Adam Dombovari, Author at Migration Views

Lori Thorlakson: EU Migration Policy Brief

Nearly one million asylum seekers, many from Syria, have arrived in the European Union in 2015. The European Commission has responded by identifying migration as one of its top policy priorities. It introduced its European Agenda on Migration in May, 2015.

EU policy draws upon, and all EU member states are bound by the Geneva Convention on the status of refugees. The EU Asylum Procedures Directive relies on the Geneva Convention definition of a refugee, and all member states are bound by the Geneva Convention to abide by the principle of non-refoulement, which requires that no state return a refugee to territory where they can come to harm due to their race, religion, nationality, social group membership or political views.

The Treaty of Lisbon increased the powers of the EU in the European area for Freedom, Security and Justice. The treaty provides for a common policy on asylum, immigration, visa and external border controls.

The common asylum policy has several aims:

• Creating fairer and more consistent procedures for the reception and registration of asylum seekers
• Humane reception conditions
• Harmonization of qualification rules for asylum-seekers
• Establishing the country responsible for managing the asylum application
• Information sharing, through a fingerprint database, to fight organized crime.

The European Commission is now focusing on implementing the provisions of the common asylum policy as quickly and effectively as possible. The Asylum Procedures Directive was reformed in the summer of 2015 to speed up asylum applications from asylum seekers coming from countries on a ‘safe country of origin’ list. Several EU countries currently have their own safe country of origin list, determined at the national level, but member states disagree on which countries should receive the SCO designation. In the fall of 2015, the European Union was working on legislation that would establish a common list of safe countries of origin in order to support more uniform processing of asylum applications and to reduce incentives asylum-seekers have for targeting certain EU member states for asylum applications.

A common EU Safe Country of Origin list would mostly affect applicants from the Western Balkans, the second-largest source group of asylum applicants to the EU after Syria. Currently, Kosovo is not on the SCO lists maintained by Bulgaria, France, Ireland, Latvia, Malta and Slovakia. The SCO list proposed by the Commission includes Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.

While asylum policy is made at the EU level, it is implemented at the member state level. The EU continues to press for the even implementation of asylum policy across member states in order to secure its policy goals. In December, 2015, the European Commission initiated infringement procedures against Greece, Croatia, Italy, Malta and Hungary for failing to implement certain provisions of the common asylum policy.

One of the more complex policy challenges for the European Union is addressing the uneven distribution of asylum seekers across EU member states. While Germany has taken in the largest number of asylum seekers, Hungary and Sweden have high rates of asylum seekers per capita.

The EU is attempting to reform the Dublin Regulation, which sets down rules for determining the member state responsible for processing asylum applications. The regulation was not designed for the situation of large migrant flows that the EU sees today and as a result, the EU has had to search for redistribution mechanisms beyond the Dublin rules. In September, 2015, interior ministers in the Council of Ministers agreed on plan to impose quotas on countries to reallocate migrants. The Council voted by qualified majority voting, with four dissenting member states: Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and the Czech Republic. The use of QMV in this Council decision was unusual and reflects the urgency of the situation. Although the treaty allows for QMV, the Council usually operates by consensus on sensitive issues.

Other elements of the EU policy response:

• The EU has devoted 60 million euros of emergency funding for frontline states, including Greece and Hungary and has deployed ‘hotspot’ Migration Management Support teams in Italy and Greece to support the processing of asylum claims.

• The EU is also devoting resources to help support countries that are hosting a large number of refugees (Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey), supporting the UNHCR and other organizations in their humanitarian work, and devoting resources to policies aimed at regional stabilization and development. It has allocated over 2 billion euros from the EU budget into trust funds to support Syria and North Africa and is now seeking to match this funding with contributions from the national budgets of EU member states.

• The EU has increased funding for Triton and Poseidon, joint operations of Frontex, the EU border management agency. These operations patrol the Mediterranean to help prevent drowning tragedies at sea. The EU has also increased funding to combat human trafficking. The EU is seeking to extend the mandate of Frontex in the future to create a European border and coast guard.

Dr. Lori Thorlakson is Associate Professor and Jean Monnet Chair in the Department of Political Science, and Director of the European Union Centre of Excellence at the University of Alberta.

Anna Kirova: Role of school in smoother transition and acculturation of refugee families with young children

Over the past few months I have been “glued” to any screen showing the thousands of refugees on the roads of Europe–some walking, some being pushed on wheelchairs, and many children being carried on their fathers’ shoulders or in their mothers’ arms—and many crowded around fences, trying to push themselves through, to pass a child over the fence, or to try to convince the police officers that they must be let through. These images brought me back to 1989-90 when, along with thousands of other Bulgarians, we were allowed to “enter” the Western world after living behind the Iron Curtain since the Second World War. Not unlike the events in the past months, the West opened its doors, for only a brief moment, to let some of us in, and then closed again until 2007 when Bulgaria became part of the European Union in its fifth wave of expansion. The lineups for visas were miles long; people were sleeping outside the European embassies’ high walls to keep their spot in line so that they have a better chance to get in the door the next day; children were crying, tired and bored, or simply hungry because their mothers would not leave their spot to go look for food once the food they carried in their handbags was eaten. None of us was certain that a “door to happiness” would be open the next day at all. I was among those in the queue in front of the French embassy waiting to get to my one-entry visa so that my five-year old son and I could join my husband in Paris, France.

The endless queues for visas, for translation of legal documents, and other necessary paperwork were not the worst in my memory, however. It was the uncertainly–the fear of the unknown–that kept me awake at night or resulted in vivid nightmares. A re-occurring one is still engraved in my mind. In the dream, my son and I were walking on a country road, surrounded by strangers who did not speak our language. I held my son’s hand tightly but then I tripped over something and let go of his little hand… I got up in only a few seconds, looked round to find him but he was gone! I could not see him. I started running even faster than before, bumping into people, asking them if they had seen him only to encounter their empty eyes, briefly glancing into mine and moving away… No one understood what I was asking or why I was crying since I was not visibly hurt. No one seemed to have time to stop for even a moment. I kept on shouting his name from the top of my lungs, but nothing could overcome the noise of the crowd of thousands of strangers, going somewhere, or nowhere… I did not know why I was among these people; there was no one that I knew and could turn to for help… I was all alone in the world and responsible for my missing child.

When watching the parents holding their children’s hands, carrying them or simply walking by them, I realized that they are living my own twenty-five year old nightmare. When I would awake still shaken by those dreams, I’d turn to see if my son was sleeping in his bed next to mine and once relieved that he was, order would be restored to my world. These refugees do not have such luxury. They continue to walk forward, determined to get to their destination even when some of their children are already dead or missing… What is the future going to be like for them and for their children? Will the pain, the sacrifice, the fear and the loss be left behind to make room for opportunities or fulfill their hopes, dreams and aspirations?

My journey as a refugee to Canada has shaped my career as an academic and an educator. Like many researchers from countries that accept refugees, I have tried to understand the experiences of families who, like my own, came to a strange place full with hopes for a better, brighter more stable, and certainly more prosperous future for their children. I have also tried to understand the factors that can make the experiences of transition and acculturation smoother and more successful particularly for refugee families with young children.

The literature on refugee resettlement in Western countries suggests that the post-migration period is far from easy for refugees. Social isolation, discrimination, poverty, lack of affordable housing, unemployment or underemployment (Kirova & McCoy, 2015), and increased mental health needs due to high levels of pre-migration trauma are commonly reported issues facing refugee families post-settlement (Beiser, 2009; Ellis, MacDonald, Lincoln, & Cabral, 2008; Fazel, Reed, Panter-Brick, & Stein, 2012; George, 2002; Porter & Haslam, 2005). In addition, as for other newcomers, unfamiliarity with the political, social, economic, and cultural context of the resettlement country and, in many cases, lack of the official language proficiency, make the first few years of transition particularly challenging for refugee parents (Adams & Kirova, 2007; Ali, 2008; Beiser, 2009; Garcia Coll et al., 2009; George, 2002; McBrien, 2005, 2011).

Acculturative stress results in changes in family dynamics. Refugee families with young children are torn by (a) parental feelings of guilt, failure, or grief for not having been able to provide for the basic safety and well-being of their children; (b) separation of family members and fear for the lives of the relatives left behind; (c) experiences associated with the terrors of war such as death and torture which often result in post-traumatic stress disorder; and (d) lack of hope to return to their country of origin due to war and complete destruction (Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2001).

