOLUTION TO MAPUCHE PROTESTS IN CHILE?

CHARLIE WORTHINGTON

The Anti-Terrorism Law of 1984, which allowed the government to detain dissidents indefinitely without evidence, was one of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s preferred political tools. Current president Michelle Bachelet is greatly acclaimed for her achievements in gender equality and human rights, yet a strand of continuity from the decades of dictatorship can be found in her use of the Anti-Terrorism Law, amongst other draconian measures, against indigenous Mapuche protesters.

Political dissent is the expression of opposition to government actions from within the society it claims to represent, a means of renegotiating the contract between state and society. This paradigm is complicated significantly in the case of indigenous peoples, who do not have their own contract with the state, but are instead a footnote to the broader relationship between state and society, a relationship that they have no official means of influencing. The complexities of how the state is to be held responsible for the needs of indigenous people, and how these people can express demands without resorting to violent dissent, is being felt particularly strongly in Chile at present, but is a dilemma that applies to governments across the world.

The relationship between the Chilean government and Mapuche people is a particularly uneasy one. Mapuche ancestral lands, mostly located within the southern region of Araucanía, were never conquered by the Spanish, but rather by the newly-independent Chileans in the early nineteenth century. When Mapuche protesters speak of decolonisation, they mean it in the literal historical sense. Protest groups like Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco even today challenge the Chilean state’s authority over them, fighting for national liberation. The possibility of a broader Mapuche separatist movement is complicated by the fact that they are a minority even within Araucanía, but there is widespread support in the Mapuche community for greater autonomy, allowing them ownership of their land at the very least.

Bachelet is no tyrant, and she long pledged not to use anti-terrorist legislation against Mapuche dissidents, but an escalation of protests since the start of 2016 saw her pressured into doing so, most notably by former president Sebastián Piñera, the favourite to win re-election in November 2017. Mapuche dissent has been carried out most prominently through arson attacks on trucks belonging to the companies occupying their land, with 60 such attacks in 2016, and 89 in the first eight months of 2017. This is what prompted the arrest of eight Mapuche leaders on 23rd September 2017, under the anti-terrorism legislation Bachelet long promised not to abuse. Tensions rapidly escalated, and on 9th October a 5000-strong Mapuche rights march was put down in Santiago by armed police. International organisations have also weighed in, with UN experts condemning the ‘stigmatization of the indigenous community’, asserting that the context of ‘social protests by Mapuche peoples seeking to claim their rights’ was in no way tantamount to terrorism.

This forced Bachelet to rescind the terrorism charges, but a resolution to the state’s inability to fulfil its responsibilities to indigenous people is no closer. The paradox of the government’s joint responsibility to broader Chilean society, whose interests they claim are best served by the exploitation of native land and resources, and Mapuche society, who fundamentally dispute the state’s authority over them and their ancestral property, is deeply entrenched. This scenario is not unique to Chile, and while violent Mapuche dissent has brought this particular case into the spotlight, the broader question of how governments can meet the needs of indigenous peoples is one that the international community must urgently address.

It is just possible, however, that we need not look too far from Chile to find the first step towards a potential solution. Just to the north lies Bolivia, where 41% of the population trace their origins to one of the country’s 36 indigenous groups. It is therefore unsurprising that they have been pioneers in the fair treatment of indigenous communities. In 2005, Evo Morales became Bolivia’s first indigenous president, and the 2009 Constitution saw the country take the official name ‘Plurinational State of Bolivia’. This was not merely symbolic, but set in motion a process of cultural, legal, and institutional reform intended to allow multiple societies to coexist and cooperate within a single state.

Morales has condemned ‘post-nationalism’, often the preferred solution of liberal internationalists, as the continuation of a neoliberal ideology that, in practice, serves only to erase indigenous culture by imposing a homogenous identity based overwhelmingly on white, Western norms. Plurinationalism recognises the differences between communities, but creates a system whereby indigenous rights can be demanded through constitutional channels, without need for violent dissent. It responds to the paradox of contradictory interests by encouraging co-operation between peoples, with the state no longer merely the servant of the majority, but an impartial arbiter of its plural societies.

