And in west London...W14...there were endless dramas; drug raids and people
rushing and pushing, road rage, discontentment, exhaustion.....too many people with
too many conflicting directions.
What is a 'preventative framework' that the UN should find? The UN actually exists as a diplomatic service with some things that are done in practice rather than through negotiation or in theory. It is nonetheless the sum total of its membership. Within the General Assembly there will be countries more than happy to see the back of some of their people and the UN delegation from that country can simply not listen if it wishes. The UN has no power of enforcement. As those of us who have worked for UN agencies will say, it is not the world's 'policeman' as some people imagine. There is no body of any kind with enforcement powers which is a blessing or curse whichever way you happen to see it.
As for solutions coming out of China or other wealthy nations. They are a wealth generating nation but that means for China and not where they are finding cheap raw materials, real estate and low cost labour. It is much as the USA did in their time, Japan has done, France, the UK and so on. Given the scale of some of the economic situations in countries China is moving into it will have little significant impact. I wish somebody would, in principle I agree with what you are saying but I have seen it happen too often in countries I have worked in. No they don't put in infrastructure unless a couple of major motorways all of their plants are connected to and power supplies for those factories, but ordinary citizens tend not to see anything much more than that. No investing foreign power has done so apart from the once magnificent railway network the British left in India which is now rather a long time ago.
As for the Middle East, as I said earlier there are not as many of those countries doing well as one might imagine. We also know which side a couple of them are on plus they are contributing to creating a bigger immigration situation, whether refugees or economic migrants. Only cold comfort seems to await anybody who invests any hope in them.
However, whether you understand what Julian and I are saying or not, the bottom line remains that whatever our views on the situation opinions will not resolve it. Calais is getting attention through the UK press and a bit through the French, but who is looking at Bari in Italy where they had the riots in the summer of 2011. That coincided with the 20th anniversary of 15,000 people arriving there by boat from Albania. Bari still makes Calais look like a nice little children's playground in comparison because their camps are established and even though they have tried to get rid of them, the flow of people has continued and is vast. The UK and French press are not interested. In reality, Bari and Calais are just two of a couple of dozen places throughout Europe. Of course the people in those places want their lives and normality back but for some unknown reason people keep pouring into places that they should have heard are dead ends. The politicians play up to the media but are not giving any of us solutions. That, I believe, is one of the many reasons they are elected into office, at least decision making is the least we would expect. No, they are sitting on their hands, blaming everybody else and trying to shunt it all on to somebody else. Rather than debating here we should be getting them to do something, however at least we are talking about it whilst many other people have a bit of a moan then sweep it under the carpet.
Anyway, that comes to your final point. We don't have the right people, so nobody to make anything work therefore we can keep on debating this for an eternity. Just enjoy the rest of your weekend Tony, I'll have my wine ration this evening and toast our differences of opinion. That, unfortunately, is the greatest influence you or I have. ;-)
Good news doesn't often sell newspapers...
What can or should be done? First, each one of those people has his her own circumstances and origins, and not one of you here has any information whatsoever about any of them, as individuals. (As far as I can tell) My reply was initially to Glen..hence my comment about inverted commas.(which lend an arch, cynical tone)... He wrote...
"There seems to be a running theme regarding the 'statelessness' issue of these 'refugees'. I agree that many of them are fleeing persecution from their homelands, but by crossing half the world to get to the desired destination of their choice, in my opinion, they have given up the right to asylum and have chosen to be regarded as economic migrants. In effect, their statelessness is self inflicted. Had they reached the nearest friendly country and applied for asylum there they would not be stateless. Many have fled their countries without papers, many have destroyed theirs in order to be purposely stateless in order to avoid removal."
All of that is guessing !!! and ...it is loaded against a group of people who at this moment, are rather obviously experiencing some serious discomfort, and about whom we know very little else. Some have already lost their lives, some are frail, some have attempted hunger strikes, some have been bullied or attacked..there are children and youngsters, and there are no generalisations that can be applied, except that nobody wants them to be there. Since no one (as far as I am aware) ..appears to be making any effort to call meetings, start serious conversations/communication with individuals or group leaders, perhaps they really need the input of information like that Glen has offered in this statement? Personally..I doubt it.
