asylum city

Shireen-e-man

2011-06-20T12:56:00.002+01:00

Agar baayad khodaahafez begim
shirin-e-man
khodaahafez-e-shirin begim
va befahm
ke dar har gushe-ye-khiaabun-zendegi
haazer hastam
montazer-e-didanet hastam
taa vaghti ke
dige baaham hastim
shirin-e-man.

If we have to say goodbye
my sweet
then let it be a sweet goodbye
and know
at every corner of life's street
I am ready
I am waiting to catch sight of you
until the time
we are together again
my sweet.

2011-05-15T04:13:00.001+01:00

I see that you are doing research into attitudes of home office applicants.

I work informally to support asylum-seekers, including those who are refused and destitute. The suffering endured by applicants at all stages of the process is enormous, while they are told by the press and the public how lucky they are to be here and how grateful they must be. People feel anything but welcome, especially when housed by NASS in the most violent and deprived neighbourhoods. they feel that the system is dishonest and spiteful. I could give any number of examples of policies and decsions which appear to support this view.

You might be interested in the widespread perception among asylum applicants that the Government actually welcomes the presence of failed asylum-seekers as a way of propping up the economy by providing sub-minimum-wage labour. This was the only way they could make sense of the refused applicants not being removed from the UK.

People believe that there is no torture with electricity in this country, but instead torture by paper, with an endless bureaucratic process that leads nowhere.

One of my favourites was the "no-policy policy": applicants whose NASS support had failed (a very frequent occurance) would typically manage by borrowing from other applicants. Once their support had been restored, they would be advised to send a fax - at their own expense of course - requesting that any shortfall be made up. These requests were never repsonded to. Further enquiries eventually established that no decision could be made on amking such reimbursements until the Minister made a policy decsion, an of course it was a low priority................. the theory was that support was for subsistance only and as the applicant had evidently survived they had no subsistance need relating to the period - often several weeks - for which payment had been missed; repayment of money borrowed could not be budgeted for.

Another source of cynicism has been the Home Office's policy in the recent past of refusing ALL asylum claims unless they were incontroverible, and letting it be settled at appleal stage. Careful analysis of the stats for certain years shows intitial decisions on case other than minors running at around 97% refusal, with about 25-30% ultimately successful on appeal - in other words, nine out of ten claims that ultimately succeeded had been refused initially. Applicants are then of course commonly blamed for the costs of the legal process etc.

Then there's the real kick in the teeth - granted at appeal, but three weeks later a letter in incomprehensible legalese advising that the Home Office has counter-appealed, generally pointlessly.

You mentioned in some of your posts that "everyone" gets frustrated with the bureaucracy; I certainly believe that well-intentioned people at the Home Office get frustrated and burnt out, but can you really put yourself in the shoes of applicants? People whose lives are on hold for years and years, waiting for a decision? Many are those that say they would rather be removed than carry on like this, and yet even a voluntary return is not possible.

So all this may account for the "them and us" attitudes you seem surprised to have found. Of course, not everyone's experience of the immigration system is negative; there are the lucky ones, and then there are those who play the system, who are cynical from the outset and therefore not disappointed.

People on the Legacy section of this forum are generally people who have not been well served by the system, however you look at it - that is why the legacy exercise was required. so it is unsurprising you have been met with hostility and bitterness. One of the saddest aspects of this whole mess is that people who came to this country full of energy and hope end up bitter and frustrated, and not only against the Home Office. People end up convinced of the fundamental truth, that immigrants are not welcome here, however we dress things up.

I hope you continue to visit and to give guidance, it is useful for people to see things from the other side of the fence. I would certainly not offer anyone to look at their individual case or prove something by accessing their file (which might even get you sacked?). People come on this forum essentially for mutual support, and they should be able to express themselves freely and anonymously without it being able to be linked up with their case files.

You see, on the "us" side of them and us, we mostly believe, more or less clearly, that the immigration system is not only shockingly inept (I must say, it has been improving over the last few years), but we think it is profoundly unfair, and therefore we empathise with those who attempt to circumvent it, even if some of us may not agree with doing so.

Personally, I believe that just as glaobalisation insists that rich countries should be able to move goods and capital unimpeded around the world, poor people should be able to sell their labout around the world.Telling someone, your life chances must remain limited because of where you were born is immoral. In principal I support open borders - of course this does not imply a benefits free for all.

I do not expect others to share my view, but there it is. I hope all this casts some light for your research. I have chosen not to post this in the forum as it may only stir up more bad feeling.

Good luck

JIM

email to Ayaan Hirsi Ali (AHA foundation)

2010-08-18T22:30:00.001+01:00

Hi

firstly, I would like to support the right of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and others to speak freely about all issues.

However, I feel that her campaign is misguided. She is entitled to her own views on Islam, and in spite of what many Muslims say about apostasy, she is entitled to promote her views; but her focus on Islam as being a threat to the West, and the cause of misery within the Muslim world, is way off the mark. Moreover, even if she herself opposes such action, her campaign is likely to simply add weight to those who would like to destroy Iran, invade Somalia with Ethiopian troops, etc.

All the abuses of women listed on the website certainly occur, but none are restricted to Muslim countries. Honour killings are well known to occur among Hindus and Sikhs, and occasionally even in Christian Mediterranean countries; female circumcision is unknown in most Muslim countries, but common among Christian Ethiopians and others.

A campaign against such crimes based on persuading Muslims that the very core of their culture and identity needs to be ditched in favour of Westernisation, widely seen as the grossest form of vulgarity, can never succeed - especially when it is easily demonstrated that such abuses are in fact not rooted in Islam.

If someone is genuinely concerned for the situation of Muslim and other women, rather than in becoming a mascot for the "clash of civilisations", they would do better to support the steady but unglamorous work being done by thousands of people all over the world to reform people's attitudes, promote education, explain why FGM is not Islamic, etc; it is better to work with people rather than just against them.

I am far from saying that Islam is or should be beyond criticism; but how does calling Mohammed a paedophile help? It is true that Muslim apologists overlook or shy away from such matters as Ayesha's marriage and hadith condoning FGM, and then there are the laws of evidence and inheritance, but we only bolster the position of America's Wahabi allies if we insist that Islam is immutable, and we take George Bush's all or nothing, with or against us approach. Indeed, those who are the enemies of Islam, who see the world in Osama's terms as believer v infidel, West v East, democracy v terror, should celebrate the 9-11 attack as bringing on the fight to the death between good and evil.

But instead of this easy "little jihad", intellectually lazy, suited to extremists and young hotheads, people of influence as you wish to be should be promoting the "greater jihad" the striving by all people of good faith to understand what is the best way forward, to find a better way than conflict if any other is possible. The Muslim world, and the smug West as well, is crying out for reform. We will not achieve it with bombs, insults, incomprehension.

