Turning away thy neighbour

Enshrined in the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees is the right of people with a well-founded fear of persecution to seek asylum. Despite this imperative, many countries are increasingly finding means to push away asylum seekers from their national borders. A fear engendered of invasion by strangers permeates countries that have signed up to the refugee convention under a range of guises including the sacrosanct nature of the nation state, fear of disruption of monocultural interests, the socalled war on terror and a socially engineered immigration regime based on the myth of consummate order and control. Presented is a visual display that each state retains control of the “illegal” movement of people and people smuggling (Babacan 2007, 179). The various attempts at deterrence by western countries in particular reveal capricious and cruel policies that not only flout international conventions, but defy commonly accepted standards of tolerance, humanity and decency. The national measures that are now enshrined in laws, policies and practices obfuscate the quest by many for a common humanity (Briskman 2007a, 164).