Robunism: Introspecting the Conjunction of Human and Humane Mechanics

Saptarshi Roy

A: The Human-Machine Conundrum: the Émigré is also Human
           
Post-humanism rests, as opposed to humanism, in stating that human beings are not the core of existence It simultaneously puts forward that there is undeniably zilch dissimilarity amid human and environment—humans do not subsist as individuals, they are very much part of the world. It is an ostensible illogicality that as a result of technological innovations, humans have (in some way) drawn closer to appreciate their ebbed centriole in the universe and their intertwined disposition with the cosmos. There is a tri-modal activity in this regard, which makes the entire case more lucid. In the first case, there is the leeway that men may fashion ‘Artificial Intelligence’ because:

[…] if humans could develop life that was equally as conscious and autonomous as themselves, then not only might humans be replaced by machines (a kind of literal, but also hysterical, definition of 'posthumanism'), but (more soberly) humans would also have to admit their non-central role in the universe (as well as, concomitantly, the supposed fact that we were assigned a central role in the universe by a deity); with AI as a manmade construct, humans would realize that they themselves are not impossibly special beings, but something that even a human could create. (Hauskeller 14)

In the second case, legitimated by Hans Moravec (1988) and other scribes, humans might transfer their perception(s) into a computer, without the requirement of their body. At that juncture this society can witness a second 'hysterical' edition of posthumanity; every one of us subsists in the computer ether, comprehending that organisms have broadened beyond our bodies and selves. Thus too, humanity appreciates its embodied place inside the cosmos. For a third and closing point, technology has lingered in cooperation within and without us, its everyday existence and usage in life emphasize that we neither stay alive in segregation from the globe —the self and the cosmos permeate each other relentlessly.
In ‘How We Became Posthuman,’ Hayles marks post-humanism as subsequent to a row of “isms” that hunt for deflating the dominion of white, male western consumerists. Conversely, growth in biological sciences, neuroscience and physics put forward that post-humanism functions as equally on political, as on an ontological echelon: it is not that white, male, occidental capitalists could be recognized as the be-all and end-all; it is actually all the humans who are not the be-all and end-all in this planet:

Who we are is not limited uniquely to our bodies, even if our bodies are necessary (but not sufficient) for our existence; our technology, the characteristics that we share with other species, the embodied nature of our brains and the simple fact that we need oxygen, carbon, water and sunlight to exist, all make clear that the entire universe extends into us as we extend into it. (Hauskeller 16)

Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of the “body without organs” and “machinic phylum” have found their ways into the pages of Hayles, Cary Wolfe, and Robert Pepperell. Somehow, such concepts are not so much central to post-humanist thought; they are imperative antecedents playing backcloth. On the contrary, Deleuzian scholars like Patricia MacCormack and Rosi Braidotti, on whom post-humanistic reflections had a much overt sway, shifted their consideration to post-humanism, when compared to post-humanist scholars, swinging their attention distinctively to Deleuze and Guattari. As per Rosi Braidotti’s estimation, things that contributed in the augmentation of post-humanism are: “science and technology studies, new media and digital culture, environmentalism and earth-sciences, bio-genetics, neuroscience and robotics, evolutionary theory, critical legal theory, primatology, animal rights and science fiction” (Braidotti 57-58). By reconciling Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of “becoming animal”, “becoming machine” and Braidotti’s own concept of “becoming earth”, post-humanist thought clarify the course in which,

‘as embodied and embedded entities we are all part of nature, even though academic philosophy continues to claim transcendental grounds for human consciousness’ (i.e., that humans 'transcend', or are apart from nature/the world in general; Braidotti 66). With a turn that distinctly fits into the 'ecological' thinking of the early 21st century, Braidotti suggests that in the 'anthropocene', the age in which humans are the biggest influential factor in shaping the planet, it is urgent that humans come to realize their enworlded, rather than separate, nature. (Hauskeller 17)

It is good enough that a number of humanities academics are keen on and capable of doing this, as was Jacques Lacan prior to them and Manuel Castells, Rosi Braidotti, Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière, and John Bellamy Foster, among others, at present. It should be taken into notice that the notion of post-human is post-anthropocentric since the exertions executed in these disciplines make obvious that, to be comprehended better than before, human organism has to be emblazoned in frameworks that take account of other living things such as animals and plants. Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and above all, Deleuze and Guattari have contributed considerably as Poststructuralist theorists; their works have helped to fashion a post-humanist frame of mind by taking away human beings from the centre of the system and placing them in broader cultural, ontological and ecological milieus.