Liberal democracies should promote their values primarily by refraining from unjust wars, from supporting vile dictatorships, from continuing economic and ecological policies that impoverish hundreds of millions, by allowing free movement of people (like Ayaan) to better their lives, and by making reasonable acommodations with other cultures as long as the primacy of host culture views is assured.

In this context, I support the criminalisation and active suppression of FGM and all forms of abuse committed against women residing in the West; I find the banning of scarves in French schools deplorable; I oppose banning the burqa as escalating a trivial issue; I think that shari'a law can be used as arbitration like the Beth Din subject to regulation and oversight which is wholly lacking today.

Ayaan, I would ask you, do you have more friends among the women you seek to protect, or among those who know little of the Muslim world? Do you think that Muslim women have on the whole benefited from your actions? Or have you simply been a weapon in what history may one day come to call "the Oil Wars"?

If you have read me to the end, I thank you.

Don't Go

2009-12-31T01:46:00.003Z

Men killing and being killed
far from home
far from their mothers' loving arms
to be buried in lonely stony graves
swept by harsh winds that bring from afar
the tears from a mother's eyes
the cries from a mother's heart
cast into the open skies
sharper than an enemy dart

killed for a king, for country, for a half-mad dream
of wealth, of fame, of glorious name
killed as so many boys are killed
far from the hopes with which they came
hopes and hearts forever stilled

what use is it to say Don't go
young men always think they know
more than a hundred generations teach
more than the blood of ages can reach
more than a million mothers' tears beseech
Don't go, Don't go, Don't go.

Grey

2009-12-31T01:34:00.004Z

My days and nights are samely grey
no rising sun anoints me
no colours bless my dawn
no shining sun enlightens me
no stars observe my night
my days and nights are grey

I have nothing to worthwhile to say
no length of sleep refreshes me
no exercise enlivens me
no words of man excite me
no love of woman awakens me
I have nothing to say

I wish my empty days away
my grey unchanging days
I turn my unmarked diary's page
and so count out my lengthening age
I wish my empty days away
my grey unchanging days

The Coming and Passing of Wars

2009-12-31T01:24:00.002Z

The Coming and Passing of Wars - May 1945

Like the turning of seasons
when in winter we cannot imagine being warm,
a distant memory, like childhood and innocence
the days that seemed impossible to see again
have returned

The guns and the killing and the madness have stopped
it's no longer normal to take aim and shoot at a stranger
misery is not celebrated, torture not excused, pity not mocked
and dazed, we think of peacetime problems again
and the time of blood and winter snows
seems like a long dark dream that never really was

except for the dead, the wounded, the killers, and the widows

And we ask ourselves
as our children will surely wondringly ask us
what was it all for?
was there not another way?
will the winter snows come again?

Flowers of Africa

2009-09-28T00:31:00.002+01:00

A man died in Africa last night,
a proud man in a proud country:
you'll have heard of neither one nor other.
In this world of pain
who or what is Eritrea?

I went to see his daughter today,
felled like a broken bird,
like a flower snapped at the stem,
folded over in pain,
far from home, far from home;
and who or what is Eritrea?

Eritrea, ceaselessly you bleed your children
into the two seas;
the red stain spreads
from the Red Sea land
and is lost, lost in the black depths.

The mothers and the fathers weep back home,
their children sleep, if sleep, all alone,
and we, we keep our hearts of stone:

let them die on the deep sea
or die back home, or over here,
let them die like flies,
the flowers of Africa.

Ziba

2008-06-13T22:30:00.001+01:00

I met a beautiful young woman
her life overwhelmed with pain and sorrow
and although I didn't recognise her
I knew her

I saw her struggling with children
juggling love and desperation
and bewildered frightened kids
and I knew her

I saw the harshness of her life
and the warmth of her heart
and though I didn't know it
I knew her

I felt her vulnerability
admired her strength and hope
and lack of bitterness
and I knew her

How could I not fall in love with you
protect you, support you
come to life before your eyes
most beautiful lover?

For I had found one long since lost
the mum I'd had before she paid the cost
the one I'd forgotten, my beautiful Mother
discovered at last in the eyes of another.

Snowbloodia

2008-06-13T22:16:00.002+01:00

Serbian absurdities
tragic atrocities
black and blue bruises
bloody noses on bloody birthdays
nobody knows
Slobodan somebody
bloody slob of a nobody
now makes us all no-bodies
blood in the mud
so bloody snowy
no blood in the bloody bodies

Blind with the blood in your eyes
burning with the blood of your birth
ethnically filthed
your filthy hands are rotted
in pure blood
Slobastard Serb
may it cleanse you from this wretched Earth

Where filth is thrown
the foul shall follow
this stinking corpse filled mud
that soon shall swallow you
is purer than your sweetest dream
our darkest night.

** With sincere apologies to all Serbs, I acknowledge your sufferings, this was written in anger.
** It has been suggested that Milosevic, both of whose parents committed suicide, was an abused child.

Kurdistan 1991

2008-06-13T21:39:00.002+01:00

The news pays nightly hommage
to Kurdistan
and I make nightly pilgrimage
to Kurdistan
daily I perform my painful duty
witnessing to the agony of a nation

as if by sharing in the suffering
I could lessen theirs;
as if my faithless prayers
could reach God's ears;
as if my precious tears
outweighed an ocean.

Armenia

2008-06-13T21:28:00.003+01:00

Slipping over the sill of history
from memory into mythology
from passion to trivia
the forgotten people of the forgotten valleys of those long forgotten years

Armenia: I imagine
an almost empty land
of ochre mountains and silent lakes
everything tinged with washed out red
empty to a vast sky
the end of summer;
a haunted land
whose manings and messages are invisible
to its present transient inhabitants
who see the piles of stones, but not
the cherished churches, gardens, homes
of another time, another life.

I see it still, in nineteen-sixteen;
how sad it is, neither gardens nor graves
no-one remembers Armenia.

*********************
"Who now remembers the Armenians?" - said to be Hitler's response to an aide who hesitated at the posibility of exterminating the Jewish people.

Paki shop

2008-06-13T21:24:00.002+01:00

In the local Paki shop
the customers come in to talk
talk up the hopeless housing
talk down the high-rise rents

The shopkeeper stands respectfully
it's not his place to speak his truth
of racism and emigration
isolation, separation
working
uncounted hours, unfeared of years
in your local Paki shop

Saved for, paid for, silently prayed for
it's not his place, full stop.

