Ep.125: The Geopolitics of Whiteness

Summary

Podcast Summary

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EU Scream – Ep. 125: The Geopolitics of Whiteness

Date: February 24, 2026
Host: James Cantor
Guest: Emanuela Chiri, Decolonial Scholar & Policy Advisor, European Network Against Racism

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the concept of “whiteness” as a geopolitical force at the heart of both EU and US political architectures. Through a conversation with Emanuela Chiri—a peace activist, decolonial scholar, and policy advisor—the discussion traces the myth and evolution of whiteness from its historical roots in colonialism and racial capitalism to its direct influence on current migration, foreign policy, border violence, and far-right politics in Europe and America.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Historical Roots: Synthetic Whiteness and Racial Capitalism

• Whiteness as a Political Order (01:59-02:10)
  • Emanuela Chiri explains that “whiteness” functions as the ordering principle of modernity.
• Synthetic Whiteness (02:10-03:53)
  • Idea developed in Chiri’s forthcoming book: Competing European groups (English, German, French, etc.) in the Americas united indentured white laborers and elites under “synthetic whiteness” to perpetuate exploitation and suppress collaboration between oppressed groups.
  • Quote (Chiri, 02:39): “This coalition is what we refer to as synthetic whiteness... It was superiority to be able to justify exploitation.”
• Racial Capitalism (03:53-04:54)
  • Racial hierarchies and economic exploitation intertwined; white supremacy underpins the operation of modern states, including the US across multiple administrations.

2. US Foreign Policy: White Supremacy as Strategy

• Trump Era and Beyond (04:54-05:47)
  • White supremacy is not limited to Trump but is structurally embedded; the Biden and Obama administrations perpetuated exclusionary logics too.
  • Quote (Chiri, 05:35): “This was a black man who also, you know, used this mechanism to deport thousands... to kill brown people across the world.”
• Civilizational Erasure Discourse (05:57-08:32)
  • US officials argue for defending “Western civilization” against “civilizational erasure,” making whiteness central in diplomatic rhetoric (e.g., Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference).
  • Quote (Rubio, 06:51): “It will rebuke and deter the forces of civilizational erasure that today menace both America and Europe alike.”

3. European Response: Civilizational Pride and Silent Alignment

• “Geopolitics of Whiteness” Loop (09:22-11:30)
  • US invokes European heritage as racial bond; Rubio urges Europeans to embrace their colonial past without apology.
  • Quote (Chiri, 10:08): “We are Europeans. That’s what he’s saying. And Europeans here is just another word for we are white.”
• Elite Reception: Applause and Discomfort (11:30-13:51)
  • Rubio’s speech was applauded by European leaders; Ursula von der Leyen voiced reassurance, reinforcing the narrative.
  • Quote (Chiri, 13:51): “I wasn’t shocked at all by that... Europe has a very subtle way of approaching this civilization at its core, it’s never as blunt.”

4. Liberal and Far-Right Strategies: Language and Policy

• Liberal Distinction Is Surface-Level (13:39-16:23)
  • Even “opposed” liberal leaders, like Kaja Kallas, do not reject the substance of civilizational politics—just its blunt rhetoric.
  • Quote (Chiri, 15:09): “What she did not reject is the EU’s role in Gaza, Iraq... what she’s rejecting is the bluntness of Rubio’s approach.”
• Motivations for White Grievance Politics (16:23-19:58)
  • Reactionary politics—intensified after Obama’s election—targets immigrants and racialized populations to rally white working-class support.
  • Quote (Chiri, 17:14): “[Trump] shared a video of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as primates, as monkeys.”
  • Immigration constructed as threat to distract from elite-driven social crises.

5. EU Border Regimes: From Policy to Violence

• Border Militarization and Migrant Demonization (29:43-34:17)
  • EU anti-racism strategy omits discussion of bordering and migration; current migration laws—such as the Migration Pact and Schengen updates—enable arbitrary detention, mass deportation, and racial profiling.
  • Quote (Chiri, 33:31): “[Police] would have more rights... not just at borders but also within member states... it basically, in essence, is going to legitimize racial profiling.”
• Mirroring US ICE Tactics (34:00-36:56)
  • The EU’s “returns regulation” and deportation acts parallel US ICE methods; distinction is mostly in rhetoric, not practice.
  • Quote (Chiri, 36:23): “The EU, of course, also uses planes, but they don’t advertise it... it’s a sanitized way of approaching violence, and that is what the EU really excels at.”

6. Necropolitics: Death at the Border and Public Amnesia

• Invisibility and Indifference to Migrant Deaths (38:34-41:49)
  • EU officials distance themselves from border deaths, which far exceed those recently attributed to US ICE.
  • Quote (Chiri, 39:35): “When you combine all of the deaths that ICE is responsible for over the last two years, they do not even total or amount the total of deaths that people died only in the Mediterranean alone.”
  • Public cannot grieve for invisible deaths; policies create “deathscapes” (necropolitics per Achille Mbembe).

