Discussion on contemporary migration policy and Blood Hygiene in Rome

Blood Hygiene at Teatro Furio Camillo in Rome, followed by a discussion after the performance

Current Migration Policy and Europe’s Moral Crisis

Video Recording of the Discussion

Discussion Summary

Participants:

Giovanna Cavallo – lawyer at the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI)

Pavla Dombrovská – author of the performance Blood Hygiene, Divadlo Líšeň

Context and Background: Theatre as a Mirror of Extremism

The opening part of the discussion focused on the origins and motivation behind Blood Hygiene, a performance that Divadlo Líšeň has been presenting for the past fifteen years. Its author, playwright, and director, Pavla Dombrovská, explained that the production was developed through extensive research of documentary materials from the Holocaust period, including direct quotations from Mein Kampf and documents presented during the Nuremberg Trials.

The key impulse for connecting history with the present, however, came from the discovery of the Czech neo-Nazi website White Media and contemporary online discussions. It became evident that the rhetoric and patterns of argument used by present-day far-right extremists, racists, and even some mainstream politicians closely resemble, both structurally and substantively, the language employed by Nazi leaders in the 1930s and 1940s. The performance therefore serves as a warning about the persistence of fascist tendencies and their gradual re-emergence in public discourse.

The Hierarchisation of Human Life and the Mechanism of Collective Guilt

Dombrovská highlighted a troubling contemporary phenomenon: the implicit hierarchy of human value. Society increasingly displays selective empathy—while the deaths of people from certain social or ethnic groups are publicly recognised as tragedies, the mass deaths of others, such as migrants at Europe’s external borders, often remain marginalised and largely invisible.

Drawing on testimonies from survivors of Auschwitz and Terezín, including former chairman of the Jewish Community of Brno, Pavel Fried, Dombrovská recalled an important historical lesson: totalitarian systems of persecution and mass murder are rarely maintained primarily by monstrous individuals. More often, they depend on ordinary people performing routine tasks—clerks compiling lists, railway workers operating trains, and officials carrying out administrative duties. For this reason, every individual must critically examine whether seemingly ordinary, conformist actions contribute to sustaining contemporary systems of discrimination. At the same time, she rejected the principle of collective guilt, arguing that responsibility for aggression and oppression always lies with specific political leaders who manipulate public opinion.

European Migration Policy: Institutionalised “Legal Horrors”

Giovanna Cavallo offered a sharp critique of the European Union’s current institutional approach to migration. In her view, Europe is systematically betraying its own humanistic values and founding principles under the pretext of security. She described recent legislation and government decrees that bypass normal parliamentary debate as “legal horrors.”

According to Cavallo, the primary objective of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum is to establish a global architecture of control, isolation, and selection of human beings, based on three pillars:

Externalisation of migration: transferring responsibility for refugees to third countries outside the EU, following the model of earlier agreements such as the EU–Turkey deal.

Border filtering: arbitrarily determining who is “deserving” or “undeserving” of international protection, often based on broad assumptions about so-called “safe countries.”

Internal borders: creating administrative barriers within European states that effectively restrict access to fundamental human rights for people on the move.

Cavallo supported her argument with statistical data. According to United Nations estimates, more than 300 million people worldwide are currently on the move due to war, climate change, or economic hardship. Only around 10 percent of this global mobility is directed towards Europe. The current situation, she argued, is therefore not an objective “migration crisis” but rather a politically constructed crisis in which human beings are transformed into instruments of political struggle and objects of administrative detention. As an extreme example of human suffering and degradation, she referred to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

The Failure of Specific Political Projects: The Albanian Centres

The discussion also examined the controversial Italian project of migration centres in Albania. Cavallo pointed to the inefficiency and contradictions of this scheme. Approximately eighty people were transferred to the centres primarily to allow the government to demonstrate that it was taking action.

Legal practice within the centres is based on a presumption of suspicion: migrants arriving from countries classified as “safe” are automatically treated as potential fraudsters attempting to exploit the system and may be deprived of their liberty. This approach has also been criticised by many Albanians, who retain vivid memories of their own mass emigration during the 1990s, including the detention of Albanian refugees in Bari. For this reason, many oppose the establishment of modern detention facilities on Albanian territory.

The Power of Civil Society: The Example of Yalla Study

Despite the bleak picture of institutional migration policy, the discussion concluded on a more hopeful note, emphasising the transformative power of solidarity and grassroots engagement. Giovanna Cavallo illustrated how civil society can “throw a grain of sand into the machinery of the system” through the successful Yalla Study initiative.

This informal network of around seventy Italian organisations and volunteers managed to establish contact with students living in the bombarded Gaza Strip. Working remotely, volunteers collected documentation, arranged translations, secured academic scholarships at Italian universities, and submitted official visa applications. Their efforts ultimately compelled the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to act.

As a result, 150 students from Gaza have been able to travel legally and safely to Italy to continue their studies. Shortly before the discussion took place, visas were approved for an additional 21 students whose applications had previously been rejected.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The discussion concluded with a shared consensus on practical ways in which civil society and individuals can resist the dehumanisation embedded in contemporary migration policies:

• Changing the narrative: Political language that reduces human beings to security threats or statistical figures must be challenged. Public discourse should restore individual stories, human dignity, and personal experiences.
• Active citizenship and political accountability: Participation in democratic processes and scrutiny of elected representatives remain essential, particularly in assessing whether political actions comply with international law.
• Nonconformity and vigilance: Individuals should not abandon their moral judgment or blindly comply with unjust policies under the excuse of “just doing their job.”
• The provocation of art: Engaged artistic work, such as that created by Divadlo Líšeň, plays an irreplaceable role in disrupting public complacency, encouraging self-reflection, and helping to dismantle both physical and moral barriers between people.