I am delighted by the apparent sea-change in media opinion on the treatment of refugees, but concerned that in modern society compassion only seems able to operate in a wave of emotional hysteria rather than as a fundamental, underlying everyday principle. There is also a danger that those arriving in the Mediterranean and Balkans are viewed, quite wrongly, as in some way different from those in the awful camps at Calais, who have been demonised all summer, reaching its peak when a child being killed by a train led to vicious media headlines about delays to British passengers.
Cameron and May’s apparent willingness to budge at least minimally in admitting more from Syria must be matched by a willingness to admit those from the Calais camps who are genuine refugees. I still have a home in Ramsgate from which you can actually see France. I for one am willing to make accommodation available at no charge to help out in the crisis.
These are troubling times. In London the National Youth Centre has cancelled a play, Homegrown, which explored Islamic radicalism, because it had an “extremist agenda”. By this they mean that it did what it was meant to, it explored the reasons that attract young people to terrorism including a revulsion at western foreign policy and the alienation from society of urban youth in a society that values materialism above all but increasingly restricts access to prosperity and choice. These are precisely the issues that modern playwrights ought to be considering, if they are worth anything.
However it goes against the government’s insistence that radicalisation is nothing whatsoever to do with our invasions and bombings of Muslim countries or the huge and burgeoning wealth gap in our society. We are supposed to view terrorism as a spontaneous outbreak of pure evil, for no reason. So the play was cancelled, after consultations between the National Youth Theatre and the Metropolitan Police. When you have the police deciding on the content of plays, you really are on the road to being a fascist state: we already have the police involved in what can be said in universities under the government’s definitively illiberal Prevent strategy.
Just as there is still no official admission that our invasions and bombings greatly boosted terrorist organisations, so there is still no official admission that the wave of terror and destruction we helped unleash on the Middle East, either by direct invasions or bombings or by proxy, by funding and through the Gulf States, is the root cause of much of the refugee crisis. It is good we are moving a tiny way towards helping. We should do very much more. And acknowledgement of our own culpability in the crisis should be an essential part of a new attitude.
Robert Crawford
05/09/2015 4:47pm
Yes, that may be. I certainly do not believe that the newspapers and their staff, who have been in a far better position to know about and report upon and see the unfolding tragedy than the average citizen of this country for years, are suddenly choked with heart-wringing tears at the sight of one child’s body on a beach.
Good photo-opportunities for Cameron to pretend he gives a hoot. And of course, whatever help is offered by the UK will have enormous effects upon individual lives, which is great for the people that it benefits.
Be prepared for more cartloads of manure from the Press about every misdemeanour committed by refugees. They’ll get compassion fatigue a lot more quickly than the population will.
Kind regards,
John
John Spencer-Davis.
THEY have never ever had compassion!!!
The population of Syria in 2013 was 22 million.
Syria’s refugee crisis in numbers
4 September 2015
Amnesty International
Refugees in the region
More than 4 million refugees from Syria (95%) are in just five countries Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt:
•Lebanon hosts approximately 1.2 million refugees from Syria which amounts to around one in five people in the country
•Jordan hosts about 650,000 refugees from Syria, which amounts to about 10% of the population
•Turkey hosts 1.9 million refugees from Syria, more than any other country worldwide
•Iraq where 3 million people have been internally displaced in the last 18 months hosts 249,463 refugees from Syria
•Egypt hosts 132,375 refugees from Syria
The UN humanitarian appeal for Syrian refugees is just 40% funded.
Funding shortages mean that the most vulnerable Syrian refugees in Lebanon receive just $13.50 per month or less than half a dollar a day for food assistance.
More than 80% of Syrian refugees in Jordan living below the local poverty line.
Conflict in Syria
Around 220,000 people have been killed and 12.8 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance inside Syria
More than 50% of Syria’s population is currently displaced.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/syrias-refugee-crisis-in-numbers/
~~~~
How many of those deaths and ‘displacements’ are down to assistance given to the rabble rebels by Cameron, Hague, Hammond, Fox and Fallon Inc?
~~~~
This is what’s left of Kobane where the little boy lived. His father is not going to Canada. He wishes to stay near the graves of his wife and the two little sons.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31088684
Horror.