7. Rise of Far Right and the Boomerang of Violence

• Emulating Trump/ICE in Europe (42:30-44:20)
  • Far-right parties across Europe call for ICE-style immigration enforcement, targeting asylum seekers and racialized people.
• Warning: Erosion of Rights Beyond Marginalized Groups (44:20-46:10)
  • Chiri warns that policies built to oppress migrants and racialized people will eventually turn on the broader populace, especially the white working class.
  • Quote (Chiri, 45:21): “You need to do it for yourselves. Because yes, we are the first victims of this violence. But eventually... it would come back to you as well.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Construction of Whiteness
  “Whiteness is the order, is the operating mechanism that orders what we consider as modernity today.”
  — Emanuela Chiri [01:59]

• On US Foreign Policy and White Supremacy
  “The United States as we know it is a byproduct and continues to operate on white supremacy...”
  — Emanuela Chiri [04:54]

• On Civilizational Erasure and European Alignment
  “We should not be ashamed of ourselves as white people and what we have done. And we should own up to it and continue doing it because, well, it’s profitable.”
  — Emanuela Chiri [08:32]

• On Migrant Deaths and Necropolitics
  “You are not only invisibilizing and dehumanizing these people while they are alive, but even in death they remain invisible.”
  — Emanuela Chiri [41:17]

• On White Working-Class Interests
  “You can live in oblivion and you can choose to be racist all you want, but at the end of the day, this would also come back to bite you...”
  — Emanuela Chiri [45:21]

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Essential Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------|---------------| | Whiteness and Synthetic Whiteness | 01:59–03:53 | | Race and US Foreign Policy | 04:54–05:47 | | Rubio’s Civilizational Discourse | 06:51–11:30 | | EU Elite Alignment & Liberalism | 13:39–16:23 | | Motivations for White Grievance | 16:23–19:58 | | Migration Pact and Border Violence | 29:43–34:17 | | Necropolitics and Migrant Deaths | 39:35–42:01 | | Far Right Emulating ICE | 42:30–44:20 | | Boomerang of Oppression | 44:20–46:10 |

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Tone & Language

The tone is critical, erudite, and at times urgent—frank about the realities of racial power, historical injustice, and the duplicity of both right- and center-left politics. Emanuela Chiri mixes scholarly analysis with activist passion, while James Cantor provides probing journalistic questions and sobering observations on the EU policy elite.

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Useful For

This summary is invaluable for anyone seeking to understand the nexus of race, migration, policy, and power in the US and EU today—especially those interested in the deeper historical forces undergirding today’s “migration crisis,” border violence, and the normalization of xenophobic politics at the highest levels.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Emanuela Chiri]

No migrants more in no Europe without Christianity. An alliance also with Russia.

[James Cantor]

Welcome to EU Scream, the podcast that guides you through stories coming from the eu. We talk about the news a bit differently and with people who really know what they're talking about. I'm James Cantor. This is episode 125, the geopolitics of Whiteness, with Emanuela Chiri, a decolonial scholar and policy and advocacy advisor at the European Network Against Racism. Emmanuel, welcome to EU Scream studios in the heart of downtown Brussels. We're a little bit removed from the Brussels bubble in more ways than one. It's great to have you here.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Thank you, James. It's great to be here as well.

[James Cantor]

Emmanuel, you've worked as a peace activist in Cameroon, and you're chair of the board of an association for international students in Famagusta, in Cyprus. That is northern Cyprus, and that's where you also did your doctorate in politics. You spent a good deal of your academic life just outside the eu, if I can put it that way, and I imagine that's going to give you a particular insight.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Indeed, I've spent a bit of time, I mean, I'm eight years and a bit at the borders of Europe, and so you could say it's almost at this fine line between the European Union and the parts of Europe that are not part of the European Union. And also coming from. From Cameroon, I think it's also given me this particular trajectory that enables me to be able to understand Europe from the outside, but also from the inside as well.

[James Cantor]

And you're a scholar, activist, militant, with expertise on the myth of whiteness.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yeah, I write on whiteness and on synthetic whiteness as well, and how, you know, whiteness is the order, is the operating mechanism that orders, you know, what we consider as modernity today.

[James Cantor]

First of all, it's just so intriguing, and you shared with me a chapter of a book that will be forthcoming that you authored that describes this idea that a lot of this can be traced back to the medieval period, number one. And then number two, there's this idea of synthetic whiteness whereby to keep the economy of slavery going without rebellions, more people needed to be brought into this bigger tent of whiteness.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yes, exactly. These different European groups, the English, you had the Germans, you had the French, and they were all competing, you know, for resources and for. Then when these groups settled in what we refer today as, you know, North America, and were profiting from the enslavement of Africans and the genociding of indigenous people, of course, indigenous people And African slaves revolted against, you know, the enslavers and the oppressors. Importantly as well, you had white European settlers who were indentured laborers. And these indentured laborers often collaborated with indigenous groups and African slaves. And, and so in order to be able to maintain their hold over indigenous people and African slaves, and in order to continue to exploit and own people, the small, you know, European elite, capitalist and slaves class proposed to the indentured European laborers for a coalition. And this coalition is what we refer to as synthetic whiteness. So the shared racial identity wasn't just for the sake of having superiority. It was superiority to be able to justify exploitation.

