The Enduring Pain of Limbo

I sit in Victoria Square with my mini-pizza for my lunch. 

 

The distant cousin of the Italian original

My Italian nephew would be horrified that such a disc of pastry should call itself a pizza. The dough is too short; there is not enough tomato sauce spread on the base; there is an incongruous slice of processed ham covered by a slice of processed cheese, and there is not a gram of mozzarella anywhere. However, the whole creation is loaded with a large layer of Dutch cheese and a couple of vegetarian additions – a jalapeno chilli, some slices of capsicum and tomato and a sprinkling of oregano. For approximately £1.99, it will keep me going through the afternoon.

The benches in the shade are all fully occupied, which suits me fine as I, being the typical Brit, want the hot sunshine that is so elusive back in the green and pleasant land of Blighty. 

This was before the police stopped us feeding people

I recognise the trio of Afghan women whom I photographed eating the pots of pasta we served a couple of weeks back. They are here every day, usually sitting on the same bench and keeping an eye on their children who run a restrained riot between the flower beds. 

Their husbands will be in the cluster of men cross-legged on the ground on the other side of the square, debating the latest rumours about conditions in various camps, and when the borders will re-open, and scraps of news and gossip from back home in Helmand Province.

From time to time, new groups emerge from the stairs that lead up from the Metro station. 

The men wearing backpacks, the women wearing babies, and they all carry bags of some kind and drag their wheeled luggage along behind them.

A friend or relative is leading them along the path, clearly knowing where he is headed as he takes them to the comparative safety of a squat, most of which are tacitly permitted by the authorities. 

Such accommodation keeps the homeless off the streets and away from the eyes of the reduced numbers of tourists who gawp at the ancient world while they listen to the multi-lingual commentary from discreet safety, upstairs on the open-top buses.

It is the young couples who really touch my heart. I see man and woman in their early twenties, clearly in the first flush of a marriage, and wanting nothing more than the opportunity to create a home and a family. Despite the present scenario of unending limbo, they still have a freshness about them, bravely facing the new challenges that the world has thrust upon them, and sitting quietly apart from the family groups, in their own world of plans and dreams. But while the plans and dreams of young couples back in Britain are filled with bold hopes and bright optimism, the eyes of these young Syrians betray anxious apprehension. In their short time together, they have already had more fear and excitement than most Europeans would have in a lifetime. Watching their faces, I realise how they rely on each other totally; how their young love binds them together with a determination to get through it all.

…and then what?

Will we offer them the opportunity to enrich both themselves and our communities, in the way the Ugandan Asians brought a breath of new life in the aftermath of East Africa’s wind of change?

Will our faith communities – the mosques and churches in particular – welcome the new arrivals with whom they share some basis of common culture?

Will we deliver an education that will raise up these new arrivals, without holding back the potential of British children who are already working their way through the education system?

But, above all, when will the European Union actually perform as a United Europe and open the borders to the thousands who will increase our human capital and can enrich our continent immeasurably? All the peoples of Europe need to stop thinking of populations as consumers of social services and start thinking of them as generators of wealth.

Does Sir Philip Green really need a yacht this big?

But first,we have to dismantle the post-Thatcherite legacy of a rigidly stratified society that is governed by obscene wealth, corrupted by off-shore institutions and protected by inefficient taxation.

I am convinced that this will only be dismantled and restructured by some kind of revolution.

What I cannot decide is whether it is possible to do that peacefully.