Discussion: No Borders and No Borders Camp in Calais 2009

[LLETSA]

I'm not a student and even if I were it wouldn't be relevant, since it's not the 1950s and students are not uniformly from upper class backgrounds. Do you have anything of any relevance to say or are you going to continue embarrassing yourself by making silly and innaccurate personal attacks?


I agree that it's not the best name in the world, but it's not exactly the most important thing here.

You'll always be a student. In fact, you come across as one of those people who'd be a student even if you hadn't been to university.

If it's all the same with you I'll continue with personal attacks. They're much more fun that trying to argue for basic common sense with people who seem to have little. For instance, the name you believe is of no importance does indeed suggest that the organisation campaigns for no borders as of now.

 

[In Bloom]

You'll always be a student. In fact, you come across as one of those people who'd be a student even if you hadn't been to university.

And you come across as a bigotted old fool who's bitter about the fact that the world has moved on and left him behind. It's funny the impressions you can give without trying.

 

[LLETSA]

And you come across as a bigotted old fool who's bitter about the fact that the world has moved on and left him behind. It's funny the impressions you can give without trying.

Where's the world moved on to? It was still here last time I looked out of the window.

 

[In Bloom]

What button? Who turned off my hearing aid?

characters

 

[LLETSA]

characters

Ah that's where the world's moved on to.

 

[tbaldwin]

Not read all prev posts so appols if i repeat owt.
Ok, in a perfect world there would be no need for boarders in fact I suspect that in this perfect world there would be a mass exodus from these rainy little islands.
I can sympathise with the no boarders cause and see that it's an attempt at making a statement of direct protest against one of the most harmful aspects of the UK and EU's capitalist system, the mis treatment of non nationals.
The problem is that at the moment economic immigration to the UK is not in the best interests of working class people. It drives down wages and working conditions, puts pressure on local services all ready being brutally rationed and hands the right and far right a big a big juicy cause with wich to attract support. It robs other, poorer countries of much needed skills and when immigrants get here they face exploitaiton and widespread racism.
I always try to turn the immigration debate, or the BNP debate as it's become in my local town to the issues that surround it. People are concerned for their jobs, many are finding life very hard scraping by on benefits, the health service is letting people down the government is widely hated and blamed for this, I can only speak as a white english person on this issue and would like to hear from the point of view of people from different backgrounds and with differing experiences of race/immigration in the UK.
In direct relation to No Boarders, when the boarder camp became national news a lot of people with no political axe to grind but have always been open and broadly agree with my leftie ramblings were suddenly angry, at what they saw as a bunch of upstarts fucking around with no reguard for what any one else thought. Not my opinion but just how it seemed to be met with by many people.

The issue of immigration is one that the orthodox left has a very unpopular position on.
Of course they will blame it on the media,lack of education etc etc.
What most of them (and free spirit is a good example) can not accept is maybe just maybe theyve got it wrong.

The orthodox left position is entirely contadictory how can you be against capitalism and for the so called free movement of labour. It doesnt even start to make sense.
People moving to where they think there are the best prospects is a fact of life under capitalism....but it can and should be regulated.

 

[goosegrease]

The issue of immigration is one that the orthodox left has a very unpopular position on.
Of course they will blame it on the media,lack of education etc etc.
What most of them (and free spirit is a good example) can not accept is maybe just maybe theyve got it wrong.

The orthodox left position is entirely contadictory how can you be against capitalism and for the so called free movement of labour. It doesnt even start to make sense.
People moving to where they think there are the best prospects is a fact of life under capitalism....but it can and should be regulated.

I'ts a bit like trying to square a circle. The very people who, as a socialist you try to appeal to and defend the interests of, the wc have been so sucesfully divided that you can't just hold on the old mantra of "capitalism divides us" and expect anyone to take you seriously. On the other hand you can find yourself going down a very dodgy road when you accept the immigration status quo.
Having spent time with assylum seekers in the line of political work and found some of them to be amoungst the most strong, noble sound human beings I've come across, I some times have to give in to the urge to tell folk to fuck off and see the world beyond your own tabloid reading nose.

 

[Kaka Tim]

The thing with No Borders

Before I reply - I'm not Kaka Tim - I'm his girlfriend but he left Urban up on his computer before going out.