Once resettled, like many parents, refugee families want to support their children’s success in school, but do not know what kind of parents the school expected them to be. Feeling intimidated by the school system is only one of many barriers to involvement in Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs and schools that immigrant and refugee families report (Turney & Kao, 2009). Linguistic differences, lack of program/school support (Song & Wang, 2006), teacher bias or other discrimination issues (Eberly, Joshi & Konzal, 2007; Adair, 2009), not understanding program/school expectations for involvement (Bernhard, 2010), holding different views of education and the parental role (Adair, 2009), and lack of material resources and/or time (Adams & Kirova, 2007; Souto-Manning & Swick, 2006), are also aspects of these families’ encounters with their children’s schools.

The challenges young children from refugee families face in school come in part from the different, sometimes conflicting goals of their families and their schools as socialisation agents. Problems emerge when, as it is the case with immigrant and refugee families, there is a change in the family’s daily life, accompanied by structural and economic change. Research suggests that such changes are more dramatic for the families from rural areas in countries characterized by close knit societies, and whose cultural and historical contexts have established a socialization pattern aimed at developing socio-affective aspects of cognitive competence (Nsamenang, 2010).

The risk of misrepresenting children’s capabilities (e.g., Espinosa, 2005; Worthman, 2003) based on tools that measure children’s development in relation to norms established by Western developmental psychology is that such practices may lead to over-identifying children from non-Western cultural backgrounds as delayed (Heydon & Iannacci, 2008). Bottani (2006) argues that the OECD’s (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) “evaluation system measures competence but not authentic knowledge” and that “the exaggerated importance attributed to these evaluations penalises foreign students who constitute a consistently growing minority in these countries” (as cited in Pampanini, 2010, p. 101). Thus, “children of colour, children growing up in poverty and English language learners” are seen as “at-risk”, possessing “deficits”, and “lagging” behind their peers in foundational skills needed for academic achievement (NAEYC, 2009, p. 6). By extension, these children’s families are also depicted as deficient (Souto-Manning & Swick, 2006), or “empty containers, which need to be filled before they can give anything of value to the schools or to their own offspring” (Lightfoot, 2004, p. 93). Therefore, not only the newcomer children but also their parents are seen as in need of learning the right way of being and behaving in their new context.

The discourse of “needy” children and parents suggests that “the power base which determines which people are more likely to be successful in life is uneven right from the start as children start school with hugely different amounts of the ‘right’ kind of cultural capital” (O’Connor, 2011, p. 117). Furthermore, these families frequently do not possess the resources, skills, and familiarity with the dominant social arrangements in schools to acquire and activate this “right kind” of capital (Lareau, 2000; Levine-Rasky, 2009). Since preservice teachers, at least in North America, are educated into a developmental framework based on research with Western, white middle-class children, the cultural capital of immigrant and refugee families is largely invisible or inaccessible to them (Bernhard, 2010). The “right kind” of capital is often reflected in curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, therefore young children from such backgrounds continue to be viewed as inadequate in relation to preset developmental norms and expectations. Yosso (2005) asserts that “…schools most often work from this assumption in structuring ways to help ‘disadvantaged’ students whose race and class backgrounds have left them lacking necessary knowledge, social skills, abilities and cultural capital” ( p. 70).

The question then becomes, what changes within the education system are needed in order to make the experiences of transition from home to school smoother and more successful for refugee families with young children?

My collaborative research with colleagues and with refugee communities (i.e. Somali, Kurdish and Sudanese) has demonstrated that the inclusion of home language, culture, and parents in early learning programs has far-reaching significance for children who are growing up in and needing to navigate two cultural realities (Kirova, in press; Ogilvie, Fleming, Kirova, Ortiz, Rastin, Caufield, Burgess-Pinto & Dastjerdi, 2014). Providing continuity between home and school that helps foster a sense of belonging can be achieved through the following program elements that support children‘s linguistic and cultural rights:

1. Culturally relevant, strength-based early learning practices that are inclusive of culturally relevant curriculum content and delivery, as well as the assessment of children’s learning needs and strengths. In order to meaningfully include children’s home culture in the program, it is essential that the early learning curriculum be co-created with the participation of parents, classroom facilitators, and the broader community. This approach requires conversations with parents and communities about how children learn, what should they learn, and how can their knowledge be adequately assessed so that the school experiences build on their strengths, while addressing their needs. Only then can the curriculum be truly reflective of children’s culture as well as deeply intercultural, going beyond a simplistic, superficial “inclusion” of culture and language and assessment practices (Dachyshyn & Kirova, 2011; Kirova & Paradis, 2010; Kirova, 2010; Kirova, 2013; Kirova & Hennig, 2013; MCHB, 2010).

2. Multi-lingual, intercultural classrooms in which first language facilitators (FLFs) are present on a daily basis. FLFs are members of the ethno-cultural communities from which the children in the program come from and therefore speak the language and understand the cultural context of the participating children and families. Their role therefore, extends beyond that of the interpreter/translator; FLFs contribute to the development of culturally and linguistically relevant curriculum and activities, help problem solve and support students in culturally appropriate ways, and communicate with the families involved. The daily presence of FLFs provides continuity between the school and home environment, communicates to children and their families that they are welcome and a vital part of the school environment, and ultimately contributes to a sense of belonging and increased participation in learning (Kirova, 2012; Massing, Kirova, & Hennig, 2013, MCHB, 2010; Paradis & Kirova, 2014).

3. Collaborative partnerships among families, communities, and schools allow for the exploration of culturally different ways of knowing and delivering support, and utilization of the different expertise each partner brings to the table. Collaboration is both an ongoing endeavour and a goal so time for interaction, reflection, and planning that result in collaboration needs to be built into the program in various ways (e.g., monthly or weekly parent and team meetings, creative explorations of culture and tradition with parents and staff, and daily interactions with parents (Dachyshyn & Kirova, 2011; Kirova, Pente, & Massing, 2014).

4. Wrap-around support and availability of cultural brokers that provide holistic support for newcomer families, with cultural brokers providing cultural and linguistic mediation, as well as navigational support so that families can access services and supports relevant to settlement and health. A key assumption behind this type of holistic support is that in order for newcomer families to be able to fully participate in the program, their multiple needs must be met and existing barriers removed. Cultural brokers are individuals who work primarily outside of the classroom to provide wrap-around support to the families whose children are enrolled in the intercultural early learning program. As members of the cultural communities they serve, they support the families with home visits and referrals for a variety of supports related to their needs as newcomers. As members of the program team, they bring their knowledge of the family contexts and cultural communities to reflection and planning of the curriculum and other daily, culturally relevant activities (Dachyshyn & Kirova, 2011; Ford & Georgis, 2012; MCHB, 2010).

Programs for young refugee and immigrant children that have all four elements listed above are far from being prevalent in Canada or elsewhere. In order to develop and maintain such programs each country that is now facing an unprecedented number of refugees must engage in a conversation about the kind of society its citizens want to have. In such conversations, a shift in focus must occur: from being mainly around the question “Can we afford the cost of programs that support children‘s linguistic and cultural rights?” to being mainly around the question “Can we afford not to have such programs?” In other words, we need to ask ourselves, are we, as a society, prepared to live with the consequences of millions of people’s shattered dreams that could easily become Paris-like nightmares?

References

Adams, L., & Kirova, A. (Eds.). (2007). Global migration and education: Schools, children and families. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Adair, J. K. (2009). Teaching child of immigrants: A multi-sited ethnographic study of preschool teachers in five U.S. cities (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Arizona State University, Phoenix (UMI No. 3360743).

Ali, M. A. (2008). Loss of parenting self-efficacy among immigrant parents. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 9, 148–160.

Beiser, M. (2009). Resettling refugees and safeguarding their mental health: Lessons learned from the Canadian refugee resettlement project. Transcultural Psychiatry, 46, 539–583.

Bernhard, J. (2010). From theory to practice: Engaging immigrant parents in their children’s education. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 56(3), 319-334.