While post-humanism is aggravated through thereview of a contemporary, occidental ideology of the humankind with the overriding prowess of science, deliberations regarding post-humans remained in tête-à-tête with postmodernism, post-structuralism, postcolonial studies and entities of feminist/queer. In his Posthumanism (2000), Neil Badmington has located posthuman as tangled to all such critical realms. Badmington integrated an observation of Franz Fanon: the fabrication of “human” in the West is a manifestation of its off-putting Other, that is, non-occidental/oriental populace. For a teaser, Jean-Paul Sartre encapsulates Fanon's point in the preface: “Not so very long ago, the earth numbered two thousand million inhabitants: five hundred million men, and one thousand five hundred million natives. The former had the Word; the others had the use of it” (Fanon 7). Natives not functional to this (European, white, male, heterosexual, bourgeois, and adult) sculpt are measured less-human or non-human.

Hegel’s dialectical sculpt of chronological progress entails the dialogues of self and other, together with the juncture of master and slave. This is otherwise familiar in 20th-century stipulations, of “Self” and “Other”—the “Other” (as woman, other race, LGBTQ, etc.), as referred routinely, is a depreciatory and sneering expression, scratching cultural, ethnic and sexual characteristics as low. And it has been exhaustively and persuasively established in Edward Said’s magnum opus Orientalism. Said, by pointing that “the Orient” was devised as the “Other” of/to the West, made it better apprehensible that the Western subject was designed finer to non-Western. Such a postcolonial putdown is supposed to be adjacent to post-humanism, given that, it has by now well problematized the standardizing structure of “human” anchored in the Eurocentric mock-up. The account of “othering” is not clear-cut, nevertheless, but intricate because the exceptional conception of humanism used to give good reason for condescending colonial strategy, moreover became the spring of incredible optimism and go-getting (inasmuch as political emancipation and autonomy) for the browbeaten grassroots. Its “longevity” ought to be comprehended by tracing this innate ambiguity (Braidotti 16). Despite this ambivalence, it is not at all of any shocker that humanism has been severely persuaded by one anti-humanist critique after another, stemming from feminism, postcolonial studies, anti-racism, anti-nuclear, pacifist and animal rights movements, among others.

As an essential constituent of “cream of the crop” theories anti-humanism grew resembling a philosophical outlook that initiated with conformist, anti-emancipatory political principles, and which was a crucial part of racial theory. In the postwar epoch, nevertheless, anti-humanism came to signify an incredibly diverse convention. In the quilts of Frantz Fanon, Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Louis Althusser, anti-humanism became associated with tolerant, deep-seated, anti-colonial and anti-racist stance; and turned out to be a vital instrument in the cross-examination of bigoted and imperialist discussions. Humanism, as Sartre wrote in his famous preface to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, “is nothing but an ideology of lies, a perfect justification for pillage; its honeyed words, its affectations of sensibility were only alibis for our aggression” (Fanon 25). This line has proved itself dually factual when the world has witnessed on the one hand, bloody pillage where millions of homes were devastated and bodies butchered with the holy aim of hunting down terror in the name of justice (may be “poetic”! Pun intended); on the other hand there were people for whom (at least the often-uttered versions of Western articulation says that: all was for them) everything and every bullet took place; and who became homeless themselves the moment a gunshot was first unleashed. Their peace went to the farthest possible land, and so their future in beloved homeland. Thereupon, we return to Sartre again as we become bystander of this “humanist” or humane ideology of lies—lies told to those people from the elevated western superstructures, a promised land of trouble-free plus terror-free verve.

Thus, time and again varied terms have got incorporated into the field of post-humanism; there are ideas of transhumanism, anti-humanism, post-anthropocentrism, and speculative post-humanism. Up to now, the noticeably distinct wisps of post-humanist talk are “critical post-humanism” and “transhumanism” for the largest part; this is well detailed in the efforts of Donna Haraway, Neil Badminton, Ray Kurzweil, and Nick Bostrom. These two studies, even though awfully apart in their outlook and focal point, hypothesize a perceptibly current makeover in the course of which human life has grown to be more enormously ensnared in science and machinery. The growth and expansion of post-humanist theory becomes all the more relevant if one considers the “third world(s)” which grew in number both in colonial and anti-colonial premises of culture; a world which technologically strikes back as the empire with wars of terror, and loads of refugees as an end product. There is also a need to discuss the affiliation that connects theories of race and discourse of difference (tied with politico-technological advances), both of which factors have played their particular roles in shaping the projected future for an expatriate.

