Migrant Crisis: A Few More Comments

Don’t Rubbish the Migrants

I’ve heard criticism made of the “jungle” in Calais. Why don’t they at least try and be tidy and clear the rubbish away? Yes, serious criticism of all the heaps of garbage that there are, without stopping to think why that should be so. In fact, the general comment from those is that the people at Calais just don’t care – like litter louts writ large, they couldn’t care less about piles of rubbish.

So it was good to read Glenys Newt on the subject, as she makes it clear why the rubbish does not get cleared easily, and answers those questions:

“I had gone as part of an organised clean up operation and together with about 120 people we set about with bin bags, shovels, rakes and a fortified sense of humour to try and clear up some of the piles of rotting rubbish that has accumulated.”

“Why don’t the people clear it up themselves you might ask? For a start there is not a single bin in the whole place and with around 5000 people sharing the space it doesn’t take long for rubbish to accumulate. The local authorities refuse to clear any of the rubbish away although by the end of the week we had forged relations with the local authorities and they actually came and cleared some of the 1500 bin bags of rubbish that we filled in just 2 days.”

“There are 2 industrial sized skips but they are a long walk for most people and they had no bin bags to put rubbish in anyway. As soon as we started we were immediately surrounded by people wanting to help. We handed out thousands of bin bags to people who were so grateful that we were coming to try and improve the squalor in which these people live. We cleared away areas where children were playing in raw sewage. We cleared the water pipe areas where sewage, rats, rotting food and rubbish all mix. Attempts had been made to burn piles of rubbish but piles of wet clothes and tins do not burn easily.”

Need for Clamp Down on People Smugglers

The boats coming from Turkey to Lesbos are designed to hold eight to 10 people, but smugglers pack them with up to 60 migrants, each paying as much as $1,500 to make the trip. The smugglers do not make the journey. They choose a migrant to steer the boat, point out a direction — sometimes a light in the distance, if at night — and send them on their way.

If people are smuggling heroin or cocaine and hard drugs into a country, they face both arrests and heavy fines and prison sentences. There are intelligence services working behind the scenes to determine what is going on, and make those arrests. It doesn’t stop all drugs smuggling, but knowing you will be spending the next ten years in prison sends a strong message to others. It usually makes headline news.

In fact, many of the traffickers used to smuggle illegal drugs, but have shifted their focus to people since the refugee crisis began.

Austria has recently arrested five people smugglers. "We are seeing that the smuggler gangs are acting in ever more brutal and ruthless ways and we must counter them with stronger and harder measures," said Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner.

In August, Libyan authorities arrested three people on suspicion of involvement in launching a boat packed with migrants that sank off the country's Mediterranean coast, killing up to 200 people.

The German "Bild am Sonntag" newspaper reported on Sunday that more than 2,300 suspected smugglers had been arrested in Germany since the beginning of the year - a 40-percent increase on the same period last year.

A week ago, the European Union on Monday announced that it will be able to go after suspected migrant trafficking and smuggling vessels in the international waters of the Mediterranean as of next week.

As the New York Times reports:

“Monday's EU statement said Operation Sophia will allow naval personnel of EU nations "to board, search, seize and divert vessels suspected of being used for human smuggling or trafficking on the high seas, in line with international law" as of Oct. 7.”

The Daily Beast reports that:

“Since the beginning of the year, Italian authorities say they have arrested more than 950 human traffickers, including one who was commandeering a boat that went down with as many as 800 people on board last April. “

“Many of the smugglers go on trial in Italy and are given harsh jail sentences. Others are let go due to lack of evidence. Almost all apply for political asylum once they are rescued. “

After a 12 week mission, the crew of the LÉ Niamh handed over to Italian authorities around 30 people smugglers during the ship’s tour of duty in the Mediterranean Sea, which resulted in the rescue of 4,127 refugees.

Apparently Italian authorities said the increasing number of people arrested for allegedly smuggling refugees across the Mediterranean in latest months had a role in making traffickers change their routes to avoid the country. Intercepted phone conversations between people suspected of leading migrant smuggling rings showed that traffickers worried about the increasing danger of being detected and arrested once landed in Italy.

Egypt is now taking a very hard line. A 35 page bill sets out measures against smugglers. Smugglers would face life sentences if anyone died during a journey that he or she ran or organized. The government also sets a higher fine for these cases - the equivalent of the smuggler’s profit. Those found to be complicit in any way could also face time in prison.

But there is a paucity of news about fines or prison sentences anywhere on the media. That must be happening, and only once we get solid information about successful prosecutions can we assess exactly how measures are taking are working.

Moreover, as the case of Italy shows, where news is global and travels fast, that could well affect the volume of migrant smugglers, and some may even pull back out of the market. There needs to be the same level of intelligence and evidence gathering that goes into drugs and the corresponding money laundering.