Dachyshyn, D., & Kirova, A. (2011). Classroom challenges in developing an intercultural early
learning program for refugee children. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 57, http://ajer.synergiesprairies.ca/ajer/index.php/ajer/article/view/893

Eberly, J. L., Joshi, A., & Konzal, J. (2007). Communicating with families across cultures: An investigation of teacher perceptions and practices. The School Community Journal, 17(2), 7–26.

Ellis, B. H., MacDonald, H. Z., Lincoln, A. K., & Cabral, H. J. (2008). Mental health of Somali adolescent refugees: The role of trauma, stress, and perceived discrimination. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76, 184–193.

Espinosa, L. M. (2005). Curriculum and assessment considerations for young children from culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse backgrounds. Psychology in the Schools, 42(8), 837–853.

Fazel, M., Reed, R., V., Panter-Brick, C., & Stein, A. (2012). Mental health of displaced and refugee children resettled in high-income countries: Risk and protective factors. Lancet, 37, 266–282.

Garcia Coll, C., Akiba, D., Palacios, N., Bailey, B., Silver, R., DiMartino, L., & Chin, C. (2002). Parental involvement in children’s education: Lessons from three immigrant groups. Parenting: Science and Practice, 2, 303–324.

George, U. (2002). A needs-based model for settlement service delivery for newcomers to Canada. International Social Work, 45, 465–480.

Heydon, R. M., & Iannacci, L. (2008). Early childhood curricula and the de-pathologizing of childhood. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

Kirova, A. (2013). Children’s representations of cultural scripts in play: Facilitating transition from home to preschool in an intercultural early learning program for refugee children. In V. Pacini-Ketchabaw & L. Prochner (Eds.) Re-situating Canadian early childhood education (pp. 146-172). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Kirova, A., & Hennig, K. (2013). Culturally responsive assessment practices: Examples from an intercultural multilingual early learning program for newcomer children. Power and Education, 5(2), 107-119.

Kirova, A., & Pente, P., & Massing, C., D. (2014). Cultural negotiations of sense of place through shared parent-child art-making in a preschool for immigrant children. In M., McCabe & C., A. Brewer (Eds.), Working with families and children of immigrants, refugees, and migrant workers in Canadian educational settings (pp. 89-112). Edmonton, AB: Brush Education Inc.

Kirova, A. (in press). Challenges and rewards in working with displaced children and families: Early childhood practitioners’ strategies for engaging with linguistic and ethnic diversity. In A. Farrell & I. P. Samuelson (Eds.) Diversity: Intercultural learning and teaching in the early years. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kirova, A, & McCoy, J. (2015). Immigration Settlement Services and Gaps in 8 selected communities in Alberta. Provincial Report prepared for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (https://www.brandonu.ca/rdi/files/2015/09/Alberta-Provincial-Report1.pdf)

Lareau, A. (2000). Social Class and the Daily Lives of Children: A study from the United States, Childhood, 7(2): 155-171.

Levine-Rasky, C. (2009). Dynamics of parent involvement at a multicultural school. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(3), 331–344.

Lightfoot, S. L. (2003). The essential conversation: What teachers and parents can learn from each other. New York: Random House

Massing,D., C., Kirova, A., & Hennig, K. (2013). The role of first language facilitators in including newcomer families’ funds of knowledge in an intercultural preschool program. Canadian Children, 38(2), 4-14.

McBrien, J. L. (2005). Educational needs and barriers for refugee students in the United States: A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 75, 329–364.

McBrien, J. L. (2011). The importance of context: Vietnamese, Somali, and Iranian refugee mothers discuss their resettled lives and involvement in their children’s school. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 41, 75–90.

Multicultural Health Brokers Co-op. (December 2010). The intercultural early learning program: A report and learning summary. Edmonton, AB: Author.

National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2009). Position statement. In C. Copple & S. Bredekamp (Eds.), Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8 (pp. 1–31). Washington, DC: Author.

Nsamenang, A. B. (2010). Issues in and challenges to professionalism in Africa’s cultural settings. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 11, 20–28. doi: 10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.20

O’Connor, J. (2011). Applying Bourdieu’s concepts of social and cultural capital and habitus to early years research. In T. Waller, J. Whitmarsh & K. Clarke (Eds.), Making sense of theory and practice in early childhood: The power of ideas (pp. 115–127). Maidenhead Berkshire, UK: Open University Press.

Ogilvie, L., Kirova, A., Dastjerdi, M., & Chiu, Y. (in press). Best practices in early childhood development programs in newcomer populations. In 4th edition of Canadian Community as Partner: Theory & Multidisciplinary Practice. Wolters Kluwer Press.

Ogilvie, L., Fleming, D., Kirova, A., Ortiz, L, Rastin, S., Caufield, C., Burgess-Pinto, E., & Dastjerdi, M. (2014). Matching policies to needs in early childhood development programs in newcomer populations. In M., McCabe & C., A. Brewer (Eds.), Working with families and children of immigrants, refugees, and migrant workers in Canadian educational settings (pp. 65-89). Edmonton, AB: Brush Education Inc.

Pampanini, G. (2010). Society, interculturalism, and education: An international panorama. In G. Pampanini, F. Adly, & D. B. Napier (Eds.), Interculturalism, society and education (pp. 95–149). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Paradis, J., Kirova, A. (2014). English second language learners in preschool: Profile effects in their English abilities and the role of home language environment. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 38(4), 342-349.

Porter, M., & Haslam, N. (2005). Predisplacement and postdisplacement factors associated with mental health of refugees and internally displayed persons: A meta-analysis. Journal of the American Medical Association, 294, 602–612.

Souto-Manning, M., & Swick, K. J. (2006). Teachers’ beliefs about parent and family involvement: Rethinking our family involvement paradigm. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34, 187–193. doi: 10.1007/s10643-006-0063-5

Suárez -Orozco, C., & Suárez -Orozco, M. (2001). Children of immigrants. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Turney, K., & Kao, G. (2009). Barriers to school involvement: Are immigrant parents disadvantaged? The Journal of Educational Research, 102(4), 257-271.

Worthman, S. C. (2003). Assessing and reporting young children’s progress: A review of the issues. In A. P. Isenberg & M. R. Jalongo (Eds.), Major trends and issues in early childhood education (2nd edition) (pp. 97–113). New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press.

Yosso, T., J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69-91.

Dr. Anna Kirova is a Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta.

Sara Carpenter: Youth in Transition: War, Migration, and ‘Regenerative Possibilities’ (Video)

Dr. Sara Carpenter is an Assistant Professor of Adult, Community and Higher Education in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Alberta. She is co-investigator on the SSHRC Insight project Youth in Transition: War, Migration, and ‘Regenerative Possibilities’, led by Dr. Shahrzad Mojab, Professor in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education at the University of Toronto.

Nicole Lugosi: Hungary’s unsurprising response to the 2015 migration crisis in Europe: Right wing populism hijacks post-9/11 discourse

Since summer there has been intense spotlight on the migration crisis in Europe. The numbers of migrants fleeing poverty and conflict from Syria, North Africa, and Afghanistan are staggering. In December the International Organization for Migration estimated that approximately 909 000 migrants and refugees have crossed European borders in 2015. Many are fleeing war-torn Syria, where ISIS-led violence has reached catastrophic levels for civilians. The international community has been very critical of Hungary’s less than friendly response. Tactics used to control the flow of migrants at the southern Hungarian-Serbian border included water cannons, tear gas, and detaining people in makeshift refugee camps. Then came the fence, erected on the southern border to keep migrants out. Hungary’s position, evidenced by the harsh policies and political rhetoric, is clear: migrants and refugees are not welcome. While troubling, Hungary’s hostile response is not a surprise given the country’s political trajectory toward far right populism in recent years. Further, the response is also in line with an equally problematic global discourse about the Muslim world prevalent across industrialized democracies since the terror attacks of 9/11.

