What does listening to BBC radio news on repeat do to you?

It sends you to bed, mad with rage, yet exhausted, having spent all your energy shouting expletives at the radio all day. So, this article is coming to you live, from bed.

I work in a little shop, and often have the radio on. Yay for music. Boo for totally shit news coverage. Two of the major news stories, repeated on the hour were the following:

News item number 1: NHS workers staged their first walk out strike in 32 years, demanding a 1% pay increase (although the term 'increase' should be used loosely since earnings have been cut by 15% in real terms under the coalition, claim staff). Cue interviews with strikers and statements from the Tory's, which went something like this: 'we can't give these guys what they're asking for because if we did, we would have to cut more NHS jobs'. Put another way: 'If we gave you what you wanted, we might have to sack you'.

But why is that the only option? Why why why why why can't we increase expenditure to the NHS and, I don't know, stop funding Trident quite, for example?

News item number 2: In the run up to the general election the major TV channels are going to host a series of 3 live debates among the front runners for parliament. One of these debates will feature Nigel Farage (and none of them will feature the Greens).

Why does the BBC keep treating Farage as if he is the latest thing that everybody wants for Christmas? All this fluffing of Farage makes the BBC's undertone sound too much like its a when rather than an if UKIP will enter government. What a loada vile biased bullshit.

Statement from those on hunger strike in Calais - 11th June 2014

Taken from Calais Migrant Solidarity 

"As agreed, the exiles occupying the place of food distribution took breakfast together this morning. They formed two groups, those who will continue to eat and those who are fasting. Those fasting had slightly bigger portions. They sat in the middle of the courtyard. Yesterday they had a list of 53 people willing to get involved. By late morning they were a large thirty or so, and were waiting for those to join them who have tried to cross that night – which they will no longer be able to do during the fast. We should know more in the afternoon how many are on hunger strike.

Their spokesperson can be reached at 07 53 93 21 53 (he speaks English).

Here is the text of the call out on which they agreed:

'FROM THE MIGRANTS OF CALAIS TO THE FRENCH AND BRITISH AUTHORITIES

After the destruction of our camps and our occupation of the food distribution place, French authorities came two times to meet us. They announced us they will come again to meet us Thursday June 3. Nobody came and we are without any news from them.

Today Wednesday June 11, a part us, with the support of all of us, begins a hunger strike. We ask the French and British authorities to to resume the interrupted dialogue and meet with us without delay.

We remind them our demands :
- Houses in Calais for all the migrants who wish to go to England and the asylum seekers forced to live in the street;
- Houses with proper hygienic conditions : toilets, showers, garbage collection;
- Houses where we can come and go at any time to be able to keep trying to cross to England;
- Houses safe from the police controls and mistreatments and from evictions;
- To have access to three meals a day;
- To open negotiations between France and the United Kingdom in order that people can access the British territory.'”

A Different Calais Narrative

This article is not about the crisis of the sans papiers in Calais. Its not about the regular evictions and camp destructions; the deaths, the losses and the urgent needs. It's not about the multitude of repeating ways that people are denied dignity in that dead-end gateway. It's not about how or why this makes Calais a constant and desperate crisis-scape.

Its about another shade of the story we tell about the struggle of the sans papiers and those who show solidarity with them. It's a reflection on an experience I had in Calais.

Lorries are banned from driving on roads in France on a Sunday. Because of this, Saturday night is a time when people who are trying to cross from Calais to the UK can rest. On this particular Saturday night some Calais Migrant Solidarity folks decided to hold a party, and a handful of us turned up to food distribution (the place where charities give out a nightly meal) with a sound system. It was raining hard. We had a level of enthusiasm among us that was more suitable to having some cocoa and an early night. But the rain cleared and things started to change.

Our crew joined a small group of people huddled round a fire on the edge of a camp of tents where around 150 people lived (it's gone now. Its got razed to the ground a couple of weeks ago). The tinny music that whispered out of our sound system was easy to miss, but people started to gather around the fire anyway. Instruments appeared from peoples' tents. People from different musical traditions, singing in different languages, took it in turns to perform to the growing crowd. There was music from Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria... People danced and performed to each other. Bottles of wine were passed around. In the camp, among its rubbish and puddles and dubious smells, in the mist and cold and silence of the port, there was so much laughter. We partied into the night and it was so good!

To have a party like this in a place like Calais is something of a minor miracle. It is joyful and creative and essentially normal, yet it is this normality that also makes an event such as this transformative. It points to the possibility of another world and another way of being. There are two things about the party that illustrate this.

