Xenophobia as a Catch-22

Abstract

Western democratic nation-states are governing (im)migrations through systemic indifference (a new form of systemic xenophobia and systemic racism). Majority self-aware ethnic groups (led by elites, i.e., the nation, the executive, the government) apply formal social control with total indifference to (and in contradiction with) social order and the rule of law. Social order and the rule of law are not honored (refusal of entry in humanitarian crisis, border outsourcing, and permanent state of exception in borders) or, in other cases, they are (dubiously) honored (approval of deportations) but not enforced. This systemic indifference has led to a Catch-22 in which immigrants are trapped (necropolitics, permanent state of exception in EU and US outside borders, border outsourcing, and hopeless free wandering in which immigrants may challenge, unintentionally and inadvertently, the internal social order). Western democratic nation-states show their deep internal contradictions in times of mass migrations, aged (and fast-aging) societies, populisms, authoritarianism, extremism and the reinforcement of whiteness. In XXI century, Western democratic nation-states´ weakness is an important challenge in front of other political systems (China with its Chinese Marxism, authoritarian regimes like Russia, Turkey…) which are gaining momentum. The EU and the US confront a catharsis of their traditional social and political paradigms: from national to post-national and multicultural societies. Majority self-aware ethnic groups oppose this paradigm change with systemic indifference, systemic xenophobia and systemic racism.