Whose seat is it anyway and how do we get it?

Can India, without expressing opinion on major global issues, hope to assimilate support to push for reforms at the UNSC?   Photo credit: UNGA

India has long had aspirations to get a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council. Many other states have had to. But who is to get this seat? Who is to give it? Can there be just one more such seat and not a bigger set of reforms? And how is this complex yet institutionalised power relationship panning out? These are just a few questions that come to mind whenever the subject is stirred. It again came up a few days ago as the United Nations marked its 70^th anniversary.

The following essay is an extract from my dissertation that I wrote last year and it argues for the establishment of a globally active state-backed Indian media house and states that such an establishment will only aide India’s bid for that permanent UNSC seat. After all, it’s all about communication, right? And that’s what the media does. It informs, it communicates. But it is essential for such state-backed media to have pluralistic and constructive values.

While over the course of the past few months, I continue to abide by this argument. However, what has changed is that the establishment of a new government in India in 2014 and its rightward tilt has made it primitive to talk about this state-backed media as a voice of the state, and not the government that is in power. Institutionalising such a media outlet and recognising the distinction between the state and the government have never appeared as paramount as they do now.

Where’s the global Indian voice?

India, as an economy and a regional power and potentially a global one, has been registering significant growth and has shown visible desire for inclusion as a permanent member of the council, but neither this growth or this desire has been reflected in the global media space by Indian actors. Nor has any Indian state media channel informed the world or even its neighbours about its opinion on major world issues, let alone spreading Indian norms and values through delivery of world news. And it is when speaking of norms that the distinction between state and government becomes even more critical because both, as entities, may favour a partially overlapping, yet separate set of ideas and norms.

I must here underline that to adjudge the sanctity and the pertinence of this ambition of acquiring a permanent UNSC seat is not the aim of this argument. The argument is premised around the factors that influence such an argument, especially the global activeness of Indian state-backed media.

“If any country has a right to be on the Security Council, India does,'' AP Venkateswaran, a former foreign secretary of the country had noted once (Monitor, 2007). The former foreign secretary, along with others who make the case for India permanently being on the UNSC, has lots of parameters to base their argument on – from India being the largest democracy in the world to being among the top ten states with the highest spending on defence. The only element that seems evasive in that equation is India’s representation in the global media space and the absence of an Indian perspective on global issues. How then, does India, without expressing opinion on major international or regional issues, hope to assimilate support to push for reforms at the UNSC? Maybe economic and military might may get India there eventually, but wouldn’t the soft power of media hasten the process? Ever since taking charge in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his numerous foreign trips have created a certain global buzz about India, but should he be just the only public spokesperson for India? And can that buzz really last?

What further makes these questions demand urgent answers and subsequent actions is the certitude that all of the five permanent members of the UNSC, contemporarily, have strong presence in the global media space. This may not have been a necessary condition for such an inclusion in the council or reformation in its structure when China became a part of the permanent set up in 1971 or France in 1958, as these states were not represented as actively in the global media space then, as they are now. But in the contemporary scenario of world politics, a lot has changed and the soft power that state media may internationally accumulate may well be the missing ingredient to seal the argument for a permanent seat for India at the council. China’s CCTV and France’s France 24 have been vehemently active globally over the past few years; so has Russia’s RT; UK’s BBC has always been a sort of benchmark for global media actors and US’ Voice of America and CNN among other actors have never allowed America to be under represented in global media. With so many disparate voices in the global media, an Indian state-backed voice may face competition, but it will also only furnish the ground-work in terms of global and regional public opinion that needs to be urgently addressed in order for India to strongly pitch for a UNSC seat, if it is really desired/ aimed to be sought.