Attacking the smugglers at both ends of the scale: by heavy fines and imprisonment, and on the other, by freezing assets, may not prevent people smuggling, but it would be a start. These are callous people, who have no regard for human life, and seek to profit from the misery and suffering of others. It is about time justice was meted out to them.

References

https://glenysnewt.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/calais-the-end-of-the-line/
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/10/04/rough-seas-cut-migrant-flow-to-greece
http://www.dw.com/en/germany-records-dramatic-spike-in-smuggling-arrests/a-18711572
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/09/28/world/europe/ap-eu-europe-migrants-smugglers-.html
http://www.globalpost.com/article/6645186/2015/09/08/roundup-arrests-smugglers-induce-change-migrant-routes-europe

The Steel Cage: Border Controls in Europe

The Steel Fence

Hungary has built a 175km (110-mile) fence along its border with Serbia, to try to slow the flow of asylum seekers into northern Europe. The authorities will decide later on whether to declare a state of emergency along the border with Serbia. Hungary's prime minister also says the country will build a fence on some sections of its border with Croatia.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that Hungary had so far spent €200m (£147m; $226m) to handle the refugee crisis, and had only received €4m from the European Union.

Hungary is not a rich country, and the extra impact on its finances is clearly something the government has decided it cannot afford. But as Hungary toughened up its stance on migrants, its forint was at its strongest in almost two weeks.

The changes to the penal code now make border crossing and damaging the new fence a criminal offence, which can be punished with jail sentences of up to three years. However, it is likely that judges would expel asylum seekers from Hungary, rather than imprison them in already overcrowded jails.

An interview on PBS highlighted how ordinary Hungarians see the crisis:

Gyorgy Zimoni, Szeged resident (through interpreter): "My opinion has two levels. On the one hand, I feel sorry for the migrants, as the conditions they’re in are very hard. But I also feel sorry for the whole country. They were not prepared for this, just as all of Europe wasn’t prepared for this wave. We can see no end of this."

George’s friend of 20 years, Abdul Latif-Zanda, is originally from Libya, but he is now a Hungarian citizen. He’s says he’s living proof that practicing Muslims can integrate into European society.

Abdul Latif-Zanda, Hungary (through interpreter): "I have lived here for 30 years now. I have never had a problem with anyone, neither for political nor religious reasons. Islam teaches that you should lead a decent life, and you should treat others fairly. There are many others, however, who use religion, money, or whatever else to convince poor Muslims to do stupid things. In Europe, you can lead a normal life. And if you are normal, you will be accepted."

Finding an alternate route

Migrants are now going to Croatia and Romania but whether they loop round to cross through Hungary's still almost unguarded borders remains to be seen. The borders with those countries arer longer - Romania - 450km and Croatia 350km.

More than 6,000 people have entered Croatia in just one day, putting strain on their system. Migrants have turned there after Hungary used water cannons, pepper spray and tear gas to keep them away from its territory.

To give some sense of scale, Croatia is ready to provide care and shelter to just 4,000 refugees at any single time, and in comparison to its population and GDP, it is in the same situation as Germany would be if it suddenly took in half a million people.

Serbia has been dealing with refugees but they have been flowing through fairly rapidly. If the numbers now begin to rise, this may challenge its capacity for dealing with asylum seekers and its current attitude of the population which shows considerable tolerance and empathy.

But there are extra dangers to refugees. Medecins Sans Frontieres, one of the aid groups assisting with the refugee crisis, warned about the presence of Balkan landmine: "Safe and legal routes needed now: #refugees may inadvertently stray into Balkan minefields in search for ways round new border restrictions"

About 51,000 mines are still buried as remnants of the Balkan Wars, but most are clearly marked with large signs.

Raising the Barriers

Much has been made of Hungary’s fence, but at least four more European countries have built fences in the last few years in a heightened effort to keep migrants out. Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia all have fences of one sort or another, ranging from flimsy enough to be easily trampled, others are intricate tangles of barbed wire.

Barriers have long been in place around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco, but were significantly expanded in 2005. There is a 15-foot wall topped with razor wire on the border between Morocco and Melilla.

A wall was built by Greece in 2012, constructed with the intent of keeping out migrants and refugees crossing from Turkey. It covers a mere 6.5 miles of land border with Turkey and has failed to stop the growing number of migrants who reached Greece by boat.

Bulgaria built a 20 mile fence along its border with Turkey in 2014. This was a three metre high structure and cost £3.5million to construct. The Bulgarian government recently announced plans to extend it by 90 miles.

And of course, in the French town of Calais, the British government recently spent around £6.5 million to erect improved fencing around the Channel Tunnel.