In an ideal world the truly rich would send all their excess money to charities
and we would all feed and take care of as many animals as we could afford.
But the world is not ideal world and never will be..... and people take care of number one first.
Very simple explanation....yes it is but it happens to be true.
Jeanette, as far as I can see nobody, irrespective of what side they come down on, has entered into a 'them' and 'us' type of framework at all. Of course the 'spongers' suspicion is in there, but has that not actually been stirred by certain parts of the media? They who blame the unemployed for their inability to find work where there is none, women for having children (usually too many), the disabled for their disabilities which are really them shirking and all the rest of those horrible labels that is always easy to slap on somebody and no doubt immigrants are high on the list. When people do raise that spectre then there is usually no debate anyway since the people who use 'them' are usually unable to listen to any argument beyond their own opinion.
Disgusting...yes...but what do you suggest?
It looks to me that everyone and everything is just about coping in Uk.
Just about.
So perhaps Uk and France can FORM AN ALLIANCE set up a village in Calais offering food and shelter
plus learning facilities in exchange for useful work?
At least these desperate people can live.
As usual! ...any group of *unknowns* ...without the approved trappings of this or that established power group, will be easily and readily dismissed with the same throwaway and meaningless identity of ..'them'....'they'. ...Just another crowd of unwanted, uncared for people to be categorised ...only by their inverted commas!
Why not! THEY are probably illegals/crooks/spongers/cheats/no hopers/trying to rip off this country or that, you or me. Stray dogs have better claims on 'our' attention, our charity, maybe. Sponger spotting has been a Brit passtime for as long as I can remember, certainly since my childhood in a council prefab! Do try to remember, folks...one useful part of european law...that each one of US ...is innocent until proven guilty...of something...even if none of you are sure what the something might be!
Disgusting ..to dismiss anyone, in such a way.
Proving they are wilfully without papers is a hard one, plus many of the asylum and refuge seeking people are passed on from country to country although nobody will ever officially admit it. They often have no choice but to keep moving and having nowhere to go simply remain stateless. Asylum is getting hard to get, so they also have little choice. Whatever the circumstances there are more of them on the move than officialdom can cope with alone, losing any real chance they might have of finding a way of distributing them throughout countries instead of allowing concentrations to accumulate. That is why the Calais camps exist as much as people very specifically wanting to go to the UK. However, even a person once granted asylum or leave to stay does not get a nationality. They remain stateless unless they are eventually able to get citizenship in the country is which they settle. Most of them are in limbo, that is where the problem really is.
Barbara! Your 'Laws are made', sounds ominous! Yes indeed laws are made. And who makes them? Who decides which laws are just or unjust? Do you choose to *obey* laws without question?!
I do not know you, but I guess and hope ..that you do not! 'Respecting' the law is a different matter. but that gives me no right to relax and leave law making to whoever likes to interest themselves in it! I was a teenager when Alan Turing committed suicide, a man who had helped to bring an end to a terrible war. Persecuted, imprisoned, cruelly bullied by the 'law' ..For being gay. Later I had gay friends, obliged to suffer humiliation and insult, along with a million other abuses of reasonable human rights that laws of that time offered to women, to Jews, to 'blacks'to countless groups and individuals without sufficient power to defend themselves. Its my obligation, my responsibility, to make sure ...if and when I can..no one suffers the effects of bad laws. I will disobey any that are unjust, and defend others who do likewise. Yes, I'm sure that injustice and cruelty cause many people to 'leave'! How many millions of stateless people are there in the world? If nothing else, they may draw the worlds attention to corruption or mismanagement, like thousands of others have done, with more or less success, before them.
Some of us wish Julian. I have been among the people wanting to see better use of development aid to reduce the burden on humanitarian aid since the early 1970s. People were demanding that well before then, thus far too many donor countries have trudged along the same path as ever out of which the losses to failed programmes is stunning, far outweighing what is actually any comparison with corruption that people think is the major drain on funding. It is a sector without direction and international cooperation and is a very large part of the solution. So, if anybody could bang the heads of a large number of politicians and their civil servants together we might perhaps get them to think again. However, I shall not be holding my breath.
All pretty close to the home truth Peter.