‘Troll under bridge offers spare stones to sit on to Syrian refugees, after his mates in high office bombed them all the way to Hungary’
How many properties belonging to the inner London extravaganza, the Duke of Westminster, are standing empty and could be offered to house refugees, at any one time.
last year he sold 240 million worth of inner london properties, he feared that the ‘london housing bubble would burst’, so he quickly made a few bucks.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/apr/29/duke-of-westminster-london-housing-bubble
Except it didn’t and he very likely could have made more mammon from his bricks and mortar. What is the upper echelon doing apart from charging tenants/the taxpayer high rents for their dilapidated abode’s?
So, how many Syrians could the Duke of Westminster house tomorrow?
Homegrown director: ‘My play didn’t have an ‘extremist’ agenda – so why was it shut down?’
National Youth Theatre production Homegrown was cancelled last month – and the publication of internal emails now suggests it was a case of censorship. Radhika Sanghani hears all from director Nadia Latif http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11843859/Radicalisation-play-National-Youth-Theatre-said-my-play-was-extremist.html
4 September 2015
From the Guardian article on the same subject
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/sep/04/islamism-play-withdrawn-by-national-youth-theatre
‘Both El-Khairy and Latif said that during the process of making the production, they had been asked, because of the sensitive nature of the subject of Islamic radicalisation, to run a version of the script by the police and had also been told that plainclothes police officers would potentially be put among the audience.
The Met had initially denied any involvement in the play, but later conceded that an officer had met the NYT, a fact verified by the emails. However, the force denied any pressure had been put on the theatre company to shut down the production.
Latif said the emails confirmed suspicions she and El-Khairy had voiced about the reasons for cancelling the production, and said she was troubled by the language used in the letter.’
Truly fascist.
‘fascism
noun: fascism
an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.’
Wagenknecht
“So, how many Syrians could the Duke of Westminster house tomorrow?”
______________
Probably quite a few. But you should get in touch with him directly (or perhaps via your MP) if you really wish to know the exact number and if he would be willing.
In the same way as I have attempted to reach out to Mary and others directly.
I suspect though that His Grace will be as unwilling to answer and help as Mary appears to be.
Habba,
I think Britain should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. I think Britain should close its borders and have strict controls on who can come and go. I think everyone should be made to carry an identity card. I think that the police and security services should be given massive new powers to fight the immigrant terrorists. I think anyone identified as a terrorist should be held in detention camps. I think we need more mass surveillance in order to prevent terrorism. I think Britain should be like East Germany in the 1970s…
NYT Current Corporate Partners
Travelex
American Express
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Cisco
InterContinental Hotels Group
J.P. Morgan
Julius Baer
Neptune Investment Management
Nimble Storage
Northern Trust
Nyetimber
Philips
Radisson Blu Edwardian
Royal Bank of Canada
Sony
Vodafone Group Plc
National Theatre Education is supported by Goldman Sachs
Followed by a list of Premium, Platinum and Gold Members, mostly of the gangster-in-charge variety.
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/support-us/corporate-partners/current-corporate-partners
There is a tie-up to the American Associates of the National Theatre whose board is listed here.
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/support-us/american-associates/aant-board-of-directors
Some familiar names.
Can you hear me LOL?
“The latest information is that Cameron is going to increase security because of the planned protests.”
___________________
This is hardly breaking news or even surprising. The PM and the Met woudl be most remiss if they did not bear in mind the possibility of protests which, thanks to the usual lunatic fringe, might turn violent.
///////////////////
“Parliament has not even debated the issue yet”
__________________
Must one really keep repeating that it is highly unlikely that the HoC will hold a debate at all? 100.000 signatures or no.
///////////////////
“We do not want this scum on our shores.”
_____________________
Yet another Stalinist-style “we” from Mr Goss. Who are the “we” apart from the signers of the petition?
Could someone give the needle on the troll’s wind up gramophone a little touch. I think the 78rpm record he’s playing has got a crack on its surface.
Divert. Distract. Divert. Distract.
What’s with the multiple//////////////////////////////////////’s?
