Banal dehumanisation 65 in the splicing of discussions of irregular migration with those of national security and the ubiquitous threat of terrorism. This, what one commentator has called ‘[u]nfocused war rhetoric’,18 risks muddying discussion with prejudices and emotions. Some have argued that this construction of combat and fear of an enemy, once normalised, has been used in the 2010s to support increasingly farright politics in several liberal democracies.19 Also crucial to this dehumanisation are the binary constructions of some ways of being as ‘normal’ (settled, citizen, majority-member) and then, derivative from this, some ways of being as non-normal or sub-normal (nomadic, non-citizen, minority-member), where normal is implicitly seen as human and non-normal as not quite human.20 Billig describes his ‘banal nationalism’ (upon which the ‘banal dehumanisation’ used here is based) as, for example, a flag hanging unnoticed in the corner of a room.21 It includes the use of ‘we’ in newspapers and ‘the country’ in weather forecasts as subtle reminders that there is a ‘we’ and there is an assumed country from which that ‘we’ looks out.22 For Billig, the use of national symbols, unnoticed, throughout daily encounters is also crucial to the creation of a sense of a national identity sufficiently strong to muster an army when needed. Similarly, methodological citizenism, coupled with the banal construction of some people out of that ‘we’, generates a dehumanisation that helps to lessen the sense of outrage when those relating to a State primarily as noncitizens are treated in ways usually considered to be unacceptable. As Nussbaum puts it, dehumanising people puts them beyond the ‘scope of our empathy’.23 This banal dehumanisation is not only relevant in the eyes of those located within the normative position with regard to some dehumanised other. It is a general and insidious banal dehumanisation, that may involve everyone. It could include the shaming or stigmatising of individuals in their own behaviours and their sense of their own entitlements, to see themselves as non-normative. This can be seen in the work of Stefan Zweig. In his autobiographical book, The World of Yesterday, Zweig recalls that he used to have a romantic view of statelessness as not being beholden to any State.24 Then one day, like many others caught up in the xenophobia of the twentieth century, he found himself not 18 Margaret Beare (1999) ‘Illegal Migration: Personal Tragedies, Social Problems, or National Security Threats?’, pp. 11–41 in Phil Williams (ed.) (1999) Illegal Immigration and Commercial Sex: The New Slave Trade, Frank Cass, p. 14. 19 For example, Valeria Bello (2017) International Migration and International Security: Why Prejudice is a Global Security Threat, Routledge. 20 For example, see María Lugones (2010) ‘Toward a Decolonial Feminism’, pp. 742–759 in Hypatia 25(4); Walter D. Mignolo (2000) Local Histories/Global Designs, Princeton University Press, where he discusses what he refers to as ‘the colonial difference’. 21 Billig 2002 ibid. p. 38, p. 155. 22 Billig 2002 ibid. p. 154. 23 Martha Nussbaum (2013) Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice, Harvard University Press. 24 Stephan Zweig (1964) The World of Yesterday, University of Nebraska Press. This is seen more broadly, for example, in Clark Hanjian (2003) The Sovrien: An Exploration of the Right to Be Stateless, Polyspire.