Back to the Mediterranean migrants. Lest we forget.

The response of the previous government was to abandon rescue operations and let the migrants drown. The response of the present government is to send them back to the countries they fled from, increase the help given to those countries in policing their own borders and engage in military operations against the traffickers’ vessels. What the government doesn’t want to do if it can possibly help it is provide shelter for desperate people. It doesn’t want them here. As Chancellor George Osborne sees it:

“We are a humanitarian nation … But in the end you have to break the link that enables someone to get on a boat and then claim asylum in Europe and spend the rest of their lives on the European continent.”

All this is based on an old, worn-out background narrative of “They come over here to live off our benefits and steal our jobs and homes.” Plus, “If they can afford to pay the traffickers, they can afford to stay where they are.” Well, I can provide some answers to that one.

There was the case of a Kurd who had suffered political persecution in Turkey and was put in jail. He escaped – and his family, who owned a couple of shops, sold one of them to finance his escape to the UK in the 1990s. (The story, however, doesn’t end well: disgracefully, the narrative about benefits, jobs and homes had done its work in the minds of some and he was murdered while walking to his home on a Glasgow housing scheme.)

When I was researching the treatment of asylum seekers I met a woman from Côte D’Ivoire who, together with her family, had suffered political persecution at home. She was put in jail and, while there, needed hospital treatment. One of the doctors at the hospital turned out to be a friend of the family and he helped her escape from the hospital and arranged her journey to the UK, no doubt at some risk to himself.

I also met a computer engineer from Iran who had suffered political persecution. At his asylum interview in the UK his Home Office interviewer told him he was not a refugee but an “economic migrant”. He had made the hazardous journey on foot and by lorry not for asylum, said the interviewer, but “for money, for work”. The surprised Iranian replied:

“No. I was computer engineer [in Iran] and I had computer shop. Every month I [had my] salary – it’s about 600 dollars – and you can live just in bad situation in Iran, 300 dollars, you know. Every month I [get] 600, or more [than] that. But I leave Iran just for save my life.”

So he had paid the agent and escaped.

Sometimes people with little money to pay the agent are still trafficked, but the agent keeps track of them once they are here (there may be a package deal in which the agent has found them a job, knows where they live) and keeps tabs on them until the “debt” is paid. In cases like this, the trafficker may remain a threatening presence for years.

But however they manage it, people are still coming and many are still drowning. Some who survive their journey across continents and seas get themselves to Calais, hoping to get across to the UK. Last night, Channel 4 News reported (23 June) on how a ferry workers’ strike in Calais resulted in traffic jams of lorries on both sides of the Channel and on the opportunity this gave to desperate migrants. Waiting by the motorway, and faced with a traffic jam stretching back miles, hundreds of the migrants organised themselves into a great cooperative operation. Too often in the past, much of the news media have portrayed the migrants as a disunited rabble, fighting among themselves. There was no sign of that last night in Calais, just mutual help, brilliantly undertaken. Matt Frei watched as the migrants converged on the traffic-jammed lorries:

“Watch carefully. The trick is to run up behind the lorry and jump on with the help of your friend, preferably unnoticed by the driver. There is no shortage of trucks, no shortage of passengers, and no shortage of willing assistance: this is a truly communal effort.”

The UK government thinks nothing of the migrants’ desperation and despises their communal spirit. Its main concern is to keep them out. So if stowaways are found in lorries on arrival in the UK the drivers are fined £2000 per passenger. That’s why a lorry driver who spotted an attempt to board his vehicle jumped down and went to the back of the lorry to check inside, then closed the door.

The story tonight (24 June) was the same. Ali came from Syria, fleeing “war, torture, prison, kidnapping”. Crispin Blunt MP, chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, when asked why Ali should be stuck in a camp and reduced to jumping on lorries, seemed to think Ali only had himself to blame. He could have gone to a UNHCR camp in Lebanon or Jordan. Ali didn’t get the chance to answer that, so we’ll never know why he didn’t take that option, if option it was. Blunt then said that, since the first “safe country” that Ali had passed through was Turkey, he should have applied for asylum in Turkey, because that was the rule. But Ali knew a bit about Turkey, perhaps a bit more than Crispin, and had already expressed his view: “Turkey is not a stable country,” he said. “Problems may happen at any time and they may kick Syrians out of their country.”

Ali had earlier told Paraic O’Brien that in Syria he had been a teacher and had studied English language and literature. His favourite Shakespeare play was Antony and Cleopatra. O’Brien finished his report by quoting some Shakespeare. I don’t know if it was from Antony and Cleopatra – but it was apt:

“Hark! The land bids me tread no more upon it. It is ashamed to bear me.”

For the news reports mentioned, see:

http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/display/playlistref/240615