Borders in Europe so far include:

Ukraine – Russia – for other reasons than migrations

Estonia – Russia – for other reasons than migrations

Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa

Greece - Turkey

Bulgaria - Turkey

Hungary - Serbia

France – Britan at Calais

The Return of Border Controls

Slovenia, surrounded by Croatia, Hungary, Austria and Italy, is enforcing a temporary border control with Hungary "until a common European solution" is found, according to a press release by the Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar.

Germany reinstated border controls, admitting that their influx is at the limit of its capacities. Germany is strong and can handle a lot,” Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel wrote. “Nevertheless, in the past few days we have experienced how, despite our best efforts, our abilities have reached their limits.”

And Austria has begun border control measures to the south near Slovenia after migrants appeared to be veering away from the Hungarian border toward Austria. Austria is on the main route for refugees crossing the European Union by land, and it is now struggling to cope with a backlog of thousands trying to reach Germany. Austrian refugee shelters are mostly full, an Interior Ministry spokesman said, adding that the present situation is “way beyond our capacity.”

Recently some 2,500 people spent the night in tents at the Austrian border, set up by the country's army. “If Germany carries out border controls, Austria must put strengthened border controls in place,” said Chancellor Werner Faymann of Austria

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said his country would not hesitate to re-establish temporary border controls if necessary. France has already reinstated controls on its border with Italy as large numbers of migrants arriving by boat in Italy tried to cross into France.

The Netherlands introduced border controls last Monday. Dutch authorities said that they would conduct spot checks at their country’s border with Germany.

Further afield, Poland ordered an inspection of its borders and said it could restore checks if any threats are identified.

Karl Kopp, who represents the group in the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, said: ““It’s a deep crisis of the whole European Union. Free movement for 400 million Europeans is now seriously threatened. Introducing Schengen border controls again is a fatal mistake. It created already a domino effect”

A Steel Trap Tightens

Early last Saturday morning, Hungary completed the construction of a 41-kilometer border fence, which will separate the country from Croatia with barbed wire, reinforcing the natural barrier of the Drava River.

This week, the Croatian authorities have banned Serbian citizens and cars from the country entering its territory. The move comes after Serbia banned all Croatian goods and cargo vehicles from entering its borders. Last week, Croatia closed most of its road border crossings with Serbia, leaving only one open on the main road linking Belgrade and Zagreb at Bajakovo.

Meanwhile, news from Warsaw. Poland's conservative party leader - who appears poised to win the October general election - has ruled out taking in refugees, bolstering the hardline of other eastern EU countries on the migrant crisis.

So far the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have staunchly rejected a European Commission plan to relocate 160,000 refugees among the bloc's 28 states via a compulsory quota system.

Germany introduced border controls on September 13 for a period of 10 days and is now asking the European Commission to allow it to extend the measure for another 20 days to cope with record refugee flows. A poll shows that 78% of German respondents, particularly those near the Austrian border, approve of establishing border controls.

Norway is intensifying its border controls in an effort to gain a better overview of asylum-seekers. Finland is prepared to start border controls. About 12,000 asylum seekers, most of them from Iraq, have come to Finland.

And Turkey has begun enforcing long-dormant rules on Syrians' travel within the country, in part over concerns about how the flow is affecting the country's image.

Paperwork and Quotas

From April through June 2015, 213,200 people applied for asylum. Germany receivied the highest number of applications – more than a third. Hungary had 15 percent, Austria 8 percent, followed by Italy, France and Sweden with 7 percent each.

“The EU migrant quota plan to relocate thousands of migrants across the continent is “unfeasible, unrealisable and nonsense”, Hungary's foreign minister said, as Europe's east-west division was laid bare on Wednesday.” And he added “"One of the many reasons the compulsory quota system is unsatisfactory is that many more people have entered the European Union since the original debate on the distribution of 120,000 immigrants."

The Daily Telegraph reported that:

“Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary voted against the plan to take in refugees and migrants from Italy and Greece but it was forced through on Tuesday.”

And Slovakia says it will go to court to challenge quotas for relocating 120,000 asylum seekers approved by European Union ministers.

And even if quotas are introduced, there is no indication that migrants will wish to go where they are told to go. Many migrants have already relocated to Germany, Austria and other European countries they favour. In which case, how are they to be moved? A forced relocation would be very complex and controversial, and probably meet with a degree of resistance.

The Plight of Women and Elderly Refugees

The Plight of Women and Elderly Refugees

Although there are women and children in the camp at Calais, it is mostly the men who travel because they are fit and young, and either do not want to take the risk of bringing families with them – the drowned Kurdish child shows the dangers – and may be hoping to get their families back.

An example was given by Sky News:

“Ali Mneger arrived in Munich from Kobane five months ago but did not think his relatives would be able to make the journey too. However, after many weeks apart the family are finally together again. Mr Mneger has already been given asylum and his family, who have now been taken to a welcome centre, are likely to be treated in the same way. "I thank Germany, I want to learn German and work here. I feel human again."