[James Cantor]

Hence your use of racial capitalism, which is very much part of your thinking and your writing. Let's drill down right away into some current affairs, specifically EU US Relations. I have read too many hot takes to mention on the Trump administration's hostility to Europe. Usually we hear about US attacks on the EU's digital regulation or the US attacks on Europe's climate rules, or about how the US is going to grab Greenland and leave NATO or Trump's tariffs on Europe. These are not insignificant, but they all seem to overlook one of the elephants in the room here, that Trump and the Trump administration has a blood and soil white supremacist agenda. And that this agenda, it's kind of another key prong, if not the key prong of the US Approach to Europe. White supremacy as US Foreign policy.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yeah, indeed. I mean, white supremacy under the Trump administration, but you could also say, like under any other administration in the U.S. i mean, in fact, the United States as we know it is a byproduct and continues to operate on white supremacy. And this is relevant as well for the Biden administration, administration, for the Obama administration, that many people say, hey, the first black man was elected as the president of the United States. But, yes, this was a black man who also, you know, used this mechanism to deport, like, you know, thousands of people across the border. I mean, who basically legitimize the use of drones in warfare.

[James Cantor]

To talking about Obama there.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yes, to kill. Yeah, talking about Obama. To kill brown people across the world. And I mean, this goes back to the origins of the United States and also the continuity and even to the press on the United States.

[James Cantor]

That's really helpful and also very helpful to remember that the Trump administration is making these principles more explicit.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yes.

[James Cantor]

Rather than. Rather than reinventing this from whole cloth. Yeah. So this idea of whiteness in US Foreign policy, it became much more explicit last year. The White House started to talk about a civilizational erasure in Europe of Europe. The US State Department back in May last year had a substack post that called for civilizational allies. And then there was a warning about full blown civilizational erasure of Europe and the US National Security Strategy. From December, the clear message was that Europe was enfeebled by its immigrants and declining birth rates for white Europeans. Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, has reprised this talk of, quote, civilizational erasure at the recent Munich Security Conference.

[Marco Rubio]

We, the west, what we have inherited together, is something that is unique and distinctive and irreplaceable because this, after all, is the very foundation of the transatlantic bond. Acting together in this way, we will not just help recover a sane foreign policy, it will restore to us a clearer sense of ourselves. It will restore a place in the world, and in so doing, it will rebuke and deter the forces of civilizational erasure that today menace both America and Europe alike.

[James Cantor]

Emmanuel why does Europe have this special place in U.S. foreign policy now concerning its own civilization?

[Emanuela Chiri]

I would describe the spatial relationship that this is about whiteness. It's about how do we maintain the architecture of whiteness. And so when Rubio, for instance, at the Munich Security Conference, says that we should not be apologetic about our whiteness and about the greatness of whiteness, and he clearly talks about colonization and so on and imperialism, the greatness of it, he's reminding Europe that, well, you don't need to have this subtle approach to imperialism. Own up to it. Own up to it the same way we are owning up to it.

[Marco Rubio]

We do not want our allies to be weak because that makes us weaker. This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame. We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization and who together with us are willing and able to defend it.

[Emanuela Chiri]

So that special relationship there, what I think Rubio was trying to and Rubio, remember, he's I think, of Cuban origin, but he identifies himself as a white Cuban. He's very specific when he says that. It gives us a good insight into his mind that, you know, white people are different. Why are white people all over the world or people racialized as white, which he wouldn't agree that we say they are racialized as white, because think that he comes from the school of thought that white people are just white people. Why are white people ashamed of what we did for our own civilization? Because, of course, people like this do not care about imperialism and genocide and colonization. So he is really speaking a specific language, which is a language of we should not be ashamed of ourselves as white people and what we have done. And we should own up to it and continue doing it because, well, it's profitable.

[James Cantor]

It's kind of a geopolitics of whiteness that we are seeing now in it's where a former colony settled by white settlers, we should say, in the case of the United States, is now using the former colonizers in Europe to sort of reinforce its own message of whiteness. And it's quite head bending how this loop is working. It has this circularity. If we go back to that speech at the Munich Security Council, Rubio, he notably says of Americans, our home may

[Marco Rubio]

be in the Western hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe.

[Emanuela Chiri]

European settlers, irrespective of their differences, you know, all agreed to be part of this architecture of whiteness. And that is what he's saying, that yes, we are in the Western hemisphere. Yes, maybe we are removed by thousands of miles or, you know, a coup of centuries from, you know, when, you know, the United Kingdom had control of like, you know, the US what is referred to as colonies. But at the end of the day, we are the same people. We are Europeans. That's what he's saying. And Europeans here is just another word of saying we are white. So when he says we, we are a child of Europe, he's reminding Europeans that you came here and settled and you invented this political ideology of whiteness. We are white. We should stick together as white people.

