südreise_nordreise
30', 2000
by Marion von Osten sans papiers Belgium
The video which is done in collaboration with the R.R.I.O. Sans Papiers Organization in Belgium tries to connect different view points and narrations on current exclusion processes in the construction process of the EU. The specific situation of the Sans Papiers Movement in Belgium will stand in the center of this video. Although Belgium always had a harsh asylum policy, it was made still more severe in 1997 by the „law Vandelanotte". At that occasion people without papers have started to organize themselves autonomously. This process of becoming conscious has incited thousands of men, women and children, who have been living in Belgium for years, to demand an existence with dignity here. The harsh asylum policy led to the tragic death of Semira Adamu in September 1998. Moreover, she wasn't the only one by far who lost her life. To avoid still more victims and to alert public opinion, it became necessary to take radical action. So people without papers occupied public buildings all over Belgium. First churches, later also schools, youth centers, labor union buildings and neighborhood centers. The video does not focus on the radical actions only but tries to point out how „otherness" was constructed historically to build up an European identity. This construction of a „modern" western society will be viewed upon the question how this identity was created against the „Black Continent", Africa and the South in general, by political as well as representational practices. Moreover, the film tries to show how this production of alterity is continued in the debates on migration politics. The historical and current relations between colonialism, economical processes and political decisions, aspects which usually are seen as separate discursive and political fields will be seen in its dependencies. The video includes material from an interview in the Sans Papiers office, and a lecture given by Saskia Sassen in Zurich.