It seems that the younger and fitter men make the journey, hoping that if they have permission to settle, they may be afforded the opportunity to get their family over by a safer route. But that is not always the case, as the tragic drowning of the Kurdish toddler illustrates.

The statistics from 2014 bear this out:

“Nearly four in every five (79 %) asylum seekers in the EU-28 in 2014 were aged less than 35 (see Table 3); those aged 18–34 accounted for slightly more than half (54 %) of the total number of applicants, while minors aged less than 18 accounted for one quarter (26 %).”

“The distribution of asylum applicants by sex shows that men were more likely than women to seek asylum. Across the EU-28, the gender distribution was most balanced for asylum applicants aged less than 14, where boys accounted for 53 % of the total number of applications in 2014.”

“There was a greater degree of gender inequality for asylum applicants aged 14–17 or 18–34, where around three quarters of applicants were male.”

It is clear that the refugee and the economic migrant are also not mutually exclusive alternatives. They may be fleeing the dangers of ISIS, but they also see an opportunity to better themselves. And there are educated people there. As the New York Times reports on one group:

“Mr. Darwish was a law graduate. Another, Imad Ziyad, 23, wore a pair of stylish black and white houndstooth checked shorts and sleek eyeglasses; he was a dental student. Another, Ahmad Ali, 24, had been an interior design worker. They spoke good English.”

The Atlantic reports an interview with Ahmad: “Ahmad, who is in his mid-thirties, left Syria while in the second year of a four-year degree in information technology at Damascus University, and had done so to escape conscription into the Syrian Army.”

And of course, there is unrest and violence. These are young men, charged with testosterone, with frustration, and probably anger at their plight as well. How do young men behave in such circumstances? And with a culture in which women are often seen as second class? Sometimes very badly.

We must also remember that women make up a mere 10 percent of the Calais camp's three-thousand-strong population. France 24 reports on some of the problems facing women:

“Faustine Douillard, a social worker for the NGO France Terre d’Asile (France, Land of Asylum), visits the camp every day to advise those claiming asylum in France. “I have to go through the men to speak to the women,” she says. “They don’t know their rights, and that makes them very vulnerable.” Some, she says, are forced to take on male "protectors", who demand sexual favours in return.”

In fact, for all the criticism of his stance, David Cameron, albeit taking in too small numbers, has the right idea – take those in refugee camps in Syria. Who will those be? The women and children and especially orphans who cannot easily travel – and let’s also not forget the elderly – where are any photos of them? – also need help, and they can’t make the dangerous crossings so easily.

That’s not to say they don’t get to Calais and elsewhere like Germany – there are reports which include that of Jaafar Alaawi, 62, from Baghdad, travelling with four sons and a grandson, but walking with a stick, limping along a refugee trail.

But the statistics from 2014, almost certainly mirrored in 2015, show the elderly are few in number.

“Female applicants outnumbered male applicants for asylum seekers aged 65 and over, although this group was relatively small, accounting for just 0.8 % of the total number of applications in 2014.”

A report by IRIN commented on the elderly in camps in Lebanon:

“Undergirding the issues faced by elderly refugees is an expectation that they must suffer in silence so that younger people may fulfil their needs first.”

Countless elderly Syrian refugees live almost forgotten in camps or host communities while the humanitarian crisis has no end in sight, with paltry food supplies and limited medication available.

Lebanon has taken in 1.1 million Syrians - more than a quarter of Lebanon's population and is overwhelmed.

It should be noted that David Cameron was visiting camps in the Lebanon recently, and would have seen this for himself. His stance is to take those vulnerable refugees who cannot afford or have not the strength to cross Europe. It is addressing the gap, but the numbers should be more:

"Britain will resettle 20,000 refugees, but we will take them from these camps, we will take the most vulnerable, we will take disabled children, we will take women who have been raped, we will take men who have suffered torture.

On the subject of the elderly, writing for Devex, Carlos Santamaria notes that:

“In emergencies, older refugees are often overlooked and forgotten because they are less mobile and struggle to access transport to centres where they can officially register as refugees or to services such as healthcare.”

“The majority of elderly refugees have no income and therefore rely on humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs. Their health is often poor, they struggle to access medication and healthcare and even when living with family members, they often tend to eat less to provide better meals for younger members of the family.”

I remember a Jacob Bronowski episode of The Ascent of Man on nomadic existence:

“Everything has to be light enough to be carried, and quickly packed and unpacked each day. It is not possible in the nomad life to make things that will not be needed for several weeks. Every night is the end of a day like the last, and every morning will be the beginning of a journey like the day before. When the old cannot cross the next river, they stay behind and die.”

That is very much I suspect is what is happening with the old. They are left behind in Syria or the Middle East to die. 