[Marco Rubio]

Our story began with an Italian explorer. Our first colonies were built by English settlers. Our frontiers were shaped by Scots Irish. Our great Midwestern heartland was built by German farmers and craftsmen. Our expansion into the interior followed the footsteps of French fur traders and explorers. The entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West. These were born in Spain and our largest and most iconic city was named New Amsterdam before it was named New York.

[Emanuela Chiri]

And it's a message that resonates. Whether we agree with it or disagree with it, it's a message that resonates and that's why many people stood up and, well, the people at the Munich conference stood up and clapped for him.

[James Cantor]

As somebody who went to school for a while in the United States, I still find it shocking. The history that was missing from my curriculum was the sheer brutality of the extermination of Native Americans and of course, the ugly, ugly details of slavery all the way through to Jim crow in the 1960s. And the more that one talks about the United States having been a colony. Right. The less time you're spending talking about this other form of oppression, which actually, if you kind of do the math, was a little bit more serious when it came to, you know, the amount of people killed, the amount of people who suffered.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yeah, absolutely. But what it also does is compares, you know, the U.S. uK relations, or at least the American colony in quotes, relations with the US as though they were the same kind of relations that the United Kingdom or the or Europeans had with Africans or with Indians and Asians and others. These were not the same kind of relationship. So when we just say, well, these were colonies, they were colonized, we are, I think, doing a lot of disservice to where people were genocided, indigenous people, but also, you know, the real colonies that were eradicated, you know, like Europeans completely ravaged India or Asia. We're talking of like, you know, 6 to 12 million Indians who were killed. We're talking of like, you know, in Africa, millions of Africans were killed. I don't remember in the US supposed colonies that white settlers were genocided. It's not the same.

[James Cantor]

I get the sense that much of Brussels is actually quite comfortable with this civilizational talk, this racism with a straight face, I think we can call it. Ursula von der Leyen at the Munich Security Conference said on stage that she was very much reassured by what Rubio

[Emanuela Chiri]

had to say and therefore strong Europe. I completely align with the Secretary of State where that is concerned.

[James Cantor]

Wolfgang Isinger, the conference's chief, immediately thanked Rubio for his message of reassurance.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Just listening to Rubio speak about colonization and imperialism as a proud moment in Western civilization as he defines it thing was so disturbing. But then I wasn't shocked by the response by others in the room who clapped and those who said they were reassured and those who said, well, this is a moment in history to celebrate. I wasn't shocked at all by that, because I think that for a while, those of us who are decolonial scholars or Africans or racialized people, we have always known that this is what Europe is. The difference is that Europe has a very subtle way of approaching this civilization. At east coast, it's never as blonde.

[James Cantor]

One EU official did reject Rubio's ideas, or seemed to. This was kaya Kallas, the EU's foreign affairs chief.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Contrary to what some may say woke decadent, Europe is not facing civilizational erasure. In fact, people still want to join our club and not just fellow Europeans.

[James Cantor]

So for her, instead of pushing back against civilizational narrative, she's like, no, no, no, we're good.

[Emanuela Chiri]

So when, you know, Caio Kallas comes out and says that, no, we are still proud of our civilization and push back on some of the bluntness of Marco Rubio's message. But what she did not reject is the EU's role in Gaza. What she did not reject is the EU's role in Iraq. What she's not rejecting is that her very own admin she's a part of is using visa conditions and trade agreements as a way of enforcing new colonial relations. What she's not stating is European companies listed in UN documents as exploiting and creating violence in the Congo, in the Sudan, and so on and so forth. She's not rejecting any of that. What she's rejecting is the bluntness of Rubio's approach. And I think that is a schism that Western society finds itself. And do we want to go the outright right wing, confrontational approach that has been classical, this overt racial classifications, or do we want to go the neoliberal approach, use liberalism and use the human rights discourse as a mechanism for maintaining new colonial relations. Now what we know has been more sustainable is a liberal discourse because it has led to less resistance, which begs

[James Cantor]

the question, and maybe it's worth discussing, which is what is in it for Rubio, Trump? J.D. vance, to be quite so blunt, I

[Emanuela Chiri]

think the election of Obama, irrespective of my criticism of Obama as being a figure of white supremacy, even though he's black, but was a rupture in the eyes of white supremacists, that these people that we do not consider equal to us or this person was able to attain supreme political power in the US and so I think it is this reaction, this very violent reaction. I mean, and Trump says it all the time. So this is not Also things I'm

[James Cantor]

imagining his political career by lying about where Barack Obama was born.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yes. And a lot of things about him. I mean, recently he shared a video of Barack Obama. I hate to defend Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, but he shared a video of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as primates, as monkeys.

[James Cantor]

Former President Obama is publicly addressing President Trump's racist post depicting him and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.

[Barack Obama]

There's this sort of clown show that's happening in social media and on television. And what is true is that there doesn't seem to be any shock, shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a Sense of propriety and respect for the office. Right. So that's been lost in.