Family Life

2008-06-13T21:20:00.002+01:00

Two people in love
fitting like hand in glove
a hidden fist clenched
soul and body wrenched

the first time was the worst
the rest monotony at best
is this what all the world lives for?
a child born, a woman torn

husband and wife, trouble and strife
as now they know, found out too late
it wasn't worth it, all a mistake
they ache and hurt and bite and hate

a mother and child
one smothered, one wild
each alternately in turns
while smouldering bitterness icily burns

Marriage

2008-06-13T21:11:00.002+01:00

To have and to hold
to love and enfold
to cover with gold
to bare and behold

To buy and be sold
to tell and be told
to scare and to scold
to fear growing bold

To hate getting old
to chase from the fold
to kill and be cold
to millder and mould.

*millder, a dialect word formed as a cross of mildew with moulder.

Prayer to the Rain

2008-06-13T21:08:00.002+01:00

Oh may it never stop, this cleansing rain
may it fall heavier and heavier
clean the roads and houses new
wash away the marks and stone
wash away all sign of life
Oh may it rain and more and more
wash away all of life
cleanse this Earth of all our works
cleanse our souls of every stain
sweep away our cluttered lives
undo our deeds, unbind our bonds
wash away our sin and pain
may it rain and rain and rain.

Nightwind

2008-06-13T21:02:00.002+01:00

Walking through the nightwind
long and cold and heavy and dark
invisible river
flowing over me
pushing between the houses
small and unlit
beneath a bottomless starless sky
no sound but this steady exhalation
unvarying, unliving
quietly, slowly robbing me of warmth
stealing through these endless empty streets
quiet, but in this total silence
loud as a funeral wail
unseen, but large as the sky
devoid of smells, of noise,
of any sign of life,
this dying breath of Earth.

Dusk

2008-06-13T20:58:00.002+01:00

That moment of the evening
when the cats sit still
and all the world is hushed:
the labours of the day are done
the night's exertions yet to come.

The sighing breeze of evening
and the softest colours of the sky
with all enwrapping tenderness
bathe the toilers of their sweat
soothe the troubled hearts of men
and usher in with gathering night
one by one the silent stars.

Home from Home

2008-06-13T20:46:00.002+01:00

I love Longsight
scruffy, vibrant, full of life
where Africans and Gypsies, Jamaicans and Afghans
all can feel at home
in our little Anglo-Pakistan.

I love Rusholme
where Mumbai meets Little Mogadishu
and the summer evening air is scented
with shisha and curry and diesel.

I love the city centre
the masonry mountains
the pride of past ages
and the hopes of today.

But Chorlton is where I come to be with me
to drink coffee, read the papers
to think, to write, to listen to music
to visit the river, to feel the changing seasons
to watch the people walking, to note the passing years.

I have my home in Longsight
amid the hurley burley
of asylum struggles and shopkeeper wars,
I work in Gorton
peeping in on fractured lives
and people getting by, doing their best,
But I live my truest life in Chorlton
alone in coffee bars or by the river
I am not lonely, I’m with myself.

By Chorlton Brook

2007-11-18T23:00:00.000Z

The leaves wave to me,
gently, insistently,
the wind caresses me,
softly, so softly,
the rich soil clings to me,
asking me to linger longer,
the water on its ceaseless journey
calls to me
the birds ing for me
the raindrops bathe me
the swaying branches reach out to me
and if I allow, they stroke my face,
and endlessly repeat for me
you're not alone, you're not alone.

A daughter of this house is married

2007-11-18T21:15:00.000Z

She is my precious jewel
her beauty shines among other women's
her clothes hang with elegance
she walks with grace among the throng
her silence speaks clearly in the crowd
her eyes match the softness of her voice
so look after her

Hard years have followed hard years
in the bleak years empty of hope
she persevered
with quiet faith and dignity she endured
she survived the crossing of the deserts and the seas
the borders and bureaucracies
to bring herself here today
so look after her.

A daughter of this house has got married. She has been refused by the Home Office, but life continues. She is not allowed to register her marriage, but she did not marry in order to get their precious papers, their permission to live; she married to make her life, trusting that things will work out, as I believe they will. The Home Office does not have the power of God over us, nor are their laws more worthy are respect than our morals.

She has no father or mother in this world, and so we are her family now, and a great privilege it is. She is missed in this house, but she knows she will always have a home here.

At the wedding reception, I was seized with the realisation of the movement of the links of the chain of generations. I have seen enough Habesha wedding videos to recognise the traditional songs and dances and the choreographed sequence of events that represent the passage from daughter to wife, from girl to hopefully mother. Each generation alters things slightly, and allowance has to be made for changed circumstances in a new country, without those that should be present. But still there is something timeless; it is a privilege indeed to participate, and yet I also feel sad: people move on, and maybe I am left behind.

Bosnia

2007-11-16T11:44:00.000Z

The land of chalets and flats and mountain huts,
forests and rivers and valleys and such,
small dusty towns, villages lost in mud
in the land of snow and blood.

Summer and winter the war burns on.
The spring rivers rise
bring bodies with no eyes
in autumn they dry
the long-rotted ones arise
from their beds in the mud
in the land of snow and blood.

With hot rage and cold cruelty the men fight on
Revenge and anger and cold calculated killing
The red-and-white checks and the Chetniks are winning
their dead far out-numbered by our million civilians
trodden like the grass of the fields
once rainbowed with flowers
now lost in the mud
in the land of snow and blood.

By hunger and fever this war is won:
in burning ice and in blazing sun
people forced to choose sides are driven from home
to countries so like and unlike their own
fields of bones in the mud
in the land of snow and blood.

Omar Khayyam

2007-11-09T20:57:00.000Z

Just bought a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam for three quid from the Oxfam bookshop in Chorlton - beautifully illustrated, and somehow come into my hand after being printed in Iran forty years ago. The poems are in Farsi, with the very free interpretations of Fitzgerald, and more literal translations into French and German. The German's not a lot of help to me, but the French helps me to decipher the lettering of the Farsi.

It's a really beautiful book, and is helping me through a difficult patch right now.

Letter in the Guardian published 20/12/2006

2007-10-26T00:50:00.000+01:00

Madeleine Bunting's excellent article highlights the shaming reality of Britain's tabloid-driven immigration policies. What asylum-seekers want is a fair hearing and the right to support themselves while awaiting the outcome of their cases. They are not asking for benefits - the vast majority want to work, not only for the money, but for the sake of their self-respect. Denial of work is the surest way to promote prejudice and create an embittered underclass.

Jim Holloway

Manchester

Asylum stories - Terminated

2007-10-24T19:58:00.003+01:00

Yodit came to me from the Red Cross. They called me as one of a small group of people, largely Christians, who accommodate homeless victims of the asylum system in their own homes.

Yodit turned out to be a young African woman, pretty and sylish, very polite, with good English, but with a weary, defeated air, and clearly nervous about sharing with me, a stranger. She had been living in Home Office accommodation very nearby. The landlord had changed the locks on her room because her money and accommodation had been "terminated" by the Home Office after her claim for asylum was refused. They were "too busy" to let her back in to retrieve her few belongings until the next day, and then wouldn't give her a two minute lift to my place, leaving her in the rain with her carrier bags. She had to spend her last few pounds for a taxi as I was at work.