Unreported News on Islam

Unreported News on Islam

“We feel a strong sense of responsibility. We think we should be role models to other mosques and other faith places, to deal with extremism and any other problems... But we [as Muslims] want to feel we are part of the wider community. We want to be British citizens, not second-class citizens, and we want to feel we have duties, responsibilities and rights as well.” (Mohammed Kozbar)

Have you heard of the Finsbury Road Mosque? Possibly the name may ring a bell, but perhaps not. We usually remember people rather than places.

What about the Imam Abu Hamza who was based at Finsbury Road? I suspect that name may be more familiar, and if, of course, one mentions “hook-handed hate cleric”, to take the way the press reported him, you will almost certainly know of him.

As the Telegraph reported at his trial:

“The Finsbury Park mosque was long known to have served as a clearing house for radical Muslims after Hamza arrived as imam in 1997. His hate-filled rants inspired attendees such as Richard Reid, the failed “shoe bomber”, Zacarias Moussaoui, one of the 9/11 terror plotters, and Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the four suicide bombers who blew themselves up on public transport in London on July 7, 2005.”

It is clear from the trial that he was also involved in the training of terrorists.

The hook handed cleric must be a godsend for people like Gavin Ashenden, who surprising dropped his titles on BBC Radio, including Queen’s Chaplain (which always accompanies him like a trained corgi), for a more familiar “blokey” style – “call me Gavin”. No doubt his calm, measured tones were meant to persuade the listener, and I fear he had some small success in that.

But let’s not forget that stirring up mistrust and fear and eventually hate does not always come with priests ranting like Ian Paisley used to do. The path to hate is paved with sweet intentions, rather like the magic Turkish delight that seduced Edmund in “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Not that I would accuse the Reverend Ashenden of being thoroughly evil like the White Witch, but he can certainly cast a spell over listeners with his misguided notions, and to suggest (as he did, without evidence) that the poor dead Kurdish child was moved to make a better photo opportunity is simply to pander to the propagandists of hate.

Gavin Ashenden at present both on BBC Radio Jersey, and in his JEP column, is fuelling fear and mistrust about Muslims. These are incidentally those fleeing the extreme form of Islam in the Islamic State, lest we forget.

But what we have forgotten to remember, to use a phase coined by Michael Portillo (for his excellent Radio 4 history series) is what happened to Finsbury Park after Abu Hamza, and indeed, what is happening there today.

This is not the stuff of news stories, because it is not about preachers of hate,

“A young man hands out candy to passers-by and Sunday afternoon visitors are welcomed through its open doors with cups of tea and biscuits. It is hard to imagine that a decade ago this place of worship was a hangout for some of the world's most notorious and deadly jihadis.”

“In ‘Visit My Mosque Day’ at Finsbury Park earlier this month, children proudly lined up to perform for guests. A boy dressed in galabiyya [Islamic dress for men] and holding a British flag was joined by girls in headscarves. Together they sang songs, and recited poetry praising their faith.”

And indeed following Hamza's 2005 detention for inciting hatred, and even before his trial, a new group of trustees, including local residents, were brought in to flush out the radicals.

Khalid Omour, one of the mosque's trustees said:

"The mosque basically was hijacked by a group of people who were utilizing this platform, which is a place of worship, and it wasn't used for the main purpose it was built for. When we came in 2005, the local community here, from all sorts of walk of life, decided to take the initiative by really drawing a line under that era and build a new era ... of positive image, positive service, community engagement."

And it has been having open days every year long with inter-faith meetings addressing issues in the local community.

The mosque continues to receive “nasty” emails and letters. There is still a lot of work to be done. They are still fearful of journalists or those purporting to be journalists who may come to muck-rake and misrepresent what they are doing, and in fact locked up a journalist for 30 minutes while they called the police to check his credentials.

The manager of the Mosque, Mohammed Kozbar, said: “He asked if he could come and talk about the changes we have made to the mosque since Abu Hamza. For a few minutes he asked those questions, then he started asking about lots of different things. Not that we have anything to hide, but we felt he had misled us and was trying to ambush us to create a story.”

“We started to worry he was a malicious journalist, especially as we have had bad experiences in the past, so we asked to see some photo identification to prove who he was. He couldn’t do that, so we called the police. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to keep him there, but we were worried. We offered him tea and coffee while we waited, it wasn’t like he was in prison.”

Clearly the Trustees are still feeling fragile after the decade of an extremist takeover and wary of anybody asking questions. I can understand that and sympathise: I have been preparing an article on changes in safeguarding in Jersey, and was met with perhaps understandable suspicion by one clergyman.

