London. Immigration has been a long simmering issue in Britain and every now and then it becomes a hot potato rather difficult to be handled even by seasoned politicians and party leaders. This time Prime Minister David Cameron has been caught singeing, if not burning, his fingers twice within a fortnight. And it has been a double whammy in both instances, getting embroiled in a combination of, what his critics call, Islamophobia and fears of influx of refugees from war-torn West Asia and migrant workers from Europe.
First , in a bid for better integration of already settled migrants at
home Cameron announced a £20million programme aimed at spreading the knowledge
of English language among Muslim women
to enable them to interact with the host society and to better understand their
rights and responsibilities as citizens. The underlying, though unstated,
objective of the campaign targeting Muslim women presumably is aimed at asking
them to protect themselves and their
children from jihadist propaganda and
alienation from mainstream society. Muslim community leaders were quick to
denounce the targeted campaign as naked Islamophobia while other mainstream
opponents denounced it as wrong headed and discriminatory, saying it should have been directed
at all communities whose English language skills were less than adequate. One
of the prominent critics has been none other than Lady Warsi , Cameron’s former
colleague appointed by him as the first Muslim woman cabinet member.
Second, while the targeted promotion of English language skills
among Muslim women is still under cloud,
the Prime Minister has let fly another language shot calling asylum seekers
from Syria and elsewhere as ‘a bunch of
migrants.’ The phrase came up in the
cut and thrust of debate during Commons PMQs (Prime Minister’s Questions hour).
Cameron was referring to Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s interaction
with migrants waiting to cross over to
Britain from the French camp at Calais known as the ‘Jungle.’ Critics were
quick to attack Cameron for describing
poor refugees as insignificant as a
‘bunch of bananas.’ The Tory press, on
the other hand, went into overdrive
defending Cameron’s phrase as pretty innocuous and normal grammatic
usage. Either way some mud appears to
have stuck , especially as it came not too long after Cameron’s earlier
description of migrants as a ‘swarm’ of
people which was taken up by critics for comparing migrants to a swarm of wasps or stinging bees. Perhaps both phrases
would not have attracted so much publicity
had they not come after a much
more pejorative description by Cameron’s cabinet colleague Philip Hammond, the
Foreign Secretary, who in a moment of thoughtlessness called migrants as ‘marauders’
waiting to barge into Britain.
A large part of anti-immigrant feeling in more recent years is directly
related to fear of jihadist cells at home and abroad. News stories of young men and women
travelling abroad to join the so-called Islamic State or Daesh add to the climate of suspicion against the community
majority of whom are law-abiding citizens. Images posted by Daesh recruits
wearing balaclavas and holding AK47 guns and some of them even executing
hostages produce revulsion against
terrorists and suspicion against the innocents. The most recent case of a young mother who escaped from Britain with
her toddler son to join Daesh in Syria only to flee back to Britain after tasting life in Raqqa for a year under Islamist control naturally
hit the headlines. On return she was jailed for six years by a judge at
Birmingham Crown Court for knowingly participating in jihadist terror machine. Her own plea that she had
been radicalised and soon disillusioned did not wash. Nor did her father’s plea
on similar grounds. The judge said she had been convicted as a terrorist and
her movements should be watched for the next 15 years.
Similar cases and resultant publicity naturally make life more difficult
for innocent members of the community.
Nor is immigration phobia a
particularly British issue. It is sweeping across the entire continent of Europe. After Germany’s initial open door
welcome to refugees fleeing Syria and other countries, Europe is clearly having
second thoughts. The atmosphere has been severely vitiated by the happenings in
Cologne during New Year Eve celebrations when several women were sexually
harassed and molested by some lone wolves or small groups of refugee hoodlums, apparently
from north Africa and West Asia. A few
bad apples, perhaps. But they have tarnished the image of thousands of
luckless asylum seekers fleeing war and misery at home. The tide is turning
against migrants, thanks to the hoodlums, some of whom were perhaps acting as
agents provocateur in the name of jihad.
The Danish parliament’s passage of a law to confiscate any money in
excess of just 1,000 euros carried by refugees or asylum seekers seeking
shelter in Denmark has bared the new
depth of feeling against migrants. The
explanation that the confiscated money would be ploughed back into
their rehabilitation expenditure may
sound hollow, yet it underscores
withdrawal symptoms of Europe’s
initial generosity. Not all of the one
million refugees who have entered Germany are sure of being granted final
asylum or refugee status. There is loud talk of
migrants to be sent back after three or four years when a
modicum of peace returns to the war ravaged lands of Syria , Iraq and the region. The architect of
German refugee welcome policy Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own chances of return
to power at the next elections are at stake now.
On top of all this, the very stability of European Union is under
unprecedented pressure. Britain’s demand for curbs on the free movement of workers from within the EU member states has
entered the final stage. No benefits like the unemployment dole for a number of
years or Brexit is the challenging new mantra of Prime Minister David Cameron. Grant the
demands or Britain exits European Union via
referendum is his clear challenge to EU.
He is optimistic about winning some concessions like an ‘emergency brake’ on
benefits claimed by incoming workers, mainly from central and Eastern Europe.
Questions like the length of the brake, four years as Cameron is demanding, and
whether the brake could be applied almost immediately after the referendum,
have still to be sorted out. The details of
EU’s draft offer, trumpeted by
him as an ‘important milestone,’ still face objections from EU member
states.
Much tougher opposition to Cameron’s preferred policy of staying in the
EU comes from within the UK, and most hawkish elements from within his own
party. The opposition Labour party, by and large, favours retaining EU
membership. But it is the die-hard opponents within the Conservative fold who, as
one commentator said, could do the self-destruct. Basically, it all depends on
the final concessions Prime Minster Cameron can extract from the EU and, even
more, will they be enough to satisfy the nay-sayers who want strict border controls to limit the intake of European migrants.
The referendum, likely in June this year, is unstoppable. Till then it is
an open question.
................................................................................................................................
No comments:
Post a Comment