The first thing is how the party represented a dynamic based on equality. Us 'CMS crew' came with a sound system and the desire to make something happen. But the party wasn't of our making. Something emerged that was beyond us; an essential critical mass of energy created by all of us who gathered there. It was owned by no-one, created by everyone. The party re-affirmed dignity in this communal creativity and at that moment everybody was equal. For me, this equality is one of the things that gave this event such power. It's the cornerstone of a radical solidarity, and is what distinguishes it from say, aid work, because it seeks to change the balance of power between people that is often fixed through differences in race, class, nationality and so on. This isn't the only example in Calais. When we have made and maintained social centres together, and lived together in squats or camps, again we have created moments of equality across our differences. The squat Victor Hugo is a beautiful example of this.

The second thing is the wider effect created by a moment of being together in equality. What is created is fundamentally different from and a challenge to the logic of hierarchy that is foundational to the dominant structures that make up our social world (here I am talking about 'structures' such as capitalism, racism, patriarchy and statism that make certain kinds of dominating behaviour seem 'normal'). The party represented an alternative (if temporary) reality now that doesn't fit within a social reality based on hierarchy and domination. In not fitting – in other words in being 'uncodified' - dominant social reality cannot stamp it out. The police for example, are largely impotent to do anything about these parties. These moments of 'everyday subversive activity' are what the authorities cannot stand, because they point to a persistent dignity without permission, and a wilful disregard for any 'right to exist' that the authorities seem to claim as their own.

I think this party forms part of a different narrative of the struggle of the sans papiers, one that is intimately connected to, yet very different from the one of chaos. It is a narrative of joy, dignity and equality. This other narrative is important because it signals a different way of being that rejects hierarchy and domination. This narrative is often left unsaid I think, because amongst all the chaos, violence and sadness of Calais it can seem crass to focus on moments of joy. Yet I think there is subversive power in this joyful narrative, and I also have the feeling that should we pay more attention to the joy, dignity and equality we are sometimes a part of in Calais, what we achieve together may be much more powerful, as well as more joyful.

The UK Immigration Act 2014 - Legislating for a loss of dignity

A couple of weeks ago (May 14thm to be precise) the new UK Immigration Bill passed into law. The Immigration Act 2014 brings in an array of new measures that, in the words of Theresa May, focus on 'making it harder for people who are here illegally to stay here". The act – along with this statement - could have come straight out of a UKIP election manifesto (if they had one).

The range of measures is vast and comprehensive. They include extensions in the use of force in immigration matters (including deportation), new healthcare charges for people without permanent residency, and greater restrictions on bail for those in immigration detention. They extend powers to enter and search homes and workplaces, and add new powers to search people. This means that in a range of ordinary and every day encounters, from renting a property to opening a bank account or attending a place of learning or worship, people will be required to identify and account for themselves. Opportunities to appeal immigration decisions that label people as illegal in the first place have been further limited through cutbacks in legal aid. Presumably this measure has been taken instead of moves at improving immigration decisions (and it is worth mentioning that last year 32% of deportation decisions and 49% of entry clearance applications were successfully appealed)?

The trend of British Governments' demonising immigrants and using this image as justification to further marginalise, oppress and criminalise them is sadly nothing new, but this act sets a new watermark. In removing access to fundamental public services, the effects are likely to include poorer health, more homelessness, more destitution, and more occurrences of mental illness for the people these measures are aimed at. Removing access to healthcare does not remove people's need for healthcare or remove those people who need it. Making it illegal to rent out homes does not remove peoples' need for housing or remove those who need to be housed. Denying access to places of learning or worship does not remove those people who need to learn or pray. It just marginalises, demoralises and scares people. It weakens their support networks and makes them more vulnerable. They will create greater insecurity, isolation and social exclusion. But that's the point. 'Punish them them till they leave' is the subtext. These measures effectively legislate for a loss of dignity.

The issue as to why we allow for people to be treated like this is justified on the grounds that they are here illegally. Yet why is it that certain people are labelled as illegal in the first place? Illegality doesn't convey some kind of passive 'state of nature' but is a label created by the state. And when Theresa May talks about "making it harder for people who are here illegally to stay here" she brushes over a fundamental flaw in the logic of the state's approach to immigration.

In recent years the grounds on which a person from outside the EEA can qualify to live in the UK have shrunk. At the same time the powers to enforce the exclusion and criminalisation of anyone classified as 'illegal' have grown. The need to 'get tougher' becomes self-fulfilling: we need more measures to catch 'illegal people', because the nets of who it is we define as illegal are being cast wider and wider. This backward logic effectively leads to the continuous expansion of who it is that can be considered illegal and hence legitimately excluded. And this logic of exclusion does not only apply to immigrants. From the stripping back of the NHS that excludes people from accessing healthcare to cuts in welfare that excludes people from social security, we see this trend in other areas of all our lives. I don't want to live in a country where people are denied the right to live in dignity.

When this attack has presented itself in the past, people have resisted. Some of the most inspiring forms of resistance have been those where people have supported those under attack in their efforts to continue to carry out everyday normal activities. For example, since the mid 2000's groups have formed to resist the dawn raids carried out by the (then) UK Border Agency by being present with potential deportees when such raids have taken place. Around the same time, when the government started issuing vouchers rather than cash to asylum seekers (that could only be used in certain shops), some people started schemes whereby people could exchange their vouchers for cash. In response to this new act, we also need to start thinking about Like these acts of solidarity, we need to start showing our resistance to this new act, and to the tide of hatred that it represents.

