Britain should not forget its own history of exploitation and destabilising intervention
Recently the popular BBC religious affairs programme ‘Songs of Praise’ broadcast from the migrant camp in Calais. The outpouring of bile this provoked showed h how ugly the current debate on migration has become.
We have had the prime minster describing desperate refugees as a ‘swarm’ and foreign secretary Phillip Hammond claiming Europe would not be able to protect its “standard of living and social infrastructure” if it had to absorb millions of migrants from Africa.
It did not seem to occur to him that Europe owes its current standard of living and social infrastructure, not only to the exploitation past and present of Africa’s minerals and raw materials but also to the efforts of millions of hardworking European citizens of African descent.
Hammond’s comments have drawn criticism from anti-racist campaigners and Amnesty International who point out that Calais is a symptom of a global refugee crisis which is seeing Syrian, Eritrean, Sudanese and Iraqis escaping a myriad of crises to neighbouring countries.
If the image of people rounded up in a stadium in Greece is shocking, it’s the product of Britain refusing to co-operate with the EU on how to deal with this global issue in a humanitarian way.
I commend prominent members of the Jewish community for calling on David Cameron to prioritise a humanitarian response. To remember that during the Holocaust, the national papers shamefully denigrated Jewish people fleeing Hitler as they landed here, but also to remember that we have a proud tradition of being a refuge for those in need.
The experience of the Jewish community in the twentieth century should remind us where this sort of racism can lead.
For centuries lies have been spread about immigrants taking the jobs of established British communities, or being the cause of economic recession and downturn.
From Jewish people in the nineteenth century, Irish people in the early twentieth century, Africans, Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani communities in the post-war era through to Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian and Eastern European migrants in the last decade, immigrants have always been the convenient scapegoat. Calais refugees are only the most recent target.
The only thing driving down living standards is the Tory government’s austerity agenda – £12 billion worth of cuts to the welfare state and the £3 billion cuts to public services announced in the budget. This is slowing down growth to the point of stagnation and is also making living standards worse.
The fact is that our foreign policy, which involved military intervention into parts of Africa, has resulted in destabilisation. We need to have a compassionate response towards people risking horrific deaths in the Mediterranean who are clearly desperate to escape poverty, war and social unrest. These situations are hard for us to imagine in Britain.
Faced with situations like this, those at the top sometimes need ordinary people to be their conscience. Critical Mass are planning a mass bike ride to Calais and the sign up is nearing one thousand people. Over 60,000 people are petitioning Cameron to provide medical support to migrants in Calais, who have been injured trying to get to Britain, and whose numbers include pregnant women and children.
The toxic political climate on immigration is bad for our higher education sector, bad for business and bad for a city like London which should glory in being an open city. As for the media commentators, they should be aware that their irresponsible and hate-filled coverage could lead to human tragedy on a massive scale.
Diane Abbott is the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. She is currently running in the selection to be Labour’s London mayoral candidate.
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35 Responses to “On refugees, Cameron must prioritise a humanitarian response”
Steve Larson
There is a class divide on this topic.
The well healed left and middle class have little problem with this, same as corporate interests.
The plebs won’t be listened to and they deal with the fallout.
Dave Stewart
Africa is poor for a whole number of reasons and yes corruption is one of them but ask yourself who enables that corruption for the most part? It is large mostly European and US multinationals. They take natural resources and then through clever accounting (or outright fraud) avoid and/or evade the tax they owe to those African countries. It is estimated that Africa loses more than 10 times what it receives in aid money though tax evasion and avoidance each year.
Finally do you not think that the wholesale theft of African resources in the colonial past has nothing to do with Africa’s wealth now?
And even if your thesis is correct (which I dispute) that still does not justify enslaving an entire continent. Please catch up with the 21st century.
jj
Ive fought up with the 21st century, thank you very much.
Allow me to elaborate.
Many companies, especially Chinese now, are buying up huge parts of African land, do you know why? Because it is cheap, resourceful rich, and the corrupt regimes (because that’s what they are, they are barely ‘governments’ in most cases) do dirty handshakes in the shadows, pretty obvious stuff really. China and most of Asia was colonised by all sorts of people, the Japanese, the Europeans, east Timor was basically a colony of Indonesia until 2002, Asia was pretty plundered by many, yet through better governance, Asia has picked itself up, taxed companies (because the government is strong willed to do this instead of spending any tax money collected on guns!). African leaders, such as Mugabe continue to divert the attention away from his own failings and his populations misery, away from the fact that he doesn’t give a care about his people, but only seeks to line the pockets of his comrades, and too often uses colonialism as a justifiable reason why he is basically dissipating the agricultural industry that Zimbabwe depends on.
Cole
Too selfish to care. Typical right winger. Just what your forbears said about the Jews the 1930s.
Cole
Shame we can’t put you on a boat and sink it.