[James Cantor]

Trump won in his first administration. He wasn't quite as extreme. And it seems to me now, you know, even though we had Biden in the interim, they've kind of worked out that this is the way to go.

[Emanuela Chiri]

The reason why, you know, Trump and others are really pushing this discourse is because they cannot win if the white working class doesn't support them. And this is where the issue of immigration comes in, I think, is the issue of migration. Control is really very important because in order to justify a thing for, you know, the wealth disparity that a very small class owns and the fact that people are suffering. No, social and welfare systems, healthcare systems are collapsing in the US but also in Europe is. You need an order to blame. And that order are migrants. Immigrants, but people who are not racialized as white. Again, I am surprised that the white working class buys this discourse because I think it's quite obvious who your real enemies are.

[James Cantor]

Don't worry, the Americans have a tradition of voting against their own interests.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yeah, so? So, but it's not only Americans because we see the discourse as well in Europe today. We are seeing people who are exploited turn around and look at migrants and all of this and say, you are actually the problem on our health care. It's not the privatization of health care. It's not defunding in social and welfare systems. It's not this massive investment in the military industrial complex. No, it is migrants. People underestimate Trump and his entourage because they have a good understanding of history. Now, it's not the version of history that we teach or we would encourage, but they understand what has kept us whiteness as a political invention at the top.

[James Cantor]

Yeah, they've kind of outsmarted the center and the left when it comes to using class and using race here.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yes. In the sense that they've kind of like, you know, outsmarted. You know, you could say the center. I mean, you could say also liberals as well and center left in, you know, this understanding of class and the element of racism, you know, tapping into this self imagined idea of Europeans or Americans as pristine, white people know, tapping into that idea. They have done that very brilliantly, unfortunately. So for us. But I also think that with or without Trump and, you know, his administration or other right wing groups in Europe and other, what I refer to as fascists, to be honest, is that liberals are unable to actually fully explain how society works. Liberals love saying that, well, the market decides or the market is this neutral place of exchange of goods. But the market is not a neutral place. It's not a neutral place. Some people win those who own resources, land, and those who own the labor of others. When we are taught colonization, I think unfortunately we are not taught colonization was a search by European industrialists for new markets and cheap labour. It wasn't just about, let's go and conquer some people there for the sake of conquering. Of course there was bits of that, but it was also about cheap labor, resources and a cheap market. And that, I think, is what has been able to kind of like extend the life of European capitalism and Western capitalism.

[James Cantor]

One thing that I would add to that, which you might find interesting is I went to see Tim Snyder, the historian, speak at Beaux Arts here in Brussels, and he made the point that I think probably would have been unwelcome to a lot of the European officials who were in the audience, that it was only when those wars of colonialism didn't work out, Indochina for the French, in Indonesia for the Dutch, and to some degree in the Second World War for the Germans, where their expansionism just didn't work out, they lost those wars. And by losing those wars, they had to form an EU to keep some of these preferences, if you like these trade preferences going. This is a mainstream historian, this is mainstream history now. And I think that that's an important thing to say, that the EU itself is part of the story of colonialism.

[Emanuela Chiri]

The real story of European integration is about forming a bloc. One, to preserve the resources that had been stolen from former colonies, because you need to also preserve these resources. Secondly, to form a bloc that is powerful enough to be able to use its collective power to impose new colonial relations on others. Remember the early days of the formation of the European Union, European states, some European states still had colonies, and in fact they still have today. They refer to them as overseas territories. Or in the case of Greenland, they refer to them as semi autonomous territories. These are colonies. If you understand anything about colonization, these are colonies.

[James Cantor]

Also, if you go and talk to the Greenlanders, they say it's a colonial. They're not particularly happy being owned by Denmark.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yeah, and I always tell Europeans, because I remember I wrote article recently, but before the article I put up a post on my LinkedIn and I had a lot of, like, European scholars who are teaching at some of the big universities here in Brussels, but also around Europe who said, no, actually it's not a colony because they are autonomous. I mean, they were referring to French overseas territories to Dutch, but also to Greenland. And I said, okay. I mean, I tried to, you know, first explain why they are colonists, you know, but then I said, okay, let's imagine that you, Belgium, you were a semi autonomous part of France, and France had control over your military, your foreign affairs, your currency, your trade relations. But, well, you have a parliament that can decide a few things. Would you agree to those conditions and would you consider yourself not as a colony? And none of them could answer. And I said, the reason why you can't answer that question is because for you as Europeans, and self determination means full and complete independence. But for non Europeans, self determination means the right to make political decisions or some kinds of political decisions, but not full autonomy over your resources. Because when anti colonialists, you know, mostly from the colonized part of the world, came up with the term self determination and were advocating for self determination, and you can talk about the likes of Franz Fanon and the others who perfectly describe it, it's full and complete autonomy by politically, economically and in all spheres of life.