Over the next few days Yodit unburdened her heart to me.

Her parents had died in a road accident. Brought up here and there, her relatives in time arranged her passage to England; she came equipped with an asylum-claim that the Home Office had no difficulty seeing through, a story about her being discovered in an illegal lesbian relationship. Waiting in desperate loneliness in a hostel, far from every tie of family, faith or friendship, absolutely against her character, like a lost teenager, she fell into bed with a guy from Zimbabwe, who disappeared from her life the next morning, leaving her confused, ashamed - and HIV positive - what seemed to her like justice for her pretended gayness.

Before her diagnosis, she fell in with a guy from her country who really seemed to love her; he expressed his love by insisting to not use a condom. When she was diagnosed, she didn't want to tell him, for fear of losing him, was wracked by guilt at having maybe infected him, and still he insisted, by force, on unprotected sex. As she described her lover, who took money from her whenever she had any, who had had many other girlfriends and maybe still did, the scales began to drop from her eyes, and she saw him for what he was - a user.

Guilt-wracked as she was, I arranged for a priest, a good man who understands asylum and much more, to hear her confession in the rituals of the church she's grown up with but gone very far from; but in truth, she'd already made her confession to me, and saw the rights and wrongs of her life much more clearly, which even made a marked improvement to her health: the hospital hadn't understoodthe stress that made her blood counts worsen so quickly, and now were surprised at her sudden strengthening.

After a few weeks, Yodit moved to London to work. I visited her once, found her working in an unlicenced African bar hidden underneath a shop: as I was shown in, my white face stilled all conversation, but they mostly soon relaxed. I wasn't happy about her working in such a male environment, but she said she was OK.

Our contact became less after that - her mobile phone was always broken....... I've still got her things, rotting in my cellar. I just had one call from her late one night: "I just wanted to say, in all the time I've been in England, the only time I really slept was at your house".

I blame myself for losing touch with her.

Asylum stories - TV man

2007-10-21T23:55:00.000+01:00

Happy came to our asylum-seeker hostel from Africa, where people seem delightfully unselfconscious going through life with names like Bigboy and Baby (a 25-year old lad) given by proud parents.

Happy, a short and thin but lively fellow, with expressive facial and hand gestures, was gentle and pleasant with everyone, and always seemed to enjoy plenty of female attention, despite being in his 40's.

He had been an electrical repair man in his former life, so he was delighted when I gave him a gift of a voltmeter and some other basic items whose use I had no knowledge of.

Happy employed himself rescuing dead TVs and videos from skips and fixing them up. He's pass them on to other asylum-seekers for a fiver; more often than not they'd need looking at again after a few weeks, so he was always busy.

Happy was altogether a very attractive sort of asylum-seeker: cheerful, helpful, recycling dead tellies to hard-up people. A focal point in our little comunity.

Of course we were aware that a) he was not allowed to work; b) the repairs could be unsafe; c) the purchasers risked being fined for not having a TV licence; d) he was using our property to run a miniature business.

It always struck me as hard that, while someone on thirty quid a week might pick up a half-dead telly a tenner, they're still expected to find 120 pounds for a licence, the same as if it had cost a thousand.

As for unsafe equipment, these are people that have often faced life-threatening situations in their countries and on their journeys here, let them make up their own minds whether to sit in silence everynight in their bare rooms, or take a chance on a dodgy telly; at least it helps their English.

Charities won't touch electrical equipment now; their insurers insist it must be checked by a qualified electrician before it can be given to someone.

Shortly before he left us, he came to me very emotional. Through a long, painstaking chain of friends and contacts, he had at last found his family, living in a camp in Africa. Their situation was dire, they needed money for schools, for food, for medicine. Like so many, he was saving money from his meagre weekly allowance to send home. It was the first time I saw his cheerful demanour falter. He was proud of his family, hoped that I "his brother" would meet them one day.

It is of course intolerable to the authorities that people save money out of their benefit; it implies that they get more than they need. No doubt right now some petty-minded bureaucrat is reading this - you know who you are - and calculating how much might be saved by cutting a fiver a week from each claimant.

Sadly, not long after finding his family, Happy got his refusal from the Home Office. At this point I'm supposed to tell him about going back and that he has no alternative. His money will stop, and he will be evicted in a week's time from his room/workshop.

Of course, I do explain that the Government will be only too pleased to fund his flight back. But there is also the other option, the one we're supposed not to know about. He could go underground, joining the thousands living precariously day to day, sleeping on floors, working for two pounds an hour, never giving their real name, not even to supposed friends, never knowing if tomorrow they'll be caught.

A little money goes a long way in an African refugee camp; it achieves far more than the foreign aid provided from government hypocrisy and private piety.

So I was delighted when Happy told me, "My brother", that he had found an electrical repai shop in another town that would give him work.

Unfortunately, Happy broke his leg in an accident. I never heard from hm after that, his phone never answered. I'm sure he'd have been in touch. I can only assume that Immigration caught up with him. I hope he's reunited with his wife and children now, but he's a loss to us, and it's a lost income to that far away family he wanted me to meet one day.

Asylum stories - Maria's washing

2007-10-21T21:36:00.001+01:00

Maria had been an asylum-seeker from Eastern Europe, who along with all the rest had had an abrupt change 0f status that May Day bank holiday when eight countries joined the EU; no longer liable for eviction from the UK, she would be evicted from her Home Office house, and expected instantly to find work and a new home. While this is most of our people's dream, it's not so easy when you have two kids in nursery, little English, and all your friends are in the same boat.

Maria was a young Roma, with Indian features, always in a low cut full-skirted dress, and with two cute and beautiful little girls. She spoke three languages well, but her English would lead us into many misunderstandings, sometimes but not always amusing.

The first time I met her, unannounced and unofficially, it was to explain that, under pressure from the courts, and actually after the deadline to get out, the government would allow her to stay a little longer to find a job.

I found a woman desperate not to return to her country, overwhelmed with stress, shouting at the kids she clearly adored. In fact, she reminded me, in her looks and her voice and her situation, of someone in my past, who had lived and looked as my mother had lived and looked, in a half-remembered half imagined time.

I made a promise to myself that, of all the Roma families that dramatic spring, I would not allow this one to be defeated and driven out.

And so began a series of visits; she made huge efforts to find work, but it always seemed impossible, and myself I had neither the time not the contacts to find her something, when so many others were in the same situation.

Maria never seemed to trust me - why would she, this stranger, not even from an organisation, just some do-gooder, who would maybe do her harm. I soon saw that experience had made her wary, even of other Roma; indeed I was aware that men from Eastern Europe had made offers to her; and no doubt she had caught my eyes too wandering over her figure.