The common goal behind these reforms has been the creation of spaces for indigenous politics, allowing people to assert a positive vision for their future. The system for allocating land to indigenous communities has been decentralised to eliminate interference from the private sector; ‘plural justice’ recognises the equal standing of community and state justice systems; in January 2017 the Guaraní people formed Bolivia’s first autonomous indigenous government, with others set to follow this example. Indigenous dissent in Bolivia has not been eliminated, and is often still violent: what has changed is that the state is now obliged to listen to this dissent. The plurinational reforms mean that the indigenous peoples of Bolivia can express dissent in a constructive manner, through legal mechanisms and political representatives.

Chile remains at the opposite end of the spectrum, as the only country in Latin America yet to constitutionally recognise the specific rights of indigenous people. The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, a human rights NGO, have described how indigenous rights have been ‘gravely threatened’ by state-sponsored extractive and industrial projects, while the ‘criminalization of Mapuche social protest’ remains an essential part of this strategy for economic development. However, there is growing consensus even in Chilean mainstream politics on the need to address these constitutional deficiencies, and already one presidential candidate, Beatríz Sanchez, has emphasised the need to apply the logic of plurinationalism to this process. The creation of official channels for negotiation between the Chilean state and Mapuche society would facilitate a more constructive form of dissent, while a formal system for allocating land ownership might lessen the need for such dissent in the first place.

Plurinationalism is a concept in its infancy, and is no panacea to the struggles of the world’s indigenous peoples. In countries like Chile, where indigenous populations are far more of a minority than in Bolivia, it will be more difficult for the state to take up this role as arbiter of plural societies. The diversity of states and societies around the world means that meeting indigenous needs will require specific, situational solutions. And yet, the paradox of a state that can only serve its primary society by rejecting its responsibility to other societies is a near universal problem. Plurinationalism offers a basic framework through which complex solutions can be built. It is a paradigm that might just defy the paradox.

A Bed Time Story for Putin

VERITY BLIGH

Vladimir Putin was likely told the bedtime story of Baba Yaga as a child growing up in 1960s Leningrad. As a wizened old hag, who flies a floating mortar using its pestle, habitually kidnapping, then eating, misbehaved children, Baba Yaga cuts a terrifying figure in Slavic folklore. But why such speculation about Putin’s childhood? Ultimately, regardless of whether or not young Vladimir was interested in flying mortars and pestles, such myths provide important insights into Russian cultural expectations and societal identity. In the case of the Baba Yaga folktale, it contains a powerful lesson about dissent: break the rules and you will pay the price, a lesson that continues to be widely reflected in Russia’s political system today. Such an analogy is particularly relevant to Putin’s manipulation of the status quo to cement his personal rule, and the increasing resistance from dissidents in response.

Here, two important points can be drawn regarding the dynamics between the Kremlin and political opposition in the modern Russian state. Firstly, narratives matter. A nation’s shared mythologies strongly define individuals’ social prospects and aspirations. Where power is associated with fear, this serves as a strong deterrent to the rebellion of the masses, as well as a ready-made toolkit for autocrats. Secondly, such narratives endure when they are backed up by political ritual. Here, actors use such repeated and symbolic practices to direct attention towards ideas and behaviours that legitimise their power, which in turn may provoke resistance. In this way, rituals draw a red line between dissent and deference.

Yet these two lessons can be co-opted by either government or opposition for their own political self-interest. This fact is particularly clear in the upcoming Russian elections in March 2018: the question is not whether Putin will win, but rather with which narrative and rituals he will package his next presidential term, and in turn, how Alexei Navalny, a long-term dissident, will frame his opposition movement. For dissent operates as a discourse between establishment and resistance, rather than a dichotomy. Ultimately, each needs the other to define itself. In this way, the true value of dissent in Putin’s Russia does not lie in its capacity for electoral breakthrough, but in its role to reveal the Kremlin’s weaknesses and thereby change the behaviour of those in office.

