Tears and Fears: The Mass Eviction and Destruction of the Pashtun “Jungle” in Calais
Pre-text
On Wednesday 16th September 2009 Eric Besson (the French immigration minister) announced on French National television that the “jungle”[1] would be closed by the end of the following week. He had previously announced to the press in April 2009 that all “jungles” and refugee encampments would be gone by the end of the year. Besson and the French authorities had also previously given a date at the end of June for the operation to commence, but alas it never came into fruition. Besson had also announced only weeks before the 16th , that early in October the police would launch a test run for the real operation later in the year. Therefore the announcement on the 16th was not immediately taken as gospel, however, early on Thursday 17th there was a large police operation to clear the Ethiopian squat [2], and as the days went by and the town of Calais filled with journalists from around Europe, we began to increasingly realise that this was probably going to be it. As a result Calais Migrant Solidarity [3] put out an urgent callout for activists to come to Calais. Journalists were intent that Tuesday 22nd of September would be the day, and they were right. We were as unsure as everyone else about what the operation would entail but we felt that this crime could not go ahead without dissent.
Arial shot of the Pashtun "jungle"
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I arrived at the Pashtun “jungle” late afternoon on the 21st of September in anticipation of a full police lock down of the immediate surrounding area well in advance of the planned demolition the following day.
When I arrived the situation was as it had been for the last 36 hours. Media crews from all around Europe were walking around the “jungle” filming and photographing the Pashtun refugees and their less than aesthetically grand community.
This “jungle” was situated in the suburbs of Calais, about 1km from the centre, out towards the port, and right next to the infamous Rue des Gareenes where dozens of trucks are parked up at any given time, nearly
A house in the "jungle"
always with their doors wide open intentionally displaying empty trailers with no place to hide. This is a renowned place for refugees to try and board lorries bound for the UK.
That sandy scrub land dotted with trees was home to multiple hundreds of Pashtun refugees who had built a small community out of scavenged material. Homes, a shop, a mosque and a rope swing were built from thrown away or donated wood, metal barriers, cardboard, plastic tarpaulin, carpets and rugs. Depending on the number of Pashtun refugees in Calais at any one time, some 10 or more people will share one of these homes. A single water point was situated at the entrance but this was as far as the amenities went as the local municipal council refused to pick up their garbage resulting in the place being royally littered, with one skip piled high, and of course sanitation was a la naturelle.
It is tempting for people from our aesthetically centered society to dismiss the “jungle” with adjectives such as “squalor” and nouns such as “huts” and “shacks”. It certainly was a horrible and degrading environment, but the choice of language chosen created an image in the media that was played on by Eric Besson, allowing him to charge that the “jungle” did no favors to the migrants and that eradicating it would be of no loss to them. Indeed the operation has been framed by Besson in the media as a humanitarian act.
It is far more appropriate to refer to the “jungle” as a community with homes, for, no matter how much the refugees considered it to be a degrading place to exist, that is how ultimately how most considered it. Perhaps this just demonstrates how little these people had to hold onto, but the “jungle” was a place where people could go to at the end of the day; a semi- secure place to sleep, a base from which to make friends and share stories about their horrendous journey [4]; a place to cook, share and pray 5 times a day.
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Pashtun friends on the eve of the eviction
The last night of the “jungle” was my first night in the “jungle”. I was shown by a friend to his home where I could leave my bag. His home was like the rest from the outside, but inside there were photographs taken of him, his friends and other Pashtun residents by either other passer bys or journalists. After being prompted to remove my shoes, I was welcomed in to the usual question of “where are you from?”….. “ahh UK, UK good, I go UK, I go London!”
Inshallah.
As the sun began to drop I took a walk around. There was a strange atmosphere of unease, correspondents from the BBC filmed pre-recorded stories describing the operation that was due to commence the following morning. Many of the refugees kept asking about what was going to happen to the jungle and to them because, of course, the refugees had never been informed in person by the authorities on what was going to be happening. They instead rely on journalists and activists for their information, but I too knew nothing about what would happen to the people once their homes were destroyed. Many Pashtuns had fled Calais in the previous 5 days for Paris, Dunkirk or Belgium, to escape the inevitable sweeping arrests, but with the intention on returning once the storm had calmed. A couple of hundred however remained, clueless, scared but ultimately almost resigned to whatever was going to be install for them.
My night in the jungle was one of the most memorable of my life. When I returned to the house some of the guys were making bread and dinner on an open fire. It wasn’t long before dinner, but before hand I spoke to a Pasthun poet from the Swat Valley and we exchange a few words about the beautify and culture of his incredible land – “Gilgit”, “Peshawar”, “Kyber”, “Kalasha” and of course “polo”.
The food, placed in the centre of the floor for everyone to eat from, was incredibly good. Over dinner a man with fluent English translated our conversations about life in Pakistan or Afghanistan, Pashtun culture, the Taliban, the American and British assault, and the apathetic and material culture and politics of Europe. Under a couple of small candles, I was treated to some songs by the Pashtun Poet, and they were (not so) treated some English songs back. I think the poignancy of the sound, the flicker of the candle light and the silence outside infected everyone. There a long silence, everyone just stared at the candle…. what could have going through their mind?
I took a photo and made copies of my contact details for all of them to pass around. Inshallah, if you get to London, call me. I was riddled with sadness at the prospect of the following day.
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I had just a couple of hours rest before getting up very early. There was however no sign of the police yet, but a small group was gathered round a camp fire. At about an hour before sunrise the broadcast media vans returned and slowly the camp fire became populated with Pashtuns and journalists snapping away.