Of course, the establishment of such a voice must not be understood to be an easy route to that seat, but a factor that could multiply those chances. And who knows, over time this voice may grow into a regional voice given that the global system is moving towards a multi-polar structure that’s likely to be influenced more by regionalisms than individual states. And perhaps, India’s immediate neighbours could pitch in as well and could this collaborative media in a sense then, lead to constructive pathways across the most militarised border in the world too? Well, economic lobbying among all other channels of diplomacy is needed to try and get that moving, but, one can always hope. Meanwhile, it appears that the path ahead is certain to be guided in many ways by the construction of communication and the communication of construction.

The road to Refugia

Yazidi families fleeing an attack by the Islamic State near the Iraq border. The number of forcibly displaced people today stands at over 59.5 million - roughly equal to the population of Italy. Photo credit: Reuters

Can we carve out a piece of land that refugees can call home? That’s a question that many are discussing, thanks to the buzz created around the idea by real estate millionaire Jason Buzi with his Refugee Nation project. What makes this discussion so urgent is the fact despite advances in the spheres of economy, technology, human rights and academics, the number of refugees around the world has just kept on growing. That number of forcibly displaced people today stands at over 59.5 million – roughly equal to the population of Italy.

The immediate demand for attention and action comes as thousands feel outraged and perhaps helpless as they see a colossal people crisis unfold in various parts of the world. A substantial number also feel threatened by the same. The crisis in Europe may have gotten maximum attention, but similar issues in Southeast Asia or other parts of Africa are no less significant or pain-striking. And hence comes forward the idea of a refugee nation, as Buzi puts it.

That idea has perhaps long existed in fiction. Talk about the eco-refugees in the movies Mad Max or Water World or the idea of a new-age Noah’s Ark built by rich nations with tickets sold to the elite in the movie 2012. Well, for all its purposes, wasn’t the actual idea of Noah’s Ark also to provide refuge in a time of environmental disaster? These examples, irrespective of their existence in fiction, point to two types of insights when it comes to a refugee crisis – temporary and permanent.

While eco-refugees, like the ones climate change is perhaps creating, need permanent solutions today; the idea that a safe, temporary solution should be sought in the time of need is what perhaps guided the creation of Noah’s Ark, either in reality or as a myth. That’s the approach refugee camps take, don’t’ they? They are meant to serve as temporary shelters until the refugees can be granted permanent citizenship elsewhere or until conditions turn favourable for their return to their home country. But these are desired scenarios that seldom arrive, and often at snail’s pace, giving those temporary shelters permanent attributes.

Where these shelters exist, how they are sustained and how they evolve to integrate with society as refugees become citizens are the key questions then. Currently, they exist in recognised states like Jordan, Italy, Greece, Tanzania among many others. They are supported by the national governments, international organisations like the United Nations and non-governmental bodies and charities. The maximum stress, however, is often on the national government and these resources often don’t match the demand.

A refugee society-state

What this idea of a refugee nation does is that it answers these questions in different ways while also throwing up possible scenarios. The assumption is, those shelters – now permanent in nature – must exist on a separate territory that can be used to form a new state.

Further, this territory and the people should be sustained with the help of donations from the rich – states, people or companies, while the refugees take up tasks most attuned to their skills, for refugees are also people with skills and education, and some are doctors and engineers too. We tend to club them homogenously and often also mistakenly just call them migrants. So they can work there, earn a living and form a part of a refugee society that evolves into this accommodating, cosmopolitan society that takes in refugees with ease, as and when they arrive in the future (ideally that number will organically go down). Buzi is aiming for a permanent, sustainable and universal solution with this idea. So, this would be home then. Essentially, adding to the meaning of the word refugee – for now Refugia (a term coined by Professor Robin Cohen of the International Migration Institute) is a permanent home for the refugees. So either, the nature of the way we use the word changes or its meaning becomes larger.

People from the Rohingya community collect water to drink at a refugee camp in Myanmar. While the crisis in Europe has gotten maximum attention, the people's crisis is unfortunately much more universal than it appears. Photo credit: AP 

But what else changes?

