Feature: Refugees Are Welcome Here, Racists Are Not
Whose Side We’re On
The Earth First! network is loosely aligned with all libertarian movements against oppression and exploitation. But we haven’t always made clear our opposition to racism and fascism. In the last couple of years, racists, politicians and the right-wing media have been trying to create a climate of racial hatred in the UK. The focus at the moment is asylum seekers; once it was Jews.
There are many brave and committed people working against racism and fascism in the UK and internationally. Occasionally they are linked to organisations that we wouldn’t normally work with, but we nonetheless encourage all EF!ers to engage in collective anti-racist activity at a local level. This could mean keeping the Nazis off the streets with AFA, holding rallies or vigils for the victims of racist violence, or offering practical support for refugees.
Despite the attempts of the muck-stirrers, the vast majority of people despise racism, but without active and determined struggle, the racists will gain greater credibility and more people will suffer.
At a very positive workshop at the Earth First! Summer Gathering, many agreed to make anti-racism and refugee support a higher priority in response to the current climate. A discussion paper has been written by one of the participants, highlighting the latent racism within the EF! network itself. This is available from us for free: a recommended read. Also beware of those few sad individuals trying to infiltrate environmental protest and form an ecofascist tendency. We know who you are.
No Borders
A noborder group emerged from the MayDay 2000 Conference in London. They are promoting critical evaluation of the border regime in the UK through information and interventions. The border regime includes intimidation and humiliation of refugees through vouchers, dispersal, detention centres, as well as control of internal and external borders. Contact: enoborder@aol.com
Public meeting (with Reclaim the Streets) in London, August 7th at the Cock Tavern, Phoenix Road, 7.30pm. To discuss de-centralised actions in London to coincide with the IMF/World Bank’s September meeting in Prague.
The European noborder network consists of European activists, anti-racists, anti-deportation-campaigns and artists. It emerged from the counter-actions to the 1998 EU summit in Tampere/Finland, where a future Common European Asylum System was discussed.
It helped organise an anti-racist border camp at Zittau, in the border-triangle between Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany in summer 98. This was visited by around 1400 people. The idea was to create a temporary zone of resistance in a contested area. Combining the tools of radical education with aesthetic and symbolic means, the physical presence of the camp constituted a social intervention in public space.
At the local market place, a monument for the illegal human trafficker was unveiled. The local barracks of the border police were occupied. Some of the hoaxes and actions led to thoughtful discussions, others to scorn and aggression. Activists were invited to visit the detention camp nearby by inhabitants. Together, they publicised the disastrous conditions with an exhibition at the market place, demanding an extension of the monthly loo-paper rations. The camp made clear that the forgotten areas at the margins of nation-states are really at the centre of social struggle.
Dover Border Camp
The European noborder network is organising four camps for this summer:
23.-30.7.00 Sicily/ltaly,
13.-19.8.00 Ustrzyki Gorme - Polish/Ukrainian/Slovakian triangle
29.7.-6.8. Cottbus, Germany, Polish border
And on the American/Mexican border
There are also plans for a border camp in Dover, possibly next Spring.
Why Dover? The white cliffs of Dover have been a symbol of the tolerant shores of Britain for generations of continental refugees. The channel can be both a border separating Britain from the Continent or a bridge towards Europe. At the moment, for many people, it seems to be more an obstacle. Dover is a highly polarised community - running a rally there would only reinforce already hardened positions. A border camp might be a way to slightly open them up. Anybody who is willing to make a public intervention in a difficult setting work is needed to make this camp happen.
Info: www.contrast.org/borders/camp;
www.noborder.eu.org
Contacts
Anti Fascist Action (AFA),
BM 1734, London, WC1N 3XX, 07000 569569,
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/senate/5602
CAGE (see contacts Page)
CARF (see above)
Dover Residents against Racism,
c/o Refugee Link, PO Box 417,
Folkestone, Kent, CT19 4GT
European noborders Network (see above)
The Europe Roma Association,
PO Box 14874,
London NW1 0WF
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns,
110 Hamstead Road,
Birmingham B20 2QS
Phone: 0121-554-6947
www.ncadc.demon.co.uk
Close Down Campsfield Campaign
www.users.ox.ac.uk/~asylum
Roma Emergency
On the 6th July, thousands of Roma people currently in the U.K were judged to have no right to claim asylum here, even though it was accepted that they are persecuted by racist gangs in their Eastern European homelands.
In making the judgement, Lord Hope of Craighead said that there was an obligation to grant refugee status only if the applicant’s own state was unable or unwilling to protect its people. To acknowledge that this was the case in Slovakia would leave the British Government open to (more) criticism, over the cases of Stephen Lawrence, Ricky Reel, etc...
Responding to the judgement, Roma people have said that the police are bastards who do not care, and if deported they “may as well put us in the gas chambers like they did in the war.” Many Roma people in Britain will be forcibly removed in the near future.
The 5 Lords who made the ruling are: Anthony John Leslie Lloyd - 68 Strand on the Green, Chiswick, W4 3PF, Tel: 020 89947790, or Ludlay, Berwick, East Sussex, BN26 6TE. Tel: 01323 870204, James Arthur David Hope - 34 India St, Edinburgh, EH3 6HB, Tel: 0131 225 8245 (he’s the Chancellor of Strathclyde University), Nicholas Browne-Wilkinson, James John Clyde, and James Stewart Hobhouse. Write to them and let them know what you think!
Caravan Tour
A Caravan Tour for asylum rights is planned for September. It aims to travel through the UK for a month to express support for the rights of asylum-seekers and migrants and the victims of racist attacks, provide practical support and solidarity for asylum-seekers and black communities, unite the struggles for asylum and migration rights and justice.
This idea was sparked by the success of a similar project in Germany, which travelled through over 40 cities to highlight and protest against the conditions of migrants and asylum-seekers.
The plan so far is to travel through various cities for 5 weeks, starting from mid-September, and link up with events that have already been planned, like the Barbed Wire Conference in Oxford (15-17 September) and the demonstration for asylum rights in Newcastle on September 30. The Caravan will also meet with local groups and hold demonstrations outside detention centres, or visit people in hostels (for example in Dover).
CARF has offered to function as the organising committee, but everything depends on the input of organisations and individuals.
Everyone with ideas and/or contacts can get in touch with Campaign Against Racism & Fascism, BM Box 8784, London WC1N 3XX, tel: 020 7837 1450 Web: http://www.carf.demon.co.uk or come along to meetings every Wednesday, 7.30pm, @ the Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street (off King's Cross Road, London).