Another case was that of the Spain-Morocco partnership. Spain feared that if migrants managed to cross to Europe through Morocco, it was because the Moroccan government wanted them to pass by selectively opening and closing its borders. Mauritania was as well a key EU’s partner in the African migration control that ever used its relevance in migration control to threaten the EU to meet its political recognition demands. After the 2006 military coup d’état, the migration crisis intensified, and the EU was eventually compelled to start negotiations with the unelected Mauritanian government (Frowd, 2014; Poutignat and Streiff-Fénart, 2010). Although blackmail was not the dominant rhetorical approach that resulted in the EU migration policy change in 2015, still, it contributed to setting up the political rhetoric of colonialism in the EU-Africa mobility framework.
7.3 Formation and expression of neo-colonial rhetoric and root causes of African migration
Unlike the Libya-Italy partnership or other EU-North Africa countries, whose persuasion was featured by blackmail, a newer form of rhetorical action occurred later. The second form of rhetoric involved neocolonialism as the root cause of African irregular migration. The rhetoric was led by pan-Africanists and state leaders who claimed that the causes of Africa’s irregular migration, including imbalanced trade and climate change, were rooted in colonialism.
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Unlike rhetorical action through blackmailing, which was spontaneous, the rhetoric of neocolonialism developed over time. African partner countries started gradually developing rhetoric and eventually incorporated rhetoric in the migration control partnership framework.
For instance, the pathos in Kagame’s critical rhetoric concerning neo-colonial-based Africa-EU relations lured the Africa-EU actors to reconsider their contribution to under-development in Africa. Although the colonial rhetoric was not based on statistical facts, the argument was critically catchy and connected to the EU normative principles. Such a rhetorical persuasion makes the audience get into deep thinking, searching the speaker’s main point. “But lacking self-evidence that can be imposed on everyone, a hypothesis, to be accepted, must be supported by good reasons, recognized as such by other people, members of the same community. The status of knowledge thus ceases to be impersonal because every scientific thought becomes a human one, i.e., fallible, situated in and subjected to controversy” (Boger, 2005:196).
African leaders were aware that the EU actors had prioritized migration control projects, which at times ran counter to Africa’s development agenda. Strong rhetoric against the EU-funded migration control projects showed the EU’s aid to Africa was not perceived as genuine but rather instrumental. Interestingly, contrary to the mainstream studies, which suggested that African countries were more interested in migrants reaching European labor markets, rhetoric by African partners, including during the Valletta Summit, did not frame African irregular migrants as a labor force in Europe. Within the partnership, it would have been assumed that partners would comply with the shared norms to maintain a positive reputation as genuine partners. However, this being a social engagement, open conditionalities could not apply;
instead, social influence became the means of persuasion. African partners were chiefly concerned with the EU’s need to acknowledge the root causes of irregular migration and contribute to addressing them. The neo-colonial rhetoric described the Africa-EU partnership as a parasitic relationship. African partners created a strong rhetorical impact against their
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European counterparts - that the EU actors accepted an unlimited flow of material resources from Africa, while at the same time, they restricted irregular migrants from reaching their territory.
Africa’s neo-colonial rhetoric maintained that African irregular migrants were victims of unfair global political and economic structures. From a Marxist perspective, such rhetoric established a critic that any attempt to examine colonialism as the root cause, alone, considering its long-term consequences, would hinder understanding the broader context within which those conditions for irregular migration were systematically reproduced. While the African leaders placed neo-colonialism at the center stage in constructing irregular migrants, they also suggested remedial action: the EU needed to take part in the responsibility and act accordingly.
The logic was that tackling the root causes involved replacing inappropriate economic structures, rules and procedures with the right ones. In rhetorical action, although rhetors try not to offer specific details of the proposed policies, they must narrow their audience’s range of choices to redirect them to a specific policy direction. By capitalizing on the rhetoric of root causes, African partners eliminated a wide range of migration control options that the EU would have otherwise opted for.
7.4 The 2015 Valletta Summit: a space for social recognition and validation of the rhetoric of root causes of irregular migration
The 2015 Valletta Summit provided a platform for EU-Africa diplomatic interaction and was featured by contestation of migration management approach between the African and European partners. The fluid meaning of the root causes put forth by African partners opened the floor for rhetorical contestation. As noted in the earlier section, the meaning of the root causes included historical issues directly or indirectly linked to the present manifestation of irregular migration. The African partners strongly supported the rhetoric of unbalanced economic structures established through colonialism. This rhetoric addressed the systems of dependency
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of the African countries, commonly known as neo-colonialism. African leaders argued that irregular migration could only be solved by re-designing economic structures that would eventually enhance Africa's industrialization. Instead of examining the conditions through which joint migration control was to be achieved, African partners delegitimized the EU migration control actions in the partnership framework. As a result, there was a re-conceptualization of irregular migration management norms through social recognition of mutual interest and shared responsibility.
African partners gathered influence by connecting the rhetoric of root causes to a critic of the EU’s identity as a normative actor. By doing so, they delegitimized the EU actions by establishing the subjectivity of self (the EU’s) within the partnership framework. The fact that the summit was held during a migration crisis was not a concern to African partners. Unlike the EU partners, who expected some level of deliberations on control measures at least to manage the crisis, African partners operated in post-crisis mode – not constrained by the urgency to control irregular migration. Despite the critic that the EU actors had contributed to the underdevelopment of Africa, there was no counterargument from the EU partners.
Eventually, rhetorical entrapment led to validating a new norm of addressing the root causes of irregular migration.
To understand the EU’s migration policy change, it is essential to clarify how rhetorical action during the 2015 Valletta Summit led to the validation of the root cause of irregular migration.
Depending on how the rhetorical action is conducted, it can culminate in either mutual recognition based on the principles and structures of socialization or create more conflict (Sillince et al., 2012). In rhetorical action, social validation consists of validity claiming generated through political engagement. The degree of integration between the actors involved determines the level of social recognition, i.e., the higher the level of integration, the greater
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the possibilities of social recognition of a norm (ibid). Social recognition translates to a negotiated validity claim, such as referencing a particular norm, to justify an intervention approach (Fierke, 2010). The validation of the African rhetoric by the EU actors occurred through social recognition, without any reference to the universal laws.