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Calais: demo in solidarity with refugees

jab | 17.12.2002 12:23

Calais, December 15th 2002.
About 500 people from France, the UK, Iraq and Afghanistan joined up for a demonstration in the streets of Calais to express the need to defend refugee rights. In addition for the core demand for freedom of movement across borders, they demanded temporary humanitarian support for the thousands of refugees who are left without shelter since the closure of the Red Cross camp in Sangatte on November 5th. Here is a report from one participant:

We left London early to catch the 11am ferry to Calais. We had visited the Red Cross Camp in 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 train was one of the few possibilities to enter Britain where it is 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. Home secretary David Blunkett demanded from his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy 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 detention centers across the country, away from the channel. British immigration officers are operating on the French side of the Channel. The controls can be quite annoying for middle-class British Asian and black families on weekend breaks who are stopped due to the assumption 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 little chance of being accepted, and those who don’t claim will get deported. An unknown number of Afghani refugees has been “voluntarily deported” by the international organisation of migration (IOM).
A spokesperson from the French organisation GISTI (immigrant support group) interprets this deal as admitting that people have a right to free movement, weather the reasons are political or economic. But the deal is a one-off, limited to 1200 people, whose 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 government’s problems, but it doesn’t solve the problems of the homeless migrants, and the problems of the community of Calais either.
Calais charities are trying to provide a minimum of support. They collect and hand out clothes. There is a shortage of hats, gloves and scarves. They hand out some food in a shabby little barrack. A church has provided sleeping places for 60 people, but thousands are sleeping out 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 supported by the collectif C.SUR (Collective for Emergency Support of Refugees), the Green party, AC (Act against unemployment), some anti-capitalist libertarians. On the same day, demos all over France protested against social control. In Britain, the committee to defend asylum seekers and Barbed Wire Britain sent out a call.

We arrived 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, apparently to police the refugees.
The demo is heavy with awareness of hardship and individual tragedies, of the devastating effects of war, dictatorship and racist persecution. The rainy grey light doesn’t help. Wearing a good warm coat and still freezing, I wonder what it’s like spending the night outside in wet clothes, maybe hungry. The border regime in the Calais area would make a good video game: to enter Britain, you have to overcome the immigration controls at Eurostar or the 3 metre high security fence around the Frethun freight yard, 100 gendarmes, heartbeat sensors and wave imagers. But I don’t need to play that game – my passport and a ferry ticket back to Dover are safely stored in my bag.
Just when the march starts, Rhythms of Resistance from London turns up. Pink, green, silver and feathers, they join up with another samba band from Amsterdam and start 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, chant the usual 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. 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”. Some come into the van at the end of the march to have a cup of tea and give testimony. A young Iraqui 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 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 will work with his cousin in London. 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 to faceless, poor creatures in need of charity – or scroungers who, as the Daily Star claims, live the good live in luxury hotels.
When I talk to them, I see young men with courage, skills, dreams and plans – to work or study, to send money back, to get a life. People who are often traumatised by war, dictatorship or persecution but have the guts to cross Europe without knowing wether they will ever make it to their destination. People who want to live in their countries, but can’t. I tell them about the indymedia website. Suddenly I’m not sure how much they know about the internet – and promptly, a teacher from Afghanistan teases me: “No, we don’t have internet in Afghanistan, we don’t know what it is.” OK – so much for western stereotypes.
Later on, 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. I protested against the firm grip of control that affects my own live even though I have my passport. Very few refugees joined the demonstration – it 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, I hear – but then, a year ago, more than 100 actually stormed the channel tunnel, and many of them risk their lives daily trying to jump the train or a ferry. Different understandings of danger.
Despite the heavyness and a sense of helplessness, it was good to experiment with media technology in the streets, to take our resources to a place where they are put to good use. As a noborder activist, I enjoyed talking 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 – 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!”

jab
- Homepage: www.barbedwirebritain.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Need more!

