I heard on Sunday morning of an asylum seeker who was picked up yesterday and sent to Yarlswood women and children’s detention center. I have visited and met some of the women in Yarlswood and personally know two women, a young Nigerian lesbian and a young Ugandan woman both deported last year to Lagos and this year to Kampala – two cities where neither has lived or has family. The Ugandan woman had spent 5 years within the legal process of seeking asylum on the basis of sexual assault. Every few weeks asylum seekers have to check in with the police. As the date nears one becomes more and more anxious wondering if this will be the time they decide to physically grab you and send you to Yarlswood and 24 hours later on a plane.
Once again, the papers are full of reports about children being placed in Yarlswood which is run by a private security company SERCO. The horror of Yarlswood is that it is a prison yet no one imprisoned there has committed a crime. Still they are locked up, harassed, subject to body searches, abuse and sexual assault by guards, and wait for the moment they will be physically restrained en route to Gatwick or Heathrow and forced on to a plane. The latest story centers on SERCO refusing to allow two Anglican pastors from bringing Christmas presents for the children.
The Mothers’ Campaign of the All African Women’s group are mothers who have had to flee to the UK. The mothers had to make the very difficult decision to leave their children behind because they felt they would be safer without them. They have launched a petition for family reunion which they plan to submit on Mothers Day in March 2010. You can sign here. .
George Orwell and Graham Green both saw the role of the writer as one who questions and critiques the establishment, the State etc – something which Robert McCrum [writing in the Guardian] fears has been lost to mediocrity and market leaving Britain in a state of “creative bankruptcy.
The storyteller’s task, Greene declared, was “to act as the devil’s advocate”. Born in 1904, the son of a headmaster, Greene was a child of his generation. He distrusted authority, loathed the state and nurtured a visceral hatred of officialdom. His veneration of disloyalty was unique to his psyche, but it was shared by his contemporary, George Orwell. In Why I Write, Orwell declared: “When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie I want to expose.”
Orwell was more of an artist than he liked to let on, but both he and Greene – not alone in the last century – saw the writer’s vocation to be a protestant in a catholic society; to see the virtues of the communist in a capitalist state, and vice versa; above all, to elicit sympathy and understanding for those who lie outside the boundaries of conventional approval. The writer’s duty, said Greene, was to be “a piece of grit in the state machinery”. This vital contrarian instinct has deep roots in the English intellectual tradition. Tom Paine once wrote: “We must guard even our enemies against injustice.”
I fear it is not only Britain which is failing in “exposing the lie” or unpacking the truth. Harare North” by Brian Chikwava is the second of the last two books that seek to “expose the lies”. Arriving in London from Zimbabwe, the unnamed “native African” speaks the magic words “asylum” and thus he begins his life as one of Britain’s millions of “illegals” from across the world. Those who live in daily fear of “break[ing] your disguise”, deportation, humiliation at failing to send the hard earned graft back home. The one’s who service the country’s towns and cities as cleaners, dishwashers, daily labourers, factory workers exploited for £2.45 an hour graft before tax – many earn less.
The narrator, an ex member of Mugabe’s brute squad, the Green Bombers, [which he constantly tries unsuccessfully to justify] is purposeful in his task which is simple enough, to earn the money to settle his debts at home – $5,000 and settle his late mother’s spirit. He initially stays with his cousin and wife before moving to Brixton to live along with several other Zimbabweans, his childhood friend Shingi. Daily life consists of negotiating the underworld of those who live in hiding which requires a creativity way beyond those of us who have red passports or green ones with the right stamps. Jobs come and go, money comes and disappears, fear of opening doors, fear of police on the streets, heads down and combing supermarket dustbins for food past its sell by date all of which is underpinned by racism.
There is much despair and wretchedness but Chikwava makes the book readable by introducing a character who is full of wit and optimism, a survivor rather than a victim. The narrator cleverly explains his cousin’s wife disdain for his arrival in Harare North [London].