The interchange involving man and mechanism has a long-standing account that can effortlessly be envisioned in post-human requisites. In the milieu at hand, there is a clear acquiescence to scientific power in “human” goings-on in the most obvious cases: battle or safety measures. This is predominantly imperative given the speedy propagation of new-fangled martial machineries, which go all-out for heights of sovereignty and cyber-cleverness. Equipments like that are enlarging, and fashioning new machines as well as viewpoint towards machines. So it turns out to be extremely crucial to put a finger on the sort of subjectivities that our innovative modes of warfare are producing, and which are machine-human at core—at any rate from a critical angle. Regrettably, it is this technologically-charged warfare that has left loads of emigrants adrift, who incessantly try to stomach the penalty of a post-human globe which (yet again ambivalently) speaks of mechanical prowess and shows lukewarm willingness to use all sorts of feasible mechanizations to aid those drifters. The inquest of machine has therefore (synonymous to what Arthur Kroker opined) been rehabilitated into a query of the man.

A keen advancement drive has recurrently urged scientists to effort, vehemently reinstating what we until now have acknowledged and implied as human life with android-themed altered copy of what life has to be. Equipments are intended to grow past human aptitude, at the same time as human life form cannot evolve at an identical tempo—they happen to be behind the times. Man and machine are hence merged in both practical and philosophical requisites, with machinery determining human subjectivity to the degree that human subjectivities contour the equipments. Nick Bostrom rightly argues (as cited in Martinkova and Parry 49) that humans, as envisaged by transhumanist discussions, are caught up in a conscious course of  “a work-in-progress”, forever pushy and headed for excellence in a process of techno-scientifically aided progression that pledges to abscond the “half-baked beginning[s]” of existing humankind. But this conception of progress that is under scanner here, must take into account the entire populace who inhabits this planet by going beyond the discourses of race or difference. If the post-human techno-scientific structure(s) is liable for reproducing castaways and émigré, it should bear their well being as well, via its exclusive techno-scientific methods.

“An epiphany is too strong a phrase, but an awakening is not, regarding the realization…” warningly opines Ronald Arkin, an eminent roboticist and robo-ethicist in his preface to Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots; he goes further stating a vital query: “Is it not our responsibility as scientists to look for effective ways to reduce man’s inhumanity to man through technology?” (xvi). Arkin till date has remained a leading articulated activist of manufacturing “ethical” robots by bringing into the technology equipment like an “ethical governor”—summing up dual facets of techno-authority flawlessly. As he ponders upon, the lethal android is competent to make a more principled pronouncement than the human being, merely by being planned to apply a conduit for managerial executions derived from abstracted edict of warfare. The humans, possessing blemished physiological and intellectual capability, are therefore to be overseen by the precision of a machine authority. Although, in one of many instances quite the opposing: the United States’ Department of Defense (DoD) has continued to be an energetic solicitor of progressively more intellectual apparatus that, at some point before long, will become alive and kicking to decide on and employ targets devoid of auxiliary involvement by a person aka machinist; it will definitely own the reckoning faculty, considered necessary to evaluate circumstances and compose counsels or choices, counting almost certainly, the verdict to take life.

The exploratory temperament of post-humanism necessitates that we should possess a little sagacity of mind's eye to discern how our civilization might at length be shaped by machinery. A confront in contemporary accepted wisdom concerning equipment was the noticeable breach amid the machinery we manufacture and our thoughts on the topic of utilization to which this technology is set. Such a thought has overwhelming insinuations for ethics latent within. As Anders notes, letting this slit walk off unaddressed fabricates legroom in favor of a technical clout to surface, in which ethical inquiries are shed in progressively added scientific provisos. This type of inconsistency points toward a harsh truth: we cannot identify what we carry out anymore. It consecutively pushes us to the awful perimeter of our accountability, for to presuppose accountability is nonentity except to own up the exploits, the upshots of which one had conjured up beforehand. Moreover, how do we identify ethics, if the society befalls null and void in asserting any responsibility? Undeniably, as modern-day livings are converted into increasingly technology-assisted, we the individuals surface to a greater extent as a thin tie in the man-mechanism fetter: derisory at superlative, passé at the pits.

