MARTYNENKO Е.V., PENZINA А.I. Analysis of the Role of the US Printed Media in the Information War Between the USA and Russia

DOI 10.35775/PSI.2019.32.2.008

Е.V. MARTYNENKO Doctor of Sciences (political sciences), Professor at the Chair of theory and history of journalism, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia

А.I. PENZINA Post-graduate working for the Master’s degree at the Chair of theory and history of journalism, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia

ANALYSIS OF THE ROLE OF THE US PRINTED MEDIA IN THE INFORMATION WAR BETWEEN THE USA AND RUSSIA

The article is devoted to the consideration of methods and ways of conducting information war by the US media against the Russian Federation over the past few years. On the example of publications about President Donald Trump’s links with Russia, it’s possible to trace a traditional tendency to use the image of Russia as the main adversary (the so-called “enemy image”), which undermines the interests of American democracy. Under pressure from representatives of political elites and lobbyists, the US media systematically form a negative image of Russia, hindering the development of positive diplomatic, economic and political relations between the two strongest countries in the world. The authors of the study used the system-analytical method, the method of analogies, the method of content analysis and the historical-analytical method.

Key words: USA, Russia, information, Trump, cooperation.

Twelve years ago, the newspaper The New York Times (“New York Times”) of 10.21.2007 published an article entitled “What`s russian for `hacker'?” by Clifford Levy, journalist and chef of the New York Times Moscow bureau, who lived and worked in Russia from 2007 to 2011. In his article, Clifford Levy wrote: “Russia has become a leading source of Internet ills, home to legions of high-tech rogues who operate with seeming impunity from the anonymous living rooms of Novosibirsk or the shadowy cybercafes of St. Petersburg) [3. P. 4]”.

The journalist with full confidence declared a threat to the Internet space coming from Russian users. The only argument is the fame of the Russian system of teaching exact sciences and mathematics, as well as the indisputable conviction that only dishonest people and fraudsters live in Russia.

Among other things, other countries in the post-Soviet space from the Czech Republic to Ukraine and Kazakhstan were also named “Internet hacks.”

“Internet security experts say that only the United States and China rival Russia in hacker activity. But Russia has only 28 million Internet users, according to rough estimates, compared with 210 million in the United States and 150 million in China, meaning that Russia has a higher percentage of scammers,” [3. P. 4] the journalist wrote.

It remains to be concluded that the above article, published in the well-known quality publication The New York Times, can be considered the starting point of the process of disseminating views about cyber attacks by “Russian hackers.” However, in 2007, journalists considered Russian hackers to be a kind of a layer independent from the government, which acts of “heroic” motivation and ruins the lives of world companies. Today, we see a completely different situation, examples of which are also found in the US press, actively promoting this point of view.

The 2016 presidential elections in the United States traditionally became a point of hard confrontation between the Republicans and the Democrats. When the interests of the two parties and two candidates collide, practically any method of increasing own popularity and denigrating the opponent in the framework of the election campaign is used. The election campaign of candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton became the most talked about all over the world, even among the ordinary citizens.

According to the election results, the Republican candidate Donald Trump won. This event was, to say the least, shocking for many voters and caused a huge number of protests of the American population. Representatives of the Democratic Party led by Hillary Clinton could not come to terms with the defeat. Press publications about the election fraud and the interference of Russia and its government began to appear more and more often. In this situation, the American media recalled the concept of “Russian hackers”, that had been forgotten until then, united it with the activities of the Russian government in order to once again find the detested country guilty.

In May 2016, representatives of the US Democratic Party announced that their mail servers had been hacked and turned to CrowdsStrike, an IT company, headed by Dmitry Alperovich, a native of Russia, whose companies in a year gained world fame [1].

Following the investigation, Dmitry Alperovich’s company provided a report that indicated that Russian special services: the FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) and the GRU (General Directorate of the General Staff The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, better known by its former name: Main Intelligence Directorate) were responsible for hacking the mail servers of the party fellows of the US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The findings of CrowdStrike were subsequently repeatedly referred to by the officials and journalists who were happy to pick up the idea of finding the culprits. At the same time, apart from the company's employees, no one worked with the Democratic Party computers (including the US special services).

