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!”