Interesting discussion of No Borders. I've had a few dealings with them and the important thing to realise about them is they are very good at separating the ideal from the concrete day-to-day. Yes, the ideal of 'No Borders' would necessarily mean the dismantling of the Nation State. And no, you cannot assume that this would be like Somalia, and would be worse than life in the average nation state. It would have to mean empowering communities to take control of their own affairs, along with the free movement of individuals. So no, you wouldn't be getting an ambulance from halfway across the world - things would work on a local level. There is plenty of good anarchist literature by people who have thought this through, as well as a good number of practical instances of it working well (which doesn't have to mean perfectly, since the state is far from perfect) in practice (1930s Catalunya, The Paris Commune, Chiapas in Mexico now, communities in Argentina after the economic meltdown earlier this decade).

Maybe the more pressing point about the No Borders movement is the fact that they are not focused on eventual ideals and grand narratives. Maybe people who've posted here have a point about the fact that they will struggle to build a mass movement behind the No Borders issue, but without them, who'd carry out direct action against shoddy NASS housing and deportations to places like DRC where our government send people back to their deaths? That's the key point about No Borders. Yes, there's an underpinning philosophy, but that's not all they're about. I've just read down and seen that you've already talked about it not being an immediate aim, and should they change the name then? Well, not really, because it makes a bold statement of the underlying philosophy that anarchists everywhere can relate to, even if not all of the British working class can. The 'No Borders' banner was very readily adopted by the embryonic anarchist punk movement in Romania when I lived there, and underpinned their stand against Romanian Nazis (a bunch of real charmers who drowned a street kid in Timisoara and did about a year for it, underlining the need for communities to do their own policing at times).

OK that's my twopennorth and the end of my interfering on Urban for now.

Emma

 

[tbaldwin]

[/U] Well, not really, because it makes a bold statement of the underlying philosophy that anarchists everywhere can relate to, even if not all of the British working class can. The 'No Borders' banner was very readily adopted by the embryonic anarchist punk movement in Romania when I lived there, and underpinned their stand against Romanian Nazis

Emma

Brilliant......
You cant see why its silly,it just is.......

Head in the clouds.......just floating away.

 

[tbaldwin]

I'ts a bit like trying to square a circle. The very people who, as a socialist you try to appeal to and defend the interests of, the wc have been so sucesfully divided that you can't just hold on the old mantra of "capitalism divides us" and expect anyone to take you seriously. On the other hand you can find yourself going down a very dodgy road when you accept the immigration status quo.
Having spent time with assylum seekers in the line of political work and found some of them to be amoungst the most strong, noble sound human beings I've come across, I some times have to give in to the urge to tell folk to fuck off and see the world beyond your own tabloid reading nose.

The thing is that what would most help those noble sound human beings?
I think it would start and end with telling the truth.
And the truth needs to be told to people who may have a very negative view of asylum seekers.
The truth is that not all asylum seekers are the same. Some are great, some are far from great.
But the UK should accept people genuinelly fleeing persecution torture and death and be proud of it.
But there is a limit to how much a small country can or should do.
Economic migration should not be encouraged as the effects it has are seriously bad.

 

[LLETSA]

Yes, the ideal of 'No Borders' would necessarily mean the dismantling of the Nation State.

Who gets to keep the nuclear weapons? And the anthrax and what have you?

 

[In Bloom]

Who gets to keep the nuclear weapons? And the anthrax and what have you?

They'd be kept as collective property, in case of alien attack.

 

[LLETSA]

They'd be kept as collective property, in case of alien attack.

The crucial question is-would the be in the charge of people wearing bandanas?

 

[In Bloom]

The crucial question is-would the be in the charge of people wearing bandanas?

?

They've got experience in fighting alien menaces, but I don't think they're qualified for maintaining a nuclear arsenal.

 

[durruti02]

other than to say thanks for that titbit of randomness about your take on the Italian Communists position on migration in the early 20th century, I really didn't know what to say. I've no intention of starting intellectual arguements with long dead Italian Communists over their particular situation over a century ago.

as for the Irish potato famine... erm yes, I was aware of that, and that's part of the reason that it is so relevent, or did you think those mangetout on our supermarket shelves came from a different africa to the one in which the african immigrants trying to make their way here come from?