In August this year, there were new initiatives. As the Islington Tribune reports:

“Homeless, poor and vulnerable people can now get a meal, some shelter and company for a few hours each week thanks to Finsbury Park’s Meal for All project. Around 20 people have been attending the Finsbury Park Mosque on Thursday evenings for soup and bread since the scheme started earlier this month, with the numbers expected to rise during the winter months. Advice and support is also on hand from homelessness and drug charities. The mosque leadership took inspiration from nearby St Thomas’ Church, which runs a similar scheme and with which the mosque has a good relationship.”

Mohamed Said told to the Tribune: “We are part of the community. We open our mosque for everyone – we are not just a mosque but a community centre.” The centre also holds youth clubs, attended by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and regular open days.

The mosque’s office wall proudly bears an award from Islington council for services to the community.

And they are also involved in the refugee crisis:

On Friday, September 4, the mosque raised a total of £7,000 for Human Appeal, a charity whose refugee crisis emergency appeal is targeted at helping people fleeing from their homeland of Syria. Mr Kozabar said: “We have to fulfil our responsibility as human beings.”

Can we leave behind a legacy of fear? While Gavin Ashenden talks of an Islamic takeover, Britain’s past history bears testimony to other kinds of religious discrimination.

It was once feared that Roman Catholics would take over in places of power, and they, and non-conformists, were excluded from Parliament.

Jews were looked upon with suspicion, and even in the 1930s, there was an underground anti-Semitism, often among the aristocracy as well as elsewhere.

I’ve lived long enough to see the residual effect of this in the 1960s. In school, Catholics and Jews did not take part in school assemblies, and there was this mostly unspoken feeling that “they were not quite like the rest of us”. There was a notion that Catholics would blindly obey their priests, and of course in the USA, the notion that a Catholic President would do the bidding of the Pope. There was still the lie being promulgated that Jewish people could not really be proper citizens, because they didn’t owe any allegiance to England, or for that matter Jersey.

Thankfully, those days are mostly gone, but the new scapegoat, the new outsider, is the Muslim in our midst. The same kinds of fears and prejudices surface – they all want Sharia law, just as a Catholic president would have made America an offshoot of the Vatican.

Some may want Sharia law, just as some Catholics – as seen in States debates – are unhappy with Jersey’s position on abortion. Some Christians have in the recent past in the States born testimony to unhappiness with gay couples adopting, or lowering the age of consent to match that of heterosexual couples. They wanted Jersey to tow what they perceived to be the Christian line. You can read that in Hansard, where the words “sodomy” and “buggery” are there to see. But this weekend has just seen a Gay pride march. The tide is turning against one kind of prejudice. Let’s not start another.

Harvest Festival Giving for Calais Refugees

Mark Bond, Rector of St Brelade, was speaking on BBC radio Jersey yesterday evening. This is a transcript made by me of what he said - any errors are mine:

Mark Bond on Harvest Festival Giving for Calais Refugees

The Focus of Harvest Festival this year for St Brelade’s Church and St Aubin on the Hill is to donate items to help those stranded in Calais.

I felt that it was about time our churches did something about it; it is an immediate problem. This decision received overwhelming support from both churches.

Harvest is a time when we think of the plenty we have. It’s a way of saying we have to help care for the poor. In this case, to do something very immediate to us all.

At the camp, which is called “the jungle”, there are only about 4 standpipes, so little water – hence tins, pussles, vegetables, tinned soup, fish, tea, jam, UHT milk - rather than dry food. Also clean blankets, duvets and clothing.

Collection point – St Aubin on the Hill Church – Church open.

There is no time scale, but there will be a Harvest Festival at St Aubin Sunday 20th and St Brelade on 27th Bay church. Both churches will be collecting for those services, then pass on to Bram and Sophie for the Jersey Calais Refugee Aid Group be taken to be taken to Calais.

A lot of people who have suffered in Iraq and Syria have been Christian communities. Quite a lot of the migrants we see are in fact Christians. They would be executed by the ISIS state, so they’ve had to leave in a hurry.

It may not be very large. We see these massive things going on in the world, and we don’t know where to start. But if we can just feed some people, we are doing something towards helping them, whether from a faith base or a humanitarian base. It’s the least we can do for our fellow human beings.

"The Lord upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Deut 10:18-19

Twisting the Tale

Twisting the Tale

A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent
--- William Blake

There’s a very cruel You Tube video doing the round about Mr Kurdi taking his family to Europe. The front caption – not part of the interview but added -suggests that he wanted to come over, and brought his family along, because he wanted dental work, and that is why his wife and those poor children died.

It includes a genuine clip – and note the world “clip” – from an interview in which his sister mentions him needing dental work and trying to help him financially. She mentions him “getting to Europe first, and then seeing about his teeth”.

The impression it sets out to give, which I am sure is deliberate, is that he was a free-rider coming over to get some dentistry done at the expense of Europe’s welfare systems. It has been cleverly put together to give that impression.