[James Cantor]

So for my part, Emmanuel, I have tried to coax EU commissioners to comment and criticize the US white civilizational agenda, but they've been consistently dodging these questions. On one recent occasion, I asked Magnus Brunner, an Austrian conservative who's in charge of migration policy for the eu, about the overtly racist statements coming from Trump and the Trump administration. Well, what he says is, well, you know, we really have had a problem

[Magnus Brunner]

here in the last 10 years. We, we took a lot of responsibility. The European Union did take, the European member states did take a lot of responsibility, yes, but we didn't have control. We didn't have, we didn't have rules.

[James Cantor]

And I know these commissioners, like Brunner, all of von der Leyen's commissioners, they are under strict orders not to criticize the United States. But it's also tempting to see that response by Brunner as a kind of tacit acknowledgement that he thinks there is something legitimate about a civilizational erasure of Europe. Brunner, incidentally, is the same guy who says it's perfectly alright to call migrants illegal.

[Emanuela Chiri]

In the guidelines of the commission, it's recommended to use irregular migrants instead of illegal. And I was wondering whether there is a change of direction in your narrative and if there is an alignment also with the US Administration language on migration.

[Magnus Brunner]

There is no change. I've always used, you haven't heard me speak, but you've always heard me talking about illegal migration. And the point is the act, it's about the act, how this person comes into the European Union, that's illegal. And it has nothing to do with getting aligned with the US we are concentrating on us on the European Union has nothing to do with any other

[James Cantor]

region in the world anyway. This attitude by Brunner to me was a little bit surprising that he was unable, unable to push back against the American discourse on whiteness.

[Emanuela Chiri]

I don't see why he would push back. I think it's perfectly in line with his worldview. Before we could say, well, that they are under strict orders not to criticize the US from the von der Leyen Commission. But you just need to look at his history in Austria as well and the kind of politics that he has pushed. And also why he insists on the use of illegal instead of irregular migrants. Because again, this course is very clear. Because when you say that people are illegal, right Then what you are saying is that any means that is used to remove this so called illegal people is justified.

[James Cantor]

And I thought it was interesting how Brunner was like it's the last 10 years. Yeah. And so that dates us exactly to the migration emergency.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yeah, the migration emergency and displacement from

[James Cantor]

Syria when we had some million plus coming in between in a year between 2015 and 2016. Many Syrians, many. Well, it was mostly Syrians making their way to Germany a lot to Sweden as well.

[Emanuela Chiri]

What is also I think really very important to say about this is that the vast majority of people are displaced from the global majority. I use the term global majority of global South. Stay in the global majority and stay in the global South. It's a very small fraction of people that make it to Europe. That is actually insignificant when you compare it to the number of displaced people that are received by other states or by in other regions. When these people move to Europe they are considered a problem. And it's not just that they are a problem because well, their numbers are perceived as high, which again I think that that logic doesn't even work. But again, it's really because these people are not. These people are Muslims, these people are black and these people are brown. It's a reaction to the idea that certain groups of people moving to Europe is going to change the demography of Europe from just imagine pristine white society to a society that's no longer pristine and white. And that is why it's important for people like Bruno and others who say illegal migrants because again, remember that you need to tap in into society to be able to justify certain actions. And in order to justify these actions you need to first securitize These people, you need to treat them as a security threat. And that is why you see the Commission also refers to migration as a security threat for Europe.

[James Cantor]

The EU recently released its first anti racism strategy. For the next few years, it's a policy document. It does propose measures like improved data collection, victim support, stronger enforcement of existing anti discrimination laws. But one thing that was not addressed, and this was a glaring omission for the European Network Against Racism. Your group is about the way Europe is policing and militarizing its borders and how that violence is directed against black and brown migrants, which is of course awful enough, but that can spill over onto Europeans who are racialized. Border violence, if I've got Einar's critique correct, border violence becomes a license for more violence at home, particularly police violence.

[Emanuela Chiri]

It's quite instructive that structural racism was defined in this new anti racism strategy as using terminologies like perceptions. Even when everyone knows that racism is not just simply about perceptions, it's about structures in society. So it's about daily experiences, it's about access to the job market or not having access to the labor market, housing, employment, health care, what have you not. It's a structure of violence, but it was described as perception. On the subject of migration governance and border violence, it's not surprising that this was clearly omitted. It's because you cannot talk about anti racism in the field of migration governance while at the same time proposing the deportation regulation, the anti smuggling package, the reform of the Schengen border code, the migration pact in asylum. They are contradictory in that sense. There was no shock, at least for me and I think for many others, that migration was omitted. I think this was intentional. But think of the migration pact, right? The migration pact basically kills the right to asylum. It has this accelerated border procedures which border officials could make arbitrary decisions. It legitimizes detention even of children. It comes up with these notions of instrumentalization. So if a member state of the EU considered that migration was being instrumentalized to impact its politics, it could suspend asylum laws. It comes up with this. I don't know how this is going to hold, by the way, if it's challenged at the European Court of Human Rights and repent Court of Justice. I'm really interested to see because it also comes up.

