Africa and France: Postcolonial Cultures, Migration, and Racism

8. Into the European “Jungle”: Migration and Grammar in the New Europe

8 Into the European “Jungle” Migration and Grammar in the New Europe Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English. —Aravind Adiga1 The official vocabulary of African affairs is, as we might suspect, purely axiomatic. Which is to say that it has no value as communication, but only as intimidation. . . . In a general way, it is a language which functions essentially as a code, i.e., the words have no relation to their content, or else a contrary one. —Roland Barthes2 In the first caption to her 2008 volume Aya de Yopougon, Ivorian comic book author Marguerite Abouet offers an ironic statement on the trials and tribulations awaiting new arrivals in France: “We are about to land in Paris’ RoissyCharles -de-Gaulle airport. It is 6:30 am and the temperature is 12 degrees. Thanks for choosing Air Afrique.”3 Asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees enter the increasingly patrolled and protected borders of the European Union by air and land, though in recent years the dramatic and hazardous ocean crossings to which they have had recourse have received more attention. Indeed, the gray sky and heavy rainfall in Abouet’s opening sequence also serve as indicators of the challenges associated with the post-migratory experience, whereby “in addition to the dangers associated with travel to Europe (extortion, theft, the perilous crossing of the desert or ocean), one must also add the dangers encountered in Europe itself.”4 As we have seen, these components of twentyfirst -century migration have been explored in a significant corpus of documentaries , films, novels, and plays, recording distressing sociopolitical evidentiary 170 Africa and France modalities, while also contributing to the demystification of constructs and perceptions relating to economic opportunities in the E.U. Accounts intersect around the analysis and treatment of disintegrating national experiments, inadequate governance, limited accountability, and both regional and national conflict, factors that have contributed to economic hardship, social disruption, displaced populations, and translated into growing disparities and dissymmetries between regions. What remains indisputable is the globalized nature of these dynamics and the power relations that exist between Africa and that structure the increasingly coordinated nature of the E.U.’s relationship with Africa. Research has confirmed that “Migrants are therefore pushed to leave their country and pulled toward countries that need them. Because of the combination of both push and pull factors, migration is likely to continue, despite the growing restrictions put on human mobility.”5 In fact, the acceleration of exchanges and circulation have become defining characteristics of society today, and as such, difficulties associated with these new forms of human mobility are now intrinsic to the very nature of population movement.6 For example, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ratified on July 1, 2003) states: “The human problems involved in migration are even more serious in the case of irregular migration and . . . appropriate action should be encouraged in order to prevent and eliminate clandestine movements and trafficking in migrant workers, while at the same time assuring the protection of their fundamental human rights.”7 The difficulty resides in the tension that exists between those engaged in the fight to control immigration and those ensuring that rights do not recede. In this context, the issue of multilingualism and plurilingualism is of course crucial, and the E.U. has repeatedly expressed its commitment to linguistic diversity . The provision of documents in the twenty-two official languages of the E.U. is perhaps the most concrete example of this assurance. Furthermore, 2001 was officially declared the European Year of Languages and E.U. objectives were outlined in 2005 in A New Framework Strategy for Multilingualism, geared toward “ensuring that citizens have access to E.U. legislation, procedures and information in their own language; underlining the major role that languages and multilingualism play in the European economy; and finding ways to develop this further by encouraging all citizens to learn and speak more languages, in order to improve mutual understanding and communication .”8 However, as we shall see, wider questions arise concerning language when analysis focuses not exclusively on communication but also on its usages Into the European “Jungle” 171 as a linguistic tool. Multilingualism, in this chapter, is not defined exclusively as the presence of several official, minority or migrant languages. Migrations into and within the E.U...