Since 2000, each of Putin’s presidential terms has been bolstered by a different narrative. According to Joshua Yaffa, Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker, his first term centred on restoring state authority in the wake of the Chechen War and on bringing a basic sense of order and competency to government administration in contrast to his predecessor Yeltsin’s deep unpopularity. His second term, from 2004 to 2008, was focussed on the redistribution of the country’s windfall oil and gas profits, fuelling a consumer boom and effectively buying the population’s political disengagement. Following a faux withdrawal from power as Prime Minister under Medvedev, Putin’s regime since 2012 has become defined by Russia’s stand-off with the West, played out in Ukraine, Syria and the cyber-space. Such nationalism, emphasising Russia’s self-image as a great power and influential player on the world stage, is essentially a diversion from a present-day reality of stagnating economic growth and tightening political freedoms.

The real issue at stake here is what comes next. With elections only a few months away, it is key to understand what bargain Putin wants to make with the Russian people in his fourth, and presumably last, term. Increasingly, Putin is behaving as a “new tsar”, as stated in The Economist in its appraisal of the centenary anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution. Proving that narratives still matter, his presidency evokes Russia’s imperial history to shore up an authoritarian system based on his personal rule. However, the legitimacy of a tsar requires constant reaffirmation. Here, political rituals, in the form of national approval ratings, state television appearances and military war-games, highlight the Kremlin’s patronage over the economy, media and security forces. Most importantly, the point of the upcoming election is not to provide an alternative to Putin, but to prove that there is none. “If there is no Putin, there is no Russia”, the Kremlin’s Deputy of Staff recently claimed, neatly encapsulating the present political atmosphere. Ironically, therefore, the stronger Putin is today, the harder he will find it to continue to consolidate his rule, and eventually choose a successor, in future.

This weakness provides a valuable opening for dissidents to stake their claims over important issues in Russian politics. Such opposition groups emerge from all spheres of life, including popular culture (Pussy Riot, repressed since 2011), journalism (Anna Politkovskaya, poisoned in 2006) and politics, most notably Alexei Navalny. Following the “colour revolutions” of the early 2000s, in which former Soviet Union and Balkans countries protested against their Russian-backed autocratic leaders, Navalny emerged as the key opposition figure to Putin’s United Russia party, which he popularly termed “the party of crooks and thieves”. In stark contrast to the current gerontocratic oligarchs, he is a young tech-savvy liberal, thus offering not only a change in personality at the top of the Kremlin, but also a fundamentally different political order in a modern Russian state. For “Putin’s generation”, those under twenty-five who have no significant memories of any other Russian leader, this is an unprecedented alternative.

Navalny uses a wide repertoire of dissident tactics to erode the Kremlin’s legitimacy. In addition to traditional protest marches, his Progress Party harnesses social media through memes, including one of Navalny’s bright green face after a chemical attack, and satire, such as analogising Putin to a ‘turnip’: “If the only thing you have been fed all your life is a turnip, you are likely to rate it as highly edible”. This grass-roots approach challenges prevailing top-down narratives and rituals, thus undermining traditional spin-doctoring, which is euphemistically known as “political technology” in post-Soviet states. Yet such opposition comes at a massive personal cost. Navalny has been arrested many times since 2012, and is currently banned from running in the presidential election on trumped-up charges of tax fraud. Moreover, it is unclear where the breaking-point in Putin’s regime lies, if there is one at all.

Nevertheless, dissidents hold the competitive advantage in the long-term. Putin’s tsarist master-plan is a widely known strategy, against which opposition figures can mobilise against in rapid, adaptive, and often unpredictable ways. For that reason, dissent is valuable because it empowers individual actors with the leverage to change the narrative and political rituals of far more powerful forces. Just as young children invariably run the risk of kidnap by Baba Yaga by pursuing their independence, dissidents challenge political regimes for values of democracy, pluralism and free expression. Ultimately, rules exist to be broken – and the price is worth paying.