B: Managing the Migrants with Machine Methodology

Hackathon that Helps
If repots of the UN are to be stated, nearly 41 per cent of the world's immigrants are kids, and almost half of all refugees are female. Cut off from indispensable guidance and counsel, they are frequently powerless to get a hold of the aid they call for. Save for the usage of technology that may well be of assistance. A hackathon namely EmpowerHack is such a structure. A cohort of coders, designers, NGOs and scholastic personalities are operational to build up technology that discerns how to educate female refugees of all ages and put them in the greater picture of humanity. "There was a real need that was being neglected," Hera Hussain, founder of domestic violence charity Chayn, told clearly (French).
Surrounded by undersized, committed lineups, imperative issues are tackled here. Apiece scheme is allied to an NGO that is eager to sponsor and spend the technologies which are formed. One application being developed was “Soul Medicine”, a smartphone app that propels motivating quotations to refugees by means of SMS or WhatsApp; although, lack of personal mobiles and the varied mental conditions of the drifters have remained quite a challenge till date. “Hababy”, a web app that affords “prenatal and postnatal” statistics for refugee women, has already come out of EmpowerHack. Dr. Hina Shahid, who was among its creators, is at the moment the clinical lead. She recounted:"The design challenge was inspired by my experiences in Lesvos – what I saw, and where the leads were. It’s about taking pregnancy care forward. The web app has changed a lot – we’re now targeting where we think we’ll make the most difference, looking specifically at five red flags that pregnant women can face" (French). “Hababy” is now on tenterhooks to amalgamate with Doctors of the World's “Clinic Finder”, which uses geo-location to locate medicinal supports for persons in exile.
Things to be focused here are attraction and retention, user journeys and download rates. Thinking about this process in relation to refugees and migrants presents new challenges.  An executive elucidated that it may possibly be helpful to reflect on magnetizing new users as they are travelling and when it is feasible yet ethical to come close to them with latest data-aids.

Germany, Robots, Refugees
As Europe struggles to tackle a huge arrival of safe-haven-seeking drifters from war-torn countries (largest since the end of World War II), alarms from authorities on how to integrate new residents becomes ever-prompting. In the case of Germany, perception of the national lingo is fundamental to achieve considerable employment or involving oneself in learning methods.
Researchers at the University of Bielefeld are trying to deal with one of the most testing concerns to crop up from the wave of exodus with a pioneering way out: the use of androids. “Nao”—an endearing robot contrived in the outer shell of a kid, is convoyed by a tablet to lend a hand to refuge children with the intention that they become skilled at German with supporting materials, for instance diagrams. “We program the robot so that it can interact with the child, so that the child is as well supported as possible,” (Deutsche Welle) said Kirsten Bergmann of the research group Social Cognitive Systems. The mission is estimated to jog for approximately three years as scientists analyze the robots' aptitude to efficiently educate the disreputably difficult verbal communication to the tenderfeet. By means of the robot, equipped with cameras and microphones, researchers desire to try out its capability to communicate trouble-free language dexterity to migrant brood, in particular those flanked by the ages of 4 and 5. “Teaching every child a second language individually is something kindergartens usually can’t cope with. That’s where robots can offer additional assistance,” (Deutsche Welle) said Stefan Kopp, Head of the Social Cognitive Systems group at the Faculty of Technology and the Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC).

Drifters vs. DeutscheMachinations
Unfortunately among all the tech happening that is currently on the experiment-tables of German tech-scholars, a good number of its own population are all the more against the country’s current policy regarding the refugees and castaways. In fact, Germany in recent years has tried hard to strive forward in the field of technical progress where less number of workers will be required in the field of industrial productions.  The assemblage of refugees pouring into the country on a daily basis may well tender Europe's largest economy a fitting solution to plug the “gray gap” in its aging manual labour force. But integrating the new arrivals could be costly. In Germany, two things had declined without fail. One is the redundancy rate; the other is the nativity rate—one of the poor in entire world, is a woeful marker that creates a brawny catch-22 for German employers.

