‘Sorry, i don’t want them here.’ Migration in Slovak Political Discourse

The issue of international migration in Slovakia was not a topic of public discussion until 2015. A major change in migration discourse can be observed only after the mass migratory processes in 2015, a few weeks before the Slovak parliamentary elections. Just before the elections, politicians had also noticed these processes, putting the spotlight on migration, which became a frequent priority topic of electoral campaigns for several weeks. Our aim with this paper is to answer a question of how Slovak politicians, who had ignored this topic for many years, dealt with the issue of international migration since 2015 and which aspect dominated the emerging migration discourse. We came to the conclusion that Slovak politicians tackled the issue almost uniformly, regardless of their ideological beliefs or coalition-opposition framework. Most politicians presented migration as a threat. In addition to the securitization of migration discourse, we also observe a gradual shift in the understanding of the term migrant. Until 2015, the naming of the particular actor of migration processes was generally understood to be neutral, yet since 2015 the term has acquired a strong negative connotation.


INTRODUCTION
U ntil 1989, the Slovak Republic was considered a typical country of emigration. Economic, social, but especially political reasons were the most important pull factors of emigration from the then communist Czechoslovakia [Stojarová, 2019;Onufrák, 2020]. After the political and economic transformation in 1989, migration flows gradually began to change, but emigration still dominated. During this period, Slovakia did not yet provide enough push factors Research paper Radoslav Štefančík, Andrej Kiner for migrants, due to which they would decide to stay in Slovakia. In the 1990s, Slovakia had a problem with the consolidation of democracy, and its economy was held back for several years [Kucharčík & Řádek, 2012;Gbúrová, 2017]. The gradual change did not occur until the accession of the Slovak Republic to the European Union in May 2004. From traditionally emigrant, the state began to transform into a country of immigrants. Slovakia, with its right-wing parties at the head of the government, has undergone deep economic reforms, which generated not only economic growth or demand for labour. The economic reforms have also contributed to the growing number of economic migrants. A slight slowdown in migration flows did not occur until 2020, probably as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of 2020, 150,012 foreigners with a residence permit were registered in Slovakia, which represents less than 2.8 percent of the overall population.
Despite the gradually upward trend, migration remained outside the scope of main political discourse until 2015 [Letavajová & Divinský, 2019]. The preparation of migration policy was insufficient, and the Slovak asylum policy is thereby one of the strictest in EU countries [Brocková, 2019]. In 2015, Europe experienced an enormous increase in the number of migrants originating from North Africa and the Middle East to Western European countries [Liďák, 2016]. Although Slovakia was not affected by these migration inflows and migrants only transited the territory of the country, the topic of international migration has moved from the periphery to the centre of attention of the main political discourse in Slovakia [ÚHCP, 2021].
In Western European countries, we have observed various mobilizing and politicizing concepts, including humanitarianism, security, diversity, protectionism, that should either legitimize restrictions on immigration and asylum policy or, on the other hand, express the necessity for greater solidarity [Krzyzanowski, Triandafyllidou & Wodak, 2018]. Until 2015, international migration was not portrayed as a primary or marginal issue by Slovak politicians, therefore we will be interested in answering the question of how Slovak politicians have grasped this topic since 2015. The article presents how Slovak politicians viewed the actors of migration processes. In this regard, we seek to identify which aspects of migration processes they emphasized and at the same time which aspects were marginalized. We will also notice which issues of migration policy Slovak politicians have not discussed at all. We base our inference on the assumption that the issue of security was the primary objective of migration discourse, while the positions of the individual parties did not differ significantly and the topic of integration policy was absent in migration discourse. We will strive to identify what types of threats Slovak politicians articulate as the main ones.