However, it soon became clear that the data provided by CrowdStrike cannot be considered reliable. According to the American expert Jeffrey Carr, author of the book "Cyberwar from the Inside," CrowdStrike “became known to a greater extent not through their reports, which can only be called caricature” [1].

Russian information security expert Alexei Lukatsky in an interview with Kommersant noted that initially many experts both in Russia and in the West were surprised by “the manicism with which the company founded by former Muscovite Dmitry Alperovich accused Russia of attacking the US resources” [1].

Taking the idea of intervention by Russian hackers, sponsored by the government and special services of Russia, the US media filled the information space with publications about President Donald Trump's links with Russia. Donald Trump himself was also attacked by both the press, the American Congress and even a certain number of voters.

An article by journalist Michael McFaul in The Washington Post confirms the position of the American media about the full confidence of the society and the authorities about Russia's intervention in the US presidential election and their view of this fact as a violation of sovereignty. “As FBI Director James B. Comey described on Monday (20.03.2017), the Russians ‘were unusually loud in their intervention,’ violating our sovereignty by meddling in one of our most sacred acts as a democracy and not seeming to care if they were exposed. The Russian theft and then publication of private data from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta produced a significant impact on our electoral process. Clinton’s image was damaged continuously by daily media coverage of these stolen emails. Of course, many factors combined to produce Trump’s victory, but Putin’s intervention most certainly played a contributing role [7].”

Again, Russia and the government, headed by President Vladimir Putin, are accused of interfering and waging hacking attacks on the American presidential elections, without presenting any evidence of criminal activity or vote rigging. Like ten years ago, the main tactics are unsubstantiated accusations. US media actively and repeatedly express the same thoughts and come out with outright insinuations. This method has repeatedly brought its results, and the press has repeatedly become a weapon in the hands of the American authorities.

Especially surprising are the articles in such high-quality publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times and other oldest newspapers with a rich history, that once proclaimed a course of serving people and cited the right of all citizens to receive reliable information. In fact, these publications are losing their objectivity and are being transformed into global tabloids.

Journalist Kent Harrington in his article for Project Syndicate also categorically declared that the Russian government intervened in the US presidential election, but described it as from another side of the issue: vulnerability of the US citizens to external media manifestations.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intelligence operatives chose wisely in mounting their social media attack. Facebook hosts nearly 80% of all mobile social media traffic, while Google accounts for close to 90% of all online-search-related advertising. By inundating these two platforms with automated messages from tens of thousands of bogus user accounts, Russia was able to stoke discord along economic, racial, and political lines [6]”.

“Still, Russia’s success in targeting American voters with bogus news could not have succeeded were it not for the second problem: a poorly educated electorate susceptible to manipulation. The erosion of civics education in schools, the shuttering of local newspapers – and the consequent decline in the public’s understanding of issues and the political process – conspire to create fertile ground for the sowing of disinformation [6]”.

The author of the article says that the intervention of the Russian government headed by President Vladimir Putin in the 2016 elections is a historic event for the American democratic system. But it is also emphasized that such event is a symptom of more serious problems in America, whose society does not fully understand its own political system. The problem, according to Kent Harrington, lies in the uneducated generation of the young electorate, who is most affected by social networks and who completely lacks understanding of the fundamentals of citizenship.

The new president of the United States, Donald Trump, who does not want to acknowledge the press statements about Russia's intervention, is also under attack from the media and ordinary Americans. Jennifer Rubin in his article for The Washington Post calls President an “easy prey for Russia”. “President Trump’s authoritarianism, narcissism and racism threaten our democracy, but his gullibility threatens our national security. A man so uneducated and incurious about the world is willing, like his followers, to buy any crackpot conspiracy theory that makes its way to him via the Infowars... On the world stage, that makes him a sitting duck for slick manipulators and experienced flatterers [5]”.

