Casos Boat People na crise dos refugiados

Resumo: Embora historicamente a filosofia seja uma referência constante no debate acerca dos direitos humanos, nota-se o pouco destaque que ela tem ocupado em relação à crise dos refugiados. Certamente, o pensamento filosófico tem recursos a oferecer e pode contribuir com essa importante e urgente situação de nosso tempo. O filósofo francês Michel Foucault (1926-1984) preocupava-se com o problema migratório do século XXI, em especial com o caso dos refugiados Boat People, algo que infelizmente se confirma cada vez mais. Nesse sentido, o conceito de biopolítica desenvolvido por Foucault apresenta uma interessante perspectiva ao analisar como as tecnologias de biopoder e a governamentalidade da gestão de riscos constituem aspectos fundamentais da atual crise dos refugiados. Método: A metodologia aplicada segue a base da pesquisa filosófica, com a exposição e articulação de conceitos que embasam o argumento desse artigo. A contextualização do argumento é feita com a descrição do caso Boat People da Indochina (1978) e do caso Boat People do Mediterrâneo (2018), observando as operações Mare Nostrum e Triton. O objetivo não é realizar uma comparação entre os casos Boat People, mas destacar que além dos 40 anos que separam cada evento, é possível identificar aspectos de uma governamentalidade biopolítica envolvendo a soberania nacional e a intervenção humanitária. Ao propor uma reflexão acerca do contexto apresentado, o argumento busca desenvolver o que pode ser chamado de ‘triângulo de Foucault’. Com isso, é importante considerar que o triângulo de Foucault tem menos pretensão de ser uma metodologia do trabalho científico, para ser mais um conjunto heurístico de instruções para pesquisas. Desse modo, a interdisciplinaridade desempenha uma função fundamental para a compreensão do argumento, contando com estudos do âmbito do direito, da antropologia, da história, das relações internacionais e do paradigma emergente Security Studies. Discussão: O objetivo desse artigo é propor uma reflexão filosófica acerca da atual crise dos refugiados. Para tanto, o pensamento de Foucault é escolhido por dois motivos: primeiro, pela atuação de Foucault em favor do Boat People de 1978; segundo, pelos instrumentos teóricos oferecidos pela perspectiva biopolítica desenvolvida pelo autor francês. A discussão considera as articulações entre práticas governamentais de resgate, de proteção e de securitização, tanto quanto discursos políticos de soberania nacional, de intervenção humanitária, de gestão de riscos. Portanto, busca-se refletir como o presságio anunciado por Foucault pode se tornar um modo de diagnosticar a atual crise dos refugiados. Resultados: Pode haver uma contribuição da filosofia em relação à atual crise dos refugiados, à medida que a reflexão filosófica pode prover esforços que privilegiam a interdisciplinaridade. A perspectiva biopolítica coloca a questão da vida, do ser humano enquanto espécie, no centro do debate sobre as práticas governamentais. Isso não significa negar o sistema de garantias ou negligenciar todas as responsabilidades atribuídas ao longo do tempo; contudo, é preciso refletir que talvez não seja por acaso que o crescente agravamento da crise dos refugiados seja signo e desafio para nosso tempo.

Finding “Angels” for the Boat People

This chapter covers evangelical resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees from 1975 to the early 1980s. During this time, a number of evangelical organizations ran resettlement ministries and refugee service programs. This chapter describes the professionalization of evangelical refugee resettlement, including the founding of the first evangelical resettlement agency, World Relief Refugee Services. Evangelical volunteers and former missionaries to Vietnam played a significant role in running recreational and educational activities in the refugee resettlement camps in the mid-1970s. These “missionaries without a country” became an important resource for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which relied on their interpreting and translating services. By differentiating between mainstream evangelical and progressive evangelical responses to the government’s appeal for evangelical sponsors, this chapter shows that evangelicals’ political stances on the US involvement in Vietnam fundamentally shaped their response to the refugees.

Mystery ships and risky "Boat People" : a discourse analysis of newsprint media and coverage of the 2009 Tamil refugee migration

This study seeks to identify how Canadian newsprint media portrayed seventy-six Tamil refugees who arrived off the coast of Victoria, British Columbia on October 17, 2009. The corpus consists of articles published between October 2009 to January 2010 from The Vancouver Sun, The Toronto Star, and National Post. Using discourse analysis, I questioned issues of framing, representation, and identity and sought to understand how the Tamil refugee migration was understood within public dialogue. The study found that there was an overall negative representation of the Tamil refugees as the press emphasized issues of criminality and terrorism, and constructed the refugees as 'risky'. The discussion placed security -- rather than human rights -- as a focal point and portrayed the immigration system as both "failing" and "abused" by "bogus claimants". This security framework provided the necessary political environment for refugee reform Bill C-11 to be ushered through parliament later that spring.

Mystery ships and risky "Boat People" : a discourse analysis of newsprint media and coverage of the 2009 Tamil refugee migration

This study seeks to identify how Canadian newsprint media portrayed seventy-six Tamil refugees who arrived off the coast of Victoria, British Columbia on October 17, 2009. The corpus consists of articles published between October 2009 to January 2010 from The Vancouver Sun, The Toronto Star, and National Post. Using discourse analysis, I questioned issues of framing, representation, and identity and sought to understand how the Tamil refugee migration was understood within public dialogue. The study found that there was an overall negative representation of the Tamil refugees as the press emphasized issues of criminality and terrorism, and constructed the refugees as 'risky'. The discussion placed security -- rather than human rights -- as a focal point and portrayed the immigration system as both "failing" and "abused" by "bogus claimants". This security framework provided the necessary political environment for refugee reform Bill C-11 to be ushered through parliament later that spring.

'Boat People' and Discursive Bordering: Australian Parliamentary Discourses on Asylum Seekers, 1977-2013

This article draws upon content analysis of Australian parliamentary transcripts to examine debates about asylum seekers who arrived by boat in three historical periods: 1977–1979, 1999–2001, and 2011–2013. We analyze term frequency and co-occurrence to identify patterns in specific usage of the phrase “boat people.” We then identify how the term is variously deployed in Parliament and discuss the relationship between these uses and government policy and practice. We conclude that forms of “discursive bordering” have amplified representations of asylum seekers as security threats to be controlled within and outside Australia’s sovereign territory. The scope of policy or legislative responses to boat arrivals is limited by a poverty of political language, thus corroborating recent conceptual arguments about the securitization and extra-territorialization of the contemporary border.

A (Lay) Catholic Voice Against a National Consensus

In both a canon law student’s essay and in oral remarks to the 2017 Onclin Chair conference at KU Leuven, the author critiques his own country’s closed border consensus excluding admission of boat people. He argues this political consensus in Australia is at odds with the celebrated national identity of Australians. Moreover, the author identifies that the closed border consensus is contrary to the Gospel, because it does not welcome the stranger and because it betrays the universality of the love of neighbour which the Gospel demands. The author argues that the voice of the Catholic lay person is not to remain silent, but is to speak out against the injustice of the policy because the Gospel, the magisterium of the Second Vatican Council in its decree on the Apostolate of the laity, the Canon law, Catholic moral theology and the dictates of conscience all demand the articulation of a contrary view.