LETHAL AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS: THE START OF AN INTERNATIONAL ARMS RACE?

EMILY TENCH

Lethal autonomous weapons are weapons which select and engage targets without human intervention. On July 28th 2017, 116 experts submitted an open letter calling for a ban on such weapons. They argued that such a ban is necessary to prevent a global artificial intelligence (AI) arms race, which would pose a significant threat to humanity. It seems that such a race is already starting with Vladimir Putin recently stating “Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia but for all humankind. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”

China and the USA are also in agreement that artificial intelligence will be the key technology underpinning national power in the future. In July, China’s State Council released a strategic plan to make the country “the front-runner and global innovation centre in AI” by 2030.  Although the US does not have such a prescriptive plan, it is likewise investing heavily in AI development and in April, the Department of Defense established the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team, designed to improve use of AI technologies across the Pentagon.

The start of a potential arms race is highly concerning since it may lead countries to develop artificial intelligence without adequate thought for safety. One of the biggest problems associated with AI is the value alignment problem, which is the question of how to ensure that the instructions we give to an AI system capture what we want it to do without any unintended outcomes. Stuart Russell compares this to the story of King Midas. When King Midas asked for everything he touched to turn to gold, he wanted to be rich and did not want his food and family to turn into gold. His instructions resulted in catastrophic unintended outcomes. If AI systems are developed without a proper focus on value alignment, the unintended outcomes could be species-ending. A secondary concern is that without adequate safety procedures and regulation, AI weapons could more easily fall into the hands of terrorists, dictators or others who would use them for malicious purposes.

It is vital that we avoid the escalation of the AI arms race. The long-term goal for international leaders such as the UN should be the creation of a Lethal Autonomous Weapons Convention, analogous to the Chemical Weapons Convention or the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. This convention should prohibit the use, development, production, stockpiling and transfer of lethal autonomous weapons. At present, however, verification of such a treaty would be difficult since the differences between a weaponised system and a weaponised autonomous system are very small. Therefore, funding into further research is required urgently. The global AI arms race has already begun and the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons will be feasible within years, not decades.

"GRAVE NEW WORLD" - A REVIEW

LUCA WOLLNY

In a clear challenge to the Neoliberal globalist consensus, Stephen D. King argues globalism to be an incredibly fragile state of affairs, and shows how recent anti-globalisation trends are part of a long-term systemic threat to international consensus.

Positing the post-war wave of globalisation to be neither inevitable nor irreversible, King’s provocative book Grave New World ultimately produces convincing geopolitical, economic, and sociological critiques of the orthodox neoliberal perspective on globalisation. He places the most recent wave of globalisation in historical context, showing it not to be a trend so much as part of a cycle, before retreading familiar ground with the tension between nation-states and globalisation. These two forces, he argues, will face tension clustered around three key challenges: migration, technology, and money. In the final part of his work, King attempts to offer solutions to the coming challenges facing globalisation.

King’s work relies on six main claims: international economic ‘progress’ is not inevitable and can run in reverse;  technology can both promote and dismantle globalisation;  economic development, which increases global living standards but deepens domestic inequality, will naturally pit global and national interests against each other;  huge migration flows in the 21st century will undermine attempts at domestic stability;  international institutions are losing credibility, and the divergence between nations’ goals mean new international institutions are very unlikely; and  the preponderance of ‘superpowers’ and their disagreements over how globalisation ought to be conducted will lead to the return of an 1800s style Imperial model. Structurally, however, the book is divided into four parts, of varying quality and credibility.