“But that’s how all them people from home behave when they is in Harare North; sometimes you talk to them on the phone asking if they don’t mind if you come and live with them and they don’t say ‘no’ because they don’t want you to think that they is selfish. They always say ‘…..OK, just get visa and come…..’ when they know that the visa is where everyone hit the wall because the British High Commission don’t just give visa to any native who thinks he can flag down a jet plane, jump on it and fly off to Harare North, especially when they notice that people get them visitors visa and then on landing in London they do this style of claim asylum……”
Chikwava uses the street English of Harare mixed with south London slang which adds layers to the thought process of the narration full of pathos, mischief and sometimes very threatening and crude often running in parallel. One minute you have empathy for the character the next disgust for his callousness. But ultimately this is a life of hustlers trying to survive poverty and racism as well as a precarious status. One must do what has to be done, he is careful not to break the law, and pray you make it back home instead of ending in a morgue forever forgotten. There is a price and Chikwava exposes the lies which surround the under employed, those living on the extreme margins of society. At the same time he exposes the unpleasant truth of the Green Bombers and life in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe – all are shades of grey.
“Harare North is a big con. We have already put many Mars bars inside people’s pockets, and now look…. Does anyone have any question? Them migrants fidget and grind they teeth; the foreman have hit they heads and get them out of gear and they is not able to say anything”
“The peoples of Europe are welcoming and tolerant: it’s in their nature and in their culture. But they don’t want their way of life, their mode of thinking and their social relations distorted.”
French President NICOLAS SARKOZY, defending Switzerland’s ban on building minarets
[source...]
That’s what president Nicolas Sarkozy said. I say: But the European will distort the way of life of others, won’t they? The mode of thinking of others, and the social relations of others. And that’s perfectly alright.
Who wants their shit distorted, anyway? Was the African happy when the European launched the colonisation campaign and cut Africa up?
Why is the European scared when Moslems build a prayer house? How many churches did the European erect outside his borders? Do you remember anyone complaining about the spires being too high, too dominating, too distorting. Or was that because even then, the European Christian had the firepower to extinguish any complaints?
The immigrant goes where life is easier and more accessible, when his own mode of existence has been compromised. The coloniser went to other places not because his mode of existence was in jeopardy, nor because life was easier there, but because he wanted to conquer and to exploit and to subdue. Full stop. And he did.
Pressed on what should happen to those on board, he said: “Throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya”.
Today the Labour government moves ever closer to the BNP agenda with this latest anti-immigration plan. UK plans to build jails in Nigeria to house 400 Nigerian UK prisoners.
British taxpayers are to provide £1million for a comfortable jail in Nigeria to take convicts whose crimes were committed in the UK.
The prison would house 400 Nigerian inmates incarcerated in our own packed prisons who cannot be forcibly sent home to complete their punishments.
Jails there are considered so rough that any prisoner the UK tried to deport could oppose their removal on human rights grounds.
Flavia Nambi is a Rape survivor detained in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre and facing removal today Tuesday 20 January, at 7pm.
Please phone or write to:
1. Phil Woolas MP, Immigration Minister, Home Office Minister of State for borders and immigration, UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk
2. Jacqui Smith MP, Secretary of State for the Home Office Fax 020 8760 3132 Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
3. European Court of Human Rights, Fax: +33 (0) 3 88 41 27 30, Tel: +33 (0) 3 88 41 20 18
4. Kenya Airways Flight KQ101 Telephone 01784 888 222
Ms Flavia Nambi has been in Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre since Wednesday 14 January. She has been given Removal Directions for this evening. She is at risk of taking her own life and is on suicide watch.
Ms Nambi could not survive if sent back. Ms Nambi lives in the UK with her Aunt who is her sole surviving relative from the terrible conflict in Uganda. She has no-one to whom she could turn for help and expert testimony confirms that women in Ms Nambi’s vulnerable state could not survive if sent back.
This is the THIRD time Ms Nambi has been detained. Last time she was so traumatised, she lost her memory, became profoundly depressed and was close to taking her own life. After her release, despite her own ill health, Ms Nambi has been dedicated to helping other women in detention who share her experiences.