At the death, I was able to set something up for her, a job to match her circumstances, that would get her into council housing, and secure her in the country. After a miserable time in a homeless hostel with druggies and alkies, abused women and abusive staff, she was rehoused onto a bleak estate, and was happy there.

Suddenly, I noticed a change in her attitude. It had taken months, but n0w she would offer me coffee, sometimes food, and just relax a little, and the little girls were suddenly more playful with me too.

And so did we all live happily ever after, me and Maria and the two little girls? But it wasn't like that at all. She trusted me because it was finally clear that I was really only there to help her, that I expected nothing from her.

On a later visit, she told me that someone had stolen all her washing from the line. I was commiserating, blaming the scummy people around about, too aware of the cost of children's clothing, but she just told me she spent the whole day laughing at the idea of someone trying to wear her clothes. As she said, when you've had the life she's had, this is nothing, although for me it would have been one more thing to add to my baggage of misery.

Rather than the tragedies of a family wrecked by drink, disease, and racism, she chose to tell me about a day in England.

For her asylum appeal, she had had to travel to a tiny town which, outside of the asylum world, was known only as the name of a prison. They tell you not to bring your children, but what could she do? As with courts everywhere, you had to be there for ten AM; as luck would have it, her case was heard last, and she got out at seven with her starving kids and made her way to the station - which was closed for the night.

Not knowing what else to do, she called 999. The first officer to attend either didn't understand or felt it was nothing to do with him, but another one came who drove them over to the next town where the station was open.

Late at night, Maria and the kids arrived in our city centre, confronted by Friday night debauchery in full swing. Of course nobody hurt them, but she was scared. A totally alien world. Some of them were even gay!

Finally reaching home, they found the back door smashed in, and the house trashed. How many times had she told the humorously named "Pukka Pads" about that temptingly insecure lock? Whenever she spoke to them, they shouted at her. As she said, "She lady Manda, very no good".

She didn't even call the Police, just went to bed terrified, listening out all night for intruders, wrapped around her two little girls. Pukka Pads fixed the door next morning, with the same insecure lock.

"So I no cry because take clothes!" she said laughingly.

I pointed out gently that on my first visit, she was crying.

There's a scene in Fistful of Dollars where Clint Eastwood, having rescued the dark and beautiful Marisol, sends her away to safety with her husband and little boy. She asks him "Why you do this for us?" "I knew someone like you once, and there was no-one there to help."

And this feels like the very meaning of my life. For once, only, I am Clint, the Man with No Name, the Stranger, reliving and righting the real or imagined wrongs of my life.

And that is reward enough.

Asylum Stories - Love and Cruelty

2007-10-21T20:18:00.000+01:00

Mr Ahmedi had always been a bit awkward: demanding things that, though not unreasonable in themselves, were not allowed by the various bureaucracies that controlled his life as an asylum-seeker.

He makes life difficult for us; one time he had been too sick to collect the weekly sixty quid for him and his wife from the Post Office, so he'd sent her and they'd refused to pay her; because he didn't get a doctor's note or get it sorted by the end of the week it became a "backdating issue"; it's tiresome to explain that this means that, as they had survived to the end of the week without the money, the Home Office now doubted that they really needed it at all; that he needed to request a backpayment by fax, but that the Home Office had not yet decided a policy on backpayments, and therefore no decision to pay up was likely; it's wearying to hear stories of money borrowed from other asylum-seekers which now can't be repaid, and of scarce friendships thereby threatened; and all the time we have the doubt that maybe he couldn't get to the post office because he was working illegally on the side, and we have the near certainty that if he hasn't been working up to now, he'll do his best to find work in future to avoid this humiliation.

Mr Ahmedi is a funny mix - stocky, muscular, close-cropped hair, bullet-headed, always softly spoken with me, but often brusque with my female colleagues. His wife, though not afraid to speak up, is always careful to give precedence to her husband, and I too am careful to respect the cultural conventions: while I try to include her as much as possible, I address myself mainly to him. Anything else would cause discomfort, mistrust, perhaps misunderstanding.

Mrs. Ahmedi's contributions were often to gently set straight her husband's misapprehensions, or to remind him of things forgotten as he gets carried away with the injustice of things, or just to reassure him that seemingly big problems are not so important, the role indeed of wives everywhere through the ages, smoothing men's ruffled feathers, letting them feel important, carrying the real burdens of life on uncomplaining shoulders.

Mr Ahmedi used to be a leading sportsman in his country, not fit enough now, too old, too tortured, too podgy from his wife's cooking. Over his first year with us, we helped him find a coaching placement (unpaid, of course) with a very considerate local club, where he was highly appreciated, and which helped him with his anxiety and depression. It was remarkable to see this tense, preoccupied, defeated man become someone new, or perhaps his old self, when discussing the technical minutiae of the game with fellow enthusiasts; I always thought it must be such a relief for his wife to have him out of the house, and with something on his mind other than torture and asylum and injustice.

Mr Ahmedi had been with us nearly three years now. After the ritual initial decision from the Home Office, he had appealed, and the Court found in his favour; three weeks later had come the thunderbolt, the counter appeal from the Home Office, and the case now rumbled on through months and years of frustration and misery and enforced idleness.

Mr Ahmedi started to find that he could no longer focus at the club, he started making mistakes with the equipment, felt humiliated though perhaps no-one even noticed, and eventually gave up going; predictably, his stress levels escalated, his mental health visibly declined, doctors could do little.

I called on the Amhedis for a routine visit, booked in advance as usual because he's basically a proud and a private man, whose honour would be threatened by his wife receiving male visitors.

I immediately noticed an unusual atmosphere between the couple, normally so conservative; they were almost lovey-dovey, touching hands, exchanging glasses and soft words.

Even more remarkably, for such an honour-stricken husband, he sheepishly revealed what had been happening. He had been angry because hi wife had not cooked promptly enough for his hunger, then he refused to eat and even through the food away. Harsh words had been exchanged and tears had flowed. They had evidently been making up in the way of couples the world over.

My female colleagues found his behaviour blameworthy in the extreme. But I felt his pain as well as hers, that he had felt compelled to confess his misdemeanour to an outsider.

But beyond that, I blame this cruel system, that piles stress upon stress, year after year, and then exposes the cracks in a loving marriage to the eyes of the system's servants, inviting judgment.

Have you or I never behaved badly with a partner? I am privileged to look into this private world, and watch two people try to reconcile emotions and expectations, and in difficult circumstances to make sense of their lives. And if they succeed, they will have done better than me and maybe than you.

