There are so many voices engaging in the arguments
that have erupted around the refugee crisis, that it is probable that mine will
just be another lost in the cacophony, but nonetheless I’d like to share my
personal experience of the refugee situation, particularly for those back home
who may feel that it is far away and intangible, when for me, the crisis struck
‘home’ thanks to a simple wrong turn on a highway a few months ago.
I started this blog in 2010, to reflect on
and share my personal experiences of living abroad, never expecting, initially,
that I’d come to move here permanently. But as life and love have come to pass,
England has become my newest home, and I’ve found my forever home in my
husband. Settling in the UK has meant settling in one extension of Europe,
joining a community of the world with wonderfully - often problematic – generous
and open borders. Those borders have fuelled and fed my husband’s wanderlust
for his whole life, and when we first became friends, we both learned very quickly
that we’d found someone we could share our mutual love of adventuring with. In
the years since, in spite of my visa nightmare, we have made the most of living
in Europe, travelling as often as we can whenever we can, whether it’s up to
Scotland, or down to the South of France. Our pantry is in a constant state of
overflow with as many pastas from Italy, sirops and teas and wines from France,
and sweets from Germany as we can manage/afford to collect and bring home from
our journeys. But more than any other destination, France is where Andrew and I
both love going the most. It has become more than our holiday destination of
choice. It’s where we go to regroup, to take a breath after weeks of intense
work, to remember what it feels like to fall in love all over again, every
time. It’s where we hope to live one day, it is where we dream of having a
house, converting a barn into our own early music hall, and raising a family.
And now it’s also where I first came to experience the refugee crisis first
hand.
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| A perfect start to our day - French pastry |
On the eve of my 27th birthday
last February, we were having a relaxing night, snuggled up with the cats,
enjoying the first or second night of school vacation, and Andrew asked me what
I wanted to do for my birthday. The answer was obvious, wasn’t it? I wanted to
go to France. <insert pout> We had spent another birthday in a beautiful
gite in Normandie, before the visa crisis, and we’d been hoping to be able to
go back, but for various reasons – we both had a couple of gigs if I remember
right – couldn’t manage the trip this time around. I didn’t mind having a quiet
birthday at home, though. I knew we couldn’t fit in a long holiday with the
various concerts that we were committed to this time. But, on a whim of sorts,
Andrew decided to do a quick google search, and found that the Channel Tunnel
was running a 48 hour flash discount offer for the days around and including my
birthday - £10 per car for anyone travelling to France and back again in a day.
He told me, we both giggled a bit, and then we got serious, and asked each
other, ‘omg…are we really gonna do this?!?!’ And we did. We pre-booked our
tickets, power napped for the two or so hours we had left, grabbed our
passports, hopped in the car, and drove 5 hours to the south of the country to
catch our train crossing through the Chunnel. The whole thing was absurd, and
wonderful. When we got to the Chunnel, we both passed out for the whole 30
minute crossing. For the first time ever, a guard had to tap on the window of
the car to wake us up on the other side. It was about 10.00 in the morning when
we made it to France, and we drove to a parking lot, found a spot in the sun, put
our chairs back, and fell asleep for a couple more hours. It was the best
birthday sleep in of my life. When I woke up I was uncomfortably warm, the
Calais sun beating down through the windshield onto my face. It was bliss. We grocery
shopped in a super Auchan for hours, we ate perfect French food, we stocked up
on our favorite cheeses and wines, etc…wove our way through villages around Dunkerque
and Calais, managed to find a woodfired pizza van (always a must!), and
finally, slowly made our way back to the port again for our 11pm crossing back
to England.
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| Our wood-fired pizza |
Or maybe made a wrong turn. We’re still not
entirely sure what happened, or how we went wrong. Andrew’s French is very
good, much better than mine, and he’s a really great driver, even on the right
side of the road. But for whatever reason, we both missed the signs, and
somehow ended up in the freight line of traffic. Just us in our little car, stuck
amongst hundreds of giant 18 wheeler trucks (the English call them lorries) en
route to make their trans-European deliveries from all over the world. We just
wanted to get home; there was still a five-or-so-hour drive back up north
waiting for us on the other side. As soon as we came off the exit ramp, Andrew
realized our mistake. On any day before this day, you could’ve asked me what
I’d feel if we ever went wrong and ended up somewhere unfamiliar, and I’d have
said it would be no big deal, and that we would just have to sit it out until
we could turn around and get back to the road and queue where we were meant to
be, along with the general public. But after about 30 seconds of sitting in the
long line of traffic with those trucks, my understanding of the gravity of the
situation in Syria came crashing into being.