Jennifer Rubin repeats Charles M.Blow in his article “Siding with the Enemy” for The New York Times. “The truth here is that we are seeing in real time how the president’s personal paranoia impedes our national policy and our national interests. The uncomfortable fact here is that Trump is pursuing his own interest, not American interests. And, on the question of Russia attacking our elections, Trump and Putin’s interest align against the facts and against America. That alone is beyond inexcusable. Trump is betraying this country by trying to curry favor with his new comrade [2]”.

The flow of information (or rather, misinformation) about Russia's “interference” in the presidential election has been going on since the end of 2016. For nearly three years, US officials have spoken on this topic through the media, without finding objective arguments, much less evidence. One can recall the events in South Ossetia in 2008, the events in Ukraine since 2014, and even the years of the Cold War, when typical US methods of waging information wars were visible. As in the Cold War years, the media is assigned the main role in shaping the image of the enemy in the eyes of the public. But today the influence of the media has become even more significant, after all, given the rapid development of the information technologies, information, regardless of its quality, can spread to the entire globe in a matter of minutes. And when the end users of information have to deal with a deliberately low-quality product in the form of political propaganda or outright disinformation, this extremely negatively affects public opinion in general and international communication in particular.

Continuing the topic of international relations, it should be noted that since 1917, Russian-American relations have always been strained, if not difficult. Russia and the United States are two great (nuclear) powers trying to find something in common despite a radically different approach to most issues on the international agenda. Different mentalities, views on politics, and especially on democracy. For representatives of the authorities of the two countries, it has become customary to argue about various issues that arise, to abandon the search for mutually beneficial solutions, to be in constant confrontation and completely avoid cooperation. And if Russia is trying to come to a common denominator and find common ground for mutual interests based on the principles of equality in relations, such approach is unacceptable for the United States.

It is therefore not surprising that the American political elite did not accept the new president Donald Trump (again choosing the method of accusations and false conclusions), who repeatedly pointed out to the need to restore cooperation with Russia. In addition to the information about “Russia’s aggression,” which is so popular in the media engaged in nothing more than tricking the audience, information about Trump administration’s and President’s personal collusion with the Russian government to achieve victory in the elections has been actively promoted.

Like any information about Russia, advantageous to the political elite of the United States, facts usually play no role in it; only repeatition of allegations is important.

The official line was quite predictable, it was only necessary to introduce it in the media: the Russian government headed by President Vladimir Putin ensured Trump's victory in the elections. As always, everything connected with Russia had the effect of a bombshell. A huge number of publications in the press and the Internet, mass insanity on the issue of Russian threat and undermining of the sovereignty of the United States. All this was done in order to divert attention from the really important problems.

What really surprises the authors is that Russia is accused of what the United States has been doing for a long time and much more actively, it’s enough to recall at least the events in Iraq, Libya and even earlier – in Yugoslavia.

Since Donald Trump during the election campaign advocated the development of good relations with Russia, media representatives found him to be a hidden enemy acting in the interests of the enemy side, who must be eradicated. However, it is possible to read between the lines that the flow of information on the interference in the presidential elections and on the threat to US democracy hides the following facts: positive diplomatic relations with Russia can stop the profitable war launched against it and also deprive the United States of the possibility of maintaining its military superiority.

It can be noted that it was after the defeat of the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton that the media actively promoted the line of intervention of the Russian government and the “Russian hackers” in the 2016 presidential elections. Hillary Clinton explained her defeat in the book “What happened” by the machinations of Russia as the enemy [4]. The American media, in turn, saw this as a gold mine that can be used beyond the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.

The other side of the role of the US media is that today they have lost their competitiveness due to the growing popularity of social networks and Internet publications. The once-powerful press propaganda system has fallen into disrepair. And the topic of Russia's interference in presidential elections and fake news on Facebook gave the media new opportunities with the help of which the press regained a significant market share and renewed popularity.