[James Cantor]

That's why they're trying to change international law.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yes, absolutely. Because there is this weird quasi legalistic notions that if you find yourself, for instance, it's like one of them is like fiction of non entry. So you find yourself on European soil and you apply for asylum, for the sake of processing your asylum claim, you're not on European soil. So the first step is we have to reduce the number of black and brown people who are going to come into the EU. The second step, which was still in 2024, there was a reform of the Schengen Border Code.

[James Cantor]

The Schengen Border Code. This is the core EU legal framework governing crossing external borders, entry requirements, and the absence of internal border controls, at least theoretically, among 29 member countries. Recent 2024 updates. Right. Allow for tighter management of external borders. They can now limit the number of border crossing points or reduce their opening hours and do what is called enhanced border surveillance. These reforms from 2024, they also have an internal dimension.

[Emanuela Chiri]

And of course, a lot of this is to control irregular migration. But also police officers would have, you know, more rights in the name, under the guise of controlling for irregular migration, to stop unchecked people, but not only at the borders. This is something we have to be careful. But also within the territories of member states. So this is very, I think, important to understand that it basically, in essence, is going to legitimize racial profiling.

[James Cantor]

And you know what? With this, the question I would ask would be, how close is the Trump strategy, which is using deportations and ICE to what Europe is doing right now or is preparing? Are there things that Trump is doing that Europe is not doing, or at least not yet?

[Emanuela Chiri]

So you have the migration pact stops people at the border, black and brown people, specifically the Schengen Border Code reform, controlling the mobility of racialized people. So not only migrants this time around, because, well, how would the police officer know whether you are an irregular migrant or not? They have to, first of all, presume that you're an irregular migrant. And this presumption is based on the fact that you don't look white. Then you have the Deportation act, because if you have this imagination of Europe as pristine white, then you are not only stopping black and brown people coming in because, well, there's too many of them. And, well, this is a great replacement. I mean, according to your rhetoric and everything. And you're not only controlling their mobility, but you also have to remove them. And this is where the Deportation act comes in. The Deportation act is basically going to enable, not mass deportation, but also mass attention of racialized people. It's also about sending people, even to places where they have zero connection. So it's not only about deporting them. It's like we are just going to remove you and send you wherever we think it's Necessary. We just don't want you here. And until we are able to deport you, we have these massive detention camps which you already see in Albania. But we know that for years, because people think about. But where is this coming. Oh, my God. Why is the EU behaving? Copying ice? No, the EU has been using Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also the Balkans, as testing grounds for deportation and mass detention of migrants. This has been ongoing for years, which.

[James Cantor]

Which, if I'm to split hairs here, I would say, well, actually, the mass deportations or the deportations that we're seeing on TV from the United States, they often involve herding human beings into airplanes and then sending them to places that they have no connection with. In the case of the Balkans, this was not necessarily involving an airplane, but it was pushing people back over a border where they have actually no connection with that place. So you're drawing a parallel there.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the only thing I would add is that the eu, of course, also uses planes, but they don't advertise it like it's put on the page of. Of the White House. Who deported this. No, the EU doesn't do that. So that's what the deportation regulation is about. It's removing black and brown people from Europe, putting them. I mean, we say detention camps, but these are concentration camps. When you look at the facilities people have been put onto. I visited some of them in Cyprus, by the way. These are absolutely horrible. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

[James Cantor]

This is in the Republic of Cyprus.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Yes, the Republic of Cyprus.

[James Cantor]

So in the southern part.

[Emanuela Chiri]

In the southern part of the.

[James Cantor]

I've visited within the European Union.

[Emanuela Chiri]

Within the European Union. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. So this. We said they had attention, but again, this is the thing that Europe is good at. And this is where I think the US fails, if I have to use a Niccolo Machiavelli point of view, is that the Trump administration says deportation, the EU says returns, directive, returns regulation. So it's like, no, we are not deporting you, we are simply returning you. It's a sanitized way of approaching violence, and that is what the EU really excels at. But that is not sufficient, because, you know, all of these leftist Europeans, all of these activists who care too much about people, are offering support to migrants. You know, they are offering food, water services, information, and so on and so forth. So, yes, we need the anti smuggling package in order to criminalize smuggling, because what, in essence, the EU is saying is criminalizing support for migrants. I know the first version was even going to criminalize, like offering water for people because it could be considered as aiding and abating the transit of irregular. Well, it's described as illegal migrants. So it's stopping them, controlling their mobility, removing as many as possible, and then penalize all of these people who want to offer support to them. So it's a complete architecture of racialized governance of black and brown people and their borders.

[James Cantor]

If you ask European officials, how do you feel about your responsibility for the fact that European Agency officials, let's say they're in Warsaw, were sitting there behind their computers observing satellite footage of people dying in real time on the Mediterranean? That's your satellite. Those are your computers. Those are your Coast Guard authorities. They may not have the authorization from the national authorities to go do those rescues. However you are watching this stuff, do you consider yourselves culpable? Do you consider yourselves part of these deaths? And they will never go there. This is the question that is the most unwelcome question you can put to a European official. Why they don't want that association with death.

