Good morning. Bruno Maçães has written the cover story, “Europe’s shame”, on the Ceuta crisis. The incursion revealed a continent divided against itself. You can read the piece here. If you’re not subscribed, you can have two months for £2 here.
There was a time when you could reasonably expect a national government to comport itself with marginally more sobriety than an anonymous social media account – the kind that is often adorned with the avatar of an ape. That expectation was touchingly naive.
There they were, in all their glory: the governments of Italy, of Finland, of Sweden, nations that have given the world the Renaissance, the concept of functional social democracy, and furniture you assemble yourself. They were now reduced to reacting extempore to videos they had encountered on the internet. These were not intelligence briefings or diplomatic cables or satellite reconnaissance, but the sort of material your uncle might forward at two in the morning with a subject line that’s entirely in capital letters.
The videos were filmed thousands of miles to the south, on the rocky shores of Ceuta in late July, where roughly 60,000 Moroccans, most of them young, had broken through the border and entered the Spanish enclave. Any observer with functioning eyes could see that this was no ordinary migration wave. The great columns arriving in Ceuta carried nothing with them: no bundles, no ragged rucksacks, none of the pitiful cargo of the genuinely displaced. They moved collectively with the eerie coordination of a body answering to a single command.
It did not seem to matter that the scene on Ceuta’s shores invited questions of an entirely different order – European capitals were in no mood for thinking. They shrieked incoherently and publicly about the coming Armageddon, and the need to enter doomsday prepper mode. Here, they announced, was the prophesied invasion: the unwashed masses of Africa and the Middle East, arriving at last, to vindicate every fevered pamphlet and every midnight broadcast of the far right. Never to be outdone, Reform’s Robert Jenrick announced that “these men are on their way to Calais”. Elon Musk pronounced it a “zombie apocalypse”, an aside so execrable it achieved the rare feat of lowering a discourse already conducted in the gutter.
And the response of many European politicians? Tacitly concurring, they demanded action: push back the masses, and by whatever means necessary.
To enjoy our latest analysis of politics, news and events, in addition to world-class literary and cultural reviews, click here to subscribe to the New Statesman. You'll enjoy all of the New Statesman's online content, ad-free podcasts and invitations to NS events.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.