The first part is an attempt to place globalisation in a historic (and cyclic) context, and forms most of the argument for the first claim. King attempts to demonstrate how, in the immediate post-war period, circumstances allowed for globalisation to be in the national interests of most parties. For the most part, he rests this claim on two factors: the destruction caused by the second world war; and the rise of the cold war. Given the two, there was a strong incentive for the US to invest energy and resources into the creation of a strongly integrated international order, and, given the level of bankruptcy and destruction in most other industrialised nations at this time, strong incentive for them to play ball with the US’s policy. Thus, many of the international institutions we know today were strengthened, since all parties (apart from Moscow) had incentives to cooperate. Post-cold war, King argues, these factors were less pressing, and the natural fractures in the system were held together less tightly.

In an unexpected twist, Minsky’s model – out of favour with the wider economic establishment – is offered as an explanation for how the great moderation placed additional strain on this co-operative system. It argues that as confidence in economic stability goes up, risky and foolish lending and investment will occur, until a bubble appears. This bubble must then pop, causing great economic damage – but clearing the system of inflated value – and restoring the economy to a stable level. Applied to the great moderation, King essentially argues that the lack of economic turmoil simply meant that a bubble (which to this day has not popped) was being formed in the world economy.

In the next part, King outlines his theory for the inherent long-term tension between national states and globalisation. Essentially, he argues that within any given market, trade is of infinite gain, since it increases the overall productivity of the market. This increased production, however, is often grossly unequal, and wealth will tend to congregate. Within a single market, redistribution can be affected, remedying any social concerns and allowing the benefits of blocwide trade to continue. King illustrates this by reference to the British- and French-backed international markets of earlier centuries. Between countries in the modern system, however, redistribution is not possible, since it will almost never be possible to force more prosperous nations to yield redistribution to other nations. He argues that this is exacerbated by the creation of a global elite, in whose interests it is to prevent redistribution. Just to hammer the point home, King then provides a quick interpretation of the various competing views of ‘the international community’, arguing that each is very likely to come to resemble something akin to an 1800s ‘sphere of influence’.

 Three key threats to globalisation in the 21st century are analysed in part three. The first, migration, he rationalises thus: when the benefits of migration outweigh the costs of migration, many will migrate. Given that King considers globalisation to worsen inequality, the benefits of migration will only continue to grow in relation to the costs. As a more concrete example, he points to Africa and Europe; as the population of the one continent grows (which increases in healthcare and high fertility rates are, he posits, likely to cause), its citizens, increasingly able to travel, will in ever larger numbers realise there are better wages etc. to be had in wealthy Europe (a phenomenon unlikely to be lessened by Europe’s aging workforce).

The second threat comes from technology; while King posits several methods, the most familiar ought to be the idea of the ‘echo chamber’ – that is, technology may, rather than spreading bonds around the world, simply give people new ways to debase and insulate themselves. Perhaps King’s most convincing evidence comes from an analysis of the viewing numbers of early BBC programming, where the Open University broadcasts paled compared to the viewing numbers for The Black and White Minstrel Show (which, for those unfamiliar with British media history, was a staggeringly racist programme).

Lastly, King argues that the recent tendency towards monetary policy to tame economic crises indicates a dangerous trend towards countries trying to foist off deflation to each other, and that we face ‘currency wars’. As any student of Macroeconomics will be aware, a country can have any two of free capital flows, stable inflation, and stable exchange rates. The last of these is what promotes currency wars; the first is financial globalisation, and stable inflation is general in the national interest. Thus, King argues, without sacrificing financial globalisation at the first hurdle (and given that sacrificing the national interest is incredibly unlikely), we are faced with the prospect of a divisive monetary competition. Furthermore, he points to Japan’s 80s pain after the Plaza accords as a prime example of how even well-motivated attempts to co-ordinate monetary policy cannot end well. 

Given, then, the litany of challenges King brings to globalisation, we ought not to be surprised that the single chapter comprising part four contains only three comparatively weak solutions for the situation. Among some astute criticisms of Varoufakis’, Stiglitz’ and Rodrik’s various solutions, King outlines the most plausible routes as: the reinstatement of fully floating currencies (and thus the breakup of the Euro and the abandonment of insulation against hot money); the creation of a binding, and financially muscular, international arbitration body to resolve credit disputes between nations; and complete sovereign globalisation, at least to the degree of the Pax Britannia/Americana.

