The mass media reports these stories as if they were separate
incidents. There is no conversation about where such desperate
migration is leading. Nor do we talk about the root causes, other
than the wars and displacement. But what we are seeing is the wave
of our future. Even as wars drive people from their lands, so does
drought. It will not take too many more years of climate change
before Southern Californians and Texans are crowding North. There
will be battles over water that could very easily divide this nation.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/29/15, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2015/7931/793105.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 31 September 7, 2015
(front page)
Immigrants pour into Europe,
driven by wars, social crisis
BY JONATHAN SILBERMAN
CALAIS, France — More than 4,000 mostly young immigrants are now
encamped in what they call the “New Jungle” on the outskirts of the port
here. They are fleeing war, economic crisis and the social effects of
imperialist exploitation in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Thousands
have attempted to use the Calais-to-Folkestone “chunnel” to seek refuge
in the United Kingdom, many hundreds successfully.
“We met in Sudan,” David and Kebron, students originally from Ethiopia,
told members of the Communist League from the U.K. who visited the camp
here Aug. 8 and joined in an “Open the Borders” protest.
Three British dailies — the Times, Express and Telegraph — reported the
CL’s participation.
The two youth detailed their long journey — including a 12-day
high-speed, nonstop car ride across the Sahara Desert from Sudan into
Libya. Like many camp residents, all of whom are deemed “illegal” by the
French and British governments, they declined to give their last names.
Both David and Kebron were arrested in Libya. Kebron was taken from the
women’s prison to the home of a prison guard and forced to work without
pay as a domestic servant. Both escaped from captivity, reuniting to
cross the Mediterranean.
Nearly 250,000 people have made the sea crossing to Italy or Greece this
year, and more than 2,000 have died trying.
‘Here we are brothers and sisters’
David and Kebron succeeded and made it to Calais. While Ethiopian and
Eritrean working people are pitted against each other by the
divide-and-rule politics of capitalist politicians in the Horn of
Africa, in the New Jungle “we are brothers and sisters,” camp residents
told us over and over.
The New Jungle also houses immigrants from the Middle East and Asia.
Originally from Pakistan, Zee told us how he and others trek to Calais,
crossing Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Italy.
The makeshift camp is taking on aspects of permanence. There are two
schools, two mosques, a church, three “restaurants” and a few food
stores. Some days there’s a generator for charging mobile phones.
The French government has established a center at the edge of the camp,
providing a meal a day during the week and some limited housing for
women and children.
“The government wanted to stop camps springing up around the city,” said
François Guenoc, one of some 200 volunteers who bring food and
assistance to New Jungle residents.
“We’d like to go to the U.K. because we speak English,” David told us.
“But new measures taken by the British government and saturation
policing by the French government has made it more difficult.”
While cops have recently backed off from directly intervening in the New
Jungle itself, they move in against people attempting the crossing with
batons, tear gas and pepper spray. Cops have also entered houses of
Calais residents they accuse of illegally giving food and shelter to
undocumented immigrants.
Wave of migration to Europe
The vast majority of the new arrivals in Europe head for Germany or
Sweden, travelling up through Greece and Hungary. The German government
estimates that some 800,000 will arrive this year.
En route immigrants face riot police in Greece, cops and soldiers in
Macedonia, increased border controls in Hungary and the U.K. and
intensified anti-immigrant propaganda by the propertied rulers.
The drive by some European Union member governments to shore up their
borders and political disagreement among them on how to respond to the
wave of immigration is accelerating the erosion of the “ever closer
union” enshrined in the EU’s founding treaty.
Rightist organizations have held anti-immigrant protests in Germany,
where there have also been dozens of reported arson attacks.
Anti-immigrant actions in France and Britain have drawn few participants.
At the same time, many working people across Europe have expressed
solidarity. In response to the Hungarian government’s decision to build
an anti-immigrant fence along its southern border with Serbia, 100
volunteers in Szeged, the country’s third largest city, have formed
“Migrant Solidarity.” The group provides food, health care and help with
asylum applications for those who want to stay.
The U.K. government continues to ramp up its anti-immigrant stance.
“Europe can’t protect itself, preserve its standard of living and social
infrastructure if it has to absorb millions of migrants from Africa,”
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told the BBC Aug. 9.
The opposition Labour Party has also pushed for restrictions on
immigration.
The government has announced plans to jail landlords renting
accommodation to undocumented workers, and step up raids against
immigrants who work illegally and bosses who knowingly employ them.
There have been actions in the U.K. in defense of immigrants. The
Movement for Justice mobilized 400 people outside the Yarlswood
immigration detention center in Bedfordshire Aug. 8 to demand its
closure, the second such action in three months.
Some 200 people, including 20 rabbis, signed a letter from the Jewish
Council for Racial Equality condemning the government’s approach. “Our
experience as refugees is not so distant that we’ve forgotten what it’s
like to be demonised for seeking safety,” they write, referring to the
plight of Jews fleeing Nazi terror following Hitler’s rise to power in
1933.
The immigration question is a hot topic of discussion in workplaces up
and down the country. Many echo the government’s stance. Others disagree.
“Immigration nowadays is forced immigration,” said Teame Berhe, a worker
at the McVitie’s cookie factory in London originally from Eritrea. “And
the main contributors to the problem are countries like Britain and the
U.S. that directly or indirectly interfere or create political upheaval.
These countries have to take responsibility for refugees rather than
preventing them from coming.”
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