Faces of deportation: Just another operation?
Deportation charter flights. They are a military operation. They are covered in the utmost secrecy. So much for a transparent democratic state! How much different are these mass deportations from the trains that left for the concentration camps during the second World War?
Ah, but they are not similar at all! The Nazi’s were crude, blatant fascists and they did not really try to hide what they were up to. Not that it made any difference.. the Dutch government sent back Jews that took refuge in the Netherlands, because Hitler was a friendly head of state they did not want to offend. This is a clear similarity to the current Dutch (and European) policy regarding refugees. After all, sending people back to unsafe countries is exactly the same practice today! But you got to hand it to them: the Dutch (or any other European) government did and does not mass murder anyone themselves, they merely cooperate, which of course is an entirely different thing. All they do is to not safeguard refugees from torture and murder, as they organize their deportation.
Deportation charter flights. Sure they are no trains packed with deportees. They are not going to any concentration camp. They just came from a modern day concentration camp! A camp so correctly called 'detention center' that serves the same purpose: to detain and concentrate a group of people that is being regarded unwanted by the state, in order to be able to get rid of them. And coming from these prisons for the unwanted, the undocumented, the non-citizens, it is most convenient to collectively deport them.
Deportation charter flights. They are managed to great perfection. This is the modern age of technology and healthcare! You see, a representative of the Red Cross is always on board! I wonder what they must be thinking. They help to make it seem so just, so acceptable. Approved by the Red Cross it is! They witness the crime in order to make it right. Thank you! Doctors are involved, delivering fit-to-fly certificates, and keeping people drugged if need be! O yes, there will be medics taking care of you, nothing can happen to you as long as you are on that plane, just to make sure nobody dies before landing. Modern day deportations do not seem so bad, even mass deportations are made to look humane and friendly. Thanks to the medics who are just another face of deportation.
Do not despair, you will be taken care of all the way across those very same borders that you yourself were not supposed to have crossed! Our fine state crosses the borders so easily. The border that needs to be crossed in order to destroy your life is no problem for the state. The state needs no documents to be perfectly in order. They can be falsified at any time and nobody will give it a second thought. The state needs no passports. All that it takes, is people to fulfill their duty. All that it takes, are medics that do not mind the Hippocratic Oath they took. All that it takes are people who do not want to know who their victims are, that are willing to look the other way. All that it takes are people who consider their job well done as soon as their unwilling passengers have arrived at their destination, their destiny. Leave them behind. Back to Europe it is, as soon as possible. Rinse off a little sweat, spit and blood, and we can be safely and all washed up on our way back home.
It is just another operation, a removal procedure as they call it, planned and executed right on time, right on target. What happens to the victims? Nobody will ever know. It is beyond our purview. It is beyond the European borders. No wrongdoing here, we are decent, we are no fascists! No, here there are no ugly gas chambers. Here there are no ovens burning bodies, there is no nasty smell of death. Here there are no piles of corpses buried in shallow graves. Here there are only traces of paperwork that lead to a third world country airport and then fade into nothingness. Forgetfulness. Emptiness. If there is a genocide going on, it is spread so widely that no-one will ever notice. Therefore, it can never be named. No questions asked. If people are tortured, massacred, persecuted, disappearing, it is not our doing. It is not up to us to keep track. End of story.
The face of deportation is the face of abandonment. To abandon people. To abandon solidarity. To abandon liberty. To abandon all that makes us human. To leave all that behind, that is the master-plan of these operations.
Deportation charter flights. An early morning in the cells. Doors open, people are being pulled out and dragged into a room without windows. Isolated. Strip searched. Name, photo and fingerprints. Tagged. They try to keep people calm... “Easy... easy... it will be alright”. If that does not help: “Cooperate! Or else...!” If that does not work: tie them up, shut them up, have them gagged, doped up.
Deportation by any means necessary! Orders are orders and if the order is shoot to kill, they will kill. Papers signed. Airplane lifts off. It's done before most people are even getting out of bed for another workday, eating their breakfast, reading the newspaper over a cup of coffee, grumbling at traffic jams.
Deportation charter flights. The perfect solution to failed deportations due to protest of fellow passengers, unwilling pilots, activists at the airport, and resisting refugees. Hearing about them always comes late. Too late. What can we do? How come we are being faced with facts accomplished over and over again? Who are these sneaky administrators, these poisonous minds, these thieves of lives? Where is their office, their legal work? Can we occupy their building, throw their paperwork out the window? Can their computer systems be cracked, disarmed? Can their files be deleted? Can lives perhaps be saved? Can airplanes be stopped by blocking the runway, the airway? Is there someone with a conscience willing to speak up and speak out? Whistle blowers, anyone? Out with the truth so we can stop it! Shouldn't we be sabotaging the airport, interfere with air traffic control?
Deportation is a crime, no matter how, no matter when, no matter who, no matter the means. If stopping it is illegal, if liberating the prisoners is an offense, it is only so because the real crime needs to be perpetuated! Deportation is a crime, sold to the public as a necessity to our well-being, so all sleep well again during yet another deportation flight. Out of sight. Out of might. But is it really?
Let's take our resistance to the next level. Let's end the fright flights! Let's be in their face so they can no longer hide! If nobody helps to make deportations look like a safe trip to wonderland anymore, these flights will lose their cover and can be identified for what in fact they are: a tidy fascist operation. It has to end one day, it just has to. It may be well organized, but eventually all systems fail.
Let's make it so. Let's make all systems fail.
Joke Kaviaar, august 15, 2013