The Rt Hon David Cameron MPPrime Minister10 Downing StreetLondonSW1A 2AA

Your Excellency,

The Flaw In The British Governments Approach To The European Refugee Crisis:Migrants Are Not Ants & Refugees Are Not Bees

Please find attached my thoughts on the British Governments approach to the currentEuropean refugee crisis. I would be grateful if you could give consideration to some of theissues raised.

If you need further clarification, please let me know.

Your obedient servant

Ahmed Sulesuleaos@gmail.comAugust 2015

Cc

Rt Hon Theresa MayRt Hon Philip HammondMembers of House of ParliamentUN Refugee AgencyConservative Party

The Flaw In The British Governments Approach To The European Refugee Crisis:Migrants Are Not Ants & Refugees Are Not Bees

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the world witnessed a refugee crisis, whichinvolved millions of people throughout Europe fleeing their home countries due to fear andpersecution. The spread of communism also triggered another wave of exodus. Britain and afew other nations played a crucial role in resettling millions of refugees into different parts ofEurope. Seventy years later, the world is witnessing another refugee crisis. Hundreds ofthousand of refugees from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and Eritrea are fleeingwar and persecution for the safe terrain of Europe via the Mediterranean Sea and theBalkans. However, unlike 70 years ago, the British Government has turned its back on therefugees.

The genesis of the governments apathy towards the current refugee crisis can be traced tothe Great Recession. As a result of the financialisation of the British economy, Britain was oneof the countries hardest hit by the Great recession as unemployment skyrocketed, taxrevenues fell and millions of people lost their houses. In response to the crisis, the BritishGovernment embarked on one of the toughest austerity programme in recent memory. Thepoorest segment of British society bore the brunt of the austerity programme. With thefinancial crisis biting deeper and resources becoming scarcer, the tide began to turn againstnot only the poor, but also against foreigners in the land. An anti immigrant sentiment wasbirthed. The government, right wing parties, the media and the general public became hostileto immigrants especially those from poorer countries, who were blamed for ever woe thatbefell Britain.

With the escalation of the European refugee crisis, the government has now turned its gazefrom welfare recipients and immigrants to refugees and prospective asylum seekers. As theBritish media continues to beam images of refugees clinging to dinghies to our TV screens,the public fears that Britain would soon be overpopulated with refugees. In response, therhetorics against the refugees has become hotter, harder and harsher. Politicians nowengage in a race to the bottom to use words that even outstrip Katie Hopkins vitriolicdescription of refugees as cockroaches. Some politicians have compared refugees to swarmsof bees and marauders. Philip Hammond, the foreign Secretary said, Europe cant protectitself, preserve its standard of living and social infrastructure if it has to absorb millions ofmigrants from Africa.

In articulating its policy towards the crisis, The British government has developed a syllogismalong the following lines:

Premise 1: Britain is a great rich country.Premise 2: Africa, Asia and the Middle East are poor regions.Premise 3 Migrants from these poor regions are fleeing their countries so that they canscrounge on Britains generous welfare system.

Conclusion: We have to make live difficult for migrants so that Britain can maintain its highstandard of living.

In the next couple of paragraphs, I will detail why the governments approach to the currentEuropean refugee crisis is flawed.

The government has resulted to exaggerating the scale of the influx of refugees into Britain.Of the estimated 340,000 refugees that have come to Europe, only 5,000 of them are atCalais. Most of the hundreds of thousand of refugees are not seeking asylum in Britain. In2014, while 25,870 sought asylum in Britain, the number of asylum seekers in Germany andFrance was 97,275 and 68,500 respectively. Furthermore, of the 4 million refugees that havefled Syria, only 187 have resettled in the United Kingdom

Another flaw is the governments failure to make the distinction between economic immigrantsand refugees. The prevailing narrative is that most of the people coming to the shores ofEurope via the Mediterranean are economic migrants who are fleeing their countries due topoverty and want to enjoy the welfare benefits, which Britain provides. In reality, these peoplecoming are refugees fleeing war and persecution in their home countries. According to the UN1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is an individual who is outsidehis or her country of nationality or habitual residence who is unable or unwilling to return dueto a well-founded fear of persecution based on his or her race, religion, nationality, politicalopinion, or membership in a particular social group. Perhaps, the government should askitself whether it truly believes that someone would embark on an 11,000km journey, riskdrowning in the sea in order to come to Britain to receive a 36.95 weekly allowance.

