In this commentary, Dr. João Ferreira Dias examines the migration crisis in Ceuta as a “total crisis” encompassing humanitarian obligations, political legitimacy, social cohesion, and the future of Europe’s liberal-multicultural order. Rejecting both an expansive humanitarianism that neglects the pressures experienced by receiving communities and far-right narratives that reduce migrants to a homogeneous civilizational threat, Dr. Dias argues for an approach combining compassion with effective migration governance. Drawing on research into migration, local exposure, and multicultural citizenship, he contends that diversity requires a shared civic framework grounded in democratic law, equality, rights, and obligations. For Dr. Dias, Europe’s challenge is therefore not to choose between humanitarian protection and border control, but to reconcile protection, effective borders, integration, and social stability if liberal multiculturalism is to remain politically sustainable.
By João Ferreira Dias
The situation in Ceuta is what I would call a “total crisis”: social, political, and humanitarian at the same time. Looking at it in those terms is an attempt to escape the constraints of affective polarization (Iyengar et al., 2019), which increasingly turns political analysis into a moral exercise in deciding who deserves our sympathy.
Two dominant perspectives usually emerge in European debates on migration. One emphasizes humanitarian duties and often expands them into an almost unlimited moral obligation to receive those who reach European borders. The other responds through cultural anxiety, demographic fear and, at its extreme, the rhetoric of a “Great Replacement.” Both perspectives capture something real. Neither sees the whole picture.
Europe has unquestionable obligations towards refugees and asylum seekers. The right to seek asylum and the principle of non-refoulement are central elements of the international and European legal order. A liberal Europe cannot abandon those principles simply because applying them has become politically difficult. But neither international law nor European law establishes an unlimited right for every migrant to enter and remain permanently in Europe.
That distinction matters. States have duties towards those entitled to international protection. But governments also have duties towards the societies they govern. Migration policy cannot ignore reception capacity, housing, public services, integration, security and social stability. Humanitarianism does not operate outside politics. This is where part of the progressive discourse on migration becomes problematic. Its moral vocabulary is universal, while the social consequences of migration are unevenly distributed.
It is relatively easy to demand empathy from the inhabitants of border communities when one does not share their streets, their schools, their public services or their fears. The paradox is striking: those who correctly demand empathy towards migrants sometimes display surprisingly little empathy towards the communities expected to absorb the immediate consequences of large migratory movements.
Ceuta makes that contradiction difficult to ignore. Research also suggests that local exposure matters. Sudden demographic change can generate stronger opposition to immigration when it becomes politically salient (Hopkins, 2010). Hangartner et al. (2019), studying Greek islands exposed to the refugee crisis, found that direct exposure to large refugee arrivals produced more restrictive attitudes towards refugees, immigrants and Muslim minorities.
This does not mean that every fear expressed by local populations is justified. But it means that fear cannot simply be dismissed as ignorance or xenophobia. For the inhabitants of Ceuta, migration is not an abstract seminar on cosmopolitan ethics. It is the sudden presence of thousands of people in a geographically confined territory. It means pressure on public spaces and services, deteriorating sanitary conditions, disruption of everyday life and, inevitably, perceptions of insecurity. Some of those perceptions may be exaggerated. Others may not. But democratic politics cannot simply tell citizens that their fears are morally illegitimate.
At the same time, the opposite camp commits an equally serious mistake. Migrants are not a homogeneous civilizational bloc. Among those arriving in Europe are women escaping oppressive social environments, political dissidents, religious minorities, educated young people looking for opportunities, families seeking security and people whose values may be substantially closer to European liberalism than those of the societies they have left behind. Reducing all migrants to a demographic or cultural threat is therefore both empirically crude and morally indefensible. The crisis has two human faces: those who arrive and those who receive them. Any serious migration policy must be capable of seeing both.
Ceuta also reveals a deeper European problem: the crisis of what might be called liberal multiculturalism. The central intuition of liberal multiculturalism was both powerful and legitimate: people should not be required to erase their cultural, religious or linguistic identity in order to become equal citizens. Kymlicka’s defense of multicultural citizenship remains one of the strongest formulations of this position. But there is a difference between accepting diversity and assuming that social cohesion emerges automatically from it. It does not. A society cannot indefinitely become a patchwork of parallel cultural, ethnic and religious communities without also developing institutions capable of producing a common civic ground.