Andrew said “I think we should lock the doors” and I quickly
complied, as I started realizing there were people surrounding our car. I feel
ashamed to admit, actually, that my heart started racing when I first saw the
refugees. At first I only noticed a few men, but as time went on, that number
grew, and there were several, and then many, and then ultimately there were
hundreds. We talked through our options and there was just nothing we could do
to get out of this situation. We were hopelessly stuck in the middle of a line
of traffic that we were never meant to be in, where French police officers, it
turned out, had been battling with desperate refugees for months. The refugees were
tapping on windows, climbing onto lorries around us, looking into our car,
trying to force their way into the backs of lorries, all darting to and fro,
and dodging police in daring and obviously urgent, though ultimately
unsuccessful attempts to stow away and make it across to the UK, where they
hoped to claim asylum and reach a benefit and health system that they believe
could save their (families’) lives. At one point we could see a clear way out,
and tried to back the car up the ramp, seeing the hope in reversing all the way
back down the road we’d driven, in order to get away from the scene. This was
before we were blocked in by more lorries as they arrived in turn. But police
just as quickly shook their heads at us, as if to warn, ‘Don’t you dare do it.
As soon as you do anything out of the ordinary here, all hell will break
loose.’ So we stayed where we were, and watched as the armed police stood in
solidarity with one another, in well formed groups of threes, fours, and fives,
tall cans of pepper spray at the ready. This, in stark contrast with the
refugees, who were dashing from one side of a hill to another, between trucks,
across roads, always hunched and trickling or sprinting from one point to the
next to evade the police who were there – thank God – to keep the peace,
support, and ease the minds of the drivers, I suppose. I sat there in
disbelief. Just minutes before, we’d been sitting eating our beautiful pizza,
savouring every last bit of drippy egg on the top, not very far up the road
from this place. On the other side of a hedge we could make out the rest area
for ordinary passengers like us in the distance, where those people who had already
passed through security were sitting blissfully unaware of what was going on
just out of sight. I’d heard brief mention of the situation in Calais on the
news in the weeks before this. There had been a few articles dotted about on
the BBC that mentioned that they were struggling to contain the refugees in
Calais, and that the French had been asking the UK for help to manage the
situation, but other than that, there was not a lot of information yet. It
wasn’t like it is now.
In the months since, the media has covered
the situation at length, their tone constantly shifting, portraying the
governments and countries and refugees themselves in various lights. At first,
the UK was not doing enough to support the French, then the UK was saying it
was France’s problem – not ours – and then the UK was doing everything it could
to support our French neighbours….our French brothers….from these ‘criminals’
who were trying to take advantage of our benefit system…and then the real
picture started to emerge, as real pictures started to emerge, of innocent
children lying face down dead on beaches, and the free world rallying to rescue
lives as refugees began not only to flee, but to flood, and, it seems,
overwhelm our countries in their desperation to escape slaughter. And this week
the picture is changing yet again. In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris,
the language is shifting again. On Friday the 13th, our stomachs
turned, we felt sick, and admittedly sat terrified and terribly sad, watching
the horror unfold in one of our world’s most remarkable cities, just hours away
on the train. Americans posted statements of support, people around the world
tweeted and updated their facebook profile pictures in solidarity with the
French, until, of course, the announcement came that amongst the suspected
terrorists were those who had perhaps snuck in amongst refugees. Then I watched
as the messages of love and compassion and support just as quickly turned to
arguments about the risks of allowing refugees in. And my stomach turned again.
Perhaps the main reason I wanted to share
my birthday experience on here is that ever since that night in February, I’ve only
ever wished I could do something to help these people. And unlike a lot of
those whom I see posting about something they have not necessarily seen or
experienced firsthand, I have sat there amongst, and completely at the will of hundreds
of refugees, admittedly because I could do nothing but sit and wait in a
traffic jam. But I had the chance to look in their eyes, and what I saw that
night has colored my perception and understanding of this crisis forever afterward.
When I was a kid, I was told never to look a strange animal in the eye, that if
it was bad or dangerous or sick, it could perceive my gaze as a threat and
might attack or become more defensive and aggressive. I do not mean to liken
the refugees to animals in any way, but these people were strangers to me, and if
I’d let them, they could have looked very scary, and for awhile I didn’t feel
like I could look at their faces. Many were in hooded sweatshirts, their
clothes were not clean, they did not all look fit and well, some wore full
facemasks to protect them from the cold. It made me question whether it was
safe to look them in the eye, whether I should avert my gaze. But once I had taken
a few minutes to settle down and accept that we weren’t going anywhere, I was
able to look up, and see more clearly; my eyes met those of several of these
men and boys as they passed by my window, or looked in long enough to see we couldn’t
be their means of escaping the Jungle, and every time I only found honesty
looking back at me, sometimes with a nod. And eventually, as I came to watch
and understand, and recognize their cause a bit more, I stopped feeling so afraid.