Evidence of rape submitted to the Home Office. A fresh claim lodged in December included compelling expert evidence from WAR and psychiatrists corroborating her account of brutal gang rape by Lord’s Resistance Army soldiers. As a result, the Home Office have for the first time accepted Ms Nambi is a rape survivor but are still insisting she should be sent back.
The other day I was reminded of this post on “Walls around the world” I wrote 18 months ago by a friend and I promised to post it again. Now there are even more walls. The whole of Gaza has always been a walled enclave in the midst of stolen lands. Now it is surrounded by walls of tanks and naval guns. Ironic that the siege of Gaza reminds me of the siege of the Warsaw Ghetto. I wonder if the Israeli IDF spokeswoman makes the connection – doubtful with such self-righteous supremacist arrogance.
Another new wall is the one between Zimbabwe and South Africa where refugees escaping hunger, political oppression and disease are chased by white vigilantes with automatic weapons and dragged back across the wired borders. If they make it to the city they face xenophobic hysteria from their brothers in the post apartheid wasteland’s.
And then there are the invisible borders – where people are divided between the included and excluded. Legal and illegal. welcome and unwelcome. Those in the clique and those standing on the periphery trying to enter till eventually they tire and go create their own set of invisible walled enclaves excluding and including according to some set of arbitrary criteria which is what makes cliques so horribly oppressive.
Whilst the Apartheid wall being built by the Israelis is probably the most well known there are other walls that have been built, are being built and will be built in the future.
Morocco built one in the 1980s during the war of independence with the Polisario Front. To maintain their occupation of Western Sahara the Moroccan government built a wall of 2700 kilometres with mines, across the desert with the help of their good friends the Israelis. The wall prevents the Saharawi from crossing back into their lands from the refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria.
Then there are the new fences recently built between the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco. Here Morocco acts as a proxy police force for Europe to prevent migrants from West Africa and Morocco from entering Spain. The fences are barbed wire with razor edges. Recently Spanish PM, Zapartero announced a third parameter fence as the present two are proving insufficient to stop people climbing over despite the dangers. Read more…
As the international community commemorate the twentieth anniversary of World AIDS Day, there is a country which today is left dwindling behind watching every day as it comes and only hoping against every hope that food and possibly a cure will be found. What is more traumatising is the fact that even if this cure is available chances of having the medication in their hands is very slim if not zero.
The theme of this year’s World Aids Day is ‘Lead – Empower – Deliver’. This is theme is quite far from being realised by Zimbabwe. The never ending political circus of the country only serves to unleash what history might describe as mass genocide on ordinary Zimbabweans. The country stands with no distinguished leader thereby diminishing any hope of the fulfilling the commitment of the theme, that is, access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010.
It is quite saddening to note that this year the event is being marked by the significant rise in the number of AIDs related deaths. Medical institutions like hospitals and clinics have been closed down thereby erasing any hopes of saving more lives. Worse, the calamity faced by HIV positive patients is the critical shortage of ARVs as a result of the government’s abuse of the donations it has received from the US government.
In 2006 Rudo* a friend who is HIV positive and currently in Zimbabwe was on the brink of death before her life was revived by the successful taking of ARVs. Today her life is once again being placed in jeopardy by the non availability of these precious tablets. Talking to her on the phone she pleadingly asked me if I could by any chance send her some ARVs. Goodness me I only wish I could send them to her, and not only her but a million other people who are in her predicament. A predicament that they are facing, of not being able to celebrate life – but to face imminent death. Her position is worsened by the lack of basic human needs like having clean water in your house. Sewage water from the toilets flowing down her door step. Another positive friend has just died and everyone says it is cholera but Rudo tells me otherwise. Her friend did not have ARVs. The last time she had them was four months ago and ever since then her condition has deteriorated. She dares not to speak about it publicly, she was even cautious as to the choice of words she used in our phone conversation.
