In Calais
Hello,
I recently published a short thing on the LRB Blog about Labour’s migration policy and the current wave of hysteria surrounding small boat crossings. Although it came out of my having recently been back in Calais, the piece itself is pretty terse and abstracted: it is very much an ‘opinion’ piece, not a diary. This is in part because I haven’t quite worked out the ethics of writing in any finer grain about the situation on the border yet. It seems so important to humanise it – now more than ever – but I can only do that with reference to my own extremely limited experiences and interactions. I am very much an outsider: many long-term volunteers and full-time aid workers have a much better understanding of how day-to-day life plays out there, to say nothing of the people actually living it. But I thought I’d put a few vignettes on here as a kind of accompaniment to the blog post, to try to convey in a different kind of way why the current dominance of securitization logic in the British political arena feels so utterly grotesque.
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There are two lines for the hot drinks station: one for men, one for women. Children are fast-tracked to the front. I am handing out water to people waiting, making conversation – any conversation will do, if it might make the situation less weird, less demeaning. I learn the Somali word for water: biyo. I learn the Kurdish word for water: av. I learn that somebody’s sister joined the all-female militia in Rojava, fighting ISIS. I learn that somebody’s brother has made it to Poland: here he is, grinning to me on FaceTime.
I get chatting to a guy with a tattoo of a wolf on his right arm. I love your tattoo, I say. So cool. I show him my tattoos. He is delighted. Neither of us mention his left arm, which is gashed with a deep, unhealed scar.
A teenage boy comes up and starts speaking to tattooed man in Kurdish, jostling his way into the queue.
Hey, I say. I’m sorry, but no skipping. You have to go to the back.
This is my brother, the tattooed man says. His brother gives me a winning smile.
Sorry, guys. No skipping. Only for children. See?
The tattooed man changes tack. He is my baby brother. He is small. Small baby. Baby to the front!
Uh-huh? I say. How old is he?
So small. Tiny age.
The tattooed man’s friends all reach out to ruffle the boy’s hair. Baby! Tiny baby!
The boy grins apologetically. I’m a baby, he says. He takes out a vape from his inside pocket and gives it a languorous puff.
Mate, I say, you’re vaping. You’re a baby who vapes?
The Kurdish guys are all whooping with laughter.
I am a baby, the boy says. I am a baby who vapes.
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I’m chatting with two South Sudanese guys and when I tell them my name they laugh.
George? Isn’t that a name for boys?
It’s like, the girl version, I say. ‘Georgie.’
Ah, ok. Hi, George.
What are your names?
Sam, says one of the guys. And this is Bush.
‘Bush?’ I repeat.
Yes. Sam’s jaw suddenly drops, an incredible realisation taking over. No way, you two have to get married! Because your baby would be called GEORGE BUSH!
I turn to the second guy. He is giggling.
Is your name actually Bush?
OF COURSE HIS NAME IS BUSH!
You’re making fun of me, I protest.
They guys shrug.
My name is Bush, says Bush.
Two days later, I see them again at a different site.
Hey! Sam calls out. GEORGE BUSH!
Another volunteer turns to me, confused.
Did that guy just say ‘George Bush’?
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I have the app, M. says, for English people.
I have no idea what he is going to show me. A translation program? BBC news?
The app, it turns out, is Fantasy Football.
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At the vigil – the third in one week – I look down again at the names, which are written on a scroll of paper spread out on the floor of the square. The scroll is held down by pebbles, its edges fluttering in the beating wind. It is several metres long.
Name, age, country of origin. Sometimes one or two of the columns are empty. Sometimes they are all blank. The worst, perhaps, is when the only thing missing is the name: X. 18. Eritrea.
Inevitably, you find yourself scanning, searching out, expecting the worst. Did you not meet a Suleiman, back in November? Was he not around that age? The flinch in the gut; the terror; then the awful, barbaric relief. The Suleiman you met was from Sudan, not Syria. This is somebody else.
Somebody else. The Suleiman you met and the Suleiman you didn’t. One of them real to you, memorised, mournable; one of them only a name. How to make a name mournable? How to make an X mournable? Why are we, gathered around this scroll, afforded the luxury of appointing ourselves mourners?
I remember a conversation last January, in the freezing cold: I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to give out contact details.
Yes, I know. But look out for us in the UK? Remember our names?
Of course. Mohammad – I gesture – and Ahmad.
From Syria?
From Syria.
You’ll find us?
I’ll give it a go.
Mohammad and Ahmad look at one another and suddenly start laughing.
What?
Ah, says Mohammad, it’s just – he wheezes – ‘I’m looking for two Syrians called Mohammad and Ahmad’. Yeah. Good luck!
And yet here I am, scanning the scroll.
Good luck.