These solutions, however, all suffer from glaring weaknesses. To adopt the first, the world would need to accept a de facto abandonment of globalisation – which is no solution at all – and to accept the second two, it would need to further abandon nation sovereignty. This will not happen any time soon. King’s better suggestions go boldly against the spirit of the times, emphasising the extent to which globalisation is under threat. These policies are very unlikely to occur, and even more unlikely to actually work. Arbitration would likely just increase the scale of financial issues, and the difficulty of redistribution on a global scale is self-evident. In fairness to King, his tepid endorsement of these solutions indicates some awareness of these failings, and he comes within a hair’s breadth of openly acknowledging that if his core thesis is correct, the most likely outcome is the creation of competing economic spheres and the end of liberal globalisation.

Despite the ultimate weaknesses of his conclusion, King provides a comprehensive (and economically meaty) analysis of the key challenges to liberal globalisation. As an inadvertent part of a newer wave of neo-realism, King captures the zeitgeist of the shift away from the Fukuyamaeqsue endorsements of neoliberalism that had come to dominate the IR debate. Indeed, as an overview of the key systemic threats to the current global order, King’s book serves as a welcome introduction, and contains enough economic analysis to force this reviewer to engage in early macro revision. Thus, while his book occasionally suffers from trying to pull its punches somewhat, it serves as a welcome grounding in the basics of how a geopolitical approach might systemically appear, given the modern order.

CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES

BENJAMIN DAVIES

It is hard to overstate the case for the movement of people being the world’s biggest event for generations. It preceded, was implicated in, and is likely to outlast, most other contenders, including regional or civil wars, and shock elections or referendums. Even the biggest potential challenger for impactful-world-event, the escalation of threat in the Korean peninsula, has remained irresolvable because, among other things, of a desire to avoid a flow over the North Korean/Chinese border. The long term trend for global displacement is decidedly upwards, with a group of 65.6 million people (the size of the UK population) now ‘forcibly displaced’, and new crises, such as that between Myanmar and Bangladesh, emerging constantly.

However available the statistics, we seem condemned to imprecision when talking about people on the move - a phenomenon which may be called an uncertainty principle of sorts, since it is the momentum, the constant coming and going, which makes things hard to measure (and numbers may be underestimated because some, for various reasons, “opt out of the system” and don’t register as refugees.) For starters, 65.6 million is not all people moving worldwide (it is only those moving, the UNHCR say, ‘as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations’), and neither are they all moving across national borders - 40.3 million of them are displaced within their own countries.

But it is also in vocabulary that we are at risk of being imprecise. It is hard to write this article without eventually collocating “migrant” and “crisis”. It seems like a reasonable pairing, since moving people are migrating, and the responses of most host nations has been inadequate (for many reasons - some don’t have the resources, others have the resources but choose restrictive policies.) But media discussion overburdens this problematic phrase. While most discourse discusses the localised issue of people moving into Europe (mostly through Spain, Italy and Greece), it remains that the majority of people on the move and in need of help are not in or moving towards Europe. The host countries with the most displaced people, relative to both population and GDP, are mostly African or Middle Eastern - not a fact often acknowledged in British media.

If we isolate the European example, however, we find the inadequacy is not only in solutions, but yet again in how we talk about moving people. The term “mixed migration” addresses the fact that a stream contains people moving for various reasons: hostile political climate, general war and mass direct violence (Syria and Myanmar), improvement of work, environmental disaster (Yemen) or people being moved against their will (prominent examples include trafficked people from Vietnam or Nigeria). Nonetheless, media reports and government representatives rarely acknowledge the complexity of such streams, preferring to stick to a dichotomy of “migrant” and “refugee” as the two available types of moving person.

