Antoine Cassar | Deportation as marketing

It has now been over two months since Diambourou, Ibrahim, Issa, Mamadou, Mamadou, Ngnama, Salya, Segou and Wali were rounded up and locked away in the Ħal Safi barracks, in preparation for their deportation to Mali. After up to 18 months waiting to be ‘processed’ in a previous detention upon their arrival, these men have slowly but surely become part of the social fabric of Malta, whilst Malta has become a part of their everyday existence and identity. Having been confirmed as citizens of Mali by a visiting delegation from their country, they continue to await their fate, physically and psychologically in the cold.

I don’t imagine there’s much to do in a detention centre, except perhaps walk around your frigid cell, wondering if you’ve truly been uprooted from the new life it took you up to eight years to build, if you really will be forcibly returned to the life you left behind – for whatever reason –or whether it’s worth hanging on to a sliver of hope through the iron bars and barbed wire. 

The reports of one of the young men in detention becoming suicidal came as no surprise. In one way, detention is worse than prison: whereas prison, in theory at least, is ‘corrective’, conducive to a sincere contrition and expiation of guilt, in detention there is no wrongdoing to reflect on, except the humiliating guilt that your adopted country forces upon you: that of holding an unwelcome citizenship, or no citizenship at all. Speaking for myself, even if I were given hundreds of books to read and copybooks to scribble in to while away the long empty days, it wouldn’t make much difference – I doubt I would come out of detention in a state of sanity. The Malians’ resilience is to be admired. Highly.

If humanity evolved by walking, from the Great Rift Valley all the way to Tierra del Fuego, then borders are a form of dehumanisation, impeding our development as a species. This is what makes the recent solidarity walk symbolic – a collective walk in support of people who have been denied the right to walk freely, and punished for having walked away from their previous home in search of a better, safer life. As recalled by Aditus, the event was also in support of any other groups of people or individuals vulnerable to deportation, according to the political whims to come. Who knows, the Maltese may soon find themselves legally deportable from post-Brexit UK.

A very public and timely arrest

Whereas deportations are usually executed covertly, a number of the young men were apprehended very openly, in one of the most public venues possible on the island: on the buses. The fact that the arrest of the Malians took place a day after Trump’s election victory may be an utter coincidence, but it is no chance occurrence that it came as preparations were being made for the Maltese presidency of the EU Council. The following Sunday, the prime minister defended the detention in his weekly sermon by stating that Malta would have no “credibility” with the EU if the government chose not to go ahead with the repatriations. 

Whether or not the executive decision was inspired by events from across the stormy Atlantic, or came in strategic reaction to the registration of the ‘Patrijotti Maltin’ party for next year’s national elections, Muscat may have been referring indirectly to an EC Communication on the European Agenda on Migration published last February. That communication avoids the word ‘deportation’, preferring the euphemisms “return and readmission”, and laments that “the credibility of the collective EU return system has been harmed” by Member States’ lack of success in implementing effective deportation instruments.

‘The Knot’ monument in Castile Square celebrating the Valletta Summit on Migration, November 2015, which brought together governments of EU and African countries to discuss the facilitation of repatriations in exchange for ‘aid’. The knot of detention, deportation, and of Africa’s continued servility to Europe. Alternatively known as ‘L-għoqda fl-istonku’, or something more scatological reminiscent of its shape

The Maltese presidency of the EU Council is now in full swing, and with it a cultural programme to be proud of, at least in terms of an artistic showcasing that goes beyond a monolithic sense of national identity. Sadly for the artists and organisers involved, and for any Maltese citizen or villager who sees further than the tip of xenophobia’s nose, Muscat has all but poisoned the spirit and possibly the future legacy of the presidency, by setting amid its highest priorities the legalising of pushbacks to Libya, and the facilitation of deportations. It is within this context, and particularly in preparation for the upcoming EU ‘Action Plan Meeting’ (8th-9th February) which will follow up the conclusions of the November 2015 Valletta Summit on Migration, that the government is pushing to obtain ‘credibility’ through a very public deportation.

In fact, it would have been more accurate to name the EU-Africa ‘Summit on Migration’ a ‘Summit on Deportation’, for that is in essence all that was discussed and decided upon: ‘aid’ to sub-Saharan governments in exchange for their assistance in identifying and readmitting deportable citizens of their respective country.

The EC communication refers to this scheme as “mainstreaming migration into development cooperation”. There is no guarantee that the financial ‘aid’, in the form of an ‘Emergency Trust Fund for Africa’ created during the summit, will reach beyond the immediate entourages of the receiving national governments; and as the summit conclusions dispose, the deportation flights are to be paid for by that same fund. Unlike remittances sent by emigrated workers, which are more dignified, more localised (reaching the people who need them), and more effective in shrinking the planetary wealth gap, the ‘aid’ appears to constitute little more than a legally sanctioned intercontinental bribe.

Competitive citizenship 

But there is another, somewhat more surreal context in which the detention of the Malians is taking place, and another group of people to display ‘credibility’ to besides European ministers and Maltese citizens of an ethno-nationalist conviction. In the same week of the collective arrest, Owen Bonnici, the Minister for Justice and Culture, spoke at the 10th Global Residence and Citizenship Conference at the Savoy Hotel in London, advertising the sale of the Maltese ‘golden passport’ to potential clients who, as celebrated by the minister himself, “lead lifestyles we can only imagine”. 

