The Jungle

[Adamvanman]

This thread could be one of two topics!

1. I wonder which Z list celebs will be going into the jungle this year?

2. Now the jungle is being bulldozed, where are all these refugees going to end up?

 

[Stuart]

Maybe kill two birds with one stone and invite some of the refugees to enter I'm A Celebrity instead. I'm sure they would be far more interesting!

 

[Velma's Dad]

2. Now the jungle is being bulldozed, where are all these refugees going to end up?

Ha, that's easy. They will all flood over to Germany where Angela will give them all large handouts and VW Californias (well they've got used to camping out, haven't they?) which they will then drive back through our Uncontrolled Borders to take Our Jobs and live on Our Benefits.

Or, perhaps it's not quite as simple as the red tops will tell us, and instead some will build productive new lives in France or other various continental countries, or outside Europe seeking jobs in (eg) the Gulf, while some will find their ways into the UK and claim asylum although only 37% of those will be granted leave to remain on their initial application, and some will live 'under the radar' doing jobs we don't really fancy, while a few of them - like the few in all communities - will end up in criminal lifestyles, a tiny minority will be radicalised, and a significant proportion will suffer long term mental health problems from their experiences both in the countries they have fled and from neglect and brutalisation while on European soil.

 

[GrannyJen]

Ha, that's easy. They will all flood over to Germany where Angela will give them all large handouts and VW Californias (well they've got used to camping out, haven't they?) which they will then drive back through our Uncontrolled Borders to take Our Jobs and live on Our Benefits.

Or, perhaps it's not quite as simple as the red tops will tell us, and instead some will build productive new lives in France or other various continental countries, or outside Europe seeking jobs in (eg) the Gulf, while some will find their ways into the UK and claim asylum although only 37% of those will be granted leave to remain on their initial application, and some will live 'under the radar' doing jobs we don't really fancy, while a few of them - like the few in all communities - will end up in criminal lifestyles, a tiny minority will be radicalised, and a significant proportion will suffer long term mental health problems from their experiences both in the countries they have fled and from neglect and brutalisation while on European soil.

and all the time let's not forget that they are human beings.

My Grandmother built a useful life, from when she first arrived in France to where she became a housekeeper, by a rather convoluted route, to a pit deputy and lay preacher in the Durham coalfield, before finally marrying his brother and producing my mum.

She didn't want to leave her home, however Mister Sykes and Monsieur Picot decided that her homeland was going to become divided based on lines drawn on the map and that would create bloodshed and .... well, we all know how the cynical politics work.

My mum of course had to endure 20 years of racial abuse after marrying my dad and coming to London, despite serving her country, and France, with distinction in WW2, first as WAAF then as FANY, having being brought up bilingual in French and English.

I know that we are an overcrowded little Island with our infrastructure strained to the limits but these people have ceased to become human beings in the eyes of many, just another chapter in the tragedy of our world.

I find the closure of the Jungle to be pitiful. Sad. Human beings fleeing their homes, fleeing bombs and bullets, fleeing the inhumanity of Isil and Taliban, fleeing starvation, fleeing persecution, cease to become human beings but migrants, that new word for subhuman, and forcibly ejected to be "dispersed".

Nothing political in the above, just sadness, and a strong feeling of helplessness.

 

[Velma's Dad]

I know that we are an overcrowded little Island with our infrastructure strained to the limits but these people have ceased to become human beings in the eyes of many, just another chapter in the tragedy of our world.

Yes that's the trouble with talking about 'the migrants' or 'the refugees' as though they're homogeneous categories, rather than individuals each with their own stories, characters ('good' and 'bad') and aspirations, all as different as can be from each other. Most people here in the UK don't have the opportunity to meet refugees as individuals, so are reliant on media portrayals which, even when well meaning, are inevitably simplistic. I hope that doesn't sound too patronising.

My mum of course had to endure 20 years of racial abuse after marrying my dad and coming to London, despite serving her country, and France, with distinction in WW2, first as WAAF then as FANY, having being brought up bilingual in French and English.

Your mum was a FANY! How amazing. Do you know which establishment she worked at? I'm just in the middle of reading "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: Churchill's Mavericks: Plotting Hitler's Defeat." Despite so much having already been written about SOE, I'm still learning new things.

A house we lived in some years back had been used as Special Training School 20 for the SOE.

 

[GrannyJen]

Yes that's the trouble with talking about 'the migrants' or 'the refugees' as though they're homogeneous categories, rather than individuals each with their own stories, characters ('good' and 'bad') and aspirations, all as different as can be from each other. Most people here in the UK don't have the opportunity to meet refugees as individuals, so are reliant on media portrayals which, even when well meaning, are inevitably simplistic. I hope that doesn't sound too patronising.



Your mum was a FANY! How amazing. Do you know which establishment she worked at? I'm just in the middle of reading "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: Churchill's Mavericks: Plotting Hitler's Defeat." Despite so much having already been written about SOE, I'm still learning new things.

A house we lived in some years back had been used as Special Training School 20 for the SOE.

I do not know much about my mother's war service, although my earliest recollections of note was Violette Szabo being often mentioned, and her home was almost around the corner from what was my first home in London, before we moved and being interred into a 1960's white supremacist high rise council estate in Walworth.

I grew up with photographs of a diminutive, dark-eyed woman of swarthy complexion in RAF blue, and it was only when I was a mature adult, and my mum getting old, that my Mum showed other photographs, always kept private from children's prying eyes, and told me just a little of what my suspicious historian brain refused to let go of.

She was not SOE, in fact by D Day she was legally just a year over the age to be serving, but that did not stop her being in France before HMS Belfast opened proceedings on June 6th. One of the few momento's that graced our home was a Cross of Lorraine, given to her with grateful thanks by the free french operating in Normandy, and indeed the French extended their thanks to her more than our own grateful nation ever did.

Sadly later on, her dark eyes and complexion meant that she was often mistaken for being Jewish or Asian, ( not that it mattered for being part Arab also would have done), and a recipient of some foul abuse from some of the lesser species that inhabited that estate.

 

[Velma's Dad]

I do not know much about my mother's war service, although my earliest recollections of note was Violette Szabo being often mentioned, and her home was almost around the corner from what was my first home in London, before we moved and being interred into a 1960's white supremacist high rise council estate in Walworth.

I grew up with photographs of a diminutive, dark-eyed woman of swarthy complexion in RAF blue, and it was only when I was a mature adult, and my mum getting old, that my Mum showed other photographs, always kept private from children's prying eyes, and told me just a little of what my suspicious historian brain refused to let go of.

She was not SOE, in fact by D Day she was legally just a year over the age to be serving, but that did not stop her being in France before HMS Belfast opened proceedings on June 6th. One of the few momento's that graced our home was a Cross of Lorraine, given to her with grateful thanks by the free french operating in Normandy, and indeed the French extended their thanks to her more than our own grateful nation ever did.

Sorry GJ, I thought of hitting the 'Like' button but that doesn't quite do it. I wish there was a 'Bravo' button!