"Refugees, many of whom we detain and deport"

18 posts / 0 new
Login or register to post comments
Last post
#1
Top
madashell's picture
madashell
Offline
Joined: 19-06-06
Jul 13 2007 01:50
"Refugees, many of whom we detain and deport"

Noticed this on the thread in events and announcements about the No Borders camp at Gatwick:

No Borders wrote:
How the Global North consumes the world's resources and the waste and climate change this causes creates a huge number of refugees, many of whom we then detain and deport for seeking a better life.

I don't know enough about what the No Borders camp will actually entail to make any kind of informed comment about it, but this "we" stuff really pisses me off.

Who is this "we" that are detaining and deporting refugees? I know I haven't encountered any Pacific islanders fleeing environmental devastation lately, let alone locked them up or kicked them out of the country. Is this sort of attitude quite prevelant within No Borders?

I find this sort of stuff particularly baffling when it comes from anarchists, to be honest, if you reject Parliamentary democracy as a means of representing the working class in Britain, how can you then turn around and claim that "we" are responsible for the actions of the state? If you accept that the market economy doesn't really exist to fulfill our needs and desires, how can you place the blame for climate change on the "Global North" for consuming too much?

#2
Top
madashell's picture
madashell
Offline
Joined: 19-06-06
Jul 13 2007 01:51

Gah, bollocks'd up the quote tags, sorry embarrassed

#3
Top
Lone Wolf's picture
Lone Wolf
Offline
Joined: 1-03-06
Jul 13 2007 02:07
madashell wrote:
Gah, bollocks'd up the quote tags, sorry embarrassed

Ha thats the thing i have always got in trouble for - lol grin
John considers it a hanging offence black bloc meted out at a kangaroo court. tongue
You Are Not Alone. wink

#4
Top
Dundee_United
Offline
Joined: 10-04-06
Jul 13 2007 06:43

I understand the technical point but it's a bit wanky to be having a go based on one statement like that.

#5
Top
welshboy's picture
welshboy
Offline
Joined: 11-05-06
Jul 13 2007 10:12

The way people use "we" is generally just laziness, I hope.
I know I always try and say "the state/government" rather than "we". I would hope that the attitude that "we" are responsible for the detentions and removals isn't prevalant within the no borders groups. I volounteer at the Unity Centre in Glasgow because I'm really fucking angry at the way the way Asylum Seekers, refugees and Sans Papiers are treated, not out of some fucked up feeling of guilt.
On a nit picking note people are "removed" not deported. Criminals are deported and if the state admitted it was treating Asylum Seekers like criminals thay would have to afford them certain rights, like something at least resembling a fair trial. Oh and they wouldn't be able to lock entire families up indefinitely.
Bastards.

#6
Top
madashell's picture
madashell
Offline
Joined: 19-06-06
Jul 13 2007 10:58
Dundee_United wrote:
I understand the technical point but it's a bit wanky to be having a go based on one statement like that.

It's not just a technical point though. The guilt on the part of everybody living in "the Global North" (God I hate that phrase, it's almost as bad as "majority world") is pretty clearly implied here.

#7
Top
nic o
Offline
Joined: 9-02-07
Jul 13 2007 13:41

No, the assumption of personal guilt madashell isn’t a common assumption as far as I know in no borders. It’s a mix of groups and peoples across the range. We don't have a party line or anything – it’s not that tight an organisation. Personally, I have huge problems with 'we' politics (but also politics that says there are no ‘we’s’). Ages ago when a bunch of us did a border camp in a place called Woomera in Australia, there was a group called 'We are all boat people' ('boat people' is the derogatory name for refugees who arrive in Australia by boat) - a reference to colonisation - who put together a campaign of getting posters saying 'Escaped Refugees Welcome Here' out across the country in peoples shop/house windows. We took more than a little offence at the notion that there was any collective national being that could 'welcome' anyone to Australia, or had some kind of natural right to adjudicate over other people’s migration. Especially since no one asked the people who lived there before they did (the indigenous inhabitants) if they wanted to get down with the 'welcoming'. This all did start an interesting debate on boundaries and borders of communities, and control of spaces and territories in general, but that’s a tangent... But yeh, it’s not a theme of the camp or no borders in general. [/end rant]

#8
Top
Steven.'s picture
Steven.
Offline
Joined: 27-06-06
Jul 13 2007 14:25
madashell wrote:
Who is this "we" that are detaining and deporting refugees? I know I haven't encountered any Pacific islanders fleeing environmental devastation lately, let alone locked them up or kicked them out of the country. Is this sort of attitude quite prevelant within No Borders?

JoeBlack has repeatedly told me the British Army was "my" army. I think this attitude is quite common amongst anarchists who don't understand class.

#9
Top
Black Flag
Offline
Joined: 26-04-06
Jul 17 2007 13:12

Christ!How pedantic do you want to be?!

#10
Top
nastyned
Offline
Joined: 30-09-03
Jul 17 2007 13:16
Dundee_United wrote:
I understand the technical point but it's a bit wanky to be having a go based on one statement like that.

This is libcom. It's the way things are done here. wink

#11
Top
Joseph Kay's picture
Joseph Kay
Offline
Joined: 14-03-06
Jul 17 2007 13:15

74.37% ideally

#12
Top
the button's picture
the button
Offline
Joined: 7-07-04
Jul 17 2007 13:21
Quote:
74.37% ideally

chi-squared indicates that we can be 95% confident that this statistic is accurate.

#13
Top
Steven.'s picture
Steven.
Offline
Joined: 27-06-06
Jul 17 2007 13:31
nastyned wrote:
Dundee_United wrote:
I understand the technical point but it's a bit wanky to be having a go based on one statement like that.

This is libcom. It's the way things are done here. ;-)

Not wanting to be arsey, but it is a guy in your group who started the thread...

#14
Top
nastyned
Offline
Joined: 30-09-03
Jul 17 2007 14:57

Be arsey all you like, it's the libcom way wink

#15
Top
Steven.'s picture
Steven.
Offline
Joined: 27-06-06
Jul 17 2007 15:03

don't you fucking tell me what is and is not the way ya cunt!

#16
Top
the button's picture
the button
Offline
Joined: 7-07-04
Jul 17 2007 15:07

Having a pop & using a smiley at the end is also the libcom way. You set of cunts. wink

#17
Top
jef costello's picture
jef costello
Offline
Joined: 9-02-06
Jul 17 2007 16:31
the button wrote:
Having a pop & using a smiley at the end is also the libcom way. You set of cunts. wink

That implies too much unity, wide variety of cunts I think you mean.