With the growth of the number of subscribers, the United States media continued to popularize the idea of hacker attacks from Russia, connections of the president’s closest circle with Russian citizens, etc. The image of the country as an enemy of American democracy continues to be used as a pretext for new war crimes and aggression by the United States and NATO.

After the support and accession of the Russian-speaking region of Crimea, Russia's participation in supporting Syria, the media in every way used the line of “Russian aggression,” which can be used repeatedly. This line is very suitable also for describing the intervention in the US election. Accusations against Russia help to destroy every Russian-American peace initiative. The most obvious examples are the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the INF, ABM Treaty and the discussions that have already begun in the United States about the non-renewal of START-3. Nobody asks about facts or evidence. They are not needed in order to blame anyone of treason (even the US President himself), who at least maintains contacts with Russian officials in the framework of peaceful initiatives and cooperation. It is surprising that few people ask the logical question: who benefits?

One of the negative manifestations of such situation as a whole is the fact that Russia is becoming an enemy not only for the American continent. Russia is accused of interfering in the elections in Europe and surprisingly Russia's participation in the 2017 Catalan events is not discussed.

Russia as the enemy is the main topic of informational strategy distracting the attention of the world community from the real problems of not only America, but the entire global community.

Information wars that are conducted on a par with armed international conflicts undermine all modern pillars of international law and civilized society. Methods of information wars, aimed at the mass consciousness, harm international relations and destroy any manifestations of cooperation between countries. It upsets that the media are a weapon in the hands of the ruling elites of the states, and do not defend the ordinary citizens. By filling the information space with falsified, unsubstantiated news and publications, the media undermine the trust of the mass audience and fail to fulfill its main function: the provision of reliable information guiding the audience in a changing reality. One can to the opinion that representatives of the mass media have forgotten about the right of the citizens to receive true and truthful information, and that this right is one of the basic human rights. This is not the last example of the negative role of the media in the international processes, which reflect even more negative tendencies: corruption of modern media, incompetence of the journalists, inability to objectively evaluate the situation and so on. It remains to hope for positive changes, which, according to the authors, are still very long to wait for if the current trends maintain.

REFERENCES:

1. Chernenko E. Kto skazal, chto server krayniy [Who said that the server is extreme] // https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3254710 (In Russ.).

2. Charles M. Blow. Siding with the enemy // https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/12/opinion/trump-putin-russia.html.

3. Clifford J. Levy. What`s russian for «hacker»? // The New York Times. 21 of October, 2007.

4. Clinton R. Hillary. What happened. USA: Simon and Schuster, 2017.

5. Jennifer Rubin. Russia’s mark: A dangerous fool for a president // https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/11/12/russias-mark-a-dangerous-fool-for-a-president/?tid=pm_opinions_pop&utm_term=.48dfc8646419.

6. Kent Harrington. How Americans Became Vulnerable to Russian Disinformation // https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/russia-social-media-election-interference-by-kent-harrington-2017-11?a_la=english&a_d=5a01d39878b6c748887c6feb&a_m=&a_a=click&a_s=&a_p=%2Farchive&a_li=russia-social-media-election-interference-by-kent-harrington-2017-11&a_pa=&a_ps.

7. Michael McFaul. The real winner of the House Intelligence Committee hearing on Russia // https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/03/23/the-winner-of-the-house-intelligence-committee-hearing-on-russia-vladimir-putin/?utm_term=.bb87e56ed934.

KARADZE Т.V., TOMBU D.V. Problems and Contradictions of Migration Policy in Modern Europe

DOI 10.35775/PSI.2019.32.2.007

Т.V. KARADZE Doctor of Sciences (philosophy), Professor, Head of the Chair of political science, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow, Russia

D.V. TOMBU Candidate of Sciences (political sciences), Assistant Professor at the Chair of political science, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow, Russia

PROBLEMS AND CONTRADICTIONS OF MIGRATION POLICY IN MODERN EUROPE

The article discusses the general trends of the modern migration processes and the features of the European migration policy. The authors consider problems related to the correlation of rights and freedoms of indigenous people and migrants.

