March of refugees: an act of civil disobedience

ABSTRACT

On 4 September 2015 asylum seekers who got stranded in Budapest’s Keleti train station began a march to cross the Austrian border. Their aim was to reach Germany and Sweden where they believed their asylum claims would be better received. In this article, I argue that the march should be characterized as an act of civil disobedience. This claim may seem to contradict common convictions regarding acts of civil disobedience as well as asylum seekers. The most common justifications are given with reference to moral rights of citizens and concerns for enhancing justice or democracy within states. Asylum seekers are not members of the European public. How can they be entitled to break the law? I first show that the march displays features of a paradigm case of civil disobedience. Then, I identify moral reasons for asylum seekers to carry out the march acceptable from both strong and weak cosmopolitan perspectives. After that, I point out its corrective, stabilizing and democracy-enhancing roles in the European political landscape. I conclude by emphasizing that conceptualizing the march as an act of civil disobedience is significant in recognizing asylum seekers as political agents making claims within an evolving framework of refugee protection.

KEYWORDS:

• March of refugees
• asylum seekers
• civil disobedience
• political agency

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Daniele Archibugi, Sine Bagatur, Viktor Ivankovic, Elizabeth Kahn, Manohar Kumar, Sebastian Rudas and Daniele Santoro for invaluable conversations on the topic and extensive comments on earlier drafts. I am also grateful to the engaging audiences for their feedback in the Philosophy Department at Bogazici University, the Global Policy Institute at Durham University, Humanitarian Ethics and Action Conference at the University of Birmingham, Philosophy and Social Science Colloquium in the Institute of Philosophy at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Political Studies Association Annual Conference at the University of Strathclyde and Equality and Citizenship Summer School at the University of Rijeka. Finally, I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers and especially to the editors of the Journal of Global Ethics, Prof. Eric Palmer and Prof. Martin Schönfeld, for their encouragement and constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See, among others, John Rawls (1999, 319–347), Ronald Dworkin (1977, 206–223)), Joseph Raz (1979, 256–270), and more recently, Daniel Markovits (2005), David Lefkowitz (2007), Kimberley Brownlee (2012b, 189–227).

2. My approach differs from Luis Cabrera’s treatment of unauthorized border crossings of immigrants. Cabrera discusses a whole range of acts with various features and argues that they make up ‘something akin to global civil disobedience within a nascent global civil rights movement’ (2010, 132). Instead, I focus on a single case and highlight in what ways its specific characteristics allow an interpretation of the act as civil disobedience and refugees as political agents.

3. Philip Cole forcefully argues that contemporary liberal political theory is unable to recognize the political agency of refugees and stresses the need for a novel ethical framework (2016). The argument pursued here can be considered as contributing to the development of such an ethical framework.

4. By comparing the march with covert border crossings, I aim to emphasize the merit of marching out of the Keleti Station openly for expressing the actor’s cooperative intensions. Yet, I do not embrace a strong publicity requirement that rules out covert acts. I recognize the crucial point Luis Cabrera makes that accepting the consequences of acts of civil disobedience ‘usually means arrest and deportation’ for unauthorized migrants (2015, 98). Covert action may then be the only viable option.

5. Similar to my discussion of publicity, although I emphasize non-violent features of the march, I do not uphold a strong non-violence condition. I agree with Brownlee that ‘the appeal of our communication may be lost if it is drowned out by more forceful tactics’ (2012b, 20). But I also recognize that there may be circumstances where sustaining non-violence is not a viable option for actors.

6. Another reason why upholding a strong non-violence condition is not tenable is related with the contested understanding of the notion of violence, which I discuss in the beginning of the section. For example, in the case of the march, while some may find forcing of the border fences violent, others may disagree.

7. This position has been repeatedly pronounced by the government spokes person. http://www.kormany.hu/en/government-spokesperson/news/civil-disobedience-is-a-political-category.

8. The Art. 20.4 of the German Basic Law establishes a right to resistance limited to contexts where there is a severe constitutional crisis such as a threat of tyranny. Art 12a.2 of the Basic Law. Art 12a establishes a right to conscientious objection concerned with the military draft.

9. Cabrera makes a similar observation when considering the US Civil Rights Movement and acts carried out under the leadership of Gandhi;

When potentially unjust law to be targeted is one based on the exclusion of a specific group from benefits or full membership recognition, it is difficult to see how the law could be challenged by members of that group without potentially offering them benefits. (2010, 137)

10. Javier Hidalgo argues that migrants have a right to resist unjustified immigration restrictions by taking ‘active steps to prevent state officials from successfully enforcing immigration laws’ (2015, 451). In turn, asylum seekers in Keleti have a moral right to resist implementation of the Hungarian policy by the authorities. While conceptualizing the march as resistance also recognizes the political agency of refugees, the argument pursued here aims to locate a stronger political agency in civil disobedience as a form of political action aimed at instigating political change.