Rowenna
Davis, a 17-year old Hampstead School student in London, writes about
her experiences growing up in a multicultural environment and her efforts to
fight the UK government's asylum policy. Asylum Seekers | 01-02-03
Asylum
Seekers
How
Detention will last more than just after school
Rowenna
Davis, a 17-year old Hampstead School student in London, writes about
her experiences growing up in a multicultural environment and her efforts to
fight the UK government's asylum policy.
|
North London. The centre of multiculturalism in one of the most multiethnic cities in the world. In a diverse inner city comprehensive, it's 11am. Break time. We pour down the steps and through the double doors into a bubbling room full of students. Some people might say the room is swamped but to me it's only swamped with talking, shouting, energy and laughter. After all, we speak 55 languages in my school and there's a lot to say.
It's the thing I value most about Hampstead School. Conversations everywhere with everyone - people circulate with cheese on toast in one hand and a can of Coke in the other. We sit on comfy chairs and chat to whoever's in hearing distance black, white, Asian, male, female, big, small, round, square. From the outside we might look like a politically correct advert for junk food, but on the inside we feel like what we are: a rowdy bunch of teenage friends hanging out and growing up in the common room.
Flinging my bag over the nearest obstacle, I jump and sit cross-legged on the chair next to Bez. He's a friend of mine. He's a Kosovan refugee. He's a drain on resources. He's a human being. Bez is always late for break because he runs a basketball club for the year 7's on Monday and a chess club for year 12's on Thursday in between helping out in the library. We're writing a play together about his experiences in Eastern Europe I've learnt more from him than he has ever learnt from me and he's given back more to the school than any contribution it ever gave him. But the government, despite it's rhetoric, knows that asylum seekers bring benefits as well as challenges. As the Home Office website states, 'In 1999-2000, migrants contributed £2.5 billion more in taxes than they consumed in benefits.'
 'No Borders' demo in Strasbourg, France 2002. Photo: Vanessa Baird |
Bez asks me what lesson I've just had, 'Self and Society' I groan, rolling my eyes. 'Racial tolerance, as if I don't tolerate you enough!' Together, we laugh and move on to next lesson.
Apparently, according to the worksheet in 'S and S', we're living in a globalising world, a world in which national barriers and racism are breaking down. People have got more communication options: airports, railways, internet, e-mail. People are realising that while it's important to have a national identity, we have to remember that the bonds that make us African, Asian, American, Iranian are strong, they are not as strong as the bonds that unite us as a species, as the human race.
As a product of this country's education system, I feel it is only right to defend the interest of minorities in the face of government legislation and one-sided media coverage. It is what I have been taught to do. I defend it now as I defended it in the House of Lords and the House of Commons last year. The Asylum Seeker Bill passed by the government authorised the use of segregated education and the removal of asylum seekers out of schools such as mine, holding them in 'detention centres' (otherwise known as 'prisons'. Don't believe me? Talk to the people who've been inside - I have.) Inside these centres students of different ages, abilities and needs will be taught an unspecified curriculum without qualifications for an unspecified amount of time. Segregated from British citizens and unable to leave without permission they will be taught how to integrate in to British society.
Morally, the Bill stands against everything I was ever taught about inclusion or was that just a token piece of political correctness on my syllabus? Logically, it doesn't make economic sense. Would it not be more rational to give money directly to our schools and integrate the children and share the resources with everyone? Is it really going to take up fewer resources to employ a whole new set of teachers, to buy a whole separate set of tables, chairs, computers, stationary and gym equipment?
After speaking against the Bill in the House of Lords with a cross section of head teachers, parents, school staff, religious workers and human rights groups, the bill was rejected in the House of Lords by one vote. On return to the Commons we spoke again but only a few MPs showed up— one more symptom of how the voices of this country are being silenced. Who would listen to a student? After all, I'm just a 17-year-old English girl who goes to a multiethnic school. What would I know about whether diversity in education is a good thing?
I'm not saying there aren't problems with helping such a large number of asylum seekers adjust. Many are emotionally strained and need the support of a welcoming community in which they are allowed to rebuild their lives. But there is a difference between being naive and wanting to do the right thing not just for asylum seekers, but for British citizens as a whole. I'm not suggesting we throw our immigration policy to the winds. I'm suggesting that we accept that in this globalising world money flows and people will inevitably flow with it. I'm suggesting that we look at the benefits immigration can bring as well as the problems' (something you've put on my geography syllabus Mr Blair!). The majority of migrants are young and skilled and in a country fighting to deal with an increasingly high dependency ratio and an ageing population (2002 was the first year the number of people over 65 outnumbered those under 16) we need to realise those benefits.
 Photo: Vanessa Baird |
We also need to address why people are moving. If we could instead invest the money spent on detention centres into other countries in order to increase citizen's internal opportunities, there would be less cause for people to move in the first place.
One thing is for sure; refugees are created out of political and economic instability and we aren't going to make things more stable by starting a war in the Middle East. If we do go, expect an influx of refugees. Be prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions; that's another thing I learnt at school.
My friends and I consider it a great benefit to grow up colour blind. Although we don't judge by appearances, we can see right through this Immigration Act. Unless you put inequality, segregation and intolerance on my curriculum Mr Blair I'm afraid this country's asylum seeker policy will not pass the test.
It's time to Act & Resist!
See also: NI
Issue 350 Refugees: The
case for open borders especially
and these recent articles:
Refugees' credit group success, Lebanon (#345-2002 May p3)
Basic obstacle to Middle East peace (#343-2002 Mar p3)
Plight of Afghan refugees in Australia (#343-2002 Mar p8)
No refuge likely for Afghani refugees (#340-2001 Nov p16)
Palestinian's passionate study of lost village (#336-2001 Jul p3)
Photos by Bhutanese refugees in Nepal (#334-2001 May p7)
Asylum seekers abused in Australian camp (#332-2001 Mar p6)
Migrant in the mirror: our own past made flesh (#327-2000 Sep p34)
New signs of popular democracy in South (#324-2000 Jun p20)
Secrets of Aceh's hidden war, Indonesia (#318-1999 Nov p14)
Albania's Kosovar refugee crisis (#317-1999 Oct p31)
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