Many African countries have been forced by the IMF and / or World Bank to turn over ever greater portions of their best land to producing crops for export in order to earn foreign currency to service their foreign debts. This has resulted in people being forced off their land, forced out of subsistance farming forced out of using the best land to grow crops to feed themselves and the rest of the country, with the result that people are starving while their countries are exporting food produced on their best land for export onto our supermarket shelves.

meantime, our supermarkets ensure the price they pay is as low as possible, so that more and more land needs to be turned over to producing food for export just to get the same return.

do you see the similarities now?

sorry free spirit .. missesd your replies

1) why is it irrelevent the position of socialists/communists in Italy in this period? This is a place that had the largest economic emigration in europe, and they were c33% of the vote

2) and then you lecture me on globalisation? get away .. we all know these facts .. but forcing people as well as mange tout to come to britian, too cheaply, helps no one .. helps nothing .. solves nothing

and yet you do NOT deal with Ireland .. this migration was NOT neccessary .. Ireland was forced to continue to export food while millions starved

btw i do not buy fresh food from further than spain .. and that at a grumble

 

[durruti02]

oh, I missed this before.

please don't forget that I wrote that in response to a comment about me getting my information on migration, remittances and the effect it has on developing world communities from propaganda.

I'm intrigued to find out where you and the other posters who seem so sure of themselves on these points are getting their unbiased information from. I'm thinking it'd mostly be a few badly researched press articles together with some equally more badly researched articles articles in various left wing publications at best in most cases, but I'm happy to be corrected and even more happy to be given any links to any source material you're using to base your opinions on.

as for migrants being more worthy than people who live here... my take on it generally is that those who're at the very bottom of the pile globally, who're being fucked over by government and/or corporate forces that I potentially have much more influence over than them are the people that I'm willing to give my time and effort to supporting the most. It's not about them being more worthy, it's about them being more fucked over, and the difference in their ability to influence their situation compared to mine being so much greater.

I've got no problem with people who've determined their priorities differently, and I'll offer advice and assistance where I feel able / feel it would be appreciated to those in this country as well, but tbh there's only so many times someone can do this and have it thrown back in their faces before they shrug and move onto more productive uses of their time.

1) no i think we are taking our opinions from what we see and where we live .. imho most academics are so up their arses the do not have a clue what goes on


2) "who're being fucked over by government and/or corporate forces that I potentially have much more influence over than them are the people that I'm willing to give my time and effort to supporting the most. It's not about them being more worthy, it's about them being more fucked over,"

you see i think this is rubbish mate .. sorry but i do

why? you show no understanding of who or what migrants are .. the ugandan asians were migrants yet now make up a significant % of UK millionaires .. people like you always make the mistake that to be a migrant is to be poor or be fucked over .. this for most is simply not true .. like if i emigrate or move, migrants generally accept less as an investment for the future .. in fact most migramts from the off are better off than where they came from, whether as middle class ( as many migrants are) or w/c

do you never wonder why migrants are so hard to organise? why migrants are happy to accept low wages? poor housing? because they see this as a changing situation a springboard .. yet liberals like you think that 'migrants' are this homogenous poor and down trodden mass .. simply not true

and it is this mistake to concentrate ( after a few knock backs dear oh dear!) on this tiny minority instead of the majority which means progressive ideas are so marginal in this country .. something we and migrants pay dearly for

 

[durruti02]

I take it you're in unison. The union that is the Labour parties biggest funder?

so that's still after 11 years of full throttle neoliberal policies, the biggest funder of the labour party?

like I say, put your own house in order then by all means criticise what others are doing.


don't get me wrong, I fully appreciate that there's a lot of good work being done on the ground level byt a lot of people, I just can't believe that you're allowing all that good work to be more than undone by continuing to fund a party that has fully signed up to the neoliberal concensus to the point where this country is further down that road than pretty much any other in the world (never mind all the other shit they're responsible for).

Had the unions withdrawn their funding for a year at any point during the last 10 years (during the middle of a parliamentary term ideally) you / we may have had a chance of getting the labour party back. The unions had the potential to have that influence, nobody else did, and yet with a couple of exceptions, they continued to feed the mouth that was biting them.


ok, in a few situations the unions have been able to help, but in generaly terms the vast majority of illegal immigrants will not even contemplate approaching a union because they know they are here illegally, and that if the union kicked up a fuss the chances are that they'd be kicked out of the country.