Philip Hammonds suggestion that refugees coming to Africa constitute a threat to Europesstandard of living is baseless on two grounds. First, most of the refugees are not from Africabut from Afghanistan and Syria. Second, Hammonds statement is insulting and serves aprivilege narrative that nothing good can come out of Africa. It ignores Africas contribution toEuropean civilisation. His comments ignore the fact that Europes development was built onthe bent and broken backs of the black and brown people of Africa as countries like Britainplundered Africa via slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism.

The British government also seems to have forgotten that it played a key role in creatingsome of the conditions that caused the mass exodus towards Europe. Britain and Francewere principal actors in the ousting of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya. Ever since the removal ofGaddafi, Libya has become a failed state and people smugglers have exploited the chaos andporous borders to transport people to Europe via the Mediterranean. The invasion of Iraq andAfghanistan by British and American forces in addition to Britains role in the Syrian civil war(through the supply of weapons to rebels which eventually ended up in ISIS hands) hasresulted in the destabilisation of these countries, which has led to a mass migration towardsEurope. The governments narrative about the crisis conveniently ignores the fact that it is the poorercountries of the Southern and Eastern hemisphere and not the rich countries of the West thatmainly shelter refugees. Many of these countries absorbing refugees are developingcountries, which lack the capacity to accommodate them. For instance, 95% of the 4 millionrefugees that have fled Syria are in five countries namely Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq andEgypt. Kenya Yemen and Ethiopia account for nearly a million Somali refugees while 2.4million refugees currently live in Iran and Pakistan. In todays globalised world we tend tofocus on trade and economic integration; cant we also incorporate compassionateintegration? Those with the broadest shoulders should assist in lifting part of the burden borneby the poorer parts of the world hosting the refugees. Contrary to Hammonds claim, Europescivilisation will not end if it absorbs a couple of hundreds of thousands of refugees; infact it willhelp mitigate the effects of Europes ageing crisis. Moreover, many of them are likely to returnto their home once the conditions that made them leave are over.

By its demonisation of refugees, the government is making an implicit assumption thatrefugees have nothing positive to contribute to Britain. A search through the history booksreveals the positive contributions made by refugees to Britain. I need not remind thegovernment that people like Michael Marks, Sigmund Freud, Victor Hugo and Wole Soyinkato name a few were once refugees in Britain.

The governments approach to the crisis is not only logically flawed, it is also morally flawed.The attitude of the British public, the British media and the British politicians towards refugeesfleeing rape, war, forced conscription and forced marriage is a moral scar on the soul ofBritain. Refugees are one of the most marginalised and vulnerable people on earth. Theyhave lost everything and are not only homeless, but also stateless. It is for this reason thatpeople ought to treat them with compassion. Instead, Britain has stripped the Mediterraneanrefugees of every layer of their humanity. One segment of the British populace acts ascheerleaders, as government officials and the media dehumanise the refugees, while theother segment dozes off having been anaesthetised by the soothing effect of reality TV andcelebrity culture. With the constant dehumanisation of refugees, should it be any surprise that

following the drowning of 700 refugees in the Mediterranean in April 2015, the British printmedia chose as its front page headline The Greed of NHS Fat Cats and How To Get ASummer Bikini Body In Five Weeks. Cardinal Mahony got it right when he said, Any society,any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest membersthe last, the least, the littlest. Britain might pride herself as being a developed country economically, a civilisedcountry diplomatically and a first world country militarily; but as far as her treatment ofrefugees is concerned, Britain is seen by the outside world as an undeveloped and uncivilisedthird world country.

There is a vicious cycle whereby the British media demonises refugees which triggers thepublics hatred of refugees, which in turn leads to politicians harsh rhetorics against refugees,which results in more negative reportage by the media. Has the political class sold its soul fora pottage of votes at the expense of refugees? To paraphrase Martin Luther King, the Britishpolitical elite seems to determine what is right or wrong by taking a YouGov poll of themajority opinion and therefore has become searchers for consensus rather than moulders ofconsensus. It might be politically convenient at the moment for politicians to call refugeesfleeing war, marauders and plunderers, but in reality, who are the real marauders andplunderers of British society? Shouldnt it be the Masters of the Universe that fix Libor?Shouldnt it be the multinationals that warehouse its profits in various special purposevehicles? Shouldnt it be the MPs who fix their expense claims to make a quick buck?