18.12.2002 21:48

I went to CAlais and I enjoyed the protest, the samba and all the rest.
Yet I have this stong feeling that going to a proterst or meeting here and then is not enough. The way western goverments are treating asylum seekers just beggars belief. These are people who are fleeing war, persecution, torture and rape. Do they come here to be persecuted by the Home Office, locked up in detention centers like Campsfield or Yarl's Wood (proper concentration camps and I don'think I am exxaggerating), deported back to the countries they fled in fear of their lives with pretexts often grotesque? The people involved 'full time' in the campaign to defend asylum seekers are few and have stretched their resources to the limits. WE all want a world with no borders, but we are not going to see it in the near future. We also need to think what to do here and now. Calais demo was good,it would had been even better if there was more coordination and more harmony between different groups from the two sides of the borders and especially if it was organized with rather than for the asylum seekers and migrants, as the author(s)of the comment pointed out.
Often to organize with asylum seekers is difficult for various reasons, for instance because they are too afraid to come forward or becuse they refer to their own national organisations, which follow their own particular agendas - at least this is my experience of the situation in the UK. In France, asylum seekers and migrants are giving a much stronger response, with the sans papiers movement for instance and the occupation of churches. They also have been attacked even worst than here, by heavy-handed police and immigration officers. Althought I think now England is catching up with the most brutal and racist immigration policies.

A brief note on the baguettes: I am the activest who did the 'helpless' gesture. As it happened, I saw a few asylum seekers fighting over a few bananas, and I thought they were hungry. So I didn' think anything else, but I went to the nearest boulangerie and I got some bread. I regret everything else was closed being Sunday, otherwise I would have got also some cheese or something to go with the bread.
I'm not claimig of being a hero, but I think this is where solidariety starts: you don'y watch someone going hungry, you do something if you can.

Chiara
mail e-mail: chiaraluvergnac@hotmail.com


All you marxists suck

20.12.2002 21:36

Why is it that every article and viewpoint in "indymedia" is so blatantly leftist and marxist? Will you dumb morons never be happy until every formerly white and prosperous nation is overcome with the brown starving masses of the third world whose own actions/inactions have created the poverty and ignorance that they find themselves in? I can't believe 10,000 people supposedly protested th EU meeting in Denmark. What do all you deluded idiots actually want for your nation? Fuck you all anyway, especially you white lefties. You're gonna have your solidarity with your beloved brown shitskin friends when your nations quickly become impoverished from too many ignorant mud people that prefer to live off productive white people rather than get a job. I hate you all and wish you all a slow agonizing death. Avatar

Avatar
mail e-mail: twn@ziplip.com
- Homepage: http://fry.to/twn


do it again?

21.12.2002 10:11

who wants to come to Calais again in the new year with a bunch of dumb biased leftists? Maybe with a party kitchen this time?

look fwd to it...

activist


Have to find fair solutions to solve this pro

31.12.2002 09:01

Hello
I d like to comment that i completely agree with the reporter views about the refugees, they are human beings, as you and me, in addition they have exactly the same rights than anyone, everyone else. They obviously inmigrate to the developed countries of Europe, scaping from the political and economical proflems that their countries are facing and looking forward to a better life, full of opportunities,chances and most particularly with the hope of being repected as the persons that they are and not to be treated like simple inmigrants.
Further more i m surprised with the very harsh measurements the french and the british authorities have taken towards this situation, two of the most powerfull western nations, which are said to be democratic, cannot do that to people. In addition the citizens of this states must remember that most of the people "invading" your countries now come from places that were once part of your empires...as far as i know the french and the british had colonies all over the world, so they should see the "problem" of the refugess and the illegal inmigration as a consequence of their acts in the past...most of the countries that belonged to this western nations are today in ruins. I m not blaming, Great Britain or France for what this countries are facing nowdays, since they got to that desparate point for many reasons and factors includng their own acts.
On the other hand, i dont disagree with Avaret, this guy who was accusing everyone as marxist and i dont know what else, he is right, this people most of the time go to "steal" the job of the former citizens of the rich nations...but avaret what can u do? kill em all? or maybe pretend that they dont exist? leave them aside? U said they are illiterates, so why dont u start by educating them? the next right move would be to try help them out with their countris, i think most of them would be glad to return back to their soil, they place that saw then grow up. I dunno its such a huge problem, and i m not very awared of it.
Personally i would never leave my loved country (we all now they terriblke situation that Argentina its facing), i ll rather fight for improving (what i m gonna surely do) her situation than "escaping" from my problems, looking for better horizon, in another country, where i will always be just a simple inmigrant.
Thats all i have to say.Byebye

Francisco Tunez
mail e-mail: cachodfran@hotmail.com