Scare quotes, refugees and executive orders

IT’S THE brattish kid who sticks its fingers in its ears and goes “la, la, la...” to drown out adult rebuke.

- WILLIAM SAUNDERSON-MEYER

I’m referring to the media’s almost unanimous practice of putting quotation marks around the word refugee when describing their fellow citizens granted asylum in the US.

The use of what linguists call “scare quotes” -signalling doubt or derision — while acceptable in opinion pieces, is inappropriate in news reports. It’s an attempt to disparage the motives, character and legal status of these newly minted émigrés. This is the insecure shorthand of a scorned and angry nation saying: “That buffoon Donald Trump might call them refugees, but to us, they are opportunists, racists and traitors.”

It also parrots the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, which rages against the refugee designation because of the reputational, diplomatic and legal consequences of Trump's executive order (EO).

The other comfort blanket that the government and its supporters cling to is the view that these minority-race émigrés don’t meet UN criteria for refugee or asylum status. This is to misunderstand international law and how nations align their immigration policies with treaty obligations. The UN Refugee Convention of 1951 is not a checklist enforced by bureaucrats in Geneva. It’s a benchmark that the signatory nations incorporate into their own law and interpret according to their social norms, and shifting political winds.