Designed by politicians and duplicated by the media, migration communicative erases from perception a simple image of a moving man. Instead, it creates an impression of a massive and uncontrolled attack closer to the unspecified foreign, thus causing social anxiety.
Securitisation, or the process of social construction of the safety problem, has long ceased to be an innovative approach describing the political perception of migration. Although explaining the causes of its occurrence most likely hundreds of researchers, we are inactive not popularly questioning that migration simply is a threat to national security. The unprecedented presence of troops on the border or border barrier seems little and little surprising, and it is not amazing to suspend the right to global protection.
The perception of migration in terms of danger, regardless of its actual scale, is frequently linked to right-wing populism or racism. Didier Bigo, however, convinces in his text “Safety and Immigration: towards criticism of fear?” that it is not only the case. Social perception of a given phenomenon as a safety problemis not born spontaneously. The practices utilized to respond to the fresh threat are not by nature data and consequence from policy acts [1]. any describe the securitisation of migration as a self-fulfilling prophecy – due to the fact that if we give it a degree of safety problem, it will become a crisis to be managed [2]. The real challenges and opportunities of migration do not play a leading function in this narrative.
In his essay, Bigo argues that the way of the state's perception influences the anticipation of creating safety discourses. Defining it as a unified national community, compatriots, allows for a clear border between us a aliens – coming from another country, a nation that does not fit our standard. In this sense, migration is so always seen by the category of nationality and state, and understood as a threat to the “homosexuality of the nation”. specified a state creation helps politicise migration and its representation by politicians as a process penetration our coherent body by Something alien. [3] The narratives described by Bigo in practice construct an image of the perception of migration in our country. Do we not read regular in the news that “Poland They're pouring immigrants’ [4], ‘strikes wave migrants [5] or ‘immigrants’ They're coming. To the border’ [6]? This media-constructed migration communicative erases from perception a simple image of a moving man. Instead, it creates an impression of a massive and uncontrolled attack closer to the unspecified foreign, thus causing social anxiety – this us We're gonna get drunk, that's us We are threatened by something powerful and destructive. This approach allows a politician to presume the rank of state defender and national values, a function peculiarly valuable during election campaigns.
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In Poland, the securitisation of migration was clearly apparent after 2015, with the "migration crisis" and a drastic increase in the number of illegal border crossings of the European Union [7]. The issue of migration during the then parliamentary run could have been utilized by competing political groups to item their differentness [8] and to self-create the bigo state defender's image. The re-intensification of migration as a safety problem occurred in 2021, on the basis of an increase in illegal crossings between Poland and Belarus. In both media and political communication, more frequently came the terms not only encouraging fear, but besides phrases known earlier with the sciences of safety – among them‘hybrid war’ [9].
The criticism of these narratives does not at the same time negate the occurrence of phenomena which Minister Maciej Duszczyk calls "instrumentalisation of migration" or "weaponisation of migration" [10]. However, it is impossible to miss the almost complete dehumanization of the migration discourse. And the communicative of the barbaric attack that floods our community results in the necessity to construct a different migration policy than the communicative of people dying in Polish forests, pushed dozens of times between borders of 2 countries. Similarly, the stories of migration presented by the current rulers disagree from those presented by the same groups before the 2023 parliamentary elections. The Green Border was forgotten, global conventions and legal obligations disappeared. A man is missing.
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The dehumanizing discourse was reinforced by the division of functions related to the management of the crisis at the border. The State is solely afraid with the safeguarding of the borders and all aid measures stay the work of the 3rd sector [11]. It is the activity of non-state actors specified as organisations, solidarity movements or aid that can contribute to deconstructing migration as a safety threat [12]. But there is no place for NGOs in the communicative of fear. The migration strategy was adopted without public consultation. Following the outrage caused by this decision, a public proceeding was organised at a gathering of the Committee on Administration and Home Affairs concerning a government draft law suspending the right to apply for global protection. However, critical opinions of more than 40 migration organisations have not changed the decision of politicians [13]. This besides prompts reflection on whether the current government policy seeks an adequate consequence to fresh migration challenges or creating social anxiety.
During the public hearing, Aleksander Stachurski of Amnesty global besides drew attention to the concept of “security” in the recently adopted strategy, noting the inadequately key function assigned to him. 17 000 asylum applications were submitted last year, of which about 12 000 came from persons not covered by the Act – citizens of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine [14]. The "uncontrollable wave of migration" which is thus fundamentally threatening 40 million people in Poland is only 5 1000 people.
[1] Bigo, D. (2002). Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Government of Release, ‘Alternatives’, p. 27, pp. 63-92.
[2] Maguire, M. (2015). Migrants in the Realm of Experts: The Migration–Crime–Terrorist Nexus After 9/11. in: The Securitization of Migration in the EU. Debates Since 9/11, ed. G. Lazaridis, K. Waadia, 62–87, behind: Bello, V. (2022) The spiralling of the safety of migration in the EU: from the management of a ‘crisis’ to a governance of human mobility?, “Journal of cultural and Migration Studies”, Vol. 48:6, 1327-1344.
[3] Bigo, D. (2002), op. cit.
[4] https://www.tysol.pl/a138121-karol-nawrocks-final-sie-polska-what-you-know [accessed 4.04.2025].
[5] https://www.polsatnews.pl/newsc/2023-11-01/German-wave-immigrant-derived-in-berlin-three-meter-square-on-person/ [accessed 4.04.2025].
[6] https://www.o2.pl/information/sg-immigrants-attacking-at-limits-and-thlumin-and-aggressive-7141455254518624a [accessed 4.04.2025].
[7] Liszkowska, D. (2023). Processes of securitisation and de-securitisation of migration in Poland in the context of migration from Ukraine after the outbreak of the Russian–Ukrainian War (2022), “International Affairs”, Vol. 76(2), pp. 90-112.
[8] Refugees in Poland. Legal situation, scale of inflow and integration into Polish society and recommendations, ed. A. Górny, Committee for investigation on Migrations of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków Warsaw 2017, p. 73 for: Liszkowska, D. (2023), op. cit.
[9] Liszkowska, D. (2023), op. cit.
[10] https://oko.press/situation-is-exceptional-government-has-right-yes-interpretation-regulation-minister-soul-in-eye-press [accessed 4.04.2025].
[11] K. Podgórska. (2022).Migration and public reactions – expert comment, umcs [online], behind: Liszkowska, D., op. cit.
[12] Bello, V. (2022), Op. cit.
[13] https://oko.press/fasad-consultations-Commission-listened-organization-in-law-to-azil-but-not-changed[accessed 4.04.2025]; https://political criticism.pl/country/public hearing-law-suspending-law-azil-organisations-knowledge-minister-soul-believe-sg-is-sorry/[accessed 4.04.2025].
[14] https://oko.press/fasad-consultations-Commission-listened-organization-in-law-to-azil-but-not-changed[accessed 4.04.2025].