Thank you Mary and Macky-Fedup (Madeup-Fakey?) — the original, unsanitised vagina monologues — showing us once again that you needn’t concern yourself with truth, logic and fairness when commenting here. By your support for each other, common racial hatred for Jewish people (amongst many others) and sleazy lies about other commentators, have we all come to know, and properly despise you. Those who you think are your allies are actually too embarrassed to endorse your caustic hissing and spitting. As ungrateful parasites of the British welfare state, whatever misery you are together working to bring upon the ordinary folk of the UK, I hope you reap for yourselves three-fold in penance.
Now, with that unpleasantness put to one side, let’s see if Habbabkuk’s suggestion for people to accomodate refugees is taken up. Come on Mary and Madeup-Fakey, clean out the spare room and take in some refugees as you implore your nation to do. Show us that you aren’t just a bunch of scummy hypocrites. Let us know what steps you take to do your compassionate bit for humanity.
Jemand
05/09/2015 5:43pm
“the original, unsanitised vagina monologues”
Why don’t you just turn yourself around and slither back into the sewer you just crawled out of, and pull it in after you.
John
‘People’ should answer the conservative mantra?
Hmm. Does that include the Town Crier who hasn’t included himself?
Heh. The gander summons the geese to upbraid the frequency of his own feeding.
Sky news pushing the Assad agenda, on how boots on the ground in Syria is the next possible step.
The public opinion will have softened towards military intervention in Syria, due to the wide coverage of the suffering refugees.
The receiving of refugees all over Europe could be the catalyst that prempts the EU and US forces to move on Assad.
Strange how none of the major broadcasters or press are concentrating on what has caused the mass exodus of refugees in the first place.
Nor have we seen such a reaction from the media, when Libyan and Iraqi refugees were on the march.
It would appear that, the plight of the refugees is news newsworthy though it’s a undoubtable fact that they are refugees because we made them so by destroying their homes and cities, isn’t newsworthy.
There’s war, war in the air. Sky News have just had on that hoary old warmonger, ‘Col’ Bob Stewart of NI and Bosnia fame, upping the ante for ‘boots on the ground with military forces’ in Syria. Osborne is saying the same.
BUT
Cameron signals he would drop Syria airstrikes vote if Corbyn is Labour leader
Prime minister says ‘general consensus’ in UK on extension of military action would be necessary for him to put plan before parliament
David Cameron has indicated he will abandon plans to extend military airstrikes against Islamic State (Isis) targets from Iraq to Syria if Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader of the Labour party.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/04/david-cameron-abandon-syria-airstrikes-vote-jeremy-corbyn-wins
So that’s a relief. HoC back on Monday. Labour leadership result Sat 12th.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/04/uk-kindertransport-refugee-crisis-lord-sacks
It’s good to see former chief rabbi Lord Sacks arguing for the UK to accept refugees . I do hope he’ll support their ‘ Right of Return ‘ should conditions exist for them to do so ?
“Or provided £1,000 pounds worth of humanitarian aid to 15,800 Syrian refugees”
____________________
Imagine what the £500 million Osborne is going to squander on obsolete and unusable weapons, could’ve done for the refugees.
Or even this small, amount about to be squandered by London Labour in Scotland due their usual poor judgement.
A cash strapped Labour-run council has ignored costly Queen’s Counsel advice against spending more than £185,000 taking the Scottish Government to court over the approval of a new rail freight terminal, which will generate more than 5,000 jobs.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/council-gambles-185000-on-rail-appeal.7226
Good things happen when Westminster are taken out of the equation.
The Borders Railway will reopen next week, thanks to the Scottish government funding it without the help of Westminster, just like the Commonwealth games Westminster’s input has been zero, yet the line to Edinburghs Waverley station, which Beeching axed 40 odd years ago will spring back to life.
The only fly in the ointment so to speak, is instead of getting someone local who’s helped the community to open the line, the fools have once again opted for HRH Queen Lizzie to cut the ribbon, we’ll have get out of that terribly bad habit.
A gay militant aussie homosexual,-Jemand, lying in bed with our resident stephen habba fry, is insisting now that Mary and Fedup should provide rooms to the refugees, in penance for the ruin of Libya,Syria,Nineveh brought about as a direct result of srakozy,cameron,obama?! And not before throwing in some islamophobic bile against the muzzies who are not too enamoured of his buggery either.