Those potential purchasers of Maltese passports are referred to within the booming citizenship-by-investment sector as UHNWIs: ultra-high net worth individuals, or investors – depending on whether you consult the website of Henley & Partners, or their major competitors Arton Capital, the creators of the colourfully interactive Passport Index portal that has been doing the rounds in international media. According to this Fifa-style visa ranking, the Maltese passport is currently in joint 9th place in terms of the privilege of movement it offers (visa-free travel to 150 countries). And yet, it is around a million euros cheaper to buy than its closest Schengen competitor, the passport of Cyprus, currently in 13th place.

The fact that this competitive ranking of citizenships even exists is enough to indicate that ‘freedom of movement’ has become a purely exotic humanist concept. Nation-state governments participate in the flourishing of the citizenship-by-investment market very gladly – and the taller the global capitalist pyramid grows, the greater the profits to be made from millionaires seeking a higher privilege of mobility than the one they inherited or were born to. (For a riveting in-depth enquiry into citizenship sale, read Atossa Abrahamian’s book The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen).

Citizenship is also a knot, for better or for worse: like serfs returnable to their masters, the nine detainees have been declared legally deportable after their identification as Malian subjects by a visiting delegation from their government. In order to buy ‘out’ of their citizenship, they would need to buy ‘into’ a new one – for instance, by purchasing a Maltese passport for €650,000 plus (profitable) investments in property and government bonds – a luxury they cannot afford. 

Seen in mid-November at Larnaca airport, Cyprus: an installation advertising the sale of passports, disguised as an interactive info portal with encyclopaedic buzz. “Become a Global Citizen ®” was registered as an EC trademark on behalf of Arton Capital in July 2013. Arton’s Instagram account describes the installation as 'the ultimate pre-flight entertainment'

And neither can the overwhelming majority of us, on whichever side of the Mediterranean we happen to live. As citizens, we are all subjects. Our passports are a privilege that we pay for, and as indicated in small print inside – see note 6 in the Maltese passport – they are the property of our government, and can be invalidated, withdrawn or cancelled at any time. In some countries, such as the UK and particularly the US, it costs substantially more to renounce one’s nationality than it does to renew one’s passport.

Our passports are not ours, and neither is our citizenship. To paraphrase and update the words of Hannah Arendt in her seminal essay ‘We Refugees’, more than being a relative guarantee of safe passage and consular protection, more than a formal booklet proving our existence or citizenship, ‘our’ passports indicate which level of the global economic pyramid we are born into, or have afforded to opt into. That level then determines the size and shape of the world we can travel within. But though we may ‘hold’ a passport, it is not ours to own, and much less to sell. 

The fact that the planned collective ‘return’ of people from Malta to Mali obeys an EU framework does not make the deportation any more humanely justifiable, nor less personally humiliating. Aside from the scoring of credibility points within EU circles in the run-up to the Maltese presidency of the Council, within the parallel context of passport sales, the announcements of planned deportation can easily be seen as a marketing stunt: what “credibility” would Malta have with Henley & Partners and their many local subagents (including those run by lawyers who are Members of Parliament in opposition), and among the ultra-high net worth purchasers of Maltese citizenship, were the expensive privilege not underpinned by a deportation policy at the lower end of the social and economic pyramid?

Deportation as missile

When news of the collective round-up, detention and announced deportation of Malians from Malta came through, I happened to be in France, giving creative writing workshops to refugee women and immigrant teenagers, to help them relate and overcome their experiences of border crossing and discrimination. The electricity I used to keep up with the developments at home came from nuclear power, running on uranium very probably extracted from Mali. A subterranean fruit of invasion and colonialism, that France relies on to this day.

Despite the ongoing instability in the uranium-rich north, for deportation purposes, Mali is now being considered as a ‘safe country’ by the EU. Likewise Afghanistan, another target of the current collective return policy. Whether or not the nation of origin is considered ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ is relevant, though it is often more a question of the deporting country freeing itself of guilt. 

Even if one is forcibly ‘returned’ to the safest place on earth, deportation remains a profound humiliation, and a form of torture, both physical and psychological

Even if one is forcibly ‘returned’ to the safest place on earth, deportation remains a profound humiliation, and a form of torture, both physical and psychological. It is also a brutal means by which the upper echelons of capitalism assert their economic and racial hegemony over the lower part. Accompanying deportations with ‘aid’ is not only cynical, but counter-effective, as in this case it pays African government officials to accept the north-south divide – and as they are in power locally, such divide in any case affects them much less, whilst the poorer sectors of society are kept in poverty.

The Mediterranean Sea is an essential part of that weapon, a wide-open mouth that swallows some bodies and spits out others. And Malta is there in the centre, trying to portray itself as ‘rive nord’ as possible, through the sale of Schengenois citizenship, through EU-supported deportations, and now the pitching of legalised pushbacks to Libya – which is doubtfully any safer than post-coup Turkey.

Solidarity, not compassion

In the same Sunday morning sermon following the announcement of the planned repatriation, Muscat conceded that some Maltese may ‘feel sorry’ for the apprehended Malians. This magnanimous attempt at humanisation merely adds salt to the wounds. We should stand up for people placed in detention and threatened with deportation not out of charity, and neither out of compassion. To call for ‘amnesty’ may make sense in the legal context, but the word again places the burden of blame on the innocent and powerless, on those who have been ‘illegalised’.

We should stand up – and walk – for people facing deportation as citizens who do not own our citizenship, that is, as subjects, as we pay our government for the privilege to travel and migrate, we are all vulnerable to having that privilege withdrawn, and it is not ours to sell.

Anguish, a sculpture made out of chains, by Yeong Deok-Seo

Antoine Cassar’s Passaport, a long poem printed in the form of an ‘anti-passport’ for all peoples and all landscapes, has been published in 10 languages, and adapted for the stage in Malta, France, Italy, Belgium and Australia.

www.antoinecassar.info