 This community is grieving

This story was originally posted at calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com  

A fourth person was killed on Friday night whilst in a truck trying to cross to England.



Three people were in the truck and realised it was going in the wrong direction, so they made noise for the truck to stop. It braked suddenly and a person from Ethiopia hit his head. Paramedics were called but he was dead on arrival.
People from different camps gathered for a ceremony before the Sunday football.

It is four people now killed in one week.

This community is grieving.

http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/this-community-is-grieving/

The Racial Dimension of a Train Journey

Friends have previously accused me of being no fun cause I label everything as political (as if that aint fun!). Here’s a story of one recent train journey that perfectly illustrates the political dimension of simple daily things.

I have come back to Greece for a few weeks and came to Athens from Istanbul. After a pretty interesting hitch-hiking experience, my journey back to Athens continued by train. From Alexandroupolis, its 7 hours to Thessaloniki, and from there, another 6 hours to the capital. It’s a long but fairly beautiful trip.

Alexandroupolis is a frontier town. Between it and Orestiada, a little further northeast, it’s one of the first places you are likely to come to if you travel by land from Turkey. It’s a place that seems to have given in to the atmosphere of a waiting room, or the dreariness of a giant bus station. I have only ever been there when leaving to or coming from somewhere else. In the last decade it’s got a reputation as a stop off point for people travelling document free. In recent years, this has become much more visible and apparent as the numbers of people reaching the city (often by foot, across the Evros river and then through Orestiada) has gone up. Recently, at a guess, the destination of Athens has become more common as immigration controls in other areas has become more violent, and as work has dried up in other parts of the country. I would assume this means that the route from Athens via Alexandroupolis is an extremely well trodden one by now.

When I got to the station to take the train, there were around 40 document free travellers also waiting (I am making the assumption they were travelling without papers, because Greece does not give residency to anyone from Africa or the Middle East). Many looked like they had been waiting a long time for that train. Clothes were airing over railings. People were sitting around in the sun, on the platform, in thw waiting room in small groups, mostly according to nationality/ethnicity. All were men, except for one family. I got talking to some guys from Bangladesh, and sat with them on the train.

A curious thing happened during the journey. Over the course of a few hours the ‘ethnic mix’ of our carriage changed despite few people leaving or getting off. It seemed that, having previously been spread out throughout the trains 4 carriages, all the black people came to be sitting in our carriage. It seemed that the conductor had moved them. At the same time, all the white folks were slowly leaving (or were also moved?). Why? Why? For what reason? Why? Why this segregation? Why? I was the only white person left in the carriage. And now it was a fucking political statement to remain there; a statement of solidarity.

So, I passed my journey in the jovial but also anxious and anticipatory atmosphere of the folks separated out according to their colour and assumed lack of status, by the dude checking tickets and his balding friend rudely selling snacks. Welcome to Greece! I wish them all the best after this welcome.

The Wall Between Greece and Turkey Built in 5 Months

The mainstream media site Ekathimerini.com reported today that on Thursday the contract to build a 12.5km wall between Greece and Turkey was signed by the two governments. The fence is due to be built in 5 months. The article – and the Greek government – claim that the wall will “deter illegal immigration and trafficking”.

But the wall is much more than that.

It is a visceral, physical construction of the racism at the heart of the European Capitalist/Imperialist daydream. It is a symbol designed to send out a message of control; that Europe is closed and that us who are enclosed are safer. Safety and control are far from the same thing. I don't want to live in a place that conflates the two.

The wall will also be a blank page, because it exposes the fake heart of any claim from European power to uphold the rights of refugees (how can a wall discriminate between 'types' of migrants?). In the process it again exposes the constructed of illegality that the control regime has itself constructed.

The wall will also be a straw man, because Europe’s borders don't start and end at its external edges. Despite this sickening news, the wall doesn’t take our eyes off the daily realities of random stop and searches, imprisonment, dawn raids and internal port controls that target migrants from outside of the white world. This wall will be a thread in a much bigger web of control. It is just another barrier among many.

But building a wall and controlling the thing the wall is supposedly built against are not the same thing. The controls get bigger and more complex, but the ways around them are not put out, because the desperate desire or desperate need to move endures. The ways around control might become harder (side effects of the wall could include higher smuggler fees, or changed routes), but they also adjust and change.

Because for all the fake reassurance of control this wall affords the forces of repression, the reality remains; people who desperately want or need to move, will continue to find a way, and they will continue to find a welcome from movements of solidarity. The wall will create a false sense of control. And in that false sense there remains possibility to undermine it.

But for now, solidarity with those at whom this wall will target can and must begin with opposition to its construction.