Yesterday, to the strains of Reggae artist, Natty, a terrible beauty was born.
“The Jungle”, Calais, France is an open sewer on industrial wasteland. It is the name of the refugee camp where a reported 5000 plus people, including around 1000 women and some children, are living.
On the single roundabout that lies between “The Jungle” and the Calais Ferry Terminal - where upwards of 800 demonstrators had marched earlier and stopped Ferry crossing operations - a mellow interlude descended later in the afternoon. It was for just a little while, and in spite of the phalanx of suited, booted, and fully armed French police, stood, still and jealous, guarding the gap in the fence used by the earlier demonstration,
It was a truly international gathering.
“Jungle” residents, around 150 of its extraordinarily resilient, deeply sad, but determinedly hopeful, men, and two or three of its young couples with toddlers, mingled, danced, and simultaneous-translating-talked, with an equal number of UK based trade unionists and anti racist solidarity day-trippers.
Individual people who have come so far and now need somewhere to go - and people in small groups who can go anywhere - politically, emotionally and in some instances literally, reached out and touched one another.
Some had wanted to try and blockade the nearby motorway. It was poignant and charged, the ten minutes or so when the assembled worked out that there were not enough people there, not this time, to do this safely and so we must regroup, recognise that making Solidarity is a process, and find out out who and where each other are so we can grow in number.
One moment is the 20-something lesbian from Manchester’s 35-strong delegation who finds herself meeting the 18 year old from Iraq whose entire family is dead. She and he share the next hour or two as they walk the mile from the roundabout to the camp and he shows her where he is living. She just has the time for this before reuniting with her traveling companions to catch the 19.50 tunnel train back to Folkestone.
Another is the beautiful, shoulder length gray haired pensioner. She is dancing, hard and fast, in the circled clutch of young Kurdish men who whoop and clap, flashing incredibly white teeth when they break into big and joyful smiles for seconds at a time.
The flat bed truck is blasting out its music when Idris Najeeb approaches me with a smile. Idris is 20. He left Kirkuk six weeks ago. With a group of 18 others, he took a bus to Turkey, then a lorry to the border of Bulgaria. Then he walked for 22 hours before the police got them. They fingerprinted them all and “told us they were taking us to a camp but it was a prison - Sevellgrad prison in Bulgaria. In the prison, the guards set dogs on us.” They were there for 15 days and then released. Of the group of 19, four people have reached Calais.
”Why?” I ask Idris.
“I know the English language. I was a student in the English department of Dohuk university. My father was tired because of the bombing and my mother told me to leave before I was killed.”
My phone rings. Our van with goods needs to find the distribution centre. I spread out my map on the roundabout grass. Immediately, I am circled by curious youth. I cannot find Rue Marcel but the loaded van from Salford is here so I jump in and we drive.
The phone GIS kicks in and 10 minutes later we are pulling into a pot-holed warehouse yard where, through the grey drizzle, vans and cars are unloading tents, blankets, shoes, jumpers, toiletries, food and cash. Extraordinarily calm helpers direct the arrivals to different sections of the warehouse where they add their contributions to the high piles that are gradually being sorted for later trips into the Jungle. The days are growing darker and colder and wetter now.
More keep on coming but I have to find my group. Our minibus is near the entrance to the Jungle, in a stewarded area. Dropped off there, I drive up to the Jungle entrance. All along that road, people are walking in both directions. I pass a group of about 10 African men who are shepherding a precariously balanced set of wooden planks on top of a trolley. They will build more makeshift shelter with this. Others, in one or twos, are carrying bags with clothes and food.
Earlier in the day, on this same stretch, I had approached four women. They are from Eritrea. They are late teens and early 20’s. They tell me it is very hard for women on the camp. “There are about 1000 women there.” They don’t want me to take photo of them: “It could make trouble for us”. For a few minutes we talk about how to make change happen. They know that people need to be made aware of the truth of their lives, but they are not sure about how yet.
As I walk onto the camp to try to gather together the people who must leave with me, I catch the eye of Safe. He is from Sudan. He is very tall and his companions, like him, and including some Eritreans, are smiling strongly. One explains “many people did not know about the demonstration today, but now we know, for next time.” The phones they pull out for us to exchange numbers are ancient. But they work.
This report is from a member of the Greater Manchester contingent of the National Stand Up to Racism Solidarity Delegation to Calais of 17th October 2015. Delegates came from Birmingham, Black Country, Bradford, Bristol, Cambridge Cardiff, Essex, Glasgow, Kent, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, and Portsmouth. Over 500 people in and over 50 cars, vans, minibuses and coaches.
Also See this report from London’s demonstration yesterday: https://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/
Dr Rhetta Moran, Manchester and Salford NUJ Branch, RAPAR Matron and Greater Manchester Unite Against Fascism Joint Secretary