Too distant shores: the Strait of Gibraltar and the space of exception

Abstract

Focusing on The Sheep and the Whale (Le mouton et la baleine, 2001) by Moroccan-Canadian playwright Ahmed Ghazali, this essay examines political and ethical issues concerning human migration from Africa to Europe. The play's representation of human rights abuses in the Strait of Gibraltar and the dilemmas facing illegal migrants, refugees and asylum seekers will be situated in relation to current debates about the state of exception and the new forms of neo-liberal governmentality employed under the conditions of globalisation. In one way, Ghazali's drama pays homage to those trying to enter Fortress Europe – and specifically to the nameless young African bodies washed up on the shores of southern Spain. It attempts, in part, to exorcise the unspoken violence of these people's deaths in what has become a vast African cemetery, while prompting us to ask what can be done in order to reduce the death toll in the Gibraltar Strait.