Then again, the multitude of migrants running away from wars in the Middle East and dictatorial establishments in Africa might immediately grant a badly looked-for source of toil that may perhaps aid the government to trounce its intimidating demographic crisis. “We want to use this situation to open up the opportunity of a new and better life in Germany for the refugees who have come to us legitimately,” opined Andrea Nahles, Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs (Cottrell). “Our aim must be to put the people who have come to us into decent work,” she rejoined, “The people who are coming as refugees should quickly become neighbors and colleagues” (Cottrell). The creams of the crop in business, for their part, have called on the federal and state governments to slickly incorporate the new entrants into the German labour power. But in order to do this, Germany would have to allocate added grant, the figure of which could rise to 7 billion euros. At the press meeting, Nahles also held that the predictable ascent in the digit of populace granted shelter in Germany possibly will also increase the number of people, suitable for job-seeker benefits by 240,000 to 460,000 in 2016.These extra overheads are liable to rouse many a conflicting voices in Germany, where attitudes toward Europe's drifter crisis and Germany's role in that are not speaking.

Scores of folks advocate doing all in German administration’s authority to help those escaping battle and scarcity, although others dread a surplus immigration may possibly thin out the take-home pay and Germany's national culture at large. Brenda Walker significantly wrote:

The point is that Germany is getting automated, and fast. There’s no need to import hostile Muslims who will bring crime and jihad. Plenty of jobless Europeans, like Spaniards for example, are willing to move to Germany for employment. There has been both an outpouring of support for refugees in Germany and a violent backlash against them, often manifesting in arson attacks against dormitories meant to host the asylum seekers and their families. (Walker)

She also added with a bittersweet tone: “[Chancellor] Merkel is crazy to endanger Germany and all of Europe by admitting millions of Muslims, the historic enemy of the West” (Walker). In these contexts then, the future of a baby-like “Nao” seems truly testing, if not bureaucratic.

The Robo of Malta
“Phoenix”, a vessel owned by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station), a non-profit involvement centered in Malta, is designed for the salvage of refugees coming by the sea-way. A helicopter drone “Camcopter S-100” that is positioned aboard the ship would broaden the reach of the “Phoenix” a great deal far-off its sphere. With the support of this robotic assistance, boats of the persons in exile can be sited, even in rough sea conditions and from a long distance. The camera of the S-100 conveys to the MOAS squad daylight and infrared video recordings instantaneously, permitting them to evaluate the situation straight away, and afford the requisite aid as well as to synchronize all proceedings in collaboration with other rescue and aid authorities throughout the Mediterranean vicinity.

MOAS was able to rescue 2800 people in merely 60 days, whist with 3,771 deceases, 2015 was the killer year on documentation for migrants and refugees traversing the Mediterranean, and assaying to reach Europe, reports International Organization for Migration in a year-end synopsis (IOM, 2016). By comparison 3,279 deaths were traced in the Mediterranean in 2014—a sharp increase compared to last year. Hans Georg Schiebel, Chairman and Owner of Schiebel, the supportive organism of MOAS enthusiastically stated: “With our combined efforts and the experience gained from the last mission, we will save even more lives this year. We all at Schiebel are very proud and excited to support MOAS and its important rescue mission” (Schiebel). There are also “Doctors without Borders” who shore up MOAS, endowing them with therapeutic workforce.

Hydronalix's Hellenic Help
John Sims, a captain with the Rural Metro Fire Department had been working hard and fast for quite an elongated time at the Greek atoll of Lesbos with Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR), a part of the Texas A&M University Engineering Experiment Station. He came with Anthony Mulligan, owner of Hydronalix who was solicited to turn up to Greece by CRASAR conveying along the company's signature EMILY – Emergency Integrated Lifesaving Lanyard – water rescue units. The EMILY, a 25 pound, remote-operated lifesaving apparatus cuts through rough water at speeds of 20 mph or 32 kmph and can hold up five people. The Greek island can make use of all the assistance it might acquire. The team spent to a large extent of days (extending to 20 hours a day) schooling squads from a number of countries and dozens of non-profit groups regarding the technical tidbits and working methods of EMILY, and the way it can be handled to lend a hand safeguarding refugees (endeavouring to traverse from mainland Turkey). The Hellenic Coast Guard purchased a unit post trainings, thus incorporating an EMILY unit for a vessel. Mulligan also opined for some negligible adjustments for the units, such as equipping them with a bullhorn to better converse with immigrant ships coming into Greece. CRASAR used the crowd-funding website Gofundme.com to raise the monetary aid it requires to fetch more EMILY units and a team of four to Greece to keep up serving persons in exile. Barely four EMILY divisions may well facilitate to administer 500 to 600 crossings for every week.

