This is a new term to me: offshoring. It describes a new form of human trafficking: we send refugees back to places where they never wanted to go and thus « save » money. 

In business operations, this is known as outsourcing: first production went to Portugal, then to Poland and from Poland to China (and more recently back again, because all the current crises have shown how vulnerable these value chains are).

So now we also have «human chains» and the figures are impressive. The trafficking gangs charge between 600 and 5’000 euros per place for the boat trip from North Africa to Europe. A «guaranteed trafficking» across several countries costs 15’000 euros. This trade is financed by human slavery and forced prostitution, and those who don’t play along end up in torture and prison, where not even Amnesty International or the ICRC have access.

Our Artist in Residence 2024, the artist Famakan Magassa from Mali, has created an impressive work on this theme: a work over seven meters wide entitled «La loi du plus fort» (the law of the strongest). A torturer with American attributes stands on a mass of handcuffed and tortured human bodies. It is the strongest that survives. Or the one with the most money, the one who pays enough bribe money to escape these tortures. For me, this painting by Famakan has the potential to become an icon of the now, just as Picasso’s «Guernica» was in 1937.

Once in Europe, a refugee quickly costs over 20’000 euros per year. Under pressure from dull right-wing extremist and Nazi populist slogans, governments are getting bogged down in pseudo-market economy solutions to human problems. Australian offshoring: 207’000 francs per migrant (to Nauru and Papua New Guinea). British offshoring costs 260’000 francs per migrant (back to Rwanda), which the new Prime Minister reversed as one of his first acts in office. And Italian partial offshoring makes it cheaper: for at least 3’900 francs per migrant (to Croatia).

It’s nothing new, but you can’t buy your way out with money. The greater the injustice, the more migration. A no-brainer. So if you want less migration, you have to address the justice gap, not build walls. Sisyphus sends his best regards. Ultimately, all this is the competition between dictators and democrats, the small and large Machiavellians who defend power and privilege, who lie and cheat while preaching charity. People who are preached love do not learn to love but to preach.

I also notice a strange offshoring in the art world: on the one hand – allow me this cynical comparison – you don’t get very far at ArtBasel with the offshoring budget for one refugee. On the other hand, people quickly agree on a common enemy. Evil is then Israel, Trump, Putin or aviation. Once «evil» has been identified, everyone signs open letters and only cares about their own sensitivities. Local art functionaries ensure that local artists are exhibited first in local museums and that national artists are favored in national art competitions. Art is produced that nobody buys or art that is only bought for speculative reasons. And that is evil again, everything is evil. But many of these artists are slowly becoming aware of their own smallness, or to quote Karl Marx: «The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition that needs illusions».

This is the current insultedness of the Global North and those who regard human rights as a bourgeois export good. Let the Chinese first ensure human rights for the Uyghurs, let the Africans clean up their corrupt stables. Until then, we’ll send the refugees «back to sender». And do cold-ass business.

Stay courious

Hans Rudolf Jost

PS: I urgently recommend that you take a look at the impressive work «La loi du plus fort» by Famakan Magassa in the Fondation WhiteSpaceBlackBox. Until October 27. Book your visit here.