Migratory rhetorics

In this work, the author considers that the attitudes that we Europeans hold towards migratory movements towards our continent can be summarised in two opposing points of view: a benevolent perspective towards the migratory phenomenon (which Simone labels "the guilty Europe"), and another more hostile attitude towards those who migrate to Europe (which he calls "the great substitution"). 

According to the first attitude, the great migration would be the belated but inevitable response to the centuries of exploitation, arrogance and cruelty that the West has inflicted on the entire planet, especially on the areas from which the migratory flows originate, in the forms of colonialism, slavery and the exploitation of natural resources. 

Since, from this point of view, Europe has contributed to the impoverishment of a large part of the planet, it would now have a duty to mitigate it and repair the damage done by facilitating immigration. In short, from the perspective of the guilty Europe, the great migration is a ‘historically inevitable, ethically just and economically convenient’ event for the West, which is paying the price for centuries of extermination and exploitation. 

From the opposite perspective, the great migration is the main instrument of a project (we do not know whether deliberate or formed by the random sum of independent actions) aimed at gradually replacing the European population with migrants arriving on the continent in large numbers. These migrants enjoy the European welfare state while retaining their own ways of life which, in some fundamental ways, are incompatible with the ideological foundations of the Western welfare state itself. In short, according to the attitude of "the great substitution", Europe is only destroying itself by taking in migrants without limit. 

Each of these two attitudes has developed corresponding "rhetorics". In the context of her book, Simone understands rhetorics to be narratives, partly true and partly false, which originate from different sources, and whose purpose is to justify the chosen point of view. Rhetoric employs typical mechanisms, for example: creating paradoxical associations between causes and effects, which cause surprise; or drawing analogies between apparently related but substantially different events. 

These mechanisms often produce visions that do not entirely coincide with reality, but are credible to us because of the portion of truth they incorporate. Moreover, rhetorics contain a strong emotional component and media appeal, which help them to spread among citizens and to consolidate themselves as diffuse convictions. 

Simone develops in his work the rhetorics, understood in this precise sense, that characterise the "guilty Europe" attitude: "[Europeans] get what we deserve", "Europe will be saved by immigration"; "[migrants] are a small percentage"; "we are all migrants, we are all mestizos"; or "in the age of globalisation, there are no borders". 

For our part, we can add the rhetoric that shapes the discourses underpinning the "great substitution" perspective: "migrants take our jobs"; "migrants take advantage of our welfare state without contributing to it"; "migrants bring insecurity and increased crime to our societies"; and, ultimately, "migrants are at the origin of terrorism". 

It is relatively easy to see how these narratives, which simplify and sometimes trivialize migration issues, weave the discourses about migration that occupy the public space. An example of each of the two attitudes: in the debate that confronted President J. Biden on June 27, D. Trump exhibited practically all the rhetorics of “the great substitution”: he accused Biden of having created work only “for illegal immigrants" ("immigrants take our jobs"); he argued that social security and Medicare are on the verge of collapse because migrants are “destroying” them (“immigrants take advantage of our welfare state without contributing to it”); or he made statements such as “migrants are murdering and raping our women” or that “terrorists from all over the world” are entering the southern border of the United States (“immigrants bring insecurity and increased crime to our societies”; “immigrants are at the origin of terrorism”). 

Opposing rhetorics, underpinning the "guilty Europe" attitude, are also very frequent: the Venice Biennale 2024, currently underway, has as its slogan "Stranieri Ovunque" ("Foreigners everywhere"), framed in the rhetoric "we are all migrants, we are all mestizos"; the rhetoric linking globalisation with the relaxation / suppression of borders is present in essays such as "Open borders. The science and ethics of immigratión" (2019); headlines such as “Investing in migrants is investing in our society of the future” or “immigration is beneficial for all if managed correctly” are in line with the idea “Europe will be saved by immigration”, etc. 

In short, Professor Simone's essay attempts to provide, in our opinion, an equidistant view of the migratory processes, by presenting the arguments for and against them in a nuanced way; on the other hand, he contextualises them appropriately in the current European scenario and, finally, he makes an attempt to systematise the stereotypical discourses that underpin attitudes towards migration. 

Luis Guerra holds a PhD in Philology and is a researcher in communication and migration.