The Long Acre . . .
I have known quite a few
asylum seekers down the years—'political refugees’ they used be called
then—from Biafra (during the Nigerian Civil War of the 1960s) and Eastern
Europe and Chile etc. The one
thing they all had in common was the compelling desire to be back in their own
countries, circumstances allowing.
Today’s
asylum seekers seem different in that they are generally less running away from
something than towards something. They
may well spin similar stories, but the last thing they want to do is return
home. They are instead coming for the
duration.
Now
the current wave of asylum seekers—defined as ‘spontaneous asylum seekers’—are
those who arrive of their own volition and immediately claim asylum, under the
terms of the various human rights and international charters, and who, unless
stopped and refused entry at customs/immigration boundaries, must be admitted
to the asylum processes of the country in question, irrespective of the
reasonableness or otherwise of their claims for refugee status.
As
for those who arrive in the backs of lorries etc. and via people
smugglers, the reason for this roundabout method is obviously that they believe
they would be sent directly back if they came via the normal routes, otherwise
they would take the cheaper option of booking a flight and taking their chance
in the normal asylum lottery. On top of which
is the possibility of disappearing into the illegal population of the larger
European countries if things don’t go their way.
The
fact of coming by such a backdoor route might also suggest that such people are
not poor, otherwise they could not afford the fees the smugglers reportedly
charge. And the further they have travelled,
the more likely is this to be the case: the various refuges agencies themselves
recognise that the bulk of real and poor refugees are clustered in camps on the
boundaries of the countries they’ve left, unable to afford to go any farther.
The
argument might be made that because many people take out loans to travel, it
would signify that they are not relatively well off at all. Yet the fact is that loans, especially for
such unpredictable purposes, are unlikely to be delivered without
collateral. The moneylenders of the Far
and Middle East and Africa are more than likely to be intimately familiar with
the circumstances of would-be borrowers.
Now
why would they do it? Why would families
put themselves into debt in order to send a member on a problematic journey of
some thousands of miles? It can’t be
extreme need, because, as I say, they must of necessity be already relatively
well off. In the case of the Vietnamese
migrants found dead recently in Britain, they seem, most of them, to have been already
well equipped with mobile phones and ways of keeping in contact with home.
It
would seem to me that it really should be viewed as a deliberate
investment. And being an
investment—something that has the potential to fail as to succeed—it is not
likely to be embarked upon to the extent of ruining a family’s fortunes. It is probably a calculated risk; one that if
it fails is not likely to sink the ship.
But
again the question is why would they embark on such a gamble, even if they
could afford it? After all, propaganda
and hysteria aside, Europe is far from being a land of milk and honey—something
of which those with access to digital technology should already be well aware.
And
the answer, to me, at any rate, is that they are acting in response to a
recognition of opportunity, and those who are being sent are being sent by way
of staking a claim.
What
is drawing the elements of the middle-classes of the world by hook or crook to
Europe is a recognition of the weakness of Europe, demonstrated in the crazy
faux-humanitarianism of its political elites, and its refusal in any meaningful
way to defend its borders.
I
say ‘faux-humanitarianism’ because I really do believe that it is motivated
less by concern for refugees than by a desire to destroy the last vestiges of
national identity and national culture; refugees being merely a convenient
battering ram to that particular end.
I
reckon, too, that it is a process the elites thought to control, by turning the
tap on and off, according as it was needed.
But I think they overestimated themselves and their abilities—believed
too much in their own propaganda.
I
append also a perhaps more nuanced view from quite a while back, which may in
ways be closer to the truth, much as I dislike the idea.
--------
The
Long Acre
The whole world is going
to become one.
The vessel of the foreign
is bursting at the seams
and can’t be caulked
and is going to run through
us
like a dose of salts.
And we won’t like
it—nobody likes it—yet it is inevitable.
The illusions we’ve built
up within ourselves
about our uniqueness and
our future
will be blown asunder
under the pressure of
events.
Real history is not a
pretty picture,
it is a conflict of races
and cultures,
and cannot be resolved
within an hour
to everybody’s
satisfaction
as in an original episode
of Star Trek.
History will grind down
the bones of those that resist her
(and how many additional
innocents along the way?)
and no matter how the
atavistic urges
rise in us to passion,
the result will still be
much the same:
after the turmoil, a new
equilibrium, an altered world,
a continuation of the
human race.
And those that live on
from that moment,
if they are sensible,
will trace their ancestry
to the chaos of the 21st
century
and not beyond.
Those of us,
Irish individuals with
foreign names,
and also quite a few of
us with Irish names—
how many of us would be
here now
but for the Normans
and the English
and the head-on effects
of their collision
with the recalcitrant Gaelic
septs?
15/2/2002
