Facing “National embarrassment”, the French authorities have closed the squalid camp outside Calais known as “the jungle”. Seven years beforehand the Red cross centre in Sangatte was also closed in foolish hope it resulted in the numbers of migrants arriving in Calais would just dwindle away. The “pushback” has begun, clearing camps and sending home migrants or placing them in dessert prisons to endure torture and packaging the problem into prison cells far away from the public eye. We are sending out the message that “the route is closed” for visitors but those entitles to asylum may also be shut out too.
The “Jungle” became a self made sanctuary; a refuge for those that had nowhere to go. The filthy campsite was made up of pathetic makeshift tents and feeble mosques to pray for deliverance in. Living in this “flea infested squalor”, the migrants were still better off then when they were in their original countries. Have we overseen the reasons they decided to live in such transient conditions? It is not proof that these people are so desperate for salvation and a better, safer life that that would endure any risky journey if it gave them the slightest chance of belonging to a country even minutely better than theirs?
Charity Salaam volunteer Helene appears to understand both sides of the situation better than the French authorities. She asks “You can close ‘the jungle’, but look at these people, do you think they can just disappear?”. I am reminded of a quite from Al Gore (an inconvenient truth) “There are good people, who are in politics, in both major parties, who hold this at arms' length, because if they acknowledge it, if they recognize it, then the moral imperative to do big changes would be inescapable”. In July nearly 800 people were living at the camp, fearing “what happens to us when they take this away?” They plea “please” as the bulldozers come regardless. A question still echoes from the lips of every migrant, it lingers on the newly uninhabited soil “What hope, what hope for us?”
Nearby, “Africa house”, an Eritrean refugee squat holds 50 more asylum seekers. An abandoned wreckage with no water, electricity or refuge collection homes despairing people in stinking, filthy rooms. Do you think they want to live here? The house is more like a no-man’s land; in the middle of searching and belonging to a country. A purgatory between the lives they once had, and the ones they aspire towards.
The white cliffs of Dover are sometimes visible from France, an aim and vision of hope. Brittan is just 34km away and yet so unobtainable. “The UK is often whispers about in reverential tones as a crime-free, multi-cultural nirvana”, it appears to migrants as a tolerant and peaceful country which can provide them with safety, help and improved life. These people have dreams of becoming doctors, engineers and teachers. The deserve the opportunity to live.
Yet we do not display our compassion towards the asylum seekers that have manages acceptance into the UK. We shout racist remarks at them and demand they “go back to their own country” as they are “stealing” our benefits, jobs and healthcare. Haven’t they suffered enough? Do they not deserve the same treatment as us, the same help and opportunities? Is it any wonder they need healthcare after the physical and mental trauma they have experienced? We forget that two thirds of their £30 weekly allowance is in vouchers only and that returning home would be a death sentence for many. Their motive is not the UK’s benefit system, but hope. Whatever happened to equality? Perhaps we should help the countries these unfortunate people originated from. Until these places are amended, these “immigration problems” will continue”.
In 2000 the UK received the largest amount of asylum applications of any EU country and were called a “soft touch”, yet the number of asylum seekers who were recognised as genuine more than doubled to 72.5% between 1998 and 1999, which undermines the suggestions that most applications are “bogus“. Instead of rejecting migrants and denying them the life we take for granted we need to understand their situation and reasons for asylum. We’ve seen the news stories, read the facts and are somewhat aware of the problems their countries face. However, we can never comprehend or truly understand their sufferings as we have not experienced nor witnessed such horror, simply because we are lucky enough not to have to. As a result, we disconnect ourselves from reality and focus on ourselves, complaining about their presence; “they only cause a nuisance”.
We forget about the ordeals they had to face just to reach their present destination. Risking their lives to arrive at Calais because the lives they had beforehand were not worth living. African bodies are often found washed up on Mediterranean tourist beaches as a result of inflatable boats bursting which are used to smuggle people across the sea. Nick Griffin, chairman of the BMP, states “ frankly they need to sink several of these boats. They can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya” The migrants pleas go unheard, ignored; “we don’t need to go back to our own country”. They have become aliens, trespasses and permanent travellers. People that don’t belong, with nowhere to go.
102,870 cases are still pending asylum. What happens to those that are not recognised as genuine? Where do people go whilst their applications are still pending? By the end of the last decade, there were still 200,000 asylum applications still pending in EU countries, over half were in the UK. Hope comes to a standstill whilst the backlogging and application process commences.
A question is asked in unity; “what hope, what hope for us?”
And what help?