I just wished I could do something to help.
I confessed earlier that my heart raced at
first when I saw the refugees coming in the direction of our car; I did feel
afraid. But mine was a fear of what I didn’t understand, what I didn’t have
control over. Who were these people? Why were they trying to climb onto
lorries? Would they try to get into our car? Could they hurt us? What were they
going to do? I held Andrew’s hand tightly. I could not guess what their actions
would be, and that was uncomfortable.
When our societies and countries are faced
with something uncertain, our hearts will race, like mine did. We’ll be nervous,
we’ll be unsure, we won’t know what the right thing to do is, because we will
be scared of what could happen if things go wrong. It is uncomfortable. But I
urge you all to consider looking into the eyes of just a single one of these
victims - because that is what history will show these refugees to be – and I
would imagine that, like me, what you will find looking back is a reflection of
yourself. The reality is that the majority of these refugees will prove/have
proven already to be innocent people, just like us. But, unlike us, they have
had to flee their homes in desperation because of unimaginable violence and
terror. They are survivors with nowhere to go; but how can we even say or celebrate
that they have survived without giving them hope for a new life? I saw someone
post on facebook recently, something like, ‘Why do we need to risk our national
security? I don’t get it! Why can’t we all just send them food and blankets to
keep them warm? That’s seriously more than enough.’ It took everything in my
power not to comment, to scroll on by in hope of finding a cheerier post about
another friend’s newborn baby. A blanket and food are something, but no, they
are not enough. You should all feel how cold it is tonight. I can not imagine
what tonight is like for so many of these people. The reality is that there are
not enough blankets in the world to keep them warm on a night like tonight,
when – if they’re lucky – they are only sleeping in tents. Now is the time for
compassion, when these people, at their most vulnerable, are in need of
support. Otherwise, whose side do you think this generation of refugee children
will take as they grow up, if we are the ones who turned them away, or sent them
back, or left them to ‘live’ in appalling conditions when they reached out to
us in their greatest hour of need? We can only lead by example. Back when the world
was coming ‘round, and that haunting picture of the dead three-year-old Syrian
boy, Aylan Kurdi, was all over the news, discussion of the refugee crisis
reached Yorkshire. After months of reading and feeling at odds with news
stories in which the refugees at Calais were regarded primarily as a nuisance,
particularly over the summer months as their frequent attempts to jump onto
trains made travel difficult at best for those English and French holidaymakers
trying to cross the Channel, the tone finally changed. I will never forget
reading the headline that York Minster had announced it would accept and house
refugees, that people throughout the UK were being urged to consider opening
their homes if they had spare bedrooms to offer. Other cathedrals made similar
announcement soon after. There were inspiring interviews with families who were
answering the call. There was hope…
When the news broke over the weekend that a
passport was found beside what was left of the body of one of the suicide
bombers, linking them to a refugee crossing through Greece, Americans – many
acquaintances of mine, even – immediately cried out via social media for the
closure of our borders, the protection of our people from these foreign enemies.
And there went the tone again. Now many US governors are making distasteful and
misinformed statements about the security threat ‘these people’ pose. But what
they are forgetting is that this time we know much more, and there are many of
us who are not so ready to forget those images of Aylan and his brother Galip
on that Turkish beach. So there is discord. The French, meanwhile, still
reeling from Friday’s attacks, called for an increase in the number of refugees
they will accept, albeit only via the tightening of security and resettlement
measures, which are obviously proving too weak and inconsistent at present.
Our world must accept that we are as
enlightened as we are desensitized by violence. Yes, I agree, videos of
devastation, of victims being dragged through the streets, and pregnant women
dangling from windowsills and crying for help must horrify us, but I also believe
that they should not terrify us so much that we are thrown off course, to the
point that we then make the cruel decision not to save legitimate refugees who
are fleeing from their own horrors of a similar nature. Instead, we need to do
all that we can to put a secure and rigorous system of checks, and follow up
support, and assimilation assistance in place to help those whom we are able to
welcome in, and be sure that we are giving as many as we can, anything we can,
no matter how little, to help them live again. It is up to all of us to make
sure that this evil will not win. I know all this because we saw them, looked in their eyes, and saw they needed help.
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| The last pic I took on the road before we took the wrong turn before the Channel Tunnel |
