Seeking Asylum?

An issue which always makes my blood boil quickly is that surrounding asylum seekers. It infuriates me when I see inflammatory articles in newspapers that suggest that England is being overrun by illegal
immigrants and asylum seekers (particularly by papers such as the Daily Mail, see here for a nice comparison article on press atitudes to immigration). Such articles hugely inflate the importance of the issue, and leads to ignorant intolerance and hatred among people. This has been confirmed by new evidence showing violent attacks on refugees in England has reached an all time high.
Of course tax evasion by the rich “(see example here)”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,682292,00.html rarely gets such tabloid treatment (do you really see the Daily Mail screaming headline after headline about unfair tax breaks???, or do Tax evaders ever get their head kicked in by brain-dead thugs???). However, by my estimation, general tax evasion by the super-rich would pay for 30’000 refugees to stay in England. I’m sorry, but even if 10% of the refugees are ‘truly’ escaping life-threatening persecution (and I hate playing such silly numbers games with human lives…), then that is money
well spent. How can I accept our Governments spending such vast amounts on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for example when it then treats Afghan and Iraqi refugees with such contempt (refugees partially through previous and current foreign policies). It is easy to play the moral high ground when comparing oneself to the Taliban, but much harder to carry through on your promises to support those affected by such regimes. And the media frenzy over immigrants seriously compounds an already difficult situation. I won’t discuss the fact that many local industries depend critically on black-labour, allowing western companies to be more competitive at home (not that I agree with it). This aspect of immigration is very rarely discussed, only exacerbating peoples ignorance in assuming immigrants only take from a country.

Posted by Ian at September 16, 2002 07:08 PM | TrackBack §