A man who was and is no more

2007-08-17T00:56:00.001+01:00

This was his wife and is his widow
these were - are? - were his clothes
these are the scars he left on his children
these are the things he shaved with
his is the presence still felt in the house
his is the everywhere shadow

The anger still lingers
among the bits and pieces
like the silence after shouting
as if he'd be back

I know where he is now
locked in the past
safe in the grave

But the past is still with us
and the grave is not deep
he is buried within us
neither he nor I sleep.

Small things

2007-08-17T00:51:00.000+01:00

Small things make me happy

Judge Judy at lunchtime
coffee in the afternoon
giving good news to a scared asylum seeker
riding my bike in the sun
settling someone in a new home
exploring the internet
appreciation from Fozia and maybe a job
understanding Portuguese last night
brushing off aggression and abuse
welcoming new housemates
spreading hope and warmth

small things make me happy.

Marrying your sister

2007-08-17T00:08:00.000+01:00

"Christina" used to live in my house, but is now receiving support again. She's petite and lively, but sad about the wasted years of her youth spent in the asylum limbo when she wished she could be at college. She misses her Mum terribly. Five years is a long time be be separated, to have no good news to tell, and none to hear.

She came yesterday to ask for a small favour for "David", who I took to be her boyfriend. He's from the same country, and the couple of times I've met him he's been polite and respectful, as all of them are from that part of the world.

Although his case appeared to be strong and genuine, he had been refused asylum; he had then tried to get to Canada, where he had a sister whose identical claim had been accepted. He had been caught at Heathrow trying to use a false passport, and spent half a year in prison for his trouble.

On release, he had made a fresh claim, citing new evidence, but as an ex-prisoner his case was dealt with swiftly and without sympathy. The bare support his fresh claim had brought him was stopped, and he was back on the streets.

David had helped Christina one time when she was stuck, now she is returning the favour. Herself on vouchers, she is working illegally and paying his rent.

David has a plan. His sister is arranging a marriage for him in Canada. These things take time and money; he promises it'll be just a few more months.

But David is hard to help. He's scared to risk working again. He feels he can't trust anyone except Christina, but he doubts even her, doesn't like him seeing other people. Once he's in the New World, he'll sort things out, Christina can start a new life with him there. I can feel her heart breaking as she fights the tears.

Imprisonment seems to have broken his pride and his faith in others. He resists obvious compromises, like moving in with his girlfriend, while making unreasonable demands on her.

The irony is that she is sure that this marriage will be on paper only; the marriage his sister is arranging is to herself. I imagine them posing for the wedding pictures - kissing? To what level of degradation does the system push people?

I warn Christina not to let herself be used, how people can become more and more demanding in their dependancy and their bitterness. She knows all this of course, having been cruelly let down by her former husband.

In th middle of my admonitions, my phone rings. Time for me to pay Josephine's rent again. We hold each other chastely. Amid despair and degradation, there is compassion.

Jeanette

2007-07-24T09:53:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I had a call from the City Centre Project in Manchester, someone I hadn't spoken to before, sounded a bit confused dealing with a destitute asylum-seeker. "Jeanette" is from Congo, getting food parcels from the Red Cross, staying with a friend, feels she's outstaying her welcome, but nowhere else to go.

I have to explain that I haven't got much to offer, I can't really ask one of my girls to share a room with her, a stranger with a different culture. Congolese and Habesha are really quite different, Congolese tend to be much more "African", louder, enjoy partying....... frankly, I'm more at home with Habesha and Middle Easterners.

Anyway, I tell her that, of course, if she's going to end up on the streets otherwise, she's welcome to stay in the front room on the sofa, and Jeanette decides to come and check us out, I think she can't quite understand the situation.

I cycle back from Chorlton, bring one of my girls with me that I bump into in the street, it's always reassuring for a new girl to meet another female at the outset, and find Jeanette at the bus-stop.

The house as it happens is busy, Rahel and Tigiesty come in, best friends Zohra from Ethiopia and Natasha from Zimbabwe are attempting to wallpaper the TV room. Gradually Jeanette takes in the situation, and I can feel that she feels able to relax here.

We talk about her situation. Incredibly, she's been refused for six years now, came when she was about 16, been detained, no solicitor, no permission to work........ She completed three years' study, but was prevented by her status from continuing. She is smartly dressed, speaks excellent English; I explain that there is no drinking or smoking in the house, that visitors are allowed but must be respectful. She asks if she can receive people to braid their hair, the way ahe makes a little cash, I say no problem, but if people are watching TV their needs to a homelife can't be ignored.

She talks about how hard life is when you're refused, that many of her friends have ended up in bad situations, in prostitution. I emphasise that if she feels herself in danger, she is always welcome here, she will be safe here, not to fear for herself. She says she would never go down that road no matter what, she is a "Child of God". I say, anyway, she is a human being, she has human rights, and not in the way the Home Office pervert the meaning of those words. I say that we make a mistake to give the Home Office the power of God to control people's lives, life continues regardless of refusal, there can be many ways of winning through in the end. We talk about fresh applications, marriage, amnesty, voluntary return.

Some moment of desperation propelled her through the doors of the City Centre Project. I tell her that I feel sure she will find a better option for herself than sleeping on my sofa - she isn't isolated or crushed, not without resources of some kind. But more than that, I sense that she leaves feeling that there is hope for her life, there are people that understand and don't judge, that her faith in God to keep her safe has some practical manifestation, is not just an empty prayer or a delusion.

And so she leaves, with my phone number and sure of her welcome, not quite happy I'm sure, but not quite alone in the world either.

Aboriginal sins

2007-07-21T21:11:00.000+01:00

Sven Lindqvist - http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2125617,00.html - suggests there should be "penance and restitution" for historic crimes, for example against the native peoples of Australia.

However, penance implies acceptance of guilt for those crimes. I believe this would be misplaced. Guilt arises not from what happened then, but from what happens now. We should all of us feel guilt who benefit from a society in which others' lives are crippled by the consequences of those crimes.

We are not guilty of historic crimes - but we are absolutely guilty if we tolerate global poverty; and to combat this evil we must understand how it has come about, not through the inadequacies of other peoples, but through accidents of history and through injustice.

History is important, not as an exercise in guilt and self-righteousness, but as a weapon to challenge injustice today. The slaves and slavers of yesterday are dead, but the world today is gripped by excess and poverty. History can help us make a better tomorrow for all our children.

The indivisibility of right

2007-07-21T21:02:00.000+01:00

It is a failure of understanding that leads us to think that something that hurts another can be a good result for me, or vice versa.

Instead, the best solution, or rather the only true solution to any problem, is one which benefits all parties.

Competition is conceived of as a game with winners and losers, as conflict; whereas the free-market economy is exactly premised on the idea of transactions being for mutual benefit. It is mistaken to view the market-place as an arena for sorting killers from killed, winners from losers - such a system is doomed to failure as the losers reject the outcome and the system itself. Everyone would end up losing.