The unions can only really begin to help these people if their situation is normalised so that the unions can support them, and use the legal process to improve their working conditions etc in exactly the same way that they can for any other workers.

so IMO it's not an either / or option, it's both.

lol put my own house in order? we trying to!! there is a million in Unison .. hundreds of thousends against the levy including me .. you make life sound so simple!! you think people are not fighting these fights??

and you miss the point entirely about unions .. it is about potential .. unions have a potential for change a quantum leap bigger than the campaigns you talk about

unions if democratically controlled as they are not now would i suspect argue for normalisation as part of a package of stopping the employment of cheap labour ..

but tell me why should unions or any one ion the w/c argue for normalisation when they have lost much of their protection?

 

[durruti02]

and conclusions / verdicts on the camp?

 

[Jeff Robinson]

1) why? you show no understanding of who or what migrants are .. the ugandan asians were migrants yet now make up a significant % of UK millionaires ..

The Ugandan Asians were stateless refugees fleeing persecution. What would you have done - left them to Amin?

people like you always make the mistake that to be a migrant is to be poor or be fucked over .. this for most is simply not true .. like if i emigrate or move, migrants generally accept less as an investment for the future .. in fact most migramts from the off are better off than where they came from, whether as middle class ( as many migrants are) or w/c

do you never wonder why migrants are so hard to organise? why migrants are happy to accept low wages? poor housing? because they see this as a changing situation a springboard .. yet liberals like you think that 'migrants' are this homogenous poor and down trodden mass .. simply not true

and it is this mistake to concentrate ( after a few knock backs dear oh dear!) on this tiny minority instead of the majority which means progressive ideas are so marginal in this country .. something we and migrants pay dearly for

You're tying yourself up in logical knots here. If I understand your argument correctly, you're saying that the immigrants most exploitated and at the bottom of the social ladder in Britain are not poor and fucked over because they're better off relative to where they came from?

As for migrants being hard to organise - take a look at history. Waves of Irish, Jewish and commonwealth immigrants have been fully encorporated into the labour movement in the past, why don't you think it'll happen again?

 

[tbaldwin]

The Ugandan Asians were stateless refugees fleeing persecution. What would you have done - left them to Amin?

What kind of rubbish is that? Is that what you think durruti would argue for? Get a grip.

 

[purplex]

The Ugandan Asians were stateless refugees fleeing persecution. What would you have done - left them to Amin?

where has durutti ever said he sees economic immigrants and refugees as the same issue? he has said quite the opposite across many threads.
you have to be either blind, ignorant or on a troll.

 

[tbaldwin]

where has durutti ever said he sees economic immigrants and refugees as the same issue? he has said quite the opposite across many threads.
you have to be either blind, ignorant or on a troll.

Ignorant perhaps to a degree. But many people on here have very narrow and blinkered views on migration. They seem unable to realise there can be more than 2 views on migration and think if you dont say immigration great! You must secretly hate Black people etc et fucking cetra....

 

[Jeff Robinson]

where has durutti ever said he sees economic immigrants and refugees as the same issue? he has said quite the opposite across many threads.
you have to be either blind, ignorant or on a troll.

Did you even read the post I was responding to? It was durutti that made the erroneous conflation in the first place. Tbh he's been spouting embarrassing gibberish all day and having Bevis and Butthead rushing to his defence won't exactly redeem him either.

 

[purplex]

Did you even read the post I was responding to? It was durutti that made the erroneous conflation in the first place. Tbh he's been spouting embarrassing gibberish all day and having Bevis and Butthead rushing to his defence won't exactly redeem him either.

Durutti has never conflated those issues.

 

[durruti02]

cheers purplex and TB .. as tb says most people don't read what i say .. i regularly get called a racist in these threads .. people who are not sure either way should ask themselves why others get this stuff so wrong

JR .. as the others have said i never conflate refugees and economic migrants .. in fact i attack the refugee supporters who do .. i think refugees will suffer as a consequence of economic migration

i also seperate previous migration, when we had full employment and the only opposition was racist, with now when it is clear much migration is as part of neo liberalism, for cheap labour etc ..