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Since 1991, a jury of linguists in Germany have been selecting a “non-word of the year” (Unwort des Jahres), a campaign aimed to draw attention to insensitive, derogatory or politically incorrect words in popular forums. These words are discriminatory, misleading or violates the principles of human dignity or democracy.
For the year 2021, the ignominious prize of the top “non-word” was given to the English word “pushback”, a term rampantly used to describe several inhuman measures applied to force migrants and refugees back over a border, right after they have crossed it, often treating them violently and without giving them any opportunity to apply for asylum. The word was especially commonplace across various border posts of the European Union, despite the fact that such acts violate basic laws of the European Union, international courts and human rights conventions. Politicians, journalists, experts and organizations have used the expression indiscriminately while discussing immigration or asylum seekers in the past year.
The use of the word has so desensitized people that when migrants were violently forced back into Bosnia from EU member Croatia, politicians shirked responsibility with no fear of backlash. People failed to react much, even when TV footage showed armed men in uniform beating back refugees. Polish authorities too have turned back thousands of migrants from the Middle East when they tried to cross at the Poland-Belarus border. The word has become a particularly favorite for far-right politicians across the European Union.
The jury was critical of the word’s usage in the common parlance because it believes the word “glosses over a misanthropic act that denies people fleeing the opportunity to exercise their human and fundamental right to seek asylum,” covers up worst human rights violation and helps to conceal the “violence and consequences such as death that can be associated with the act of pushing migrants back.”
In the past few years, the jury had selected “corona dictatorship” (2020), “climate hysteria” (2019) and “alternative facts” (2017), among top annual non-words.
READ MORE:
www.unwortdesjahres.net
https://www.dw.com/en/pushback-is-germanys-non-word-of-2021/a-60395228
https://www.ecchr.eu/en/glossary/push-back/
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Migration/SRMigrants/Pages/Pushback-practices.aspx