Hungary was once regarded as the model of successful democratic transition among the countries that joined the European Union in 2004. Since Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party was elected in 2010, Hungary has shifted toward right-wing populism, raising alarm bells among the European Commission, the international community, and academics. Populist messages to the public have drawn on narratives of authoritarianism, nationalism, and xenophobia to justify restrictive media laws, the erosion of minority rights, discriminatory laws against marginalized populations, and a re-drafting of the constitution that compromises the safeguards of liberal constitutionalism. In this political climate, Orbán has, unsurprisingly, taken a tough stance to deter migrants and refugees from Hungary, even those passing through to the wealthier northern EU countries as Germany or Sweden. The November 13, 2015 ISIS attacks in Paris have only thrown more fuel on the populist fire by adding the threat of terrorism to the anti-migrant debates. Currently, the EU is scrambling to craft a coherent refugee resettlement plan that Orbán has publicly rejected. At a November 20th meeting of Hungarian leaders in Budapest, Orbán surmised that 400 000 – 500 000 Syrian refugees might be brought into the EU via Turkey and pressure would be on the Visagrad countries (Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) to take in their share of people. As the PM put it, “This nasty surprise still awaits Europeans” (Dunai, 2015). The PM further insisted that Hungary cannot and will not accept such a proposal.

Orbán’s frosty attitude toward the refugees is not out of the blue. In April, the Prime Minister’s Office announced the launch of a public survey questionnaire that would be used to gauge Hungarian citizens’ attitudes toward immigration. International organizations like the United Nations have blasted the survey as unfair and biased by not so subtly linking immigration to terrorism. The survey opens with a message from the PM noting that incompetent policies by Brussels and the European Union contributed to the five ISIS attacks across Île-de-France (including Paris) in January 2015, thereby stressing the urgency of immigration policy reform in Hungary. Four of the twelve questions explicitly mention terrorism (Government of Hungary, 2015). While the questionnaire is aimed at curtailing would-be economic migrants, the current public discourses do not adequately distinguish between economic migrants and legitimate asylum seekers (about 80% of migrants) fleeing war and conflict.

While more nuanced, Fidesz’ approach to the migration crisis sounds chillingly close the political rhetoric of Hungary’s third largest party, Jobbik, led by Gábor Vona. This is concerning because Jobbik’s extreme position is obvious and has been widely critiqued by groups like the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance that describe the party as racist, fascist, homophobic, and hyper-nationalist (Council of Europe, 2015). Jobbik has openly engaged nationalism insisting that Hungary is for ‘real Hungarians’, that is heteronormative, Christian Magyars, and that minority groups such as the Roma or Jews, among others, do not belong and pose a threat to the nation and its values. Such attitudes clearly inform the party’s stance on the current migration crisis in Europe: Migrants compromise Hungary’s security and are not welcome. Throughout the crisis, Jobbik has positioned themselves as the protectors of the nation and in late November, called for a referendum on EU quotas. Like Orbán, Vona has been very critical of Germany and Brussels’ capacity to handle the crisis and the xenophobic mood only intensified the anti-migrant rhetoric after the November ISIS attacks in Paris. Populist elites are using the attacks as evidence for strong arguments on the dangers migrants pose to Europe. For example, similar to Orbán, Vona told a crowd at a rally in Budapest that, “Immigration and terrorism unfortunately go hand in hand” (Associated Press, 2015).

Connecting immigration and terrorism entrenches an insidious form of elite nationalism that creates problems beyond political rhetoric. A single definition of nation, nationalism, and nationality will always be contested as one group, especially a majority, will be favoured in terms of identity and policy (Calhoun, 1997: 98). That creates problems for minorities and migrants who may not fit into the dominant group, especially under oppressive conditions where status and rights may be compromised. Elite nationalism then, is always potentially controversial. What is more, nationalism provides strategic elites with the coherent narrative of protecting the nation and national values, which is especially salient in moments of insecurity (Breuilly, 1993; Waterbury, 2006, 2010).

However, the post-Paris strategy of linking immigration to terrorism is neither new nor confined to Hungary. Drawing links between migrants and the threat of ISIS brings an unsettling dimension to the debates by conflating the Muslim world with terrorism as seen in other countries, most notably the United States, after 9/11. These discourse frames imply that any and all Muslims from certain countries are a potential threat. This is a very powerful rhetorical device for opportunistic elites seeking to capitalize on the public’s very real fears following an attack like the one seen in Paris. Such framing is very problematic, following a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ style logic, made famous by Samuel Huntington’s widely cited article by the same name in Foreign Affairs that really took hold in the post-9/11 era. For Huntington, the Muslim world is fundamentally opposed to Christian values and is characterized by backwardness, inherent violence, and oppression rooted in radical religion (1993). It is important to consider how those discourses construct and reproduce the dangerous ‘Other’ and what can happen when we are constantly exposed over time to ‘us versus them’ notions of particular people from particular places. These discourses feed into an institutionalized, structural type of racism, where people are being discriminated against in nuanced ways that inform and justify policy. This is a quiet yet perilous form of racist xenophobia because such beliefs become an unquestioned part of the ‘way things are’ and that certain people, by virtue of their religion or culture, automatically pose a threat. Essentializing diverse groups into one over-simplistic category of race only fosters a culture of fear and suspicion and does not help combat terrorism in any meaningful way considering that extremists like ISIS speak loudly for people they do not really represent.

In sum, while the sheer volume of migration flows into Europe is new, the hostile response by Hungary is not, given the country’s shift to the far right in recent years. The immigration-terrorism connection heightens the debate to a security narrative reminiscent of the post-9/11 era. Following the November 13 Paris attacks, we are again witnessing a Huntington-style approach to culture, a dangerous and problematic narrative that fuels the already burning fires of nationalism, xenophobia, and racism. Even more concerning, Hungary is not alone, as other countries in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) have espoused similar sentiments. If the current climate of fear and insecurity persists, it is foreseeable that the place of right wing populism will be securely anchored in Hungary and the wider CEE region. On a final note, it is important to not lose sight of the human tragedy that triggered the migration crisis in all of these debates. After all, there are scores of men, women, and children fleeing war-torn countries, desperately seeking help from the international community.

References

Associated Press. (18 November, 2015). “The Latest: Hungary’s far-right Jobbik party calls for referendum on EU’s refugee quota plan.” Retrieved from: http://www.
timescolonist.com/the-latest-hungary-s-far-right-jobbik-party-calls-forreferendum
-on-eu-s-refugee-quota-plan-1.2114015

Breuilly, John. (1993). Nationalism and the State (2nd ed.), Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Calhoun, Craig. (1997). Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Council of Europe. (2015). European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance Report on Hungary, Adopted 19 March, 2015. Strasbourg. Retrieved from
https://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/ecri/Country-by-country/Hungary/HUN-CbC-V-2015-19-ENG.pdf

Dunai, Marton. (2 December, 2015). “Half a million Syrian refugees could be resettled to EU: Hungary PM” Reuters. Retrieved from: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-orban-idUSKBN0TL0RF20151202#EYh0WrvfShqxb1vx.97

Government of Hungary. (24 April, 2015). “National consultation on immigration to begin.” Prime Minister’s Office. Retrieved from: http://www.kormany.hu/en/prime-minister-s-office/news/national-consultation-on-immigration-to-begin

Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs No. 72: 22- 49.

Waterbury, Myra. (2006). ‘Internal exclusion, external inclusion: Diaspora politics and party-building strategies in post-communist Hungary’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 20, No. 3: 483-515.

Waterbury, Myra. (2010). Between State and Nation: Diaspora Politics and Kin-State Nationalism in Hungary, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Nicole Lugosi is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science and a Doctoral Research Fellow at the European Union Centre of Excellence at the University of Alberta. Her research has earned several awards, including this year’s BMO Financial Group Graduate Scholarship.

Matus Misik: The flawed logic of Central European solidarity

The current refugee crisis indicates that Visegrád countries are only interested in such form of solidarity that is beneficial for them and refuse any shared responsibility for issues that are challenging for the rest of EU member states,

At least since 2009 Central European (CE) countries have been talking a lot about solidarity within the European Union. Caused by a dispute between Russia and Ukraine over the price, the gas crisis that left this part of Europe without the main source of natural gas for several days served as a trigger for solidarity calls at the EU level. Closer cooperation with the western part of the Union was supposed to improve energy security of the eastern part of the community by enabling alternatives sources of energy. In 2009, several CE countries proposed the idea of energy solidarity, while Poland promoted it even sooner – after the smaller-scale gas crisis of 2006. Ultimately, not only was energy solidarity included in the Lisbon Treaty, but the notion also had practical implications as many new, EU-funded diversification projects key for the CE region were launched. Solidarity thus played a crucial part in improving energy security of the Central European countries, and their representatives repeatedly stressed its importance for the functioning of the European Union.