The earliest versions of the “You tube” presentation seem to appear on Facebook groups like Britain First. They don't appear on any mainstream news story, and the obvious implication is that they are selectively using part a YouTube video with the Aunt to remove the full picture and give the man a bad motive.

The video is a falsehood, bound up with a small kernel of truth. As readers will know, I always think it is important to apply the same standards of historical research to new stories, and track down sources to their origins, especially when stories have been twisted like this one.

A longer report on an interview with Ms. Kurdi - his sister in Canada – reveals this. She said she sent her brother $5,000 three weeks ago, an amount initially intended to help with costly dental work. They later decided the money would be better spent on getting Mr. Kurdi to Europe.

This is where we get – “Europe first, then dental work”. It is a priority of alternatives, not a planned sequence to follow. And the story gives more details:

“He was supposed to go by himself only, because it’s expensive for the whole family,” Ms. Kurdi said. “The smugglers, they want $1,000, $2,000 per person.” But Mr. Kurdi later called his sister back, worried that his wife would not be able to support the family without him. “’How about if we go, all of us? ” he asked her. “If you know you can do it, go ahead and do it,’” Ms. Kurdi replied.

So he wasn't trying to get dental work, he was deciding that escape from a dangerous war zone was more important for his family than teeth, and he feared for his wife and children left behind. Rather than selfishly escaping, and sending back for them later, he was trying to get them all out together.

And what about the dental work anyway? 'According to Canadian journalist Terry Glavin, who spoke to the aunt in Vancouver, he had been kidnapped during the Islamic State siege of Kobane earlier this year and had all of his teeth pulled out. He had lost his teeth under torture. No wonder he wanted to get out with his family!

As the BBC reports:

“As Syrian Kurds, the Kurdis' chances of being granted asylum in Canada were hampered from the moment they set out for Turkey. For many years, Syria denied its Kurdish population citizenship and Kurds were regarded as stateless by the authorities. A decree in 2011 allowed some to apply for citizenship but others were ineligible and many were forced to flee before they could apply.

The Kurdis had been living in Damascus until the early stages of the Syrian conflict in late 2011. When the violence in the city escalated, they relocated back to Makharij village, 25km outside the northern town of Kobane.”

Ask yourself this: if you can been captured, had your teeth pulled by torturers (and don’t imagine they used anaesthetic) and you and your family were under threat from the same brutal regime that was on your doorstep, what would you do? Wouldn’t you seek to get them out, because the risk of staying was so much greater than that of fleeing?

It is a tragedy that the three year old boy drowned, but I think that if my family faced such a desperate future, I’d take any opportunity to escape and bring them with me. Wouldn’t you?


Postscript

I'd like to put the record straight on a few other issues.

Settled in Turkey?

One of my correspondence said: “Mr Kurdi was some 4 years ago. As pointed out before, though, they were no longer in danger, but merely wanted better and more help than given in Turkey.”

This story seems to be wholly sourced from "The Muslim Issue" as the truth! This suggest he was in "no danger" . I have read that article, and it is almost entirely false, while at the same time, suggesting the mainstream media is totally wrong. It even suggests the dead boy was “planted” on the beach.

The facts: Syrian government policy under Bashar al-Assad denies citizenship rights to Kurds. Since they have no passports, Turkish law says they are not entitled to move freely in the country under its temporary protection measures for refugees. So it is not a case of being able to settle there and be safe.

Convoy Attacked?

My correspondent also says:

“The picture of Aylan is not at all an icon for children that flee wars ; it is more a symbol for all those who - though not in danger - would like to improve their lives and who now - with the hundreds of thousands of refugees actually fleeing a war - see a great opportunity to disappear in those masses and 'slip in'. And it infuriates me, because the latter are the ones that are not happy with the little help they get offered (because they already had that at home), they want more (hence the scenes at Calais, where convoys with help get attacked and plundered).”

The facts: there are no news stories about “convoys” being attacked, but there is one about a convoy from Belgian causing disruption. 35 people turned up with vans and instead of distributing aid in an orderly fashion, seemed to have just said “come and get it”, so disruption and disorder was hardly surprising.

The source of the genuine story - the Belgian convoy -is the Guardian, which notes that no one is getting upset - distribution of donations up to now had been smooth, but it is imperative that everything is distributed in controlled conditions to maintain the dignity of the approximately 3,000 people in the camp. Arrangements are being made with warehousing to do this by those coordinating aid on the ground.

No Life jackets for Children?

