A DENSELY POPULATED NO MAN’S LAND

Kaaitheater has collaborated closely with Globe Aroma over the past decade. We co-produced and presented their social-artistic productions, and for the past several years, we have also taken on administrative duties. The raid on Globe Aroma thus touched us very deeply and directly. Our expressions of support are sincere, concrete, and more than anything, a sign that we will pursue our collaboration, and even reinforce it along with several other organizations.

Some people have claimed that we are hereby setting ourselves above the law and that we feel superior to ordinary citizens. By consciously maintaining a vague distinction between newcomers with and without papers, we have even been accused of playing into the hands of the people traffickers on the other side of the Mediterranean. These claims and accusations are weighty indeed, and a degree of nuance may thus not be out of place.

The tension between civil rights and universal human rights is an old one. Even in the 1789 Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen – a fundamental text in the formation of our modern nation states – the two were mentioned separately. This tension has only grown since 1789. Some of current political leaders know only too well that Belgium was one of the first countries where civil rights were rescinded due to ‘antinational deeds’. There are evermore people in the space between civil rights and universal human rights, and their diversity is immense. The space in between is like an increasingly densely populated no man’s land. This primarily demonstrates the difficulty that nation states have in providing a legislated space for the stable status of ‘the humane’ (1). Human rights are not, apparently, universal, but are the factual property of the citizens of a nation. Transit migrants are demonstrating this all the more by refusing to turn to the Belgian State and by simply being here. Our European cities are full of tens of thousands of people without papers. Some politicians would have us believe that a simple ‘reinforcement’ of the state and the increased enforcement of its laws are sufficient to squeeze this no man’s land out of existence. I fear that this is not only an illusion, but attests to political simplification, be it intentional or not. I am hereby not advocating lawlessness, but a reality check. Reality in Dendermonde may certainly appear somewhat different than reality in Brussels, but make no mistake, this no man’s land surrounds us all.

In these times of globalization and economization, the notion of the ‘strong state’ is rather absurd. Power and politics have been growing apart for a considerable time. Since the eighties, power has been raised up to an extra-territorial sphere dominated by global economic players. Politics, on the other hand, has been seeping down to the underlying level of life politics, resulting in a hyperactive but far less stable and rapidly fluctuating civil society. In between, the nation state is desperately trying to find a perspective for its action. I fear, however, that the nation state must look both above and below to negotiate its position, as it is forced to do with General Motors, Ford, or more recently, Carrefour. It behoves the state to do likewise with organized civil society.

The relationship between the government and organized civil society has been under growing pressure since the dawn of the neoliberal revolution in the mid-1980s. The characteristically pillared denominationalism of Belgian civil society was attacked, and these attacks continue today. The last few days have seen strong statements from politicians about the role of civil society. But if anything, this relationship has grown increasingly complex over the past few decades. The critically injured classical civil society has been supplemented with an ever-greater number of bottom-up civilian initiatives. Especially in big cities, a new, albeit less stable but extremely active (activist?) civil society has begun to manifest itself. Over the past twenty years, the cultural world has likewise partly traded its classical, pillared position for a more active and flexible space in this new metropolitan civil society. The speed and force with which citizens have organized can only be explained by the urgency of the situation. Metropolitan complexity has clearly escaped the grasp of the government’s classic vertical tactics, and it demands a more horizontal, networked approach. One area in which this has become especially evident is the aforementioned no man’s land between civil rights and universal human rights. Civil society has increasingly taken on the role of providing services in this no man’s land. Agreed, in so doing it has broken with the prevailing order and cohesion and has forged relationships beyond the point at which every living being is turned into a controlled and manageable subject (2). They have not done so in order to place themselves above the law, however, but rather to assist the state in the areas beyond its control.

Often, though not always, these civilly organized activities in the no man’s land are the result of a duty of care that is very much aligned with the prevailing order. This is also true of Globe Aroma. They do not explicitly claim a role in the no man’s land, but in the context of their work with ‘official’ asylum seekers and newcomers, they are confronted with the extremely precarious conditions in this ‘in-between space’. In such contexts, it is impossible and inhuman to make a sharp distinction between newcomers with and without papers. Cultural, socio-cultural, social, sports, youth, health, and educational organizations are already negotiating with subsidizers and other partners about a status from which credibility and trust can grow, and which implicitly allows them to enter the no man’s land. Several governments, many of them local, are aware of this and recognize the humanitarian importance of such activities in the ‘grey zone’. But for the federal government, which is currently led by a coalition that prefers the ‘strong state’ and is particularly keen on manifesting itself in a clear and prominent way, these activities are difficult to accept. I am convinced, however, that negotiation is their only real option. The political civil energy in Brussels is greater than ever before. Its citizens are not emotionally overwhelmed individuals who have lost sight of the common good. No, they clearly show that their view on the common good is not clouded by emotion, but is crystal clear thanks to the reality that daily stares them in the face.

Guy Gypens
General Director, Kaaitheater

(1) Giorgio Agamben, Beyond Human Rights, 1993
(2) Marc Schuilenburg, The Refugee as Homo Sacer, Open 2008, nr. 15