“One can either be a citizen or a human but not both.” (44)

This statement in Miriam Ticktin’s paper “Where ethics and politics meet: the violence of humanitarianism in France” really stood out to me because it encompassed so many of the ideas discussed in class and the readings prior.

Ticktin was specifically commenting on how migrants have to compromise their personal biological integrity, something that is shared between literally all peoples, to become legal residents of the host country, in this case France. Additionally, since it takes five years to achieve this status in France, the individuals, who already permanently compromised their health by self-infecting with HIV, had to continue to refuse treatment for multiple years until their papers were received. By taking advantage of this humanitarian clause, the migrants lost their humanness, their livelihood (or the part that remained after the sufferings associated with fleeing/attempting to cross the border) to their status on a piece of paper, and it was truly mind-blowing to learn that this scenario was actually a commonality for many migrants.

Another point Tickin made was that many of the immigration officials who were reviewing the “illness clause” papers of migrants did not follow the doctors’ recommendations. This reminded me of the general subjectivity discussed in the refugee interview process, and how the fate of a person is held in the hands of an unqualified, unaffected individual. It also took me to a point that Andrea Muehlebach made in her article: that even today, refugee camps and, by extension situations related to refugees, are tainted by a “series of projections, desires, repressed fears, and trauma future and past.” It seems that regardless of the good intentions of a few individuals, or a political move, the decision is underlied by the tensions of human subjectivity and the conflict of self-need versus the morality of helping others.