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Violent Borders

As expected a couple of people will be blamed for the crime. "The murderers will be brought to justice," as Essex police said. Follow the news and you will see that no outcry will be made compared to a violent attack on a London Bridge or in Manchester. Others will also blame the people who allowed themselves to be smuggled/killed.

39 people found dead in lorry container


"The possibility of feats of extravagant and unrestrained violence at and beyond the border [have historically] contrasted with the constraints of rational management of violence within the borders of nation-states.’ To put it simply, violence at the border serves a purpose, and so does the shock it provokes. It obscures the violence of the internal social arrangements of modern nations, which fight to preserve the privilege of the few over the many. "The rational management of violence within the nation-state," Caygill continues, "was only possible when potential and actual violence had been displaced to the border." We should recognise violence against migrants at the border not as the exception but as the rule. There is a long history here too. Christian moral freedom, Caygill observes, after Hegel, could ‘only become certain of itself and its inner spiritual possessions by means of the violent subjugation of the infidel at the borders of Christendom."
The political philosopher Howard Caygill