However, with the beginning of the refugee crisis, the rhetoric about solidarity has rapidly changed, especially within the Visegrád Group (V4) states (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia). The countries have been very vocal about their unwillingness to help other member states of the European community tackle the refugee crisis, and are blaming them for the creation of the current crisis. Many representatives of the V4 states claim that the “Western” countries caused the refugee crisis through their involvement in the Syrian war and that it is therefore their duty to deal with the consequences of their actions (including the refugee crisis). Since the Visegrád countries are not directly involved in the Syrian conflict, they are (by that rationale) not obliged to contribute to the solution of the crisis. The CE countries therefore claim that solidarity does not apply in this particular case and even actively fight attempts to impose measures aimed at safeguarding solidarity among EU member states, such as the refugee quota system.

The quota system is a reaction of the EU to the challenges faced by those member states that are the primary destination of the refugees (e.g. Germany, Sweden, Greece and Italy). In order to spread the influx of refugees more evenly, in September 2015 the member states agreed that each EU country will be assigned a specific number of applicants for refugee status. Thanks to this strategy, a total of 120 000 people are supposed to be distributed across Europe in the near future. However, not all member states approved of this idea – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia voted against the proposal. Slovakia is currently even preparing a lawsuit over the quotas, which is to be filed with the European Court of Justice responsible for solving disputes concerning the interpretation and application of EU law. Although Poland voted for the quota system in September and was thus an exception among the Visegrád countries, it changed its position following the parliamentary election in October 2015, which resulted in a political shift and creation of a new conservative government. Now, all four Visegrád states oppose the idea of redistributing refugees from the most affected EU countries.

This basically means that the V4 countries refuse to show solidarity with other EU members. The situation is even worse given the fact that the V4 states were asked to take only a few thousand applicants for refugee status (only Poland was asked to take a higher number – however, less than ten thousand) and the majority of the responsibility still remains with the “main” EU members like Germany or France.

The current position of the V4 countries (but also many other CE states), not only towards the quota system, but also towards the refugee crisis in general, illustrates their flawed logic when it comes to solidarity. On the one hand, these countries are quite vocally arguing in favour of solidarity whenever their interests (for example, energy security) are at stake, but on the other hand they oppose the very same solidarity when it is their turn to contribute to the common solution of a problem at hand. Therefore, they should not be very surprised that other member states are considering more extreme actions, such as creating of a “mini-Schengen” and reintroducing border controls between the majority of the EU member states.

Dr. Matúš Mišík is a post-doctoral fellow at the U of A’s European Union Centre of Excellence.

Mai-Linh Huynh: Speech for St. Edmund’s Parish fundraising event (November 13, 2015)

Ladies and gentlemen, I stand here before you as testimony of what hope can achieve.

I was born a refugee with no place to call home. I was born stateless. For about a year, my family and I lived in a refugee camp, in a shanty tent with a dirt floor on which we slept. We had no money and no material belongings. All that was sustaining us was hope. Hope that there was a better life than the one we left behind in Vietnam.

Tonight, I’ll be sharing a story about a Vietnamese refugee family — my family — and their heroic feats to find a new life, and of a church community from northern SK who reached out to my family and gave us hope for a better life here in Canada.

Let’s go back to the beginning of my family’s story — before the Vietnam war.

My father came from a wealthy Chinese family. His father (my grandfather) was a successful businessman who owned factories for packaging rice and fish sauce. In fact, he was so successful that he had three wives and was able to support each of their families and households. He fathered 16 children (and possibly more!).

My mother on the other hand was a peasant farm girl who had to leave primary school to earn money for her and her family. However, life was sustainable because she worked hard to earn a little money and feed herself and her family.

My parents met, fell in love and married during the war, and started a family soon after. They never really expected that their lives would change much in a communist state, even if they were on the losing side.

But little did they know that being the losers did mean a few things:

First and foremost, the money you earned didn’t belong to you, it belonged to the communist state. Even if you needed it to feed your family.

Secondly, my father was a member of the Hoa — the ethnic Chinese population who controlled much of the retail trade in South Vietnam. The communist government increasingly levied taxes and confiscated businesses owned by the ethnic Chinese.

Times were tough and they became tougher. My grandfather’s packaging factories were seized and my grandfather passed away. The money supporting the family quickly dried up.
My parents made some attempts at making money – they sold car parts, soup, vietnamese desserts, fruit…but soon enough the authorities would find out and seize the businesses and earnings from them.

Hunger started to set in. And my siblings, who then were between the ages of 2 and 3, began to resort to begging for food and eating scraps from restaurant tables.

No one should have to leave their own country through desperation and fear but for many Vietnamese families like mine, there was no better choice. And this meant risking everything: your life, your family’s life, for a chance to live with dignity and free from persecution.

Early in 1979, my family decided to be one of the 800,000 Vietnamese to flee the country by boat.

Today, many Syrians are faced with a similar situation. The UN estimates more than 3 million Syrians have fled to countries such as Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, and estimates twice as many displaced within Syria. They are risking their lives for freedom, for a better life, just as my family did 35 years ago.

My family couldn’t afford to pay their way out of Vietnam but was granted free passage because my father, having trained in the navy by the Americans during the War, was skilled in steering and navigating a boat. There were approximately 500 refugees stacked on board this vessel.

My mother still gets emotional speaking of the event. She recollects not being able to move because the boat was so overcrowded. She remembers the stench of vomit and of human excrement. She remembers the rough seas and being utterly sea sick and dehydrated. She also had my sister and brother to care for and she was pregnant with me.

Luckily we didn’t encounter pirates or rough storms and 800km later, after a week of sailing, we landed safely on Malaysian shores. And fortunately, We weren’t forced back out to sea like many of the other hundreds of boats before and after us.

It is remarkable what Canadians can achieve when faced with an international humanitarian crisis and the achievements that can be made when collective coordinated actions are taken.

Of all places in the world, a small church community from Pierceland, SK decided to take action and gather the courage to sponsor a Vietnamese family who they never met before, my family, and welcome us into their community. It was this community who gave us the opportunity to live enriching lives as Canadians, to live in a democratic country where multiculturalism is celebrated and valued.

I was born a refugee but now am a proud Canadian. My parents lived in poverty in Vietnam and now they own a thriving restaurant business here in Edmonton. I could have had a future of fear and now I have I am married to a British-Canadian and we have two beautiful children.

I fled a country that disrespected human rights and was stripped of the privilege of having an education and earning a decent living – now I hold a master of science degree in environmental management and am a federal public servant who has been serving Canadians for over 13 years.

All these experiences in my life, everything that I know and love, wouldn’t have been possible without the help of a some remarkable Canadians who wanted to make the world a better place. Tonight, we’re reminded that this world can be a better place for the Syrian family that we’re fundraising for “because of you”.

Thank-you for being the fearless leaders like those who once accepted me. You’re about to embark on a journey of hope that will some day demonstrate the power of the human spirit and I thank you for your commitment to making this happen.

Mai-Linh Huynh is a U of A Alumna and holds a Master of Science degree in Environmental Management.

David Wineroither: More refugees, more Europe!

History tends to repeat itself, and this is certainly the case all over this planet when it comes to migration. I come from Austria, a small republic in the Alps and the old heartland of Central Europe. My home town is known for being the city with the highest proportion of foreigners, many of them Turkish and from the Western Balkans. I grew up with this piece of knowledge.

It was much later that I learned of another and much larger wave of immigration of foreigners that had taken place just a few decades earlier. After WWII the population doubled within a few years thanks to an influx of refugees: ‘Volksdeutsche’ that had fled from their homes in various Eastern European countries. I had many conversations with those fellow Austrians about locals’ attitudes towards them as new arrivals: They were frequently portrayed as filthy, thieves, and of markedly different cultural background. The talk of today is the talk of the past. No matter of the ethnic and religious background of asylum seekers.