A change in the usage of the word will more importantly correspondingly change the way we respond to it. While, the idea of a refugee nation is stimulating, it must grow into much more than a survivor’s camp. Can it have a permanent structure by itself? Should it?

In fact, what is primitively essential to acknowledge is that, in a lucid form, a nation as such already exists; for a nation is a large body of people with a shared history or culture, inhabiting a particular territory. Currently that territory is fluidic and is dispersed across states around the world. To consolidate that territory into one mass, and to bring those people to that mass is a legitimate response to mitigate the crisis, but it seems unlikely to be a long-term solution to it. There’s need for innovation in responses to this bludgeoning refugee crisis, and as the ‘Airbnb for refugees’ initiative shows, that innovation is happening. It is imperative to recognise that these innovations help deal with the crisis, not solve it at the source. And the problems at that source arise from hardships entrenched in socio, political and economic grounds, among others.

But for immediate responses, I vote for the creation of a refugee station, rather than a refugee nation. Without pre-conditions, it should be welcoming and serve as a platform to provide urgent security of all kinds, support to re-integrate with society and confidence to find home in the long-term. A station that is born under the aegis of the United Nations rather than as charity of a private kind, as Professor Cohen suggests. While the funds can come from donations, the efficacy in its functioning can only be derived from a principled approach embedded in perhaps a partnership of the public and the private. They’ll need to be a setup of governance quite akin to the one of federalism for self-governance to flourish or else this may end up being just another refugee camp. Freedom is what people are after – political, social and economic – let’s not forget that.

Where will this territory be and how will it be procured? These are questions that need much discussion, to ensure ease of accessibility and sustainability as well. Also, this Refugia must not just serve as the mirage of an oasis that attracts refugees, but be a station to help and assist the ones in need, irrespective of existing state or creed. Validation would be another major process again, hurting the pace of settlement. This is an area that needs urgent innovation and rethinking.

Perhaps the United Nations could finally nail the search and finally become a wholesome, combined nation in itself. And would that not be tangible proof of a post-national world? It’ll have to be – post-national and transnational. And when it comes to opening the doors of this station, it must be important to acknowledge the meaning and difference in the words migrants and refugees and to recognise that both these words, at the end of the day, comprise people.

The perils of proposal

As Alexander Betts points out, the premise of the idea of a refugee nation is exclusion, not inclusion. What a blow could that be to the notion of refugee integration and what signal would it send to the perpetrators? One that they can create havoc, force people out and be rest-assured they’ll find their way to this safe, welcoming place? The creation of such a nation/station will have to go hand-in-hand with that of fighting the causes at their roots, aggressively. For this station will also serve as the best incubation pad to come up methods to tackle the crisis at home.

There are more threats. Would the shared experiences of the refugees create harmony and brotherhood, or could the disparate cultural and religious understandings lead to conflicts that threaten the existence of this land of peace? Also, would it not create another class across the world? A class of people that donates and thinks of itself as saviours of this oppressed refugee class. But this one may not be that big a problem in the future, for such corrupt attitudes to charity already exist, promoting what Slavoj Zizek calls cultural capitalism.

Would you help form it?

Despite the perils, if an agency were to ensure the sustainability of such a station to mitigate this people’s crisis, I would. Would you, as long as you are assured of the transparency and accountability of the project? Accountability towards refugees, and you, and states too. For those national governments where these people are coming from shall continue to have stake in this crisis. But would this idea also not raise doubts about the promotion of this charity industry? Those questions are as valid as the search for responses to the crisis, and until we find them, such innovations must not only be debated but also implemented methodically with caution, perhaps with institutional help.

For whatever the nature of world politics, innovation and constructivism are what shall see us through. How we define and employ them may ultimately seal the deal. For, it’s not possible to imagine my thought processes if I were a refugee (it may also be a cruel test), but if I were to attempt to respond to the idea of this refugee station, the answer would be a definite, “Yes, take me there”. But then, I would still seek my home, and there are reasonable doubts if Refugia will be able to provide one in the long-term.