LITERATURE REVIEW
The authors who deal with the political aspects of international migration pay their attention to the migration policy, which can be divided into three sub-policies: integration, immigration and asylum policy. Following this classification, the analogous internal division of migration discourse is suggested. The authors thus analyse the discourse concerning the relevant topics such as immigration, integration and asylum [Niehr, 2020]. The division of migration discourse into three subcategories does not exclude the possibility that other topics that do not completely fit into this scheme may become part of migration discourse. The topic of regulated return policy of migrants to the country of origin can serve as an example, but we can also include herein a discussion of what lexical means will be used to address particular actors of migratory flows (immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees, economic migrants, etc.). This component of migration discourse can be identified, for example, in Germany, where a discussion on the use of the term Gastarbeiter and the gradual transformation of this term from positive to negative took place. Niehr [Niehr, 2020] identifies a similar quality of discourse even after 2015, since when discussions on the use of a suitable term to refer to actors of migratory flows have been still ongoing. At the centre of migration discourse are people who are generally perceived as migrants; today, these groups include economic migrants, their family members, as well as asylum seekers [Niehr, 2020]. The discursive debate focuses on groups of migrants who are ordinarily attributed common appellations in migration discourse, such as refugees, economic migrants, asylum seekers, etc., and the usage of these commonly used terms might often lead to linguistically critical situations.
In addition to the above-mentioned areas in the research of migration discourse, we also identify studies concerning metaphors on migration [Moullagaliev & Khismatullina, 2017; Arcimaviciene & Baglama, 2018], views of specific political actors, such as right-wing extremists, on migration [Wodak, 2016; Štefančík & Hvasta, 2019], as well as research of discourse on selected groups of actors in migration processes, such as economic migrants [Bilan, 2014], or case studies concerning a specific country [Cingerová, 2018].
As we noted above, migration discourse can be understood as part of political discourse. T. van Dijk [van Dijk, 2018] emphasizes that migration discourse is not always only about international migration but can also be an essential part of migration as a phenomenon. Current discourse studies point out that discourse is not only a form of language use, but also a form of social and political (inter)action. "Migration as a social phenomenon not only consists of (groups of) participants, institutions, many types of social and political (inter)action, but also, quite prominently, of many genres of migration discourse as social and political acts and interaction" [van Dijk, 2018, p. 230].

METHODOLOGY
We share the opinion of the Slovak political linguist Irina Dulebová who claims that "political discourse reflects the struggle for power, and this is the decisive moment for the choice of a communication procedure, the aim of which is always the need to influence the intellectual, volitional and emotional sphere of the addressee" [Dulebová, 2012]. It is therefore natural that the study of political discourse focuses on a wide range of diverse topics and uses a whole range of analytical methods. We are interested in answering the presented questions in the context of the Slovak migration discourse through political discourse analysis. As van Dijk [van Dijk, 1997] points out, the critical-political analysis of discourse deals mainly with the reproduction of political power, abuse of power or domination through political discourse, including various forms of resistance. According to this author, there are at least two categories of methods in migration discourse research: quantitative and qualitative ones [ van Dijk, 2018]. T. van Dijk considers, for example, corpus-linguistic methods to study vast text corpora among quantitative methods. One of the methods of quantitative content analysis is to track certain elements of the texts and compare their frequency with the occurrence of the other elements [Mayring, 2010]. In this paper we will opt for a qualitative method of content analysis of political texts. Although the object of content analysis can be different types of symbols [Berelson, 1952], in our text we focus on verbal symbols, i.e. language. As van Dijk [van Dijk, 2018] accentuates, there are several ways of qualitative analysis of migration discourse. We can examine only one aspect of discourse, such as the use of certain means of expression (metaphors, euphemisms, superlatives etc.), or we can focus on the way of argumentation. We can further analyse political communication strategies according to the needs, goals or participants of communication by choosing phonetic, prosodic, morphological, syntactic,

Research paper
Radoslav Štefančík, Andrej Kiner stylistic and especially lexical means [Spišiaková, 2017]. The object of our analysis is the political contents of the communication of Slovak politicians who commented on the topic of international migration. We analyse the means of expression and arguments used by Slovak politicians within their communication strategies on the given topic.
The following section presents the analysis of the statements of Slovak politicians from relevant political parties on topics related to the processes of international migration. In the article, we quote politicians from the following political parties (in parentheses, we state the ideological direction of the party): Smer-SD (social democrats), SaS (liberals), SNS (national conservatives), ĽSNS (right-wing extremists). The analysed corpus includes statements of holders of political functions (deputies, ministers, president, etc.), which were published in the press, on social networks, or were uttered in plenary talks of the Slovak parliament during the debate. Parliamentary texts are available in the digital archive of the National Council of the Slovak Republic. In the present analysis, we have included texts published after 2015 (as more migration inflows are registered) up to the present.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Although van Dijk argues that not only politicians, but also non-political actors can be included in the category of the political discourse actors [van Dijk, 1997], we, in the following section, primarily focus on the holders of political functions. Based on the analysed texts, we state that Slovak politicians are willing to agree on international migration, regardless of their party affiliation, ideological inclination, or whether they belong to coalition or opposition. Politicians manage to agree on issues related to migration in spite of the fact that strong tensions between government and opposition parties are manifestly part of the Slovak political culture. Since 2015, the main actors in migration discourse have been mainly leading representatives of parliamentary parties, as well as right-wing extremists, who did not hold any seats in the Slovak Parliament until 2016 (it cannot be ruled out that it was probably due to their active anti-immigration rhetoric).
The analysis of the statements of Slovak politicians in the period between 2015 and 2020 shows their interest in presenting primarily the security aspect of migration. Many Slovak politicians, regardless of their ideological background, see international migration as a threat. We can further structure this threat into four dimensions: personal, political, economic and cultural. We will find similar attitudes among right-wing extremists and social democrats or liberals.
In the first -personal -dimension migration is presented as a possible threat to health or directly to the life of domestic society. Some Slovak politicians present migrants as potential terrorists who pose a serious risk to the health and lives of the inhabitants of the national territory. Migrants are also presented as carriers of non-native diseases. The security risk arises from the fact that national security services are not able to verify the identity of all actors in mass migration flows. [Fico, 2015].