The current wave of immigration calls for international cooperation and solidarity: solidarity with people that lost everything but the clothes they are wearing; solidarity across Europe to lower the burden of enforced mass immigration that currently rests on the shoulders of a few of the 28 EU member countries only; and solidarity within the world of affluent democracies around the globe. Let’s put the numbers in place: Canada and the US are debating the acceptance of 25,000 and 10,000 hand-picked refugees from Syria, and public discourse around this question is more and more characterized by hysteria. There were times in September and October when the number of new arrivals to Austria would equal these numbers throughout a single weekend and within 24 hours respectively. Sadly, in Europe, anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric is most pronounced and at times openly racist in younger democracies in its Eastern part where refugees are seen as a security threat without making any distinctions. Tellingly, the number of Muslim residents and refugees in the region is microscopic.

I believe the current handling of the refugee crisis and intercultural conflict tells a twofold story. First, the rule of law has to be restored in European Union member states as quickly as possible. The rule of law forms an integral, not separable part of liberal democracy. Second, it shows that countries cannot manage pivotal affairs entirely on their own any more, current failures do stem from national egoism and forcefully call for deepened supranational integration, not for a comeback of nation states. In any scenario, under whatever circumstances, refugees deserve to be treated with respect and have to be provided decent conditions of living while they are with us.

We are in the middle of a cultural, political and discursive struggle of magnitude. We must preserve humanity against all those who Hynkel, Charlie Chaplin’s alter ego in ‘The Great Dictator’, accurately described as ‘the unloved and unnatural’. As he reminds us, it is not part of the human condition to hate.

Dr. David Wineroither is a Visiting Professor in Austrian Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta, and a former doctoral research fellow at the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies.

Sileshi Yilma Reta: The BBC’s biased framing of North African migration to Europe

Introduction

Mass media play a pivotal role in constructing and shaping the migration discourse. The stereotypical depiction of migrants by the media has been a source of debate by various researchers, who criticize the media establishment for focusing too much on trivial issues and ignoring the underlying causes of migration. Researchers, such as Thorbjornsrud (2015), argue that the issue of migration has been drawn by the media through the ”narrative of illegality” by mirroring the opinions as well as proposals of principal political organs (p.774). This argument is also supported by Benson (2013) and Suro (2011). They claim that the media houses portray migration mainly as a matter of ”law and order issue” that is choreographed by politicians, who attempt to show their unwavering struggle of illegal migrants (as cited in Thorbjornsrud, 2015, p.774).

Apart from ignoring the root causes of the crisis, the media also allow the stories to be dominated by heavy weight stakeholders of migration and refrain from entertaining the voices of migrants. As a result, researchers, such as Thorbjornsrud, criticize the coverage of migration as unfair and biased. According to him, as the reports prefer to use ”metaphors, images and symbols” that reinforce stereotyped framing of migrants (2015, p. 776). This idea goes in line with most of the findings that my study tried to uncover with regards to the unfair and biased coverage of migration.

This paper, therefore, claims that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is unfair and biased in its reporting of North African migrants to Italy as it violates the basic principles of journalism. This is illustrated by the media outlet’s usage of sources, which are mainly politicians as well as governmental and non-governmental organizations that have paramount stake in migration discourse. It ignores migrants’ point of view although they are at the centre of the issue.

I selected the BBC for this study because it is a global media organization that gives vast coverage on migration in its news bulletins and current affairs programs. I chose 2015 to get a better understanding of how the BBC has recently covered migration. Furthermore, the media outlet was chosen because it has a global presence in audio, video and online. I randomly selected 10 stories produced by the BBC. They were analyzed for content using media framing theory.

Discussion

Media Framing Theory

This theory is used to analyze the contents of media reports. According to Entman (2004), it is employed to highlight ”some facets of events or issues” and conduct linkages among the occurrences to ”promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution” (as cited in Balbanova & Balch, 2010, p. 386).

By framing a topic in a particular way, media houses arrange their presentation from a particular angle. Pan and Kosicki (1983) suggest that this happens by ”including and excluding ideas to produce a coherent construction and understanding” of the topic under discussion (as cited in Balbanova & Balch, 2010, p. 386). Framing theory enables us to explain problems and suggest solutions.

Other researchers argue that framing incorporates some kind of bias- ”a process of selection and exclusion” (Zakakis, Batimaroudis & Bounia, 2012, p.450). This claim is also supported by Entman (1993). He states that main words frame ”stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgments” (Zakakis et al, 2012, p.349). So, I employed this theory to analyze my findings in a more manageable and meaningful manner.

Sources of the Story

The analysis conducted on 10 stories reveal that the BBC’s usage of sources is unfair and biased, violating the principles of journalism. The findings show that the migration coverage has a number of shortcomings. Almost all of the stories heavily rely on three types of sources: politicians, governmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

No.	Types of sources used	Frequency of the sources
1	Politicians	15
2	Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)	9
3	Governmental organizations	8
4	Migrants	0

Total

Table 1: The types of sources used in the stories

As it is indicated in the above table, the BBC’s journalists have mostly employed politicians as sources of their stories. Out of the 32 sources used, 15 were politicians. What is striking here is that even among the politicians, the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, was cited as a source 4 times. Other politicians from Germany and France were also used in the news articles. In some instances, a source was used more than once in a single news.

Following politicians, governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were used by the BBC as major sources of its news stories. Out of the 32 news sources employed, 9 fall in the NGOs category whereas 7 were sources from governmental organizations. Some of the major examples of non-governmental organizations that were repeatedly cited in the news stories include International Organization for Migration, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and United Nations. On the other hand, the sources from governmental organizations include European Commission, European Union Border Agency, Italian Coast Guard, and Italian Navy. Except for one source, none of the stories cited the names of the officials who work in the organizations. This is probably because the news stories highly relied on the press releases sent to them by the organizations. Press releases are prepared by public relations (PR) specialists whose primary mission is to paint good images of their institutions. These experts may conceal weaknesses of their organizations from the media. So, although it is difficult to totally ignore PR experts and press releases from news stories, too much dependency on them may affect the balance of stories by giving organizations favorable coverage and ignoring other stakeholders.

The dominant presence of governmental, non-governmental as well as political sources has affected the narrative of the stories giving them free reign to advance their interest and/or agenda. This finding is similar with the observation of Thorbjornsrud (2015). He claims that the media’s framing of migration issues reflects ”the initiatives and arguments of politicians” in the government circles (p. 774). When politicians and organizations are given more platforms, they can easily shape and manipulate the public’s opinion and attitude towards migration to their advantage.

The BBC also totally ignores the voices of migrants, who are at the heart of the crisis. None of the stories analyzed used migrants as a source. The journalists were not committed to interview migrants even when they got the opportunity to do so. The BBC was reluctant to balance the stories as it excluded the perspectives of the migrants so that the audience would get the migrants’ side of the story.

Framing in Action

According to the stories analyzed for this study, migration coverage by the BBC was mainly framed in the following manner:

No.	Primary frames used in the stories	Frequency of the frames
1.	The human traffickers frame	4
2.	The fair burden-sharing/ reluctant parties frame	3
3.	The morality frame	2
4.	The religious conflict frame	1

Total

Table 2: The types of frames used in the stories

The Human Traffickers Frame

One of the common framing techniques that portrays the BBC’s biased and unfair coverage of migration coverage is what I have referred to as the human traffickers frame. As it is indicated in the above table, out of the ten stories analyzed, 4 fall under this category. To divert the attention of the audience from the failures of the key stakeholders in the migration issue, the BBC frames its stories from the belief that the human traffickers as the cause of all problem. It reports: ”People-smuggling gangs have taken advantage of Libya’s war and chaos to run a lucrative racket sending packed, unseaworthy boats to Europe” (BBC, 2015).

In another news report, the BBC uses an expression of the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, to justify its framing technique. The Prime Minister described the human traffickers ”the slave traders of the 21st century” (BBC, 2015). Once again, the BBC’s usage of such expressions are biased and showcases its systematic strategy of ignoring ”the elephant in the room” with regards to migration. It is unwilling and not determined to highlight the policy failures and misguided strategies of the Western world, which the BBC is part of.