This does not mean assimilation. It means integration. Language matters. Constitutional principles matter. Equality between men and women matters. Religious freedom matters, including the freedom to abandon religion. Acceptance of democratic law matters. A shared understanding that citizenship involves both rights and obligations matters. European states themselves have increasingly recognized this. The gradual retreat from some versions of multiculturalism and the rise of civic integration policies documented by Joppke (2004, 2007) reflect precisely this concern.
Multiculturalism without integration creates islands. Diversity without a shared civic framework can produce coexistence without community. This is why migration control should not be understood as the opposite of liberal multiculturalism. It may actually be one of its conditions of survival.
Europe needs effective borders precisely because migration will continue. It needs credible asylum procedures because humanitarian protection remains part of the European liberal order. It must distinguish between those who have legitimate claims to international protection and those who do not. It must be capable of receiving and integrating those who are entitled to remain. And it must also be capable of repatriating, humanely and legally, those who have no right to stay. Otherwise, the distinction between legal and illegal migration becomes politically meaningless.
The way Spain responds to Ceuta therefore matters beyond Ceuta. If European governments are unable simultaneously to protect refugees, control borders, manage migration and sustain social integration, voters will increasingly conclude that the entire liberal-multicultural model has failed. That conclusion would have profound political consequences. A Europe that abandons humanitarian protection abandons part of its liberal identity. But a Europe that loses control over migration, fails to integrate newcomers and refuses to acknowledge the fears of receiving communities may eventually create the political conditions for the rejection of liberalism itself.
The real choice is therefore not between compassion and control. Europe needs both. Without compassion, it ceases to be liberal. Without control and integration, it may cease to be politically capable of remaining liberal.
References
Hangartner, D., Dinas, E., Marbach, M., Matakos, K., & Xefteris, D. (2019). Does exposure to the refugee crisis make natives more hostile? American Political Science Review, 113(2), 442–455.
Hopkins, D. J. (2010). Politicized places: Explaining where and when immigrants provoke local opposition. American Political Science Review, 104(1), 40–60.
Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., Levendusky, M., Malhotra, N., & Westwood, S. J. (2019). The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22, 129–146.
Joppke, C. (2004). The retreat of multiculturalism in the liberal state: Theory and policy. The British Journal of Sociology, 55(2), 237–257.
Kymlicka, W. (1995). Multicultural citizenship: A liberal theory of minority rights. Oxford University Press.
Ceuta Could Be the Last Frontier of the Liberal-Multicultural Age
In this commentary, Dr. João Ferreira Dias examines the migration crisis in Ceuta as a “total crisis” encompassing humanitarian obligations, political legitimacy, social cohesion, and the future of Europe’s liberal-multicultural order. Rejecting both an expansive humanitarianism that neglects the pressures experienced by receiving communities and far-right narratives that reduce migrants to a homogeneous civilizational threat, Dr. Dias argues for an approach combining compassion with effective migration governance. Drawing on research into migration, local exposure, and multicultural citizenship, he contends that diversity requires a shared civic framework grounded in democratic law, equality, rights, and obligations. For Dr. Dias, Europe’s challenge is therefore not to choose between humanitarian protection and border control, but to reconcile protection, effective borders, integration, and social stability if liberal multiculturalism is to remain politically sustainable.
By João Ferreira Dias
The situation in Ceuta is what I would call a “total crisis”: social, political, and humanitarian at the same time. Looking at it in those terms is an attempt to escape the constraints of affective polarization (Iyengar et al., 2019), which increasingly turns political analysis into a moral exercise in deciding who deserves our sympathy.
Two dominant perspectives usually emerge in European debates on migration. One emphasizes humanitarian duties and often expands them into an almost unlimited moral obligation to receive those who reach European borders. The other responds through cultural anxiety, demographic fear and, at its extreme, the rhetoric of a “Great Replacement.” Both perspectives capture something real. Neither sees the whole picture.
Europe has unquestionable obligations towards refugees and asylum seekers. The right to seek asylum and the principle of non-refoulement are central elements of the international and European legal order. A liberal Europe cannot abandon those principles simply because applying them has become politically difficult. But neither international law nor European law establishes an unlimited right for every migrant to enter and remain permanently in Europe.
That distinction matters. States have duties towards those entitled to international protection. But governments also have duties towards the societies they govern. Migration policy cannot ignore reception capacity, housing, public services, integration, security and social stability. Humanitarianism does not operate outside politics. This is where part of the progressive discourse on migration becomes problematic. Its moral vocabulary is universal, while the social consequences of migration are unevenly distributed.