TO BE DEVELOPED

Asmara

2007-07-21T20:58:00.001+01:00

How extraordinarily lucky and blessed I am
that a randomly found magazine
can bring tears of emotion to my eyes
with pictures and praise for Asmara
Italian elegance under African skies
a foreign country now as familiar
as the faces of the girls of my refugee family.

Leaves

2007-07-21T20:48:00.000+01:00

I love the leaves
The leaves are friendly
reaching out to me with outspread arms
waving to me in the breeze
murmuring to me in m lonelieness
crying for me in my sadness
stroking me softly
telling me in their millions
you're not alone, you're not alone.

The Naming of Wars

2007-07-21T19:35:00.000+01:00

The Great War became the First World War; the Yom Kippur War was renamed the October War, a recognition that not only Israelis were suffering; already the Hizbollah war is referred to as the summer war, in anticipation of another round that seems inevitable.

We talked for all those long years of the Gulf War, the war in the gulf of misunderstanding and forgetfulness between such near neighbours, Iran and Iraq, so different, so easily confused in a Western atlas or gazetteer, where the gap between 'eraaq and Eeraan is hardly more than that between idiocy and ignorance, between their madness and our malice.

Suddenly, after eight blood-sodden years, and an indecent interval of arms sales and sanctions, a new horror unfolded, a new Gulf War, our boys fighting for blood and oil, sand and glory, trumping the first Gulf War, now banally renamed the Iran-Iraq War, something local, a footnote.

Another interval of indecency followed, more sanctions, blustering, posturing, new actors. Bush for Bush, Blair for Major, Saddam, always Saddam. A new Gulf War, the second, or perhaps the third, like rounds of fighting in Beirut, mocking our counting as they mock the ceasefires. And so the earlier war is renamed the Kuwait War, to mark it apart from Iraq.

Those four jagged letters, four wretched years, Invasion, Resistance, Anarchy, Quagmire, and who knows what more to come? And how shall we name this when some future nightmare supervenes, when Turks meet Saudis, or Iranians Israelis, on the bloodied fields of Karbala?

But Iraq is not a war; it is the land of the two rivers, of palms and fields and mountains, of Babylon and Nineveh, Najaf and Karbala, and above all a land of people, of families, Arab and Kurd, doing their best to kep pride in the face of indignity, to stay human in a flood of inhumanity.

Loser

2007-07-21T19:19:00.000+01:00

Nobody likes a loser
and least of all mysef

Nobody would excuse one
and last of all mself

Each must take what he chooses
and I have chosen my hell

No-one has use for a loser
and I have used myself well

I'm not that much of a loser, it just feels that way sometimes.

What a load of rubbish!

2007-07-21T18:14:00.000+01:00

My latest job is "environmental canvasser".

This means I spend 20 hours a week knocking on doors in Gorton asking people if they use the Council's recycling service, taking comments, ordering bins, giving information, and taking orders for compost bins.

Gorton is an area with a lot of social problems - although there's a fair amount of hostility toward the council, who people think I represent, and cyncism about what recycling is all about, personally I enjoy engaging with people in a friendly way. I'm not interested in preaching to people about why they ought to be recycling/composting; I'm interested in hearing about people's lives. If I can help in a small way by letting people ge things off their chests, I'm happy. If I can help to defuse people's cynicism, I'm pleased. If I can get a frightened person to oen the door and feel glad that they did, that's a result im my book. And of course, I'm never happier than when taking on asylum myths, and best of all giving respect and appreciation to people from refugee backgrounds.

But I've also found the whole exercise enlightening, not only about the struggle to maintain decency in an area swamped with deprivation, but about the ins and outs of recycling.

From supporting without enthusiasm the idea of householders separating their rubbish and having separate collections for this that and the other, I've gone to feeling that all this is essentially an exercise in guilt-tripping people, while giving them an opportunity to salve their guilty consciences in a meaningless way.

What changed it for me was the realisation that the brightly cloured bins for paper, glass, etc, cost in the region of 40 pounds each! Perhaps that's acceptable as a once-off cost, but there's a continual attrition of burnt out and vandalised bins paid for from Council Tax. Then there's the cost of the separate collections; the hassle that householders feel about obligatory sorting of rubbish and storing of bins; and the likeliehood of fortnightly collections; the difficulty faced by older people in managing multiple bins and collections; to say nothing of the gross failure of the collectors to collect, and their attitude toward cardboard in the paper collection.

My feeling is that we should move to a completely different system. Communal recycling bins within a hundred yards of every home; optional, paid-for, home collections, which could be provided privately; and the costs of recycling/disposal, as opposed to collection, to be met by the commercial producer of the rubbish.

The rubbish stream could be monitored to ascertain the originator of the material; in practice it should be straightforward to identify the branding of 90% of material and charge the brandholder according to the costs of dealing with that particular material. Manufacturers/branded retailers (Tesco et al) would then have an incentive to use less material that is expensive to handle (plastics) - and council taxes would be reduced by 80-100 pounds a year.

For doorstep collections, the charge should be a flat fee per collection; householders can be encouraged, but not compelled, to separate their waste. Certainly, separation of cans and glass is easily achieved in the depot. Only paper is really worth keeping apart.

Instead of householders feeling browbeaten by the council, the rubbish collection service would be one which they choose and take ownership of. One of the stated aims of householder rubbish separation is to raise people's awareness and force them to take responsibility for their waste; while this does work to some extent, I feel that it tends more to increase people's alienation from the council and the environment generally. Certainly, people can feel that by going to the trouble of maintaining separate bins, they have done their bit for society, whereas in reality the changes society needs to make are far more wide-ranging.

An example is with the consumption of plastics. The theory is that people will become aware of the amount of plastic in their waste, and will then do something about it; in practice, they do become aware, but feel helpless. There is as yet no sign that consumer opposition to plastic results in any commercial pressure on manufacturers and retailers.

It's a bit like a screw mechanism: in theory, you might think that applying downward pressure on a screw would force it to turn and bite into the wood - in fact it might, but you might break your hand first; however, turning the screw will force it to bite down with only a minor effort. Forcing consumers to move manufacturers' behaviour can work eventually, but there's a much more painless way forward.

There endeth the Lesson!

Letter to Gerald Kaufman MP

2007-07-21T18:11:00.000+01:00

Dear Gerald Kaufman,

I am writing to you about the question of social housing allocation to refugees. I refer here only to those granted refugee status, not asylum-seekers.

It is clear that there is much resentment about what is perceived to be the unfair prioritisation homeless refugees. Because they are homeless, they automatically get housing ahead of others who are in overcrowded or unsuitable housing, but who are not actually homeless.Although refugees are only one element in the priority homeless population, their presence is the most noticed. It is a fact that homeless refugees place a huge additional burden on council homelessness provision.