Norman, Africa is a big continent as you say but if Europe cannot resolve all differences within ourselves with a small pool of ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural differences, why on earth would Africa with as many very different countries over three thousand distinct ethnic groups and several thousand more subgroups (no exaggeration at all, Nigeria alone has 374, Kenya 70), almost as many distinct cultures, well over two thousand languages, then whilst Christianity, Islam and Bahá'í dominate, there are hundreds of religions. The different regimes over the 54 (recognised) countries are across a wide political spectrum with conflicts from localised inter-ethnic up to national wars in 26 countries and around 160 between 'terrorist' groups and regimes. All 54 are members of the African Union, although two are suspended at present, but that has not achieved unanimity since its beginnings as the OAU in the early 1960s. Try uniting that lot!
As for the Middle East and drenched in money! I think if you look at regional economics you will find real wealth concentrated in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE. Iraq too but it is a 'basket case'. Then there are of course Iran (look at a political map of the world and you will see that they are outside that defined area) and Libya that are not Middle East actually, Qatar is small and running out of oil whilst becoming a financial centre but the country does not yet have the kind of wealth of its own to redistribute. Also each country is sovereign so compare it with objections there would be if France suddenly decided they would sort out Greece's problems. It simply does not work out of the imagination of a few people.
As for Palestine and Hamas, they have the UN classification 'terrorist' because they were originally not recognised by the newly founded state of Israel and began conflict. The same was said of the African National Congress until apartheid ended and various other parties round the world. When Israel was founded in 1948 it was on land partitioned for that new state with Palestine still recognised as a territory.
If you look at it diminution from 1947 until 2005 and what Sweden recognised, rather than the last nine years of further occupation, then you can understand why there are so many Palestinian refugees alone. If that war cannot be resolved then how on earth are any of the others. Wars, Norman, are far easier to deal with than the many causes of poverty and certainly more so that natural disasters, drought, famine, epidemics and so on.
By the way, for numbers, I put up links for some reports early on that have far more precise (all estimates but as good as they get) than a politician can give. The 100,000 displaced persons you heard was a bit snatched out of the air. Dear politicians, don't we just adore them...
Julian, i'm sure the the 'mother countries' of the asylum seekers or refugees don't see the migration of their subjects as 'a huge loss to their own nation', less mouths to feed and less resources down the pan must be sweet music to their ears.
I don't know many people who are not sympathetic when they see and hear about this major human catastrophe but surely we have to try to target any foreign aid more efficiently and somehow attempt to encourage growth of these nations economies or, simply stop all direct aid and use these funds to improve policing to prevent these people from crossing borders.
Wish I had a magic wand...
Bit confusing if you mean 'rural' since a ghetto since it is usually poor part of a large city that is mainly inhabited by people of a single race, religion or social background because they are forced to live there because of discrimination or because the majority of that city and its rulers forced them to live there. In the Middle Ages, ghettos were the walled areas of cities in which Jews were confined. It is a word of Italian origin that is either borghetto, diminutive of borgo meaning borough or getto ‘foundry’ because the original ghetto was on the site of an iron foundry in Venice.
Either way it is an urban phenomenon that is in many ways quite appropriate in modern times if we consider what happen in, for instance, Brixton and Southall in London in the 1950s and 60s particularly.
The other evening the France 24 debate had the European Commissioner/Minister(?) who stated the official figures for displaced (read 'from arab countries in conflicts') was over 100,000 - the rather odd point he was making was about 3,000 deaths in the Med. He then went on to announce and I don't recall exact figures, but something extraordinary of a million plus displaced migrants around the world - which on examination meant mainly the Middle East, Africa and Central America - although the latter are definitely economic migrants not fleeing from any war.
His extrapolation was the that if all the EU countries took a 'fair share' that would mean only 4,000 illegal migrants would appear in each country. Nice, neat and tidy and totally stupid. The fact is that illegal migration IS risng rapidly and is not targeted at the shall we say less generous Nations, or more pragmatic ones in my view.
I just don't see how making it easier for illegal migrants to enter Europe sorts out the problem in any shape way or form. IF say there are 500,000 Africans looking for a better life and coming into the EU how does that improve things for anybody? Ultimately the question has to be asked - who pays? Patently it wouldn't couldn't be the migrants if what we are told is true, i.e. they are poor people without money.