Dr Nicholas Van Hear of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society (COMPAS) says that policy regimes ‘tend to see migrants in terms of a sole motivation to migrate’, and that is certainly a driving idea behind the “migrant”/“refugee” dichotomy: that the former moves through choice, the latter because of force. Bound up in these terms are also, I argue, sets of assumptions about need. It is commonly assumed that a migrant is in possession of at least some capital (financial, instructional, or social), and that a refugee is essentially resourceless and helpless. We can see these assumptions working their way into charity appeals and government conversations about migrants and refugees: the idea that states should be helping those who have nothing, and should be suspicious of those who have the ability to, for example, enter employment

A simple search on the Daily Mail, The Sun and Daily Mirror websites shows that their articles tend to use the terms “migrant” and “refugee” interchangeably. In the case of the Mail, the headlines using the word “migrant” tend to focus on arrivals into Europe, whereas headlines about “refugees” address the Americas or those displaced between Middle Eastern countries. In other words, you’re a refugee, deserving of pity, until you actually arrive on European shores, at which point you’re a migrant. This is not a press sympathetic to researcher Jorgen Carling’s view that: ‘Refugees are migrants, too. And all migrants matter.’ Current government leaders tend not to worry about being too discerning between the terms either, or where they do, such as in Labour’s 2017 manifesto, they perpetuate an unhelpful fuzziness of priorities, and argue largely only in favour of assisting refugees.

The problem with the way we talk about this dichotomy is that it converts the state of a moving person at their origin directly into an assumed set of needs. As a hypothetical example, somebody may leave a war-torn country with few physical possessions or cash, but with good education or specialised vocational training, and good language skills. They are in need not of reeducation, but of financial assistance. Somebody else may leave a stable, poor country with full suitcases and ready finance, but be young and untrained, and unable to speak any foreign languages. The former would mostly be viewed a refugee, the latter a migrant, and although these are useful terms in that we may wish to explicate differences between these two types of moving person, they have picked up deeply unhelpful associations. People have different sets of needs which do not necessarily match our assumptions.

This debate is being held in the open at the UNHCR, and between NGOs and academia. Even at the same time that the UNHCR website states that ‘[m]igrants are fundamentally different from refugees’, Peter Sutherland of the UN General Assembly says in a 2017 report that there is not a ‘clear-cut’ difference between ‘those who flee literally at gunpoint and those whose movement is entirely voluntary’. In the same paragraph, Sutherland makes what I think is the most cogent summary of the situation: there is, he says, a ‘need to overcome the facile binary approach that treats refugees as “good” … and irregular migrants as “bad”’. It is something of a “four legs good, two legs bad” viewpoint - those arriving on all fours, bereft of all energy, are most deserving of help. Those who can stand by themselves should be left to it.

These NGO-based or academic discussions have regrettably little impact on governmental discourse or policy. Politicians and parties continue to be inarticulate on the matter - at the highest level, they are caught up in a furious media cycle, in which, particularly of late, there is a high burn rate of stories and policies. It is not that it is fundamentally unhelpful to distinguish between types of moving people - quite the opposite. It is, however, unhelpful for the terms we use to have associations that do not properly describe the complexity of people’s needs.

When the propaganda poster claiming that ‘Careless talk costs lives’ launched during the Second World War, it was imagining a situation where the throwaway gossip of bus passengers was leaking vital state secrets. What we need now is a similar slogan aimed instead at the very public and seemingly careless talk of journalists and politicians. A wealthy country can never be neutral on these matters, - as academic David Turton has argued, ‘[f]orced migration is not something we discover but something we make’, and as journalist Daniel Trilling pointed out recently, you are either willing to help moving people, or you are willing to tolerate violence to stop them from moving. Similarly, when politicians and the media enter public discourse, it is not so much that the lives of moving people are in their hands as on their lips.

* The author would like to thank Lena Kainz for her advice in writing this piece