The Refugee Council in Ipswich have just finished a week of events, aimed at highlighting the problems of refugees.
The Ipswich Labour Party invited a speaker to come to our management meeting and she gave a good talk, highlighting how few refugees we actually take in this country and how the right wing press just bundle them in together with legal migrants, illegal migrants, foreign students and legal immigrants.
What I found very informative was a small pamphlet they produced which had stories and poems from refugees who have settled in Ipswich, it did really get over the fear that led many of them to escape their own county and the problems many have experianced since arriving in this country.
I attach a poem from a refugee from Afghanistan:
Life in Afghanistan
The Talibans scared us
They wanted full power.
Women were harmed
and could not work.
No school for girls
were totally covered
when we went out.
Men were in prison
and men were whipped.
No football for boy
no parties, no fun
no music allowed.
Electricity gone
TV's smashed
blood was wasted
corpses eaten by dogs who then went mad.
Hard times.
There are some lighter moments in the pamphlet, including a piece by a refugee who is amazed that we do not all wear 3 piece suits and carry umbrellas, he also seems to have summed up the attitude to football of the people of Ipswich.
"Football is an example of equal opportunity in Ipswich. everybody supports their team. a defeat to Norwich can be very disheartening, but a defeat to Southend or Colchester is like rubbing salt in the wound!"
We all have to get the true facts about refugees over to the people of Ipswich (and the rest of the UK).
I understand many peoples fears about immigration and refugees but at present many peoples views are clouded by the fact that the national press have a very one side view of the problem.
1 comment:
There must always be a scapegoat and the easiest one to whip up hysteria fuelled by the biased capitalist press seems to be immigration. Never mind about The imperialist world order.Some of these people have been through some tough hard and unimaginable times. If people bothered to listen to their stories they would be fascinated and see them in a different way.
Soon the immigrants won't have to come here for work. In many countries such as Romania there is an industrialised skilled work force. It won't be long until the work goes to them rather than they go to it here.
Our work force is getting left behind and needs genuine apprenticeships reinstated.
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