Breaking through Europe's barbed wire
The Barbed Wire Europe conference, held at Ruskin College Oxford on September 15-17 was a unique event for the British anti-racist movement - a European Conference held in Britain.
An amazing amount of discussion and debate was packed into a weekend's activities, which were stimulating in their analysis of the place that immigration detention plays in the strategy of the European ruling class and positive in their determination to strengthen continental wide opposition to these plans.
Those attending included representatives from refugee organisations, campaigners for an end to detention and expert speakers from Africa, Latin America, Asia and most European countries.
Speakers analysed the intensifying racist crackdown on asylum seekers and other migrants being pursued by EU governments, in particular the spread of detention centres across Europe.
Osaroen Igbinoba, from the VOICE, the German migrants organisation, explained that in Germany, more and more states (lander) are building detention centres. The German government only grants asylum to 3% of applicants. Last year it deported approximately 32,000 asylum seekers.
Osaroen explained that asylum seekers in Germany are subject to a particularly vicious and unique law: the Residenzpflicht passed in 1982. This means that asylum seekers are forbidden without police permission to leave the district to which they are allocated.
Osaroen spoke passionately about the importance of the self-organisation of refugees, and organised a workshop at the conference itself to take forward this key dynamic on a European basis.
Dominque John from Forschungeselleschaft Flucht und Migration in Germany explained how the governments of the European Union are trying to persuade the Czech Republic, as an aspiring EU member, to detain more migrants and close its borders to the east.
The information he provided demonstrated clearly that compliance with repressive policies towards asylum seekers will be as much a criterion for expansion to the east as the economic criteria which generally receive a good deal more attention from the left.
A positive note came from Italy, when Giuliano Acunzoli from Ya Basta! spoke of the 14 months' campaigning in Milan which achieved the closure of Via Corelli, a much-condemned detention centre built under the central ring road in the city.
20,000 people attended the last demo of the campaign, and it took a two-hour riot and the physical forcing of the gates to persuade the authorities the centre was an unacceptable abuse of human rights. The fact that journalists, who had previously not been allowed into the centre, were taken inside by the demonstrators and took pictures of the inhuman conditions also helped.
Unfortunately other centres remain open elsewhere in Italy, and Via Corelli is being replaced. Other activists were keen to find out how such broad support had been built for the campaign.
Odile Schwartz-Favrat from the Federation des Associations en Solidarit‚ avec les Travailleurs Immigr‚s ( FASTI) from France spoke of the successes and failures of the campaign in France, analysing the impact of the sans papiers movement, and explained why her organisation ( which organised two previous European conferences on this theme) was so committed to European co-ordination.
In the subsequent discussion, a delegate from Ireland expressed fears that it is only a matter of time before his country joins the crackdown, and asked advice on how to pre-empt racist asylum legislation and detention centre building. Other contributions talked of the success of direct action at airports in preventing deportations.
Direct testimony came from former detainees, such as the Algerian who had lived in England for nine years, only to be seized one day by immigration officials, detained indefinitely in Rochester prison and threatened with deportation. As a result he lost both his job and accommodation and nearly had a nervous breakdown.
Workshops covered more specific issues: racism in the media, the European Convention on Human Rights, trade unions, the trauma of detention, asylum from rape, organising bail for detainees, direct actions at airports to stop deportations, and at detention centres to call for their closure, the increasing criminalisation of the regimes inside detention centres.
Following an excellent social on Saturday evening which allowed time for more informal discussion, the conference reconvened on Sunday morning for a session on "The case for no immigration controls". Author Bob Sutcliffe put forward a persuasive case with which no one disagreed, while Tony Bunyan of Statewatch again underlined why immigration policy was so central to the who project of European integration.
Delegates were clearly not impressed by the recent announcements from the Home Office that they would grant permission to come to Britain to those with qualifications for jobs where there are labour shortages. Neither the divide and rule approach, nor the further attacks on the economies of the countries who would be adversely affected were appreciated.
The conference was also critical of the way that the welfare state, and increasing parts of the voluntary sector, were involved in carrying out the reactionary immigration and asylum policies of the current government.
In agreeing a programme of activity and demands (see box) a lively debate took place on whether the day of action against detention centres should be organised to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day.
This was not assisted by the fact that no one actually knew what the designated day was - and it became clear that there needed to be more consultation in general, especially with groups from outside Britain
It was worrying however that some people seemed to think that there needed to be consultation with Jewish organisations in general - as if the conservative leadership of much of the Jewish community had the right to own the memory of those who died in the concentration camps.
It certainly seemed telling to me that all the people who identified themselves as Jewish in the discussion argued strongly that fighting against today's racism was the best way to commemorate the Holocaust.
The conference was a stopping-off point for the Civil Rights Caravan, currently touring Britain to campaign for racial justice and the rights of asylum seekers. Their delegation came for the Sunday sessions, and spoke at the conference and later at Campsfield.
As well as highlighting issues of racism faced by refugees and asylum seekers in Britain the participants also high lighted aspects of the situations in the regimes from which they had fled.
In particular the speaker from Colombia talked forcibly about the dangers of Plan Colombia (see page 16) while the Iranian speaker talked about the threats posed to women's rights by Islamic fundamentalism in her country among others, and the hypocrisy of the British government on this issue.
On Sunday afternoon over 100 of the delegates held a rally outside Campsfield Immigration Detention Centre near Oxford. Group 4 guards cringed in their glass box by the gate as Pritam Singh, who had chaired the conference, exhorted them to resign their jobs and atone for their sins by joining the demonstrators outside. There were speakers from the Civil Rights Caravan, from France, Germany and Italy.
Continuing the rally around the back, where detainees could hear, speeches were made in as many languages as could be found among the delegates (about a dozen). Detainees shouted in reply.
People banged on the fence so hard the pillars rocked visibly. Someone inside Campsfield has a good arm - one of the detainees managed to throw three packets of digestive biscuits over to the outside.
Many people said that this was the best demonstration there had ever been at Campsfield in terms of the response of the detainees - and this must have been because we were such an international delegation.
I returned to London after the demonstration exhausted - but more inspired than I can remember being by a conference for a very long time.
To express your views on when the international day of action against detention centres should be held, to obtain a copy of the full conference report or make contact with the campaign contact: [email protected] 111 Magdalen Rd, Oxford, OX4, Tel 01865 558145.