So even on the most simplistic level of 4,000 per country - ignoring any exponential growth through more generous provisions, within five years each country will have to find living space, food, jobs, health cover, and nature being what it is, developing families for some 20,000 people minimum. That is a small town, getting bigger as the fecundity of Arabs is 2-3 times greater than Europeans.
Others have scorned the word ghetto which staggers me and shows a casual lack of human nature. Think about it people in five years there could be new town or village near you peopled by those of a completely different culture, probably with an intense religious belief that would be lethally opposed to your Judeo-Christian one. As they would be easily identifiable by clothing, probably skin colour, but above all by almost certainly living off the State as most would have neither the training nor abilities to earn a living. Yes, for me a very good anticipation for aggression and ghetto mentality.
I am not advocating it, just pointing out the realities as I see them.
Nothing I have said here affects LEGAL immigrants, from wherever they come.
A further note on mine of Sweden welcoming any and all displaced persons, I am sure some must have noted that they have just become the first country to recognise Palestine as a State? In other words to recognise a country that is run by an elected Terrorist organisation (UN qualification note) Hamas.
I wonder how Sweden's neighbours are viewing this? I bet Russia are looking very carefully at a developing Islamic country on their back-door. They have enough concerns with those on the front door.
In my simple view is Africa is a big continent with abundant if underdeveloped resources. The African situation there is their problem. The Middle East is drenched in money and can afford to sort out their own affairs as well - so why the drain on Europe?
As they say we live in 'interesting times'?
About sums it up.
Julian, one difficulty is that if one has had insight professionally, which I am gathering you do, whilst my own has been far from western Europe which makes it very different anyway, there is luggage. That may be in how we receive the situation of any kind of migrants who are, for whatever reason, forced to move by circumstances. It ultimately does not matter when they reach an impasse whether they are simply looking for a better financial chance, have been evicted from property by land-grabbers and be unwanted in their home country, war refugees, political asylum seekers or one of the many other few dozen definable groups. Once they reach an impasse such as being stuck in a camp in Calais with nowhere to go they simply become people eating out of the same pot. That among them is the whole spectrum of reasons why they are there only becomes relevant when they attract the attention of the authorities. If they commit crimes, then those are treated as crimes committed by anybody else. Tales of asylum seekers who cannot be prosecuted because it would infringe their human rights is a bit of disinformation cum manipulative propaganda that may apply to one person in tens of thousands, so we should not be distracted by such items. Those who are simply peacefully waiting for what they will probably never achieve need help and not brutalising. If treated fairly they are still without a solution to the main dilemma but will have no reason to turn violent themselves.
However, beyond that people all have rights, civil and human rights, among which we have to respect the formation of beliefs, opinions and so on. If people feel that the immigrant situation is wrong then that is their opinion however it does not help when they are fed wrong information by irresponsible media and never provided with correct and honest information as a counterbalance so that even if their opinions remain the same they know why the people are actually there. It strikes me that the way the UK media have presented Calais as something unique on this planet fit perfectly into that irresponsible bracket. If they were to report honestly on how many comparable camps exist in Italy, on the Spanish coast, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and on and on, then perhaps the real dimension of the situation would bring a little more understanding and the raising of far more questions. Again, that does not stop people feeling such 'invasions' are wrong. Thus I am also no advocate of economic migrants getting the rights to go where they like and claim residence there. What I do not accept though is the media's habit of conflating those people's situation with those of real refugees who may want economic security, and why not, but primarily want a safe haven.
I took no *side* either, Julian. I took care to write about 'many of' those people, currently IDd as a local and UK problem, in Calais, which is by no means taking sides on behalf of any crowd of well off travellers who might feel good about trying their luck with French or Brit hospitality, or lack of it.
The current situation in Calais is that there is a large number of individuals that do not fit into anyone's generalisations, except by being homeless and, apparently, 'foreign', who have been subjected to different kinds of bullying or controls, without being addressed as people with individual rights. I agree with Amnesty International, this is a much wider EU problem and should not be reduced to scuffles between UK and France.
Jeanette laws are made to keep order,
Where will you go if you leave?