Crisis and Otherness: The Role of Language

The complexity of the European crisis cannot hide the essential importance of migration due to climate change, war and persecution. Austerity in European nations has worked with perceptions of alterity to create an us and them attitude which is ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous politicians. The present article examines aspects of the friend-enemy postulate and its clear inadequacies. Since 1945 Europe has perhaps considered itself above this problem due to the increasing, and largely successful, effort to create a multilingual society. However, a brief look at the language associated with the so-called migrant crisis challenges this comfortable assumption. Identity (claims, representations and impositions of identity) has become key, and language is vital as the medium for these identity struggles to be played out. In the securitized state (Bauman) migrants described as arriving illegally, in waves, and as a dangerous other easily become an enemy undeserving of our care or hospitality. The paper underlines the importance of knowing this supposed ‘enemy’ in order to recognize her/his true humanity, but this requires great linguistic skill: not merely using a common language, but possessing a common ethos of understanding (Derrida). While the state seems ponderous and unable to prevent the skilfully described outrages caused by migrants, language is our only humane response, as language is hospitality (Levinas).