I would like to say something about Britains immigration detention centres. Britain has one ofthe largest immigration centres in Europe. According to the Home Office, in 2013 around30,000 people were detained in Britain while their immigration statuses were being resolved.60% of those detained were asylum seekers. These migrants and refugees are kept indetention centres, which are actually de facto prisons. Some of the detainees includechildren, pregnant women, people with mental health issues and rape victims. A cross partygroup of MPs called for an end to the indefinite detention of migrants and refugees anddescribed the detention system as expensive, ineffective and unjust. There have beenreports of sexual harassment, racial abuse, suicide attempts and detainees being handcuffedbefore seeing a doctor. The criminalisation of refugees by the British government is immoraland unjust. It is time for the British government to heed to the calls of civil society andoverhaul this Gestapo-like immigration detention centres and implement a more humanesystem.

The current refugee crisis shows no sign of ending. It is a global problem and thereforerequires a global solution. The British Government cannot and should not work in isolation.Sending sniffer dogs, blowing up smugglers boats, repatriating refugees and building highwalls are only short-term solutions to a long-term problem. What is the way forward?

First, there needs to be a revolution in thinking by the British government, the British mediaand the British publicMIGRANTS ARE NOT ANTS AND REFUGEES ARE NOT BEES;they are human beings. Once the humanity of refugees has been recognised, the harshrhetorics should stop. Second, the British government should be willing to help by emulatingits European counterparts by accommodating some of the refugees. Third, the governmentshould be more proactive in providing financial and logistical support for organisationsresponsible for rescuing refugees from drowning in the sea. If the government can spend 1trillion bailing out financial institutions that were sinking in 2008, why cant it spend a couple ofpounds to bailout refugees sinking in 2015?

Fourth, it is time for the government to address the issue of global inequality. For too long,politicians in the West have been paying lip service to global and national inequality. Thiscrisis has shown that the West can no longer afford to ignore the suffering of those far away.As Martin Luther King eloquently put it, we are all, Caught in an inescapable network ofmutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects allindirectlythis is the inter-related structure of reality. The ever-expanding gap between therich and poor countries of the world needs to be narrowed. Factors that promote theseinequalities such as climate change, tax policies, wage disparity, agricultural subsidies, themilitary industrial complex and globalisation need to be fixed at the international level.

In conclusion, the refugee crisis is a humanitarian problem, which requires a human touch.Focusing on the economics or the politics of the crisis while ignoring the morality of the crisisis not the answer. The British political elite should snap out of its empathy deficit and start toview the crisis from the point of view of the refugees. It is easy for one to take a hardlineapproach towards the refugees especially when accessing the problem from the comfortableconfines of Westminster. But when one steps out of Westminster and then takes a trip toSomalia, dodges several bullets and bombs, boards a tightly-packed boat tossed on thechoppy waters, watches fellow passengers die of dehydration as others are thrownoverboard, and eventually arrives on the shores of Italy then one would appreciate thatmigrants are not ants and refugees are not bees.

Selah.

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFAsuleaos@gmail.comAugust 2015

Cc

Rt Hon David CameronRt Hon Theresa MayRt Hon Philip HammondMembers of House of ParliamentUN Refugee AgencyConservative Party

PS: Below are some of the agencies providing support for refugees impacted by the crisis. Feel free to support them.

Refugee Council: http://www.refugeecouncil.org.ukRefugee Action: http://www.refugee-action.org.ukBritish Red Cross Refugee Support: http://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/Refugee-supportMdecins du Monde : http://www.medecinsdumonde.orgUNHCR Syrian appeal:http://donate.unhcr.org/gbr/lifeline?gclid=CJmF5cynxMcCFUFmGwod8Y8NLw&gclsrc=aw.ds Justice First : http://justicefirst.org.uk/the-problems/Mdecins Sans Frontires : http://www.msf.org.uk/about-msfKent Refugee Action Network: http://kran.org.ukBail for Immigration Detainees: http://www.biduk.org