Where bogus riffraff are not welcome

Hijacking is a very serious business and hijackers must be dealt with bythe law. But, no one was there to ask: What makes jail (a certainty for aconvicted hijacker) in another country preferable to life in Afghanistan?And what of the rest of the passengers? You would have been forgiven forthinking that the British press and the home secretary had advanceintelligence that every man, woman and child on board that Afghan plane waspart of a grand plot to bankrupt Britain and prove that it was a "softtouch" for the rejects of this world. That they had planned in advance toland at Stansted airport and have the British government book them into thefour-star Hilton hotel.

Britain does not recognise the Taliban regime and is openly critical of itsideology and its human rights record. It recommends that British nationalsdo not travel to Afghanistan under any circumstances. It also supportedNato’s unilateral bombing of Afghanistan on the grounds that the Talibanwere hiding the supposed scourge of the West, Osama bin Laden. And yet, itbrands people trying to escape this regime as "scroungers" – lazy foreignerswho think they can have an easy life at the expense of the hardworkingtax-paying Britons.

People are quick to point out that the outright bigotry of most of themedia is "not representative". Maybe it isn’t. But, criticism of the racismand prejudice on display this week has been rather muted. Britain may havean unshakeable liberal core. But, it is tiny compared with the mass ofconservatism around it. And Britain’s liberals are too inward looking toconcern themselves with how a few dozen asylum seekers _ especially onesfrom a non-European country with beards and burkhas _ are dealt with.

Just last fortnight they were all in a lather over Jorg Haidar, the extremeright wing Austrian leader. They dissected his every word, every phrase heused when speaking of the Third Reich, immigration and foreigners. Haidar,they said, invented problems _ like the threat to Austrians from immigrants- and then set himself up as the solution to them. They concluded he was badnews, a fascist in fascist’s clothes. All of this is true. The question iswhether there is really a huge difference in attitude between those who whovote for Haidar and Britons who see all asylum seekers as “bogus riffraff”who have made Britain (in the words of its largest selling daily) the“dustbin of the world”.

Britain does get rather a large share of the immigrants, asylum seekers andrefugees arriving in Europe. But it is certainly not the favouritedestination for the world’s dispossessed. Even if it was, most of themcouldn’t afford to get here. It may currently be the second largestrecipient of asylum applications in Europe, but in the league of countriesdealing with displaced people — refugees escaping wars or politicaloppression — it figures rather lower on the list. It has, in the last fiveyears, taken in less than 0.5 percent of the world’s refugees.

The majority of the world’s displaced people end up not in rich developedcountries, but in poor countries — typically neighbouring countries. Thenumber of Afghans in Pakistan, or for that matter Iran and India, isincomparably higher than the number who make it to Britain. The UN HighCommission for Refugees put the number of refugees and asylum seekers inBritain in 1988 at 197,100. By contrast Pakistan had 1,202,670 and Iran1,931,300. In the same period Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda — among theworld’s poorest countries — each had well over 200,000 refugees and asylumseekers.

But, the British home secretary is not as keen to put the asylum issue incontext as he is to prove that Britain is not a “soft touch” forprospective asylum seekers. He wants to prove that he is a tough guy, ableto eject unwelcome visitors. Why? The most plausible answer is that mostBritons believe that they are about to be swamped by foreigners who arriveat their shores with the sole purpose of depriving them of their jobs anddestroying their culture. The British Conservative Party is a vocalproponent of this view. So, even the apparently ethnic-minority friendlyLabour Party must believe that politically it is better served playing thestrongman defending Britain against the alien invasion than telling itselectorate to get things in perspective.

The British home secretary is certainly no Jorg Haidar. But, he isunwilling to stand up to a brand of prejudice that is little different fromHaidar’s.

Britain is up there with the big boys in staking its claim to a slice ofthe global pie. The talk is all about market share. But, when it comes tosharing the fallout of war or famine — caused as much by a lack of thatcurrently trendy catch phrase “good governance” as by having been used aspawns in wars the West fought through the East — then Britain is anunwilling participant. The business of globalisation, we are told, is allabout removing barriers. But Britain, like the rest of its OECD compatriots,is assiduously raising the ramparts to keep people out.

BLURB:

The British home secretary is certainly no Jorg Haidar. But, he is unwillingto stand up to a brand of prejudice that is little different from Haidar’s