Zygmunt Bauman: Strangers at Our Door

Abstract

Refugees from the violence of wars and the brutality of famished lives have
knocked on other people's doors since the beginning of time. For the
people behind the doors, these uninvited guests were always strangers,
and strangers tend to generate fear and anxiety precisely because they are
unknown. Today we find ourselves confronted with an extreme form of this
historical dynamic, as our TV screens and newspapers are filled with
accounts of a 'migration crisis', ostensibly overwhelming Europe and
portending the collapse of our way of life. This anxious debate has given
rise to a veritable 'moral panic' - a feeling of fear spreading among a large
number of people that some evil threatens the well-being of society.