-Robert Fico (Smer-SD): The truth is that, except the Norwegian case where Breivik fired a huge number of people, it is almost always Muslims who is behind terrorist attacks
- In the second dimension, migrants are presented as a factor threatening state sovereignty. This dimension is subject to the creation of a common immigration policy of the European Union or is related to the proposal to introduce mandatory quotas for the redistribution of migrants among the Member States of the European Union (the EU). The EU wishes to impose quotas on their member states, whereas Slovakia is losing a significant part of its own state sovereignty as quotas are contrary to the country's national interest.
-Robert Fico (Smer-SD): We continue to reject quotas, the EU cannot punish us for disagreeing [Úradvlády SR, 2015].
-Robert Kaliňák (Smer-SD): If we are forced to impose quotas, it is not right, it is the Brussels dictate [TASR, 2015].
In the third -economic -dimension migrants present a threat to the domestic labour market or are perceived as a threat to the stability of the social assistance system. Some politicians refer to migrants as people from poor countries who have migrated to Europe in order to benefit from generous social assistance. Especially in the countries of Western Europe, either illegal employment of third-country nationals or the so-called "benefit tourism" [Verschueren, 2014] is a common phenomenon. Some Slovak politicians also associate migrants with cheap workforce, which may jeopardize the employment rate of members of the domestic society. Eventually, in the last -cultural -dimension, many Slovak politicians present migrants as bearers of different cultures, traditions and, last but not least, religion. Muslims whose culture and religious traditions are not compatible with and differ from the Christian character of Slovakia, are presented by many politicians as people who are not welcome in Slovakia because their cultural and religious traditions are not compatible with Slovak culture. [Folentová, 2016].

-Richard Sulík (SaS): I do not want to live in a society where more Muslim children are born as non-Muslim
-Robert Fico (Smer-SD): We have to prevent the emergence of a compact Muslim community in Slovakia [Rohac, 2016].
Part of the migration discourse in Slovakia was the semantic shift of the term migrants, or migration. Until 2015, this word was generally used in Slovakia as a value-neutral term. Since the migration situation in 2015, the content of the term migration has begun to change. Politicians called for a strict distinction between the terms refugee and economic migrant. Several Slovak politicians labelled a large part of the refugees from the migration situation in 2015 and 2016 as economic migrants, in other words, migrants who have safe living environment at home, with the reason for their arrival in Europe being purely economic. However, with this semantic drift, the new term "economic migration" took on a negative implication, although until 2015, economic migration was generally perceived as a neutral phenomenon.