[Emanuela Chiri]

When you combine all of the deaths that ICE is responsible for over the last two years, they do not even total or amount the total of deaths that people died only in the Mediterranean alone. And that's a lower estimate. And that's why when people say, well, I. Is this. Well, I. Is that. I'm like. I mean, especially Europeans, I'm like, let's look at some, like some figures from the International Organization of Migration. And even they say that these figures are not exhaustive because a lot of the time they are unable to one recover bodies. Member states also, and Frontex doesn't give accurate or don't share this information. So these are the lowest estimates. So According to the IOM, in 2025, 2,000 people died or went missing in the Mediterranean. And in 2026, approximately 500 people have died or went missing in the Mediterranean alone. And we are in February. So what that tells you is that the violence is increasing just because they haven't gone to the street and shot two white people. And then it's in your face that, well, this violence is a bit too much if it's also attacking just because they haven't done that or just because the European Commission doesn't put on its official sites pictures of black and brown people being forced, you know, being handcuffed and put into planes. You know, this very morally depraved approach doesn't mean that they don't do worse. It's just a sanitized version. And I don't want to say that, well, this is worse than, because I think that they are equally very violent. But I think that what is also really disturbing about the European approach is that people are unable to grieve because when these bodies go missing, when people die and there is no, well, we cannot even account for how many people have died. We cannot even see the bodies, then it's not normal political consciousness. People don't get to grieve it. They can also not be a public outcry because we don't see this. You are not only invisibilizing and dehumanizing these people, you know, migrants and racialized people while they are alive, but even in death they remain invisible. And it's part of this, you know, what Achif Benber refers to as necropolitics, the production of death.

[James Cantor]

So I just wanted you to say

[Emanuela Chiri]

something about the concept of necropolitics, the concept that a lot of people think of when they hear Gill Mbembe.

[James Cantor]

They think necropolitics, people who have really

[Emanuela Chiri]

undergone quasi extinction, who have been at the receiving end. Thus necropolitics, the deliberate creation of death scapes, modes of rule in which life is instrumentalized, is put at the service of forms of power which rest on the capacity to kill.

[James Cantor]

To this violence that we see far less obviously in Europe compared to the way that the Trump administration almost celebrates violence. And as you explained, the numbers are actually quite shocking in Europe, even compared to what is going on in the United States. We now see this new sort of moral panic in Europe over what far right parties and politicians are saying about wanting to introduce ICE style immigration enforcement and roundups, which to me seems like more of a right wing paramilitary militia set loose on cities where democrats happen to be in power rather than a law enforcement agency. Anyway, the European far right seems to be looking to emulate that model. You've had this call in late January by Katrin Ebner steiner of the AfD in the Bavarian state Parliament in Germany for remigration now state run deportation flights, creation of an asylum investigation and deportation unit within the Bavarian police in Belgium, a member of the Belgian parliament for the Vlaamsbelange, the Flemish interest far right, calling for creation of a dedicated police service for active detection of undocumented migrants in Belgium. In Britain, we have Nigel Farage who wants to detain and remove up to 600,000 asylum seekers within five years. To me, given everything that we've discussed, it's almost convenient for us to Put the attention on what these far right parties are saying, as dangerous as they are. We also need to look to what's going on right now.

[Emanuela Chiri]

We have to remember that this is a new iteration of white supremacy. It's not like a new thing. And so, yes, we can frown at what the far right says. Absolutely. But then we need to also then start this process of deconstructing whiteness. Palestinians first migrants at these borders, but now we're seeing this in the streets of Europe. We see the same technologies of violence being used on protesters in Europe. What I always tell people is especially like my European comrades, but also European citizens and people racialized as white in general is, you don't need to do this for me as a racialized migrant or as we don't need your white severism, you need to do it for yourselves. Because yes, we are the first victims of this violence. But eventually what history tells us is it would come back to you as well. It would come back because the capitalist class, and that's why I say racial capital, because the capitalist class needs you as a white working class, as the soldiers of the empire, to get rid of us. But when you've gotten rid of us and there is no one to get rid of, what do you think that they are going to do to you? They are going to let you get rid of them? No, they are going to turn their missionary against you. You have world wars to prove that to you. And so you can live in oblivion and you can choose to be racist all you want, but at the end of the day, this would also come back to bite you. And so this is about all of us. This is not just about migrants or racialized people. This is about our collective survival. And in order to survive, you also need to help us survive. So you don't need to save me. You need to save you by helping me to save me.

[James Cantor]

That's it for this episode. EU Scream is non profit journalism and is produced in association with the Brussels Times. It's your support and your feedback that helps us delve into this new darker era in our politics, into how the EU should be responding, and into the thoughts and experiences of people who really know what the they're talking about. Small donations to large ones, that's all incredibly appreciated. It also helps when we get a five star rating at Spotify or a review at Apple. Podcasts and passing on episodes to family, colleagues, friends, that's yet another great way to show support. For more details and for more EU scream, do please visit Brusselstimes.com and look for the podcast. Thanks for listening.