Key words: migration processes, migration policy, labor migration, adaptation, internal political split.

“…Migration is a topic that makes almost everyone defend their point of view” [5. P. 12]. It is difficult not to agree with this statement of the famous economist P. Collier. The attitude of people to the problem of migration is determined by many factors, including the economic situation in the country as a whole, the current situation in the labor market, the prevalence of nationalist views, the angle of coverage of this topic in the media, prevailing stereotypes and, of course, personal circumstances and experience gained as a result of contacts with the migrants.

Today migration is an objective, inevitable component of globalization. Like all globalization processes it generates a number of problems, the solution of which is ambiguous in its consequences. One of such problems is the problem of correlation of the rights and freedoms of the indigenous people and those of the migrants.

Based on the definition set out in the European Convention on human rights, migrants are people who move from their country of residence or citizenship to another country. Relocation may be for economic reasons, the desire to be educated, to be saved from natural disasters caused by climate change, or to avoid persecution, human rights violations, threats to life or bodily integrity, war or social unrest [1]. The reasons for their displacement are directly related to the international legal protection guaranteed by the International Convention, which has been ratified by 145 countries. ILO estimates that approximately 90 per cent of migrants are economic migrants and their families and only 8 per cent are refugees and asylum-seekers. Under international law, migration is seen as the realization of inalienable human rights and freedoms. However, as the world experience of recent years shows, an attempt to ensure the realization of the right to freedom of movement simultaneously to tens or even hundreds of thousands of people inevitably entails a violation of the rights of others, both newcomers and indigenous people.

No country in the world can accept an infinite number of visitors. At the same time, uncontrolled migration has serious social, economic and political consequences for all countries involved in the migration process. As for the indigenous population, their discontent is not only related to the economic consequences (“weaning” of potential jobs, payment of benefits to refugees, provision of medical care, provision of municipal housing, sport halls and hospitals for temporary accommodation, fear of new types of infections, etc.). No less irritating is the policy of local authorities, within the framework of multiculturalism, restricting the indigenous population in their manifestation of national or ethnic characteristics.

Today, in some European cities there is a ban on Christmas trees, snowmen or postcards wishing a merry Christmas. The motives of the authors of such bans on the traditional Christian holidays and similar innovations are clear, they wish to reduce the degree of social tension, as the majority of migrants and refugees arriving in Europe profess Islam. However, as practice shows, such extreme forms of political correctness can cause the opposite effect, they strengthen the so-called “everyday Islamophobia.” Unfortunately, recent events in New Zealand confirm this.

Another trend in the development of the modern world, affecting attitudes to the migration processes should be noted. This is not only an increasing social polarization, which manifests itself in the huge gap between the poverty and the wealth, but also an ideological split between the main part of the population and the political and economic elite in their relation to the problem of migration. New contradictions appear between the elites and the masses as a result of globalization of economy and actual transformation of the states into huge markets. If in the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, the population consisted of nationalist elites and masses relatively indifferent to nationalism, moreover, gravitating to the ideas of socialism and internationalism, since the end of the 20th century, the situation is changing. Now the privileged class becomes the bearer of the ideology of multiculturalism and post-nationalism and the other layers gravitate to solidarity on a national basis, to the endless, spurred by the media, search for signs of belonging to “our” nation. That is, “now we are dealing with nationalist masses and cosmopolitan elites” [7. P. 78].

Migration policy tends to fluctuate between the “open door policy,” advocated by business structures, and the “closed door policy", which is more attractive to the wider population, guided by the interests of preserving jobs and cultural identity. And if “healthy” nationalism manifests itself in the form of maintaining cultural norms that emphasize the boundaries of collective identity, the “unhealthy” nationalism instantly reacts to any economic deterioration in the country with the growth of anti-migrant sentiments [2. P. 378]. The latter, coupled with the deterioration of the financial situation, accelerates the process of marginalization of migrants, which has a negative impact on the functioning of society as a whole.