Research paper Radoslav Štefančík, Andrej Kiner
-Robert Fico (Smer-SD): We must make a strict distinction between political refugees and economic migrants. Economic migrants should be sent uncompromisingly back to their countries of origin. On the contrary, refugees who fled the war will receive our help [Robert Fico, 2015].
Within the Slovak migration discourse, there even emerged an opinion that the word migrant cannot be used to describe Slovaks who emigrated from Slovakia to the countries of Western Europe or the USA. The unwillingness to label emigrant Slovaks as migrant underlined some politicians' negative view on migration. This attitude emerges despite the fact that until recently Slovakia was a typical country of emigration.
-Natália Grausová (ĽSNS): It is an unethical and immoral demagogy to label Slovak citizens working in the European Union as migrants. Scholars, brains, qualified people are leaving Slovakia. It is an unethical, immoral lie that will put Slovak citizens leaving Slovakia on the same level as migrants from Africa [NR SR, 2018].
Following the example of migration discourse in Germany, Thomas Niehr [Niehr, 2020] also observes a specific use of metaphors to dehumanize actors involved in migration processes. In this context, Niehr speaks primarily of water-metaphors (flood, wave, flow). Manifestations associated with the attempt to dehumanize the actors of migration processes are also observed in the context of the Slovak migration discourse. At the same time, such discursive strategy is not observed only among right-wing extremists, for whom the dehumanization of foreign groups is a distinctive feature of political communication [Smolík, 2013], but it can also be identified within political parties from the democratic centre. In addition to Niehr As Tatiana Grigorjanová claims "metaphor in contemporary linguistics is understood not only as a phenomenon of language, but also of thinking and acting. It's not just a simple transfer of a denomination from one object to another, but a complex process of conceptualizing reality through experience and knowledge" [Grigorjanová, 2017, p. 151]. Metaphor bears a rich pragmatic potential in political discourse, i.e. the ability to influence the recipient and to establish a certain type of decision and political behaviour [Dulebová, 2010]. The use of metaphors in political communication is part of a discursive strategy that is highly ideological, historically and cognitively anchored and reinforced through mediation. Metaphors are linguistic means of open or hidden meaning that are used by political and media actors as a discursive practice with a defined strategic goal [Cammaerts, 2012]. Slovak politicians usually express the metaphor of war in the context of migration discourse through expressions from the military vocabulary (war, to fight, to defend, to wage war, to fight to the last drop of blood, to be in the front line, to attack, terrorists, genocide). We identify this communication strategy especially among right-wing extremists, but it is also used by politicians from the democratic centre.
-Andrej Danko (SNS): Large groups of migrants should not settle down in our country. They disrupt the EU's administrative system and are a security threat. It doesn't matter that they are unarmed, it is a mass invasion [TASR, 2016].
The military vocabulary occurs in Slovak migration discourse not only in the form of metaphors, but also in the plain-spoken way to reflect the migration situation.
-Ľubomír Galko (SaS): The deployment of the army to protect the borders of the European Union must not be a taboo. Smugglers' boats must be uncompromisingly sunk or somehow destroyed [NR SR, 2015].
Based on the analysis of primary sources the conclusion can be made that migration discourse in Slovakia is not politically correct and often verges on the so-called "new racism," which is shown in more subtle and indirect formal expressions and can be presented openly in formal settings by criticizing cultural difference of others [Leach, 2005]. We observe political correctness as a linguistic phenomenon largely in Western societies [Matytcina & Grigorjanová, 2018], but it is very little discussed in Slovakia. Politicians openly express their negative attitudes towards migrants, and this does not concern only right-wing extremists, but also politicians from a liberal background: -Ľubomír Galko (SaS): Sorry, I don't want them here. Chew me out, but I don't want people of this different culture in Slovakia [Folentová, 2016].
In addition to the aforementioned manifestations, there is another significant point typical of the Slovak migration discourse, namely the absence of discussion on integration policy. While in typical immigration countries this topic is a natural part of migration discourse [Goodman, 2010;van Dijk, 2018], this kind of discussion is still insufficient in Slovakia. In most cases, academics are involved in integration discourse, but politicians lack initiative in this regard. The possible motive for this may be the securitization of migration discourse. For this reason, they avoid a discussion on such a topic and practically repeat the mistakes of those countries that failed to recognise their immigration status for many years, even though the number of migrants among them has been gradually growing from year to year.

CONCLUSION
Based on the above, we state that migration discourse has evolved as part of Slovak political discourse only since 2015. It was that particular year (in the context of mass migration processes on the European continent) that international migration launched a debate in Slovakia as well. As politicians emphasized mainly the adverse aspects of migration in the public discussion, the term migration took on a negative connotation, which was subsequently reflected in the extremely dismissive reactions of the Slovak citizens [Orgoňová & Bohunická, 2016]. This semantic shift occurred despite the fact that many successful migrants live in Slovak society. They are well integrated in Slovakia, they speak the Slovak language, or they publicly emphasize pride in the acquired citizenship. One and well-known example is Anastazia Kuzminova, a successful sportswoman, a representative of the Slovak Republic in biathlon, originally from Russia. However, political statements suggest that politicians do not take this type of migrant into account. On the contrary, they associate the term migrant with the penetration of new, unknown and contradictory values Research paper Radoslav Štefančík, Andrej Kiner and traditions into the Slovak society, which may not be compatible with the traditions of the citizens. However, this perspective of thinking subsequently leads to the creation of misconceptions about international migration as a lexical expression. This type of thinking leads to the creation of stereotypes, which can have negative effects on the creation of migration integration policy, or specifically on the process of integrating immigrants into the society. At this point we can state that the nature and tenor of discourse can directly affect social reality, attitudes of the mainstream society, as well as the ability and willingness of migrants to accept cultural and social patterns of domestic society, and subsequently the overall result of the integration process.