The migration phenomenon, as it is currently perceived and politically managed, in Europe, in particular, certainly seems to challenge the so-called liberal societies...
As such, it would be legitimate to question ourselves about the exercise of the "freedom" which Europe claims to enjoy and promote.
Indeed, the arrival, in "one’s homeland", in a "protected" territory, of another person characterised as a "migrant", and seen, most of the time, as a "foreign body", raises at best an empathetic curiosity, at worse a rejection.
How, then, should we look at this society which claims to be "freely democratic" but where, precisely, the freedom that is considered vital is regularly denied to the newcomer? How can so-called free men let fear of this other person appear in the very exercise of an ultimately free action: an exile? Who more than this other person represents freedom and its real exercise?
Is freedom exercised more by the one who stays or by the one who comes? When it is exercised, freedom is faced with hospitality.
In the Josefa way where all of us are recognised as “migrants”, and not only some of us whom we call “migrants”, the question of learning to be free, or even of the legitimacy of freedom, is raised very simply, for each one of us, in our uniqueness; like a mirror effect between us all.
In fact, the fear of the freedom of some (who claim to be free) appears in reality to reveal their fear of the freedom exercised by others (who are said, paradoxically, to be forced into exile).
Here, our migrations collide in the (real or symbolic) perception of freedom in its historical expression. Freedom really appears to be a Common Good and not merely an "idolized paradigm".
Let us dare to take a migrant look at our freedoms, which are nourished by one another, in order to deconstruct them and to rebuild them without fear.
Gilbert