In Germany, the initiative of the incumbent Chancellor A. Merkel on the unlimited reception of migrants not only contributed to the fall of her own political authority but also, in fact, split the German society, which until recently was a reliable support for local politicians. The popularity of the party “Alternative for Germany” and PEGIDA movement (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Old World) is growing. Their supporters, worried about their national identity, put forward the requirements to restrict and tighten the state policy in matters of reception and integration of migrants and refugees [11. P. 100-105].

Similar demands are made by representatives of various parties and movements, including: the National Front party (NF) in France; Five Star Movement in Italy; the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP); People's Party Our Slovakia; the Norwegian Progress Party (NPP), Danish People's Party (DPP), Swedish Democrats (SD); the Finns Party; Swiss People's Party (SPP); Jobbik party in Hungary, Patriotic Front (PF) in Bulgaria, etc.

The actively growing discontent of the indigenous population raises the question of the search for forms and ways of adaptation of different communities and adoption by them of cultural values of the host country. The results of the study of this problem give reasons to identify some problems.

The results of the study show that the bigger is the community, the worse its representatives assimilate, maintaining contacts mainly with their compatriots and distancing from all “alien” cultural norms, which does not contribute to a higher level of trust on the part of the local people. At the same time, the stronger is the community, the bigger is the flow of newcomers, potentially ready to join it. In addition, "modern migrants, unlike their predecessors, do not run away from the danger where their eyes look, but act on the basis of information obtained not only from the media, but also from the formal and informal information networks of ethnic communities that have arisen due to the spread of the Internet and mobile communication” [6. P. 417-420].

In this regard, and in order to prevent the transformation of a closed ethnic community into a pillar of religious fundamentalism, the new European migration policy includes a “package of programs for the adaptation and integration of migrants and their families to a normal life”. However, the experience of this approach led to the abandonment of the policy of adaptation at the end of the last century due to its inefficiency.

The reasons why people (both local population of the host country and migrants) are increasingly trying to emphasize their national, ethnic and religious specificity some authors associate with the contradictions between the principles of cost-effective life and “rational” culture that does not fill a person's life with spiritual meaning and culture of individual groups [3. P. 79-84].

In this regard, the answer to the following legal and ethical question is of great importance in the formation of migration policy strategies: whether migrants are full participants of the cultural dialogue, whose opinion should be respected by the local population and whose inalienable human rights should be ensured by the state, or the priority should be given to the protection of the interests of indigenous people.

It is also not possible to use the international experience in this situation, due to the ambiguity of the decisions taken. This is quite clearly manifested in the solution of the domestic conflict over the dress code. In the spring of 2018, eight countries of the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) adopted laws prohibiting wearing headwear and clothing covering the face in certain places (primarily traditional Muslim clothing for women). In addition, the European court of justice allowed employers to impose prohibitions on the wearing of hijabs in the workplace. And in 13 EU countries religious clothing is prohibited in some private or public places, including educational institutions. However, in the UK, Norway and Sweden there is no such ban. As there is no tool that would measure the degree of social tension, depending on the permissive or prohibitive ethnic dress code.

One thing is obvious, in the world where visual images and external forms are more important than the essence and content, the brighter and more noticeable are the differences between the cultures of migrants and indigenous people, the lower is the level of trust between them, and the more difficult is the processes of adaptation and assimilation.

The results of the concept of multiculturalism, popular in Europe for a long time, which was based not only on the recognition of the right, but also on the possibility for the migrants to use their native language and maintain their customary cultural norms, proved to be very doubtful. Thus, in Swedish schools migrant children were offered an additional opportunity to preserve and develop their native language, no matter how rare it was. It was believed that only respect for the culture of the newcomers can generate their interest and desire to learn and adopt new rules of the host country. However, the practice has proved failure of both this concept and its opposite form, a “melting pot”. And this is so not only with regard to migrants: the Brussels strategy of “grinding” ethnicity into a single European nation has also proved to be completely untenable.