Migrants gather behind banners as police arrive behind them
I had heard from a friend that a huge number of French CRS police were massed in near by Coquelle the previous evening. At about 7:10am I had a text message to say that this large convoy had left for Calais. Just before 8am the police arrived pulling up with their masses of vans and coaches to take the migrants away in. As this happened, the refugees weirdly were all bunched together behind the banners for which we had them the material to write their own messages. The media were snapping away furiously, and as the police arrived, one by one, almost like crashing dominoes some migrants began to wail with tears and pain, infecting others who followed suit.
The pain of the journey, the eviction, and the future
After all the physical and emotional pain that they had been through [4], Lord can only imagine what they felt at this time. Was this the end? Was their trip to hell not only wasted emotionally but also financially, as so many have given up and sold their lives back home to come here, spending in excess of 10,000 pounds.
As clueless as they were about the consequences of this operation, I had a gut feeling that this was it for them, and that I would never see any of them again. This, combined with the sheer vocal despair coming from refugees in their early teens pushed me into emotional breakdown. I wept as I hugged some of teary eyed friends for possibly the last time. Indeed, tears are easy to come by now writing this weeks after the events – such is the pain that I saw and was apart of on that morning.
500 police officers arrive evict the "jungle"
As a reported 500 policemen marched into the “jungle” in an orderly fashion, the migrants stood all together, still and paralyzed. The media rushed around, a few Calais Migrant Solidarity activists unfurled some banners and began chanting towards the coming brigade of inhumanity. A human chain was formed by CMS and other local humanitarian groups such as SALAM as the police slowly and calmly approached. Convinced that the operation was simply a cruel media PR stunt, the police were clearly trying to embody what Besson had decried would be a “dignified” operation.
Activists attempting to stop the eviction
However their polite façade would soon fall as a scuffles broke out. The police first tried to grab refugees from the pack but with little success as activists would block their path and grab them back. This tactic was semi-successful for a short period before the police concentrated their efforts on removing any unwanted barrier. Adrenaline, anger and tears coursed through my veins in a desperate, but quite frankly pitifully small display of resistance proportionate to the crime being committed. It was not long before I, like the rest, was being kicked and dragged along the floor head first before being held to the ground well away from the group of refugees. By now refugees were being taken by police officers one by one, some resisting, but most just walked, heads slumped, some in tears, towards another unknown chapter in a godforsaken story.
human pain, pure and simple
Bulldozers make light work of the homes
A 6year ghettoised community reduced a single pile
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Postscript
My blog post entitled “After the destruction” (to follow) describes the immediate days following this large eviction. In short, about ¼ to 1/3 of the Pashtun refugees taken were released from their detention centres in the following days.
When I arrived in Calais for the first time in early August 2009 and first started hearing the stories of the migrants I didn’t think things could get much worse for them [5], but it has. Destroying the “jungle” has gotten rid of one of the few things the migrants had. The EU has stripped these people of all of their rights, their voice and now their home. They now walk the streets. Where is the logic in this operation you may cry? It is a subtle one, and one that has not been reported, but is one that is to be found around the world, most popularly in Palestine… it’s called ethnic cleansing, but a subtle one. The police and the authorities across the EU make the refugees” lives hell, squeezing them tightly [6], so they simply give up, take the pitiful 2000 euro reward offered by the International Organisation for Migration and return back to Afghanistan and tell others that the “free west” doesn’t exist, so don’t bother trying.
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VERY GOOD FILM HERE: Jason Parkison has made this film shot during the destruction:
http://current.com/items/91014318_the-dignified-destruction-of-calais-refugee-jungle.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/sep/22/france-refugee-camp-jungle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/sep/22/french-bulldoze-jungle-camp-calais
Notes
[1] In mainstream public media discourse the “jungle” refers to the Pashtun “jungle” in the suburbs of Calais. In Calais there are in fact several “jungles” and several squats in which migrants reside. “Jungles” refers to areas of scrub land that migrants have built homes from discarded or donated wood, plastic, carbboard, carpets etc. They are a thoroughily degrading place to live. In mainstream discourse however there only ever appears to be one “jungle” and that is the pashtun jungle which is the biggest, totalling between 300-500 pashtuns at a given time, and has the biggest reputation for links to mafia rings.
[2] Before the eviction process started on the 22nd of september there was a number of squats and “jungles” dotted in and around calais, each of which tended to correspond to an ethnic group, language or region. There was a Pashtun “jungle”, an Hazara “jungle”, a Vietnamese “jungle”, an Iranian “jungle”, reportedly a Kurdish “jungle”, a Sudanese “jungle”, an Arabic speaking squat, an Eritrean squat and an Ethiopian squat.
[3] Calais Migrant Solidarity is a network of activists primarily from France, Belgium and England who have had a continual presence in Calais since June 2009. They work concentrates on filling the gaps left by what the humanitarian agencies working Calais can’t do. CMS therefore concentrate their efforts on migrant security from the police, trying to document and communicate all acts of aggression and oppression against migrants from the police, resist evictions, visit those in detention, provide some aid, and since the evictions CMS has been working on trying to create a solution to their homelessness.
[4] Please see my blog post entitled “A tale of migration to the free world” for an account of the journey from Pashtun territories in NW Pakistan and Afghanistan to Western Europe.
[5] My blog post “A tale of migration to the free world” is a constructed generic tale of the journey based on conversations with refugees in calais.
[6] See the blog posts “A tale of migration to the free world” and “life after eviction” for details about repression of migrants.
