We left London early to catch the 11am ferry to Calais. We had visited the Red Cross Camp in nearby Sangatte a month ago for the Cross Channel Demo, to make a radio programme. We met many refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan who were eager to bring their message across to the British public. So we packed up cameras and minidiscs, batteries and banners, and joined the demonstration for the rights of refugees in Calais.

What happens right now in Calais is a perfect example of global migration management. In 1999, the Eurostar was one of the few possibilities to enter Britain, where it is still possible to survive in relative dignity without a passport. This summer, the loophole has been detected and the machinery started to work. First the British government tried to force the company that runs Eurostar to “improve security”, i.e. to build fences and increase controls. Then they decided that the Red Cross Camp in Sangatte, set up to shelter thousands of homeless refugees, was the core of the problem. They demanded from the French government to close it down, assuming that if you take that shelter away, the homeless refugees would disappear as well, and the influx of undocumented immigrants would stop.
Both governments struck a deal: The camp was closed a month ago, leaving thousands of refugees from the allegedly “safe countries” Afghanistan and Iraq with no shelter, no sanitary utilities, no food and no money in the streets of Calais. France is trying to disperse the refugees in the region in detention centers across the country, away from the channel. British immigration officers are operating on the French side of the Channel. Their controls affect middle-class British Asian and black families on weekend breaks who are being stopped by customs officials assuming they are refugees. 1200 Iraqi Kurds have been allowed to enter Britain on temporary work permits. The rest of the refugees can claim asylum in France with not much chance to be accepted. An unknown number of Afghani refugees has been “voluntarily deported” by the international organisation of migration (IOM)
A spokesperson from the French organisation GISTI interprets this deal as admitting that people have a right to free movement, weather the reasons are political or economic. But unfortunately, this deal is a one-off, it only applies to 1200 people, and their work permits are temporary. It classifies the Iraqi Kurds as economic migrants, although most of them see themselves as political refugees. “I could not live under Saddam, he is a dictator. He shoots people whenever it suits him”, said a 20-years old Iraqi.

The 1200 people-deal might solve the governments problems, but it doesn’t solve the problems of the homeless expatriates, and the problems of the community of Calais neither.
Calais citizens are trying to provide a minimum of support via charity. They collect and hand out clothes, but there is a shortage of hats, gloves and scarves. They hand out some food from a shabby little barrack. A church has provided sleeping places for 60 people, but there are thousands who sleep in the streets. There are no lavatories, no places to warm up, no showers, nowhere to sit down, nowhere to find information.
The demonstration was organised by the collectif C.SUR (Collective for Emergency Support of Refugees), the Green party, AC (Act against unemployment), some anticapitalist libertarians. On the same day, there demos all over France protested against social control. In Britain, the comitee to defend asylum seekers and barbed wire britain sent out a call.

When we arrive at Calais town hall half an hour before the demo started, everything is very quiet. We join up with friends who brought a solar panelled van to provide electricity and a space to interview people – very handy considering that it is still raining. While we are setting it up as a public access point, people start to gather – few banners, many people from Calais and all over France, some from the UK. Somebody from Amnesty International, somebody from Samizdat. It’s not an “activisty” looking crowd, more what you might call “straight” people, and many of them are middle-aged. I don’t see any refugees, and only one police car – but later I am told that there where lots of robocops in town. The demo is heavy with a knowledge about hardship and tragedies, and the rainy grey light doesn’t help. If you wear a good warm coat and are still freezing, it makes you wonder what it’s like having to spend the night outside in wet clothes, maybe hungry. On a demo for people who have crossed Europe to get to Britain, who literally risk their lives getting there hanging on to trains or hiding in ferries, you get very aware of the passport and ferry ticket back to the UK in your pocket.
But just when the march starts, Rhythms of Resistance from London turns up. Pink and green, silver and feathers, they join up with another samba band from Amsterdam and started drumming. Samba in the streets of Calais! Shoppers look slightly confused, is this some kind of parade or a demo? There aren’t many banners…
People dance, shout slogans, go in and out of the van which accompanies the march, where tea is being served and testimonies are being given. We pass the barrack where food is being distributed. The ground is muddy. We meet some refugees, but few speak English or French. Most of them men. We invite them to join the demo, some come along. But most of them are too scared – a few days earlier, they had their own demonstration, which led to dozens of them being driven out of town. It took them 12 hours to walk back. “French police – no good, very hard”. A young man tells me that “Iraqi people are not poor”, that he came because it is not safe for him to live under Saddam’s dictatorship. I walk a while with a boy from Kurdistan, he paid 8000 dollars to get to Calais. What does he want to do in Britain? “A life”, he shouts out, “I want my live!” He wants to study engineering, but if he makes it to Britain, he says, he needs to work.
Why can’t Britain allow him in like the 1200 Kurds who where in Sangatte when it closed?, he asks.
The demo arrives at a church hall, where charities are handing out clothes. Lots of old jeans, jumpers, jackets piled around statues of saints. It is pitch dark now. In a helpless gesture, an activist brings arms full of baguette. Mugs of tea are handed out of the van. Somebody drags me aside: “Do you know a way to get to Britain?” I don’t. Some try to convince us to give them a lift in the van. We won’t. This would be the time to chat to people, to find out who they are, to jump the border that so easily reduces the “native” perception of refugees as poor, miserable others in need of charity. When I talk to them, I see young men with dreams and plans – to study, to work, to send money back home, to get a live without a dictator on their necks. People who want to live in their countries, but can’t. People who have seen their relatives being killed in wars and oppressive regimes.
Later, I look at our jpegs – and the stereotypical refugee perception comes back: Five men in ill-fitting jackets, one has pulled his coat over his head to protect it against the rain. One carries a sleeping bag.
The demo leaves me with mixed feelings. I demonstrated for both humanitarian aid and political change, for open borders and against the border regime. Very few refugees joined the demonstration – the demo was organised FOR rather than WITH them. Respecting the politics of the organisers, it stayed within the narrow limits of the law. Direct action was not on. It could have endangered the refugees – but then, a year ago, more than 100 actually stormed the channel tunnel.
It was great to give some symbolic support to the people who try to find the gaps in the border regime on a daily level, simply because they need to. Meeting some of them was an important experience, although we didn’t offer much ourselves – a bit of media activism, a chat at a demo over a cup of tea, some rhythms. But then who knows – maybe the farewell we gave will come true: “See you in London!”