As for today's migrants in the second and third generations, they show their cultural characteristics demonstratively and violently in contrast to their own parents. For example, migrants from Bangladesh, living in the UK, do not allow their children to eat in school canteens, the menu of which does not include Halal dishes, and their females actively wear burqas. The paradox it is not a custom in their historical homeland. Everything would be much easier if the clash of cultures ended with discussions about “outfits”. The terrorist attacks in Paris were committed by second-and third-generation migrants.

Perhaps one of the reasons for the failure of the “supra-ethnic” or “supranational” concepts of social order is that they are the creation of an industrial society of mass production and mass culture.

The peculiarity of modern migration processes is the merger of several flows: legal, illegal economic migration and refugees. It is obvious that the latter two create the greatest problems.

According to the UN and IOM of 258 million international migrants 78 million, at least, "visited" the EU [8]. Over 1.2 million refugees arrived in the EU in 2015 alone. About 50 000 suspects of involvement in the radical Islamic groups “slip” through the EU countries as a result of the migration “crisis.” 88% of the surveyed migrants admitted that they had been “assisted” by illegal channels of transportation [12].

According to the media of Austria, Switzerland and Germany, during only 2 weeks in March-April 2017, 190 attacks with the use of cold weapons and the participation of migrants were detected and recorded. In Germany, asylum seekers on average commit 15 times more violent crimes, sexual assaults and rapes than Germans (local people and long-term residents with a migration background). In Austria, cases of rape committed by migrants more than doubled in one year [13].

The purpose of this article is not an analysis of criminal statistics, so we have limited ourselves to some impressive indicators. In addition, to date, obtaining objective data reflecting crime among migrants is quite difficult. Thus, according to the European researchers, since 2016 there is a special ban on the placement in police and other information messages of data indicating the number of offenses committed by migrants, as well as clarifications of their ethnicity. And this is perhaps one of the most obvious manifestations of the “taboo” on the topic of migrants.

Referring to the statement of the representative of the Department of Justice of Vienna, the number of “real” Austrians convicted of rape is negligible. There are huge problems with other cultures [13]. In Germany, a regular report by the German Federal criminal police office (Bundeskriminalamt ) shocked the German public. It follows that the number of serious crimes committed by migrants, including murder and rape, increased in 2017 by 30% compared to 2016. In 2017, about 40 thousand Germans were victims of crimes committed by migrants. The report was ignored by the leading media and the government of Germany, in this connection, the party Alternative for Germany accused the authorities of concealing the true scale of crimes committed by migrants. At the same time, the OSCE Office for Human Rights and Democratic Institutions (ODIHR) and the non-governmental organization Human Rights First are conducting studies on acts of violence caused by intolerance and hatred of ethnic minorities and migrants.

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance regularly publishes factual information on such crimes, as well as relevant recommendations for combating them in its reports [10. P. 55]. This is explained by the fact that the Western human rights organizations traditionally were engaged in the protection of human rights outside their territory, for example, in the third world or in the post-Soviet space, but not in their own country. Therefore, the internal work of European human rights organizations focuses mainly on the protection of the rights of migrants. Unfortunately, there is no experience in protecting the rights of citizens within their countries.

The problems that arose as a result of the migration wave of 2015 in Europe, that has already been named by researchers the largest since wave the World War II, convince that the situation when the time, speed and size of migration depend to a greater extent on the decision of potential migrants themselves is unacceptable. These processes should be monitored and coordinated, including at the interstate level.

However, despite the fact that globalization turns to one degree or another, almost any state into a multinational, not everyone is ready to bear responsibility for the on-going processes taking place, including the fate of their own citizens. “The authorities of the countries – sources of migration – do not control the rate of emigration or the rate of return of the migrants and therefore depend in this regard on the control measures used by the authorities of the countries receiving migrants” [5. P. 12].