A likely number of 2,000 people, for the most part refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, are incoming on a daily basis from Turkey, which is in close proximity to Lesbos. Mulligan was of the view (coupled with shock) that, what they are arriving in can frequent times barely be called “boats”, that too termed charitably. The refugees are at the leniency of the ocean and some underhanded folks advertising such stuff as counterfeit life vests, as always are the cases in many parts of the globe. The mishmash of insecure dinghy and persons who have by no means seen the sea added to what Mulligan entitled a “migration catastrophe,” adding that “Every day, people are dying in the water over there.” (Rookhuyzen)

Sims, who had done vessel security check up numerous times as a member of the U.S. Coast Guard prior to joining Rural Metro, found it hard to observe the makeshift crafts. Rescue staff hit upon a great amount of useless water wings of kids, which they figured people were making use of as opposed to life jackets. Whilst they educated the Greeks and other agencies the usage of EMILY with a cable tether, it reverberated with the rescuers, he said.

The Syrian Robotics
“Hope of Syria”—a youthful group of android engineers is willing to carry the amenability of reassembling their nation. The team, consisted purely of Syrian refugee docents, in recent past triumphed a countywide robotics bout in Lebanon. They desire to convey assiduity to the double-trouble of Syrians, hopefully opined a team member Amjad al-Homsi, 17, the team’s engineering network manager: “[It's about] putting the spotlight on Syrians.” “We want to tell them that instead of the bad or difficult circumstances, they can do something - they can rebuild” (Alabaster). Homsi, working in mechatronics, which combines mechanical, computer and electrical engineering hopes to carry on his practical expertise upon returning to Syria. “My dream is to rebuild Syria, and to be part of that process,” Homsi feels elated (Alabaster). Fatima al-Soki, 16, another programmer of their squad, is also expecting to curve this toward professional orbit: “I want to be a software engineer, and I hope the skills I am learning now will help all Syrians in the future.” (Alabaster)
Mohammad al-Hasan, who directs the “Continuing Education and Community Service Programme” at MAPs, a Lebanese NGO pandering to Syrian defectors, is desirous as concerns implanting this concept of certainty amid learners apropos a mutual morrow back in Syria. “Hope of Syria” saw the light of day as part of a robotics class of Hasan. “These skills and this knowledge will create a revolution in their minds,” he told. “Good ideas come from sharing, not from one person.” In a most significant tone he also opined rather calmly: “We want to raise our voice to the world community to support refugees’ education. It is more important than relief or aid. If we lose this generation, we will lose the future” (Alabaster).  A good number of Syrian kids in Lebanon do not clock in school, in some cases due to the bite of transportation or school books, but also as the wellsprings regularly depend on the money that their children can bring in. Hasan's programme, which provides an alternative for these children, is being funded by, a DeutscheNGO—Orienthelfer. Bilal Hittawi, an Orienthelfer congress person, shared his views:“They are refugees because of the war, but they are normal people; they are talented, they are educated, they can do a lot,”Hittawi rejoined: “We have to support and let them be involved in other communities, and not just [be] outsiders.” (Alabaster)

Hope of Syria's team captain, 19-year-old Daraya native Mohammed al-Khoshfeh, who has been interested in robotics for years, wished to help with the postwar restructuring assays in Syria whenever he becomes politically fit for returning home: “I want to make robots to clear up the waste of the war” (Alabaster). Another 17-year-old team member Abdul Rahman Mawas hoped: “Everyone should have a dream to follow, and they will achieve it” (Alabaster). After more than five years of call us collision, “Hope of Syria” perhaps resonates like a vaulting tagline, but ambitions and ventures like such might propel the lives there.