It is obvious that human traffickers are one of the stakeholders to blame in aggravating the migration crisis. They are creating their hot spots and comfort zones to expand their wealth. However, there are also other major players which can either reduce or speed up the migration chaos. Instead of pinpointing the major power players’ role in migration, the BBC overplays human traffickers’ frame by downplaying the major causes (for instance, the poverty and violence that exists in the migrants’ home countries such as Syria, Somalia, and Eritrea). This attitude that is followed by the BBC seems to be in line with its unfair and biased reporting style and is in conflict with the basic tenets of objective and balanced reporting. In this regard, the BBC seems to conceal the failures of countries such as the UK to fight the migration issue with determination. Instead, it plays the blame game on human traffickers and retreats back from reporting the root causes of migration i.e., the misguided policy that the European countries, including the UK, follow towards countries such as Libya and Syria. The media giant is unwilling to deal with the root cause because. I strongly believe this is because analyzing the root cause clashes with the national interest of the UK, which that the BBC is always determined to safe guard.

The Fair Burden-Sharing/ Reluctant Parties Frame

In what I refer as the fair burden-sharing/reluctant parties frame, the BBC attempts to dictate that member countries of the European Union should equally share the burden of migration and member states must not be reluctant to comply with such a move. The media outlet seems to be sympathetic to countries such as Italy and Greece, which it believes have carried much of the burden. In the news story the BBC ran on June 16, 2015 entitled ” In Mediterranean migrants: Italy warns EU over quota plan,” it explained its sympathetic view of this frame as: ”The crisis has put a huge strain on Italian, Greek and Maltese resources” (BBC, 2015).

Although the BBC’s call for equal sharing of migrants by the European Union member states seems logical, it focuses on admiring the efforts of few countries and blaming other nations for being reluctant. What is important to focus on here is the BBC’s probably deliberate negligence of UK, which funds of the media house. In the news stories analyzed for this study, it has directly or indirectly blamed countries such France and Germany. However, none of the news stories had the courage to criticize the UK for its negligence in easing the burden of the migration problem, which is currently challenging Europe. From the perspective of journalistic principles, this is a deliberate bias and selective reporting This directly supports the argument I have made that the BBC’s reporting style of migration stories is biased and unfair.

The Morality Frame

In what I refer as the morality frame, the BBC depicts attempts to be the guardian of morality. It attempts to frame the migration issue from the viewpoint of morality as depicted by the dominant stakeholders in migration issues. In some instances, it champions the case of asylum, claiming they have to be given jobs in their host countries. In other instances, it reiterates the politicians’ view that countries have moral obligation in handling migrants’ crisis. In its June 30, 2015 news report, the BBC attempts to back up this claim by quoting the Prime Minister of Italy: ”Italy has a moral duty to return the bodies to the relatives of those who had died (in the sea)” (BBC, 2015). However, echoing politicians’ voice on morality doesn’t show the BBC’s concern on the topic as it has retreated back from reporting the root cause of migration. Properly covering the root cause of migration and then giving ample air time for migrants can be considered as an encouraging step towards morality.

The media outlet seems to be moral guardian of migration, it has never attempted to provide intimate account of the migrants to its audience, according to the analysis I made on the 10 stories. If it were worried about the moral aspect of migrants, then it could simply interviewed the victims of migration. However, the study reveals that BBC did not worry about this even when it was given exclusive access to rescue missions. This finding is similar with the observation of Thorbjornsrud (2015). He argues that media outlets frame migrants as ”victims of an unfair system” and stresses the moral aspects of these victims by ”focusing on human suffering and human rights” (p.774). However, the BBC has not attempted to investigate what or who has caused the ”unfair system” although it has indicated migrants as victims of this system. In my view, this is because one of the major stakeholder behind this ‘‘unfair system” is the UK, which funds the BBC. As a result, the media house’s reports of the issue has become unfair and biased, violating the basic principles of journalism.

The Religious Conflict Frame

What I call the religious conflict frame reveals the BBC’s diverting strategy of the migration issue towards the religious aspect. It attempts to portray the issue as the fight between Christians and Muslims. In a news report made by the BBC on 16 April 2015, this issue is presented:

Italian police say they have arrested 15 Muslim migrants after they allegedly threw 12 Christians overboard following a row on a boat heading to Italy…. The 15 Muslim migrants involved in the row with Christians were arrested in the Sicilian city of Palermo and charged with multiple aggravated murder motivated by religious hate. (BBC, 2015)

Such types of occurrences may happen occasionally but they are not the main causes of migration. What is more striking about this story is the BBC’s framing based on unreliable and third party sources. In this story, it only used one source (simply stated as ”police say”). What is more amazing is that the police’s statement was based on an eyewitness. The BBC’s usage of ”eyewitnesses told police” style shows that the media giant is negligent about migration stories. Firstly, using only one source for a news report is unethical as the rule of balancing is violated. Secondly, using third party sources (”eyewitnesses told police”) likely leads to journalistic errors as unnamed sources can often times be unreliable.

The other problem of this framing technique is the fact that the BBC obsessed with the religions of the migrants (‘‘15 Muslim migrants” and ”12 Christians”) rather than merely reporting what happened. This sometimes may lead to religious tensions among the various parties involved. We have seen several instances where the burning of the Quran in one place, for instance, has triggered backlashes in other places, claiming the lives of innocent civilians. Prior to reporting the alleged Muslims vs. Christians conflict, the BBC editorial team should have taken the sensitivity of the issue in to consideration.

Conclusion

The analysis of the 10 stories the BBC produced indicates its biased and unfair reporting style. This is supported by the fact that most of the sources used in the stories are politicians as well as governmental and non-governmental organizations. Furthermore, the stories totally ignore migrants’ view although they are key in the narrative of the issue. The finding further illustrates how the BBC sets aside the main causes by portraying the stories in four frames.

I believe that the BBC’s framing of migration may have broader implication. One such implication might be the discrimination of migrants in their host country. Such reporting styles may also lead the audience to doubt the BBC’s credibility on the issue. In general, this area could be a good area for future research and it might further be advanced by focusing on how media houses cover migration stories in relation to various principles and ethics of journalism by expanding the sample size.

References

Balabanova, E., & Balch, A. (2010). Sending and receiving: The ethical framing of intra-EU migration in the European press. European Journal of Communication, 25 (4), 382-397. DOI: 10.1177/0267323110381005

Benson, R. (2013). Shaping immigration news. A French-American comparison. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

British Broadcasting Corporation. (2015, June 15). News on migration. In Migrants stranded at Ventimiglia on France-Italy border. Retrieved from http:// http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33131893

British Broadcasting Corporation. (2015, June 16). News on migration. In Mediterranean migrants: Italy warns EU over quota plan. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33144575

British Broadcasting Corporation. (2015, June 30). News on migration. In Mediterranean migrants: Italy begins to recover bodies. Retrieved from http:// http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32337725

British Broadcasting Corporation. (2015, April 16). News on migration. In Migrants killed in ‘religious clash’ on Mediterranean boat. Retrieved from http:// http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32337725

Entman, R., (1993). Framing toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43 (4), 51-8 (no doi)

Greenberg, J., & Hier, S. (2001). Crisis, mobilisation and collective problematisation: ‘Illegal’ Chinese migrants and the Canadian news media. Journalism Studies, 2 (4), 563-583 (no doi)

Pan, Z., & Kosicki, G. (1993). Framing an analysis: An approach to news discourse. Political Communication, 10 (1), 55-75 (no doi)

Suro, R. (2011). Introduction. In M.M. Suarez-Orozco, V.S. Louie, & R. Suro (Eds), Writing immigration: Scholars and journalists in dialogue (pp. 1-18). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Thorbjornsrud, K. (2015). Framing irregular immigration in western media. American Behavioral Scientist, 59 (7), 771-782. DOI: 10.1177/0002764215573255

Zakakis, N., Bantimaroudis, P., & Bounia, A. (2012). Media framing of a cultural disaster: The case of ancient Olympia. Museum Management and Curatorship, 27 (5), 447-459. DOI: 10.1080/09647775.2012.738133

Sileshi Yilma Reta is a postgraduate student at the Graduate School for Social Research at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Lancaster University. The research project was supervised by Dr. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky (Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic) and Jennie Toner Algin (Instructor and Instructional Designer of Academic Writing at Istanbul’s Koc University).

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Dr. Beat Nobs, Ambassador of Switzerland to Canada and the Bahamas, visited the University of Alberta campus on November 17, 2015.

Jane Hurly: One touch of Nature: Nature-based leisure may hold a key to refugee integration

The question of how to integrate refugees into society has politicians scratching their heads. Nature, it turns out, may hold a key.