What I discerned in her voice was a pleading tone, pleading for someone to intervene lest she losses her life. Knowing that somewhere out there in the world other lives are being given a chance to life, being treated of the same ailment. As we end our conversation I only can pray for her to hold on – hope is her only option.
In this years campaign I implore the whole world to look at the crisis in my country Zimbabwe. I would appeal to the international governments such as the UK to grant asylum to Zimbabweans in their countries. I appeal to the government of United Kingdom to seek ways of alleviating this situation in Zimbabwe by allowing the vast number of asylum seekers to work so they may support their loved ones at home . The leadership of Zimbabwe has failed the people of Zimbabwe but still the international community can help by supporting Zimbabweans abroad rather than dumping them in rooms with no work or deporting them back to South Africa or Zimbabwe.
Congratulations to Ugandan lesbian Prossy Kakooza who has won her asylum case after 15 months. According to the report, the judge was influenced by the medical evidence and the expert’s report which highlighted the extreme difficulties of being LGBTI in Uganda.
The judge was heavily influenced by three factors: the Country Expert Report, the medical evidence, and Prossy’s campaign. The Country Expert Report highlighted the terrible plight that lesbian and gay people endure in Uganda, as well as the “extra-judicial” activities of the police.
Her asylum also shows us that campaigns can be successful even when there seems to be an endless trail of obstacles to surmount.
* 5200 people from countries, and church congregations, from all over the world who have signed her petition to the Home Office.
* The 100s of people who have written or emailed the Immigration Minister.
* The 80 members and friends of MCC Manchester who have supported her.
* The 19 friends who went to court with her and helped her collect signatures on her petition at Pride festivals all over the country.
* The 10 friends who gave evidence in court on her behalf.
* The 3 lawyers who drafted and prepared her cases (Ruth Heatley from the Immigration Aid Unit and barristers Mark Schwenk & Mel Plimmer).
So please keep sending those emails, making phone calls, publicising campaigns, holding vigils and demos because it all helps and can influence the outcomes.
In another asylum case, Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre staff have been caught “stealing” a Guide on detainees rights. The Black Women’s Rape Action [BWRAP] project issued the following press statement following reports by one of the women they are working with in Yarls Wood…..
On 15 October, Ms Mercy Wanjiku[1], a rape survivor from Kenya, called from Yarl’s Wood IRC to report that Legal Action for Women’s Self-Help Guide against detention and deportation, which she had received by post had been confiscated by Yarl’s Wood staff. The Guide contains essential information that Ms Wanjiku needed for a legal hearing three days later. It took an official complaint, intervention by Black Women’s Rape Action Project (BWRAP), letters to her MP and a theft report lodged with the police to force Yarl’s Wood authorities for the Guide to be returned.
Background
On 8 October, and despite her protests that it was an infringement of her right to privacy, Ms Wanjiku was forced to open her mail in front of Yarl’s Wood staff. The Self-Help Guide was confiscated even though Ms Wanjiku informed officers that she urgently needed access to information in the Guide as she had an appeal hearing for her asylum claim in three days and she had no lawyer (see notes below). She was told by a male member of staff that it was “illegal to have the book in here” and that he was following orders!
In the absence of sufficient lawyers due to cuts in legal aid provision, many women rely on the Self-help guide to provide them with the necessary information to process their cases. This is yet another in many illegal and inhumane acts committed by Yarls Wood including the recent damming report by UK Children’s Commissioner, Sir Aynsley-Green.
BWRAP is “one of the few groups providing information and support services run by and for African, African Caribbean and other women of colour surviving rape, domestic violence, racist assault, other torture and persecution”.
UNHCR reports that 4,816 Nigerians applied for asylum in the first 6 months of 2008 making the country the 9th highest after countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, China to name a few. I know of two Nigerians who have sought asylum on the basis of their sexuality, one gay man and one lesbian. The former, activist Davis MacIyalla, was given asylum in about 3 weeks which is highly unusual as most asylum cases take years. The lesbian spent a year in detention at Yarls Wood and was eventually deported back to Nigeria. I wonder what what are the claims of this years applicants and how many have been successful.
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