UK Race Riots Reflect Europe-Wide Problem
by Pacific News Service, PNS
imdiversity.com
The shocking news of sustained rioting in Britain is only the most recent example of an
inadequate policy toward immigration. In one form or another, every country in Europe faces
this problem, and, given the current economic and demographic situation, it is unlikely to
disappear.
By David Bacon, July 12, 2001, Pacific News Service
LONDON -- The British midlands are engulfed by race riots, pitting the children of whites who lost
jobs in the country's devastating deindustrialization against the sons and daughters of those who came
to fill service jobs in the decades after World War II.
While the circumstances are not the same, the riots recall the attacks on immigrant hostels in Germany,
or those on North Africans in France.
With 130 million people worldwide living outside their country of birth, migration has become a
permanent phenomenon. It is provoking questions in the industrialized west about who is responsible
for economic devastation and the lack of good jobs, and whether all residents -- legal and illegal,
immigrant and native -- have equal rights and status.
A particularly brutal case in point involves Perry Wacker, a Dutch truck driver, convicted in April in a
British court for causing the deaths of 58 Chinese immigrants. To prevent their voices from alerting
British custom agents to the nature of his cargo, Wacker closed the air vent on his truck trailer as he
loaded it onto a ferry crossing the English Channel.
His subterfuge was discovered, but not until all but two of the people crammed inside -- with room
enough only to stand -- had died from heat, thirst and lack of oxygen.
Wacker was the low man on the totem pole. Ying Guo, a resident of South Woodford, Essex, was
also convicted as she had lined up jobs for the border-crossers. But who else was responsible -- gangs
of smugglers? European political leaders who seek votes by whipping up anti-immigrant sentiment?
Jude Woodward, an organizer for the London-based National Assembly Against Racism, charges that
anti-immigrant hysteria "has been politician-led, and quite cynical" in England. He says the recent
election, which the Labour Party won by a big majority, left a residue of increased racism.
"People coming to the UK or Europe are being shifted by the law into the asylum system," he says. "As
this has happened, politicians on the right have campaigned against immigrants, saying the asylum
system was being misused. Unfortunately, the...Labor party and the labor government, have tended to
buy into this argument."
The Assembly claims almost all legal ways of coming to Europe have been closed off in line with
agreements made within the European Union.
Sabi Dalu, another Assembly organizer, speaks of "tremendous concern" among all people of color,
including those of Asian, African and Caribbean ancestry. "There have been relentless attacks on
asylum seekers and immigrants. The biggest since the 1960s and '70s, when you had waves of
immigrants come in from the former colonies like India and Uganda."
According to Woodward, racism exists in the relationship between those countries and the rest of the
world, where the majority is not white. The problem will only be resolved, by more -- not less --
immigration, she says.
"In establishment circles," Woodward explains, "they say the only way to guarantee good race relations
is to keep more people of color from coming in, so that you have a sort of acceptable balance.
"This argument turns reality upside down. The most positive thing for race relations is to have more
people of color here, because the more integrated society becomes, the less space there is for racism.
This argument is not primarily about economics -- it's about race."
In trying to harmonize the immigration policies of member countries, the European Union has severely
tightened immigration policies. But in the last few years, those policies have been questioned by those
who think Europe needs a renewal of its labor force, which can only come about through new
migration.
"The circumstances which caused the deaths of the 58 Chinese immigrants, and the current midlands
race riots, will only be changed when the whole framework for migration into Europe is changed," Dalu
says. "There have to be legal means by which people can come, and then apply for the right to stay
here indefinitely."
Only a new demographic balance, she argues, and a corresponding increase in rights and power among
people of color, will end the riots
NOTE: This articleis clearly WRONG! THis CAN'T be Europe! It MUST be Alabama! |
