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The myth of the people: Jess Whyte and Nik Beuret.

Article Excerpt
In 'Borders, States, Freedom and Justice' (Arena Magazine No. 66), Rob Sparrow raises the spectre of 20 million refugees, who could be accommodated in Australia only at 'the cost of social and economic chaos'. Leaving aside the ludicrousness of depicting 'no borders' as a demand upon an Australian nation-state that is perceived as both benevolent and suicidal, and the mischaracterisation involved in transforming an anti-statist political practice into a call for a global state, we must address Sparrow's warning of the 'radical transformation of local culture' that open borders would bring about. We won't argue that while people should be able to move without state authorisation, we can be reassured that they won't, or can't. Our point is the opposite. Increasingly, people are moving without authorisation, as the effacement of borders becomes, not a demand, but a matter of survival. Therefore, the real question to those like Sparrow who endorse immigration control, and the genuine/non genuine distinction as the final arbiter of the right to move, is, "what would you do to keep them out?'

Mandatory detention, deportations and TPVs are aspects of the Australian Government's answer to this question. It's easy to portray such responses as unnecessary or 'inhumane'. It's more difficult, particularly for those who remain committed to state sovereignty over migration, to recognise the logic of such brutal policing of unauthorised migration. It's not an exaggeration to suggest that those who move without authorisation present a threat to the nation-state by calling into question its ability to constitute and control a population within a given territorial boundary. Australia's internment camps are what...

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