Tiré de l’article de Henk van Houtum
Human blacklisting : the global apartheid of the EU’s external border regime
▻http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=d1909
What is perhaps most illustrative in the makeup of this external difference-producing border regime in the world of today is that the EU has composed a so-called white' Schengen list and a black’ Schengen list (European Council, Common List, Annex 1, Council Regulation 539/2001; European Council Regulation No 851/2005 of 2 June 2005 amending Regulation No 539/2001). This list includes citizens from countries that require a visa (that is, an individual permission for entrance during a given period of time and for certain purposes) (see also Salter, 2006). As such, in contrast to a
passport, a visa is not issued by the sovereignty of destination, in this case the EU. For the EU a visa is, therefore, a way to grant (or deny) admission before leaving a country and a way to control when someone enters and leaves the EU. The `white’ list represents the countries whose citizens do not need to apply for a visa for a visit or transit in Schengen countries. This list contains 60 countries of the world.
The rest, the `black’ list, consists of 135 states out of a total of 195 states in today’s world whose inhabitants require a visa for entrance into EU-space.(1) Figure 1 gives a cartographic overview of the listing of visa-obliged countries by the EU.
Of all possible geographical visions on the world, the EU thus inscribes an unambiguous di-visionary borderline on the planet. It has made a di-vision into black and white list countries, into countries whose inhabitants are in principle unwelcome (the black list) and whose inhabitants are welcome (the white list). It is a
form of chronopolitics as it slows down, illegalises, or immobilises the mobility of a significant part of the world population and prioritises and mobilises the travelling speed of a select human segment. One suspects that the criteria used for a state to be put on the visa list relate to the perceived possibility of irregular residence after entering EU space, the perceived influence on public security, and the international relations existing between the EU and the third country in question (Guild, 2001; Guild et al, 2009).Yet, strikingly, no information can be found in the otherwise rather transparent communication channels of the EU on why and how this list was made, despite its obvious far-reaching consequences. Nor is it clear what criteria are being used to move from the black to the white list. Recently, the EU changed the wording of this di-visionary view of the world, from black/white list to positive/negative list. The wording may be less racial, but this does not alter the intentions and the discriminatory effects of this apartheid geopolitics (see also Hansen, 2004). With this list, the EU has created a dichotomous border of in ^ out, a digital 1 ^ 0. In so doing, the biopolitical border that is constructed selects and prioritises people and social relations in the world. The EU thus, in terms of access, unjustly discriminates against people by their country of origin. To base a territorial politics in this time and age on one’s place of birth is not only archaic, as we increasingly live in a transnational world, but also
immoral, as it regulates and thereby destines the lives of humans on the mere fate of where they were born. Such nativist geopolitics has perhaps most powerfully and influentially been criticised by Joseph Carens in his well-cited 1987 article in which he convincingly argued against a politics based on the lottery of birth.
#migration #UE #frontière #black_list #white_list #bordering #ordering #othering