The problem of the relationship between the human rights of the migrants and those of the local population remains open despite the adoption in December 2018 in Marrakech of the UN Global Migration Compact, further approved by the UN General Assembly, which determines the prospects for the development of the migration legislation. The Compact has provoked fierce debate, resistance and rejection on the part of many countries. Out of the 193 countries, the Compact was supported by 181 countries, 3 countries abstained and the US and Hungary voted against it. United States voted against it because the goals of the Compact are not consistent with its immigration law. Today, Budapest is in general one of the most ardent opponents of the migration policy of the European Union, accusing the Chairman of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and American billionaire George Soros in promoting uncontrolled mass immigration to Hungary. In turn, the European Commission officially accused the government of Hungary under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orban of spreading fake news about the EU migration policy [9].

Although the EU summit in Salzburg announced in September 2018 that its plans to introduce mandatory quotas for the distribution of migrants to different countries were abandoned, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Poland also refused to join the migration Pact. In practice, this is also the position of Austria that has closed its border for the migration flows and suggested an organization of camps for the reception of refugees on one of the uninhabited Islands in the Mediterranean. This position is shared by Italy and Bulgaria, that support the idea of creating filtration camps for the reception, verification and screening of refugees intercepted in the Mediterranean, outside the EU zone. The idea of so-called “landing platforms” is gaining popularity, moreover, the first of them is proposed to be built in Albania and Macedonia, for which it may become one of the conditions for the accession to the EU.

The Covenant embraces 23 goals related to the coordination of the efforts by the states in such matters as saving the lives of migrants, combating human trafficking, assistance in integration and elimination of discrimination, provision of accessible pathways for the regulated migration and a lot more, down to the intentions in the near future to create a document summarizing all of the key civil rights of migrants, including the right to private property, education, healthcare, fair justice, attorney services etc.

One of the points of the covenant brings us back to the topic of “taboo.” Its essence is in the “training” of journalists covering the issues of migration of the correct “terminology.” The main term to be abandoned is “illegal migrant,” which has a negative connotation, causing bad associations. And yet this document has become a legislative basis, thanks to which liberal politicians will be able to adopt their own laws to facilitate the uncontrolled influx of migrants. At the same time, countries headed by conservative, national-oriented leaders refused to sign the treaty. As a result, the document, designed to bring some clarity, actually led to a political split within the European Union.

Despite the fact that the number of newly arriving migrants is falling sharply, the EU is no longer ready for the policy of open borders, the consequences of the mass influx of the previous three years were too heavy. Today, the United Europe has no solidarity in solving the problems of migration policy, except, perhaps, one: to increase the powers of Frontex (the EU Agency for external border security). Today, efforts made, on the one hand, to protect the recognition of the equality of social minorities, determined by such characteristics as race, ethnicity, religion, and on the other hand, to preserve their identity and the system of values have become the most electorally significant product in the political market of the European Union, once conceived as a new progressive form of supranational and supranational collective identification.

The intransigence of positions on the migration issue contributes to the internal political split not only in some European countries. Large-scale forced migration caused by conflicts, disasters, climate and economic causes in recent years has “undermined” sustainable. “We do not agree with the main message of the agreement, in which migration is depicted as a phenomenon that determines the future of the globalized world, and all countries are divided into countries of origin, transit and destination,” said the head of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry Peter Szijjarto, criticizing the UN global agreement on migration. Today, it is becoming more and more obvious that poorly managed migration processes and insufficiently effective migration policy can lead to disintegration processes and serious consequences for the development of modern social systems [4. P. 43].

The question of how to avoid such a future remains open. How to respect the rights of migrants without prejudicing the rights of indigenous people? How to organize a joint life of people who sometimes adhere to diametrically opposed norms and values? How to preserve the European values that have been developed and protected for centuries, while understanding that they are concentrated in a minority of the richest countries, to which the “poor majority” will always strive for the best share. Migration is increasingly becoming a global dilemma, material, legal, ethical and moral.

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