God help us from satan and his evil axis of freemason,gay and zio cohorts.
“Who are the “we” apart from the signers of the petition?”
The many thousands who do not want their names on the security services books. The many thousands who consider Netanyahu to be a war-criminal. Are you one of the few who does not consider him to be a war-criminal?
Your Majesty? PM Cameron? Where are ye?
“Finland’s prime minister has offered his private home in northern Finland to asylum seekers, at a time of massive flow of refugees to the Western Europe through land and sea.
Juha Sipila told state media that his home in Kempele, located in 500km north of the capital Helsinki, could be used to accommodate asylum seekers after the end of the year.
“We should all look in the mirror and ask ourselves how we can help … My house is not being used much at the moment. My family lives in Sipoo [east of Helsinki] and the prime minister’s residence is located in Kesaranta,” Sipila told public broadcaster YLE.”
Jemand
“Come on Mary and Madeup-Fakey, clean out the spare room and take in some refugees as you implore your nation to do.”
____________________
You might have noticed that I was being more than reasonable when I suggested that Mary should give thought to taking in, on a temporary bsis, just one (1) refugee – not even a whole family. After all, she lives alone in a reasonably sized house in a pleasant part of southern England, where the jobs are.
+++++++++++++++++++++
PS – I trust you noticed the silence from certain usually vociferous commenters when Craig was talking about the housing problem and the absurdly high cost of housing, particularly in the south of England? I wonder why that should have been…..
There does seem to be a sense of entitlement amongst the angry, aggressive and quite often violent young Muslim men seeking a better life here . I would have thought a little humility would go a long way if you were asking a foreign country to accept you. Quite clearly these migrants (refugees seek asylum the moment they arrive in a safe country), with their incessant demands, are not looking to fit in. They won’t even say thank you. They’ll be carrying with them all the baggage from the shitistans they have arrived from, preying on our generous welfare state whilst refusing to give up any of the ways that made their countries uninhabitable in the first place. The streets of Britain are paved with gold, and all the girls are available, so they say in shitistan.
Mary
“Divert. Distract. Divert. Distract.”
___________________
Not at all, Mary.
My posts are all in response to the comments made by others.
Those other posts, since they are made by the Excellences, must by definition be on-topic.
By definition therefore, my comments must also be on-topic.
Diversion and distraction do not, therefore, come into it.
You, on the other hand, are being evasive and rude.
“Imagine what the £500 million Osborne is going to squander on obsolete and unusable weapons, could’ve done for the refugees.”
As a member of NATO Britain is committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence whether they spend it on a nuclear deterrent or conventional weapons. An independent Scotland would have been too.
The referendum was a complete waste of money however. It shouldn’t have been and wouldn’t have been if the Nationalists hadn’t decided to behave like a five year old child throwing a tantrum in the sweetie isle of a supermarket and ignore the result.
I am sure there are some conservatives who not only display but have genuine concern for fellow humans. I must say I have never met a conservative whose grip on his personal cache of shekels did not result in chronically-inflamed tendons, but I hope they are out there.
Trump?
Mary
“How many of those deaths and ‘displacements’ are down to assistance given to the rabble rebels by Cameron, Hague, Hammond, Fox and Fallon Inc?”
_____________________
If the above-mentioned – and their counterparts in the US and Western Europe – are guilty of anything it is their lamentable failure to help the popular uprising in Syria take out the current head of the Assad dictatorship in good time before the uprising got hijacked by the equally deplorable ISIS.
Unfortunately they let themselves be intimidated by the lefties and West-haters who used the entirely irrelevant case of Iraq to make their spurious case for non-intervention.
All karmic roads lead to Iraq. It’s Divine justice at it’s finest. Now how can the bureaucrats get us to pay the Butcher’s Bill on the failed aftermath, as well as the War itself?
John Spencer-Davis (to Jemand)
“Why don’t you just turn yourself around and slither back into the sewer you just crawled out of, and pull it in after you.”
__________________
You must put more thought and effort into your insults, John.
Is it logical to say that someone *crawled* out of something and then invite him to *slither* back into that something?
You should make up your mind before you post.
Yours disrespectfully and with unkind regards,
Habbabkuk