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Monthly Archives: August 2015
Enough!
This piece was inspired by my genuine outrage – which I still feel, extremely strongly – at the firing of stun grenades by police at innocent men, women and children on the Macedonian border last Saturday (22 August). Since I completed it on Tuesday 25, seventy-one people have been found dead in the back of a lorry travelling through Austria, and yesterday (Thursday 27) around 450 people drowned in the Mediterranean when the boats they … Continue reading
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Tagged borders, Calais, Chad, David Cameron, death, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Foreign Secretary, Greece, Home Secretary, Iran, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, Pakistan, Palestinian, Philip Hammond, Portugal, Prime Minister, refugees, Somalia, Spain, Sudan, Syria, The Toss of a Coin, Theresa May, Turkey, UK
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False Positives: ignoring the lessons of Calais
Early in June, I wrote a piece on this site entitled ‘Drawbridges’. In it, I compared the increasing trend of governments to respond to international crises by attempting to shut themselves off from the world around them, to the Mediaeval practice of building castles, digging moats and pulling up drawbridges. This was intended as a convenient metaphor, but as I have noted several times, the actual behaviour of nations in the last couple of months … Continue reading
Who waits?
Last week, I contrasted the false crisis at Calais – in which 5,000 people who have been living in one-person tents for six months are presented as a threat to the UK – with a manifestation of the real international refugee crisis, in which thousands of people have drowned in the Mediterranean. Over the last seven days, sadly, the game has remained the same – only the details have changed.
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Tagged Afghanistan, Aspire News, BBC Radio Essex, Calais, COBRA, David Cameron, Eritrea, French, humanitarian crisis, Iraq, Mediterranean, sniffer dogs, Somalia, Sudan, Syria
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Desperation, drowning, and debt: international crisis, and its impact on individuals
While UK attention remains focussed on the situation at Calais, events closer to the homelands of the 5,000 people trapped there continue to remind us why they were forced from their homes to begin with. Lib Dem Leader Tim Farron visited the migrants perched on the edge of the Channel last week, Green Party politicians are set to follow suit this week, Songs of Praise has filmed a sequence at the makeshift church some migrants … Continue reading
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Tagged Afghanistan, Aspire News, BBC Radio Essex, Calais, COBRA, David Cameron, Eritrea, French, humanitarian crisis, Iraq, Mediterranean, sniffer dogs, Somalia, Sudan, Syria
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Repetition, repetition, repetition: Calais, migration and governments’ refusal to change
Over the course of the last week, I have taken part in TV and radio interviews regarding the situation in Calais. As noted in my previous blog, which was written after I was interviewed by the BBC World Service and Radio 4 (28 July – you can listen here) about attempts by 2,000 people at Calais to force their way onto trains and vehicles due to travel to the UK, there is a danger of … Continue reading
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Tagged Afghanistan, Aspire News, BBC Radio Essex, Calais, COBRA, David Cameron, Eritrea, French, humanitarian crisis, Iraq, Mediterranean, sniffer dogs, Somalia, Sudan, Syria
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