Resembling a Robot: the Irish Case
 A reverse view of this “robotics” can be traced in the lives of these castaways. “I don’t know how I am going to cope.  I have spent seven years living like a robot.  I have been told where to go, what time to go there and almost what to eat” (Conlan). These were the expressions of a bright, expressive lady belonging to East Africa. Living in Ireland for nearly a decade, all of that time she had been in accommodation centres, run by the Government for those on the lookout for refuge.  She was directed to shift a number of times to diverse accommodation centres around the nation state; and had just come to know that she was at last to be granted consent to settle in the country. The Government had given only some weeks to move out of the accommodation centre, find a space to live and start making choices for herself and her three kids, all born in her new land.

In 2000, the Irish administration set up “Direct Provision” system in rejoinder to a quandary towards the last part of the 1990s at what time the figures looking for asylum in Ireland had augmented speedily. These lodging centres are recognized as “Direct Provision” for the reason that the state affords directly for the instantaneous substantial requirements of asylum seekers. It is a structure that has on no account been set out in legislation or defined in any overtly offered text; also this is difficult to comprehend why the Irish authorities keep up this scheme when the data is unambiguous that it comes at enormous expenditure, both pecuniary and human.

“Direct Provision” has been rolled out in the appearance of housing amenities whose primal utilize was for short term stay – movable homes, holiday chalets, hotels, students’ hostels. All of the accommodation centres have been possessed, or run, by private companies.  These companies have never been necessitated to have any scrupulous schooling or competence to house, on a long-term basis, susceptible adults and children.  Thinning out all over the country is a fundamental trait of the organism.  As a rule, this is a system dependant on a “no choice” hypothesis.  The refuge-seekers walk off where they are notified, at what time they are notified and frequently with diminutive notice. They could never know what existence is like whilst they are enforced to be reliant upon the state, as calendars pass on, amid no control over life and no occasion to exertion or zilch major verdicts for themselves let alone for their kids.  The end product of obligatory redundancy has become heavier upon them, as well as a growing amount of angst that comes from not knowing when they will be granted to shift or settle down.  In their android-like life, another added fear is of living with the threat of deportation. The brunt of being a victim of torture or unspeakable trauma is the part and parcel of many of those who ask for haven in Ireland these days.

Children create an increasingly hefty cluster in the midst of the inhabitants in “Direct Provision” centres. They engage an existing space in close proximity both to those, to whom they are related and those, they have no connection with whatsoever.  For many, all they know is this form of institutionalized living. The Reception and Integration Agency keeps an eye on the Direct Provision system. This entity provides figures in the Reception and Integration Agency’s Annual Reports on the referrals made to it which relate to juvenile safeguard topics together with:

* Parent or child missing/left centre                   **sexual concerns/inappropriate sexual behavior
                                                                                                                        [Courtesy: RIA]

The rejoinder to the child shield concerns hoisted in the Reception and Integration Agency’s Annual Reports might have pointed towards the parents criticizing for their inabilities regarding jobs.  However, the aptitude to be a parent and provide for (and guard) the child is affected by state of affairs. In the case of castaway folks in “Direct Provision”, parents are infantilized and denied the chance to accomplish their errands; something that is differing to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that necessitates the States to grant fitting assist to parents in the performance of their responsibility.

The more Irish administration puts emphasis on “Direct Provision”, saying that it would keep on for the projected future, the more it becomes not-so-good news. It will take time to substitute structures like the “Direct Provision”, but these will have to depart (making space for more humanistic efforts), seeing that the proofs should never be overlooked at any length.

#refugeeswelcome or Techno-Borders?
As an effect of the social media migration, drifting folks responded very quickly to Angela Merkel and #refugeeswelcome. Besides, The Wall Street Journal reported “obscure” German tweet that instigated migration from Hungary (Thomas).  Just half a decade ago this was an impossible movement to run so quickly. The smartphone has lashed more migrations—a gadget that helps money-transfers effecting chain migration, and generate an innovative “pull-factor” for migrants who can view life in Europe via their gadgets.“A large number of men from war zones moving into an ageing, peaceful and culturally very liberal society presents lots of ‘challenges’ […]” (West). Albeit current communiqué technology makes crowd exodus easier, it in addition makes it reasonably erratic, and social integration tougher. West has further pointed out: “People have warned for some time that modern communication slows down integration, creating ‘dish cities’ in which people never leave their homeland mentally, because satellite technology, Skype and other forms of communication allow them to stay among people like themselves.” While estimations of collective relocation rest on the hypothesis that technology makes the repositioning a great deal simpler than it formerly were, it is hence foreseeable in addition to favourable; the judgment may well be uniformly pertained 180 degrees in overturn: it is the need of the hour that modish communication systems frame national and international border-enforcements more of a inevitable entity. On balance, “a border is only as secure as its least well guarded area” (House of Lords).

