PROTOCOL ACTIVE. INCOMING CALL: UNIT 1379. ENCRYPTION: LEVEL 4.
THE GUILTY ARE ASSIGNED
World News (Daily Decode) · 28 October, from the digest of 20 to 26. Europe has been in the streets for a second week. Schoolchildren went out, teachers, pensioners, people holding the keys to flats they can no longer pay for. Each has a reason of their own: school, prices, pension, housing. Within days this anger was given one common name: migrants. The name was not spoken in the squares. It was spoken from above.
LOUD
France · NPR, AP.
They say: 26 October, NPR: more than 100,000 people marched in Paris and more than 400,000 across the country, according to government figures; the protests began in September, when high school students demanded decent conditions in their schools; unions and public sector workers speak of a system where "the rich are getting richer". 21 October, AP: the President of the United States urged France to "close your borders and take control before it is too late!"; Macron answered: "comments that are as unacceptable as they are stupid, from many people, including foreign leaders", and asked whether he meant Trump: "Among others." NPR
Decoding 1379: the street went out for school and for bread. A day later it was handed an address: the border. Anger without an address is dangerous to every floor at once; it may reach those who raised the prices. Anger with an address handed to it is manageable. Why: the wave is not put out. It is given a new direction.
They went out for bread. They were shown whom to hate.
THE TURN
Vienna, 13 March 1848 · students open the gates.
They say: habsburger.net: on 13 March 1848 students and citizens marched towards the imperial palace; Archduke Albrecht ordered the troops to disperse the crowd in the Herrengasse, the soldiers opened fire, the first dead; Metternich resigned and fled to England; by then the unrest had already passed through France and Germany and would soon reach Hungary. Wikipedia: on 31 October 1848 the troops stormed Vienna, the leaders were executed, the gains of March were almost all lost, Austria moved towards neo-absolutism. habsburger.net
Decoding 1379: students open the gates, the wave crosses half a continent in weeks, six months later the army walks in. The process is the same, only the years change. Why: the wave tears down the old structure faster than any decree, and the new one is put up by whoever walks in last.
Students begin. Order finishes.
The Intermediary
Space & mobility · Cornell University Press, GHDI, AFP.
They say: 2010, Kelly M. Greenhill, «Weapons of Mass Migration», Cornell University Press: a unique kind of coercion, one predicated on "the intentional creation, manipulation, and exploitation of real or threatened mass population movements"; it has been attempted "more than fifty times in the last half century" and has succeeded "well over half the time". 31 August 2015, Angela Merkel: «Wir schaffen das», "We can do this". In 2015, 890,000 asylum seekers arrived in Germany (AFP). Cornell
Decoding 1379: a mass of people can be moved like pieces on a board, and this is no secret: it is a scholarly book with tables of success. What moves them is a decision: open, close, promise, refuse. Why: a moved mass stirs up a country that held together by a common memory, a common language and common holidays. Where nothing is common, what remains is a population. A population is run by a news digest.
The migrant is not a player. He is a piece that was moved.
Exchange
Money & credit · UN, Euronews.
They say: UN Population Division, «Replacement Migration», based on the 1998 UN projections: the name given to the migration needed to offset the decline and the ageing of a population. To keep the number of working people per pensioner in the European Union from falling between 2000 and 2050, 674 million people are needed; in Germany, 181.5 million. The report itself says this "seems out of reach". 24 October, Euronews: pensioners in Madrid demand that pensions be indexed to real inflation and the minimum pension be raised to the minimum wage. UN
Decoding 1379: a pension is paid by someone who works. Fewer and fewer working people are born. The calculation of how many people must be brought in so that the pyramid does not fall was published twenty six years ago. Why: whoever is brought in takes a place in the same pyramid, paying contributions. When the money is still not enough, the pensioner's anger is turned on him.
He was brought in to pay your pension. You are told he took it.
Meaning
Screen & narrative · AP.
They say: 20 October, AP: Milan police counted 2,000 young people in Saturday's riots, "including a large share of naturalized Italians born to foreign parents, as well as foreign nationals"; in the same days France saw protests against rising living costs and in support of the students' grievances. AP
Decoding 1379: the report does not say how many of those detained lost their jobs or dropped out of school. It says which parents they were born to. Why: a line in the report chooses whom the reader will be angry with. Not with the price. With the neighbour.
The report chooses your enemy for you.
Coercion
Law & norm · AP.
They say: 20 October, AP: after the Milan riots the Italian government approved a decree: violent participation in a demonstration is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to 20,000 euros; parents pay for damage caused by minors; anyone over 14 is presumed capable of understanding their actions unless proven otherwise, a determination that previously fell to a judge; 500 more soldiers to Milan until the end of the year. AP
Decoding 1379: the wave will leave, the decree will stay. A fourteen year old is an adult in court, a soldier is in the street until the end of the year, and all of it is for everyone, not for one crowd. Why: chaos below is paid for by law above. The more shop windows are broken, the easier the decree passes.
The riot ends. The decree stays.
Two crowds, one board
One week. Schoolchildren, pensioners, people with keys went out for school, prices and housing. Within days their anger was given a name: migrants. Those given this name were moved by decisions: the UN calculation was published twenty six years ago, the scholarly book on masses as a weapon came out sixteen years ago. Some were moved from their place. Others were made angry at those who were moved. Two crowds, and both on one board. This is managed chaos: anger is not put out, it is directed. And after every wave a law for everyone remains. One question is left: why do they need two crowds at once?