Seite - 70 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Band 2/2016

70 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 2 2o16 Tony Kushner | Lampedusa and the Migrant Crisis that alongside the role played by those managing and policing the border, that ‘Lampedusa has... been a place of riots, of self induced injuries, of protests and escapes, during which migrants also happened to join the local population in rallies against the Italian government, as well as to clash with groups of local inhabitants’. More fundamentally, he highlights how ‘each sea crossing testifies the motivation and strength of migrants trying to realize their migratory projects’.45 His focus, however, is the ‘performance’ of migrant control and the international power politics behind it. Even with the vastly expanded numbers of boat migrants in 2014 and 2015, those travelling across sea are still in the minority compared to those going across land or flying. But as Cuttitta argues, ‘if the border... is a suitable theatre for the “political spectacle”, the sea border is the ideal stage for political actors to perform the “border play”’.46 The five acts identified by Cuttitta on Lampedusa consist of ‘toughness’, when from October 2004 to March 2006, roughly 2,200 migrants were returned from the island to Libya. The second ‘act’ was ‘humaneness’ following the success of a more progressive Italian coalition government in April 2006 when the number of such deportations was reduced. The detention centre was reformed and made more open to public scrutiny, but at the same time all efforts were made in cooperation with the Gadhafi regime to stop migrants leaving from Libya. This lasted until late 2008 when a third ‘emer- gency’ act was started.47 The ‘tough border’ was re-established with increased migration and the detention centre soon became overcrowded with over 1800, over double its capacity, housed there by January 2009. Periods of internment increased leading to hunger strikes and an attempt to set fire to the buildings. It was followed by a fourth act – ‘zero immigration’, starting from May 2009 with ‘push-back operations from the high seas’ and the closing of the detention centre. This continued until 2011 when the number of migrants increased rapidly following the ‘Jasmine Revolution’ when thousands of Tunisians left their country. With the detention centre still closed, 4000 migrants were left sleeping on Lampedusa’s streets and their numbers – over 6000, ‘exceeded that of the local population’.48 The tragic events of October 2013 and February 2015, with many smaller incidents inbet- ween and following, have added further ‘acts’ to the narrative, but Cuttitta identifies astutely how Lampedusa is used not only to implement controls in a location ‘more “border” than other Italian and European border places’, but also as where this ‘border’ is performed to the outside world, including to would-be migrants.49 There is a parallel here to Exodus 1947, a former ple- asure boat carrying 4,500 Jews who were to returned by sea to Europe having arrived in Haifa. The British and Palestinian authorities wanted to make its journey into a salutary example as well as a specific case of refused entry to ‘illegal’ immigrants. Similarly, in 2016, the Australian immigration authorities have commissioned a multi-million pound film, The Journey to put off would-be migrants. A ‘lavish production’, it depicts ‘hopeful asylum seekers [from Afghanistan] 45 Ibid, 199. 46 Ibid, 206. 47 Ibid, 207-8. 48 Ibid, 210-1. 49 Ibid, 212.