There’s been an idea that the father was selfish for wearing a life jacket and not having ones for his children. This report from the New York Times deals with that issue:

"“Instead of focusing on the real issues, people blame the father for not putting a life jacket on his children,” the Turkish official said, noting that Turkish patrols have seen countless similar tragedies pass unnoticed. “Well, I’ll tell you this: Life jackets in sizes that small simply aren’t available here.” Indeed, many refugees buy plastic beach toys for flotation." (New York Times)

I’d also note that much is made of the fact that Mr Kurdi seems to be unable to remember exactly what happened, and his accounts of being in the water are fragmentary and confused. In those situations of life and death, it is hardly surprising. Look at eyewitness accounts of some incidents during the sinking of the Titanic, and there is muddle and confusion, although the broad outline is accurate.

The Politics of a Tyrant State

Islamic State militants have destroyed Palmyra's ancient temple of Baalshamin, Syrian officials and activists say. Syria's head of antiquities was quoted as saying the temple was blown up on Sunday. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that it happened one month ago.

Last week, it emerged that the 81-year-old archaeologist who had looked after Palmyra's ruins for four decades had been beheaded by the militant group. The group has also published photos of what they said was the destruction of two Islamic shrines near Palmyra, which they described as "manifestations of polytheism"

-- BBC News

The destruction of shrines by Islamic extremists is a demonstration of power, of the ability to take over the world and mould it in their own image.

But it is also a sign of fear. The very existence of anything which could contradict the strict puritanical variety of Islam is something they fear, because it shows that people at different times have believed different things.

That’s why they also go to lengths that actually pervert Islam, beheading an 81 year old. What could he do? He could speak. He could tell people about the past.

There is a sense of deja vue. If you look at the old photographs of party officials and leaders in Russia, particularly in the Stalinist era, you will see that photos are touched up to change history to the official line. History is rewritten to erase the past, just as is happening here.

That, of course, is picked up in Orwell’s 1984, where people who fall out of favour become “non-persons” and are erased. It is a world where there is only one way to think, no dissent is permitted, as Orwell notes:

“It is a stifling, stultifying world in which to live. It is a world in which every word and every thought is censored. . . . Even friendship can hardly exist when every . . . man is a cog in the wheels of despotism. Free speech is unthinkable…. You are not free to think for yourself. Your opinion on every subject of any conceivable importance is dictated for you.”

And like 1984, there needs to be someone to hate – in the case if ISIS, anyone different, including - let us not forget - other varieties of Islam.

There’s another interesting comparison, pointed out in an article entitled “Islamic State’s ‘medieval’ ideology owes a lot to revolutionary France” by Profession Kevin McDonald. He points out that the originator of the term “Islamic States”, Abul A’la Maududi, looked to the French Revolution for inspiration “which he believed offered the promise of a “state founded on a set of principles” as opposed to one based upon a nation or a people.”

“This universal citizen, separated from community, nation or history, lies at the heart of Maududi’s vision of “citizenship in Islam” (Islamic Way of Life). Just as the revolutionary French state created its citizens, with the citizen unthinkable outside the state, so too the Islamic state creates its citizens. This is at the basis of Maududi’s otherwise unintelligible argument that one can only be a Muslim in an Islamic state.”

And there are other similarities, which are just beginning to reach the outside world. Like the Terror, internal dissent is stamped out, but what counts as dissent is sifting as internal power groups vie for control. As one source revealed in June 2015:

“ISIS militants are divided into several competing groups: Some are extreme hardliners originally attracted by the harsh application of Sharia law; others are Syrian militants who now complain that they bore the brunt of the months-long fighting over the border town of Kobani and are reluctant to be used to reinforce ISIS units in neighbouring Iraq. Still others are Gulf Arabs jealous of the power held by hardcore Iraqi militants who form the inner coterie of the ISIS leadership around Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Gulf Arabs, many of whom are veterans from the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, feel excluded from overall decision-making.”

There have been quarrels and executions internally. An example is the following:

“North African recruits say they have been used as cannon fodder, especially in the battle for Kobani. Last week, four Tunisian recruits who joined ISIS months ago were executed in the neighbourhood of Rumaila in central Raqqa, say opposition activists. They were described as traitors. Two other Tunisians, possibly along with family members, were executed in the Eddekhar neighbourhood of Raqqa.”

Jamie Dettmer comments:

“The quarrels and executions trigger more cycles of revenge as commanders and groups compete and jockey for power and survival.”

Some terror groups face an internal crisis and survive . As Martin Kramer observes: “All Islamist movements have such potential conflicts. Hezbollah, for example, was a coalition of Shiites from two very different regions of Lebanon (Bekaa versus South), but it never split because Iran mediated the differences.”

But Dettmer asks: ““The question is who within ISIS is mediating differences and whether internal conflict-resolution can contain the terror army’s mix of multiple groups and nationalities.”

References

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34036644

http://theconversation.com/islamic-states-medieval-ideology-owes-a-lot-to-revolutionary-france-31206

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/06/isis-barbarians-face-their-own-internal-reign-of-terror.html