Although tech-guarded borders never mean that people dump tactics to penetrate Europe. In the meantime, administrations maintain their search for useful actions and incomparable resolutions to decode decisions into the strategy that confines traffics at borders. There are bone scans to discover the age of minor asylum-seekers, speech-detection tools for public incorporation assessment, exercise of biometrics and the assembling of databanks to accumulate data on illegitimate drifters. Migration guidelines not just consist of edict and events, but more and more of technology. Still, the question remains if these assortment systems suffice all circumstances that are by and large considered when populace of the nation are meet with machinery that influence their pose as citizen. The usage of tech-aids in demarcating the drifters in consequence modify the connotations of “migrants”, “borders”, “state control”, and “bodies” (implied bio-power as well). Another question mark is whether these techno-policies are humane in manner? The scientific instruments single out expatriates at the border as citizens or aliens (Self or Other!), and employing their bodies as a data-resource. But whether Europe can learn its epistemic limits from nonentity grassroots in a typical Marxist manner has remained to be witnessed.

Be-all and End-all
Accordingly, thinking of human body, we can note its new form of uniqueness based on techno-oriented abilities. It is not a debate of whether man has become a subject to techs, or is it man with competence to tools shaping the world. It is in fact going beyond the accepted wisdom of humanist thinking—of training the human mind towards uniqueness, although very much integrated in this world. Yet again, the need is that technologies get shaped through humanism or rather humane attributes. This, as a post-human future, has to be learnt from those who never had any connection to the grand European episteme. These drifters are acting “Other(s)” who pose questions upon post-enlightenment knowability. 
It is worthy to take note that Fanon documented an incongruity that lays in the severance amid the dogma of humanism and the performance of colonialism:

All the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity have, at different times, existed in European thought. But the action of European men has not carried out the mission which fell to them, and which consisted of bringing their whole weight violently to bear upon these elements, of modifying their arrangement and their nature, of changing them and finally of bringing the problem of mankind to an infinitely higher plane. (Fanon 314)

Thus it is not so much that humanism itself be blamed; and this definitely articulates that post-colonial columnists did not throw out humanism in its entirety.  Consequently Fanon also called for a fresh start in the realm of humanism—a renewed thought process which would be shorn of its xenophobic, Continent-oriented facet: “Let us decide not to imitate Europe; let us combine our muscles and our brains in a new direction. Let us try to create the whole man, whom Europe has been incapable of bringing to triumphant birth.” (Fanon 313) The present crisis of the migrants and drifters striding towards Europe might sound ironic to what Fanon says; also there are, and would be many instances where in the name of integration to European societies, migrants would [be asked to] mimic European culture. But these words may justly serve what should be a warning call to all those drifters and obviously to all of us watching this drama, commenting occasionally, tending to be critical.

Works Cited

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Fanon, Frantz andartre. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York, Grove Press, 1991. Print.

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Kroker, Arthur. Exits to the Posthuman Future. Cambridge: Polity, 2014. Print.

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Rookhuyzen, David. “Hydronalix's help to refugees in Greece has just begun”. Green Valley News. 3 Feb 2016. Web. Accessed 1 May, 2016

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1995. Print.

Schiebel. "Schiebel Camcopter UAV Rescue Refugees Again." Helis.com . Web. Accessed 13 May 2016.

Thomas, Andrea, Matt Bradley, and Friedrich Geiger. "Obscure German Tweet Helped Spur Migrant March From Hungary." WSJ. N.p., 10 Sept. 2015. Web. Accessed 2 June 2016.

Walker, Brenda. “Germany Looks to Refugees for Labor, Even as It Transforms the Workplace with Automation”. Limits to Growth. 17 Oct 2015. Web. Accessed 2 May 2016.
West, Ed. "Modern Technology Has Completely Transformed Mass Migration." Coffee House. The Spectator, 7 Jan. 2016. Web. Accessed 28 June 2016.

Saptarshi Roy
BS College
rishi7roy@rediffmail.com
© Saptarshi Roy, 2016.