It is relatively easy to demand empathy from the inhabitants of border communities when one does not share their streets, their schools, their public services or their fears. The paradox is striking: those who correctly demand empathy towards migrants sometimes display surprisingly little empathy towards the communities expected to absorb the immediate consequences of large migratory movements.
Ceuta makes that contradiction difficult to ignore. Research also suggests that local exposure matters. Sudden demographic change can generate stronger opposition to immigration when it becomes politically salient (Hopkins, 2010). Hangartner et al. (2019), studying Greek islands exposed to the refugee crisis, found that direct exposure to large refugee arrivals produced more restrictive attitudes towards refugees, immigrants and Muslim minorities.
This does not mean that every fear expressed by local populations is justified. But it means that fear cannot simply be dismissed as ignorance or xenophobia. For the inhabitants of Ceuta, migration is not an abstract seminar on cosmopolitan ethics. It is the sudden presence of thousands of people in a geographically confined territory. It means pressure on public spaces and services, deteriorating sanitary conditions, disruption of everyday life and, inevitably, perceptions of insecurity. Some of those perceptions may be exaggerated. Others may not. But democratic politics cannot simply tell citizens that their fears are morally illegitimate.
At the same time, the opposite camp commits an equally serious mistake. Migrants are not a homogeneous civilizational bloc. Among those arriving in Europe are women escaping oppressive social environments, political dissidents, religious minorities, educated young people looking for opportunities, families seeking security and people whose values may be substantially closer to European liberalism than those of the societies they have left behind. Reducing all migrants to a demographic or cultural threat is therefore both empirically crude and morally indefensible. The crisis has two human faces: those who arrive and those who receive them. Any serious migration policy must be capable of seeing both.
Ceuta also reveals a deeper European problem: the crisis of what might be called liberal multiculturalism. The central intuition of liberal multiculturalism was both powerful and legitimate: people should not be required to erase their cultural, religious or linguistic identity in order to become equal citizens. Kymlicka’s defense of multicultural citizenship remains one of the strongest formulations of this position. But there is a difference between accepting diversity and assuming that social cohesion emerges automatically from it. It does not. A society cannot indefinitely become a patchwork of parallel cultural, ethnic and religious communities without also developing institutions capable of producing a common civic ground.
This does not mean assimilation. It means integration. Language matters. Constitutional principles matter. Equality between men and women matters. Religious freedom matters, including the freedom to abandon religion. Acceptance of democratic law matters. A shared understanding that citizenship involves both rights and obligations matters. European states themselves have increasingly recognized this. The gradual retreat from some versions of multiculturalism and the rise of civic integration policies documented by Joppke (2004, 2007) reflect precisely this concern.
Multiculturalism without integration creates islands. Diversity without a shared civic framework can produce coexistence without community. This is why migration control should not be understood as the opposite of liberal multiculturalism. It may actually be one of its conditions of survival.
Europe needs effective borders precisely because migration will continue. It needs credible asylum procedures because humanitarian protection remains part of the European liberal order. It must distinguish between those who have legitimate claims to international protection and those who do not. It must be capable of receiving and integrating those who are entitled to remain. And it must also be capable of repatriating, humanely and legally, those who have no right to stay. Otherwise, the distinction between legal and illegal migration becomes politically meaningless.
The way Spain responds to Ceuta therefore matters beyond Ceuta. If European governments are unable simultaneously to protect refugees, control borders, manage migration and sustain social integration, voters will increasingly conclude that the entire liberal-multicultural model has failed. That conclusion would have profound political consequences. A Europe that abandons humanitarian protection abandons part of its liberal identity. But a Europe that loses control over migration, fails to integrate newcomers and refuses to acknowledge the fears of receiving communities may eventually create the political conditions for the rejection of liberalism itself.
The real choice is therefore not between compassion and control. Europe needs both. Without compassion, it ceases to be liberal. Without control and integration, it may cease to be politically capable of remaining liberal.
References
Hangartner, D., Dinas, E., Marbach, M., Matakos, K., & Xefteris, D. (2019). Does exposure to the refugee crisis make natives more hostile? American Political Science Review, 113(2), 442–455.
Hopkins, D. J. (2010). Politicized places: Explaining where and when immigrants provoke local opposition. American Political Science Review, 104(1), 40–60.
Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., Levendusky, M., Malhotra, N., & Westwood, S. J. (2019). The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22, 129–146.
Joppke, C. (2004). The retreat of multiculturalism in the liberal state: Theory and policy. The British Journal of Sociology, 55(2), 237–257.
Kymlicka, W. (1995). Multicultural citizenship: A liberal theory of minority rights. Oxford University Press.
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