On Tuesday January 25, 300 migrants started a collective action in Athens and Thessaloniki. They demand the legalization of their status. They are men and women currently living and working in a country without any social and political rights. They are denouncing the modern apartheid which they are victims of. They are denouncing the hypocritical way western countries are dealing with migration, turning it into a problem which needs be tackled and managed, defining women, children and men as unwanted and illegal, and designating them as the scapegoats to current economic and social problems. Their collective action is now being the target of populist speeches spread around by the mainstream Media and of police pressure.
Every year, people leave their home countries, fleeing poverty, dictatorship and wars. While seeking for a better life they engage in a highly uncertain journey. The western countries have indeed declared a war to these designated enemies and their neighboring countries are expressly invited to be part of it. This war uses several tools. Military means are deployed on borders, responsible for the deaths of thousands over the past 20 years. Those managing to make it are drawn into a system of physical and symbolical isolation. The most visible is the use of detention and of deportation. Within the past ten years, in all of Europe and its neighboring countries we have watched the multiplication of so called administrative detention centers for migrants. The deportation machine makes sure migrants are physically removed. Those remaining are forced into a life of invisibility and fear, deprived of any rights and of any possibility to claim these. They are moreover made responsible for this situation, and are the target of racist and populist attacks from rightist groups, Media and political mainstream discourses.
However this system cannot fool us! We know that poverty, war, and any kind of occupation and dictatorship pushing people onto a deadly journey are in fact the very consequences of the dictates of imperialism and economic globalization. Furthermore, migrants represent a cheap working force vital for western economies. This systematic repression, as well as this social and political exclusion actually allows for the maintenance of a massive population in a situation of fear and extreme precariousness, facilitating economical exploitation.
As the Migrants Solidarity Network we affirm that migration is a reality and not a problem. No borders, no fences, no walls can prevent people from seeking for better life conditions, and neither do they have any legitimacy. The struggle of the migrants in Greece must win because it is a legitimate one. As our comrades in Greece emphasized, the destitution of one segment of society signals the upcoming destitution of the rest. This is a struggle for all workers and it is our duty to stand in solidarity.
We demand:
The immediate legalization of the hunger strikers in Greece
An equal access to economical and social rights for all
The end of the modern apartheid regime that prisons migrants into undignified life conditions
The immediate opening of borders
The immediate end of the shameful detention and deportation regime in Europe and in its neighboring countries.
We call for:
Unconditional solidarity with migrants at hunger strike in Greece
A chain of transnational actions of solidarity with the hunger strikers.
Migrants’ solidarity Network
Istanbul, January 29 2011