Earlier this year I completed my master’s degree thesis having conducted research looking at the impact of nature-based leisure on the integration of refugees in Canada. My interest in this research sprang from my own experience of leisure in Canada’s national parks, and the mountain parks in particular, as a new immigrant over 30 years ago. Drawn to those magnificent and iconic landscapes I’d only seen in books and on postcards awakened in me a sense of belonging in my new country and I return to them often for solace, restoration, and peace. I wondered, years later, whether leisure experiences in Canada’s natural spaces would help our most vulnerable newcomers to transcend their painful pasts, find peace, and provoke a sense of belonging in them, too, that they were finally home.

Sitting at a table in his tiny living room, Joehaan, a refugee from Sudan, and I are poring over the photos he’d taken of the countryside at Long Lake Outdoor Education Centre in Athabasca, just north of Edmonton. Just 20 years old, he’d lived a hellish existence for 10 years as a refugee in Lebanon, before resettlement in Canada with his family. He was one of my four study participants—all refugees who were receiving settlement services from Catholic Social Services. A group of 60 or so refugees to Canada, some from afar as Iran, Congo, Cuba, Burundi, and Somalia, had just experienced a winter camping trip in Canada—an overnight stay in a pristine, natural area and the site of my research. At Long Lake they’d enjoyed cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and ice-fishing aided by Alberta Parks and Catholic Social Services’ staff and volunteers.
I’d asked the people in my study to take photos of their camping trip leisure experiences that were meaningful to them. One of the most poignant was this one.

Joehaan had waited until everyone had gone cross-country skiing, then he’d walked out onto the frozen lake and had written “Canada” in large letters in the snow. He told me, “I put this name because they wanted me to come here. Canada wanted me to come and be part of it, so I was glad and I will never forget this. So I thought, when I was taking pictures, to write something for reminding, for memoration.” This was a significant revelation coming from a young man who had few memories of his Sudanese homeland, and had spent much of his childhood in fear, dodging the authorities in Lebanon, denied schooling beyond grade six, and whose life was spent mainly indoors because of the racial discrimination his family faced daily. “Do you know I spent my most life inside?” he asked me. “Lebanon is like a jail in the summer,” he added, meaning that though it was stiflingly hot, he could not go outside and play like any normal child because it was dangerous to do so.

Monir, a young mother, a Baha’i from Iran, and another of my study participants, had sought asylum in Canada because she had faced religious persecution in Iran, and was denied citizenship and access to post-secondary education there because of her faith. In addition, the constraints placed on women in an Islamic society had discouraged her from participating in sports she loved, or even riding a bicycle because cycling was deemed an indecent thing for women to do according to the mullahs. And even though she is not Muslim, as she said, “The society is an Islamic society and it affects everybody.” In this restrictive environment, in which she was permitted to make few decisions of her own, the nature experience had an extraordinary effect: she found courage and confidence blossoming within to make her own decisions. She said,

… Always I was told, “You can’t”, “Oh, don’t do that”. Even sometimes I would like to do something for myself or others … somebody kept me [from doing something], but now I feel OK, I can do it.

In fact, so strong was her surging sense of self-confidence that when her son wanted to emulate one of the young men using his cross-country skis to ski down small hills, she let him. She said:

First I feel that Siavash could not do it. But I never said, “Siavash, you could not that,” because I know it’s in my fear. I help him and after that I enjoy to help him. His courage came into me, you know. I put away my fear: he can do it.

This image, she said, represented all the boldness, independence, and empowerment to express the free will she’d been denied before.

Other refugees in my study made similar expressions of resolve and resilience and after the trip they expressed an urgent desire to avail themselves of opportunities in Canada to rebuild their shattered and disrupted lives. And their exposure to nature-based leisure for connecting and sharing with others in an awe-inspiring, natural environment seemed to play a significant role in evoking their feelings of renewal and restoration, and in their ability to surrender, albeit briefly, their daily cares. I should emphasize that Alberta Parks and Catholic Social Services staff went to great lengths to create a welcoming, inclusive, and safe environment and this seemed to provoke feelings of confidence in the refugees, to stoke their inner resolve to be competent at the activities, and to trigger their personal growth. This newfound confidence was apparent in refugees’ willingness to try unfamiliar sports, volunteer for camp duties, and engage deeply with others who had been strangers to them before the trip. As Berry (2005) asserts, the welcome newcomers receive and the attitude of those in the new host country towards newcomers play a profound role in how newcomers acculturate—and whether they integrate into the broader society.

Refugees’ responses to nature ranged from fascination with the endlessness of the snowy vistas, the novelty of recreating in the snow, fear that wild animals might be present or that the ice on the lake would crack; relief and trust that their hosts would protect them, to ruminations about being one with the cosmos in the heart of the forest. The campfire, so pivotal to outdoor leisure socializing, proved particularly poignant for a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nicole’s husband had been abducted by rebels and she’d witnessed the murder of her parents and siblings in her homeland. For Nicole the campfire evoked nostalgia for her homeland where the fire had been a daily gathering place for companionship, celebration and ritual, and where the elders shared their knowledge and told stories. To see the fire playing this role at the camp helped to make an unfamiliar place seem more familiar to her. She told me, “There are some things that made me compare my home country and Canada, so I thought and I felt the world is the same. There is no big difference.”

So why should we care whether refugees have access to, or respond well to a winter camping trip? Because helping refugees to settle and integrate into the larger society means more than access to housing, healthcare, education, food, and a job. It also means access to leisure and specifically to leisure in nature. Why? Most refugees suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression (Fazel, Wheeler & Danesh, 2005) that can last for years after resettlement. The combination of nature, with its restorative and calmative effects (Kaplan, 1995) and leisure has been shown to promote happiness, well-being and provoke personal growth (Knopf, 1987) and may help to meet refugees’ needs for autonomy, competence, relatedness to others (Deci & Ryan, 1985) and meaning as they settle. Nature-based leisure can help people to transcend their troubled pasts (Kleiber, Hutchinson & Williams, 2001). And when they’re able to do that, they may choose to integrate (Berry, 2005).

In a world concerned that the wave of refugees from Syria and elsewhere arriving at our shores cannot be easily resettled or integrated, or their emotional wounds healed, we have a unique resource: the power of our abundant natural spaces to help restore some equilibrium, calm, spark a sense of belonging, and ameliorate the impacts of PTSD which, if unchecked, may be transmitted to the next generation (Baranowsky, Young, Johnson-Douglas, Williams-Keeler & McCarrey, 1998).

Nature-based leisure isn’t a panacea. What’s critical is the combination of a welcoming, inclusive host society that is supportive of newcomers; newcomers, for their part, who deeply wish to be part of Canadian society, and access to nature-based leisure that affords connection to other Canadians. Together these factors may prove a potent elixir for reducing refugees’ acculturative stress and promoting their integration and successful resettlement.

References

Baranowsky, A. B., Young, M., Johnson-Douglas, S., Williams-Keeler, L., & McCarrey, M. (1998). PTSD transmission: A review of secondary traumatization in Holocaust survivor families. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 39(4), 247-256. doi:10.1037/h0086816

Berry, J. W. (2005). Acculturation: living successfully in two cultures. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29, 697-712. doi: 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2005.07.013

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York, NY: Plenum Publishing Co.

Fazel, M., Wheeler, J., & Danesh, J. (2005) Prevalence of serious mental disorder in 7000 refugees resettled in western countries: A systematic review. The Lancet, 365(9467), 9–15, 1309–1314. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/science/article/pii/S0140673605610276

Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 169-182. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/science/article/pii/0272494495900012

Kleiber, D. A., Hutchinson, S. L., & Williams, R. (2002). Leisure as a resource in transcending negative life events: Self-protection, self-restoration, and personal transformation. Leisure Sciences, 24(2), 219-235. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=213f7eb3-aa4b-496b-a58d-c47943f5f092%40sessionmgr4002&vid=1&hid=4212

Knopf, R. (1987). Human behavior, cognition, and affect in the natural environment. In D. Stokols and I. Altman (Eds.), Handbook of environmental psychology (pp. 783-825). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Jane Hurly is a former communications strategist in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta. Her master’s thesis on nature-based leisure and refugee integration in Canada was supervised by Dr. Gordon J. Walker of the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, and defended in August, 2015.

Author: Adam Dombovari

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