However, the sloution to this is substantially within the hands of the government. Refugees become homeless because they are evicted from NASS accommodation at the conclusion of the asylum process. The problem could be eased by adjusting the "grace period" from 28 days (in practice often much less) to three or six months; the problem could be substantially solved altogether by allowing NASS occupation licences to be transferred to social housing tenancies.The latter step would allow refugees to remain indefinitely in the (ex-)NASS properties if they so wished; it would require agreement with the NASS property providers. Unfortunately, despite representations on the subject for many years, new contracts were signed with the providers which made no provision for this.In spite of the evident unwillingness of the Home Office to contemplate this, I raise the topic again now because the rise of the BNP (9% vote in Sedgefield) is focussing attention on the matter of social housing allocation.

The cuurent system transfers a modest accommodation cost to NASS to a huge expense to local authorities in temporary housing; creates resentment against refugees and immigrants generally; builds enormous frustration and distress among those officially recognised as in need of welcome and protection; causes disruption and expense to services such as GPs and schools; seriously damages social cohesion; and even undermines the stated purpose of NASS dispersal, to settle newcomers in designated areas away from the South-East.

I urge you to take this up with the new Home Secretary. I apologise for the length of this letter, but hope ou recognise that the points made are grounded in solid experience, which I feel anyone connected with asylum or social housing could confirm.

Yours sincerely,Jim Holloway

Rageh inside Iran

2007-07-20T23:35:00.000+01:00

Just watched a brilliant film by Rageh Omaar visiting Tehran, you can really feel his sense of humanity coming across, he's written somewhere that he made the film wanting to bear witness to the lives of people in Iran hoping that the West will empathise with them rather than hurl them into the pit of hell as they have done in Iraq.

Rageh Omaar is up there for me now with Robert Fisk, Gary Younge, Craig Murray et al: men that I wish I could be - if I was fully myself, yes I would have the confidence and the focus and strength of character and intelligence and cultural sensitivity of those guys.

Fear and elation

2006-12-04T17:54:00.000Z

Life in the asylum system can be an emotional up-and-down. I met a woman recently that had fled from her husband, a beautiful young woman, one to die for; she spoke of her fears of being sent back to her country, where her life would certainly be intolerable, and how she is scared especially at night in case her husband turns up - and yet at the same time, she was full of the joy of a second youth, of being free and independent after years of silent suffering; and although I could only give her precautionary advice about the husband, I was able to give her a lifeline of hope about her position in the UK. For her safety, I cannot give any details, but it was clear from her circumstances that there was little prospect of her being sent back, and every chance of her getting "leave to remain" next year; this was all self-evident from her case, yet no-one had been able to tell her this, so she was obviously hugely relieved, and our mutual admiration was obvious.

"Samira" as I will call her reminded me of another young woman I once knew, the one whose tragic life was what brought me into Asylum City in the first place years ago: we loved each other then, but could not prevail over cruel circumstances and our own shortcomings. It is richly tempting, but I will not fall in love with "Samira", nor can I let her fall for me, though I believe she could.

I will tell the story of me and "Ziba" another time, the beautiful Ziba.

Another world - welcome to Lunar House

2006-11-02T20:17:00.000Z

Today I meet a young lady, pale and shivering with the cold of the first day of winter, and her first day in Manchester. Someone brought her in to the chuch hall where we do our best to make asylum-seekers feel not completely unwelcome in this country.

"Lucy" arrived from Africa last week, claimed asylum at the airport, and was sent off to a hotel on the South coast until accommodation could be sorted. Yesterday, she was sent to her new accommodation in Manchester, an all day coach trip, with some dried up sandwiches to keep her going.

So far so good, she was received into the accommodation, had to sign all sorts of forms, some translated some not, given information she didn't understand, and crucially got to the post office for the first currency to be put in her hand, £50 for ten days.

Just one problem. Among the ever growing bundle of forms and papers, most of which I know to be meaningless, she has a notice form the Home Office. She has been summoned to complete her "screening" process on Tuesday at 8 am - in Croydon.

Now that she is NASS supported, she is expected to fund the travel herself, and overnight accommodation if she needs it. Speaking not a word of English, she will have to negotiate London's public transport. Failure to attend is likely to mean automatic refusal.

The obvious answer is to switch her screening to Liverpool. So I embark on a long, frustrating series of calls to various outposts of the Immigration "estate". Liverpool say that I must phone Croydon, but the number I have doesn't seem to work. I call Liverpool back, they give me more numbers for Croydon - none of them work. A third call, and I am told to call the information line. After listening to a tedious recorded message, I get to a human; after long deliberations and referrals, I am given the number of Liverpool, and told that they are not allowed to give any Croydon numbers out to the public.

I try the local Immigration Centre - all numbers I ring go to answering machines or ring dead. I try Liverpool a fourth time - where someone remembers hearing that all Croydon numbers have been changed. They go away and find me a number. It works!

I am passed on to various departments; someone will call back later (they don't). They say it's all the fault of NASS, who "disperse" people before screening is complete. They don't really understand why it might be more difficult for Lucy to get to Croydon than for them to change it to Liverpool. They explain that 8am doesn't really mean 8am; any time before 11:30, or twelve, or two or four, depending who you speak to, will be OK.

Her solicitor's office is closed for lunch; Refugee Action turns out to be closed for the day for a staff conference. NASS local office - someone informs me that "no-one will take the call". The drop-in closes at two o'clock, and so I go home, promising to keep Lucy informed via the person that brought her in, who speaks a little English.

From home I speak to the solicitor - he wants a fax of the screening letter. I'm grateful to the local shopkeeper for not charging me for using his knackered fax. I try NASS again, and get to talk to someone pleasantly cynical. He confirms that NASS won't pay for travel, though he suggests Lucy write to them for reimbursement "just in case". I ask if it's worth it, he says, "well I wouldn't go to any real trouble with it".

He cheerfully tells me about some lad who had to travel down from Blackburn to Croydon four times at his own expense, because they kept cancelling the screening after he got there. I can't be cheerful about it; I joke about it, but it's a black humour laced with bitterness. At his suggestion, I try Croydon again, and talk to someone more sympathetic. They'll get back to me.

The solicitor calls back; he advises that she should make every effort to go, rather than jeopardise her case; if she gets there too late - but when is too late? - they'll make representations to have her given another chance.

So there we have it. I will buy a coach ticket for her, and am not heartless enough to make her pay me for it. I will try to make her understand her journey, getting the first bus to the city centre around 5:30 am, taking the coach about 6:30, arriving London maybe 11:30, finding a train to Croydon, finding Lunar House, a concrete block identifiable by the miserable queues shuffling outside in the bitter cold, maybe by 1:00, maybe out by 3:00, maybe back home around ten or eleven.

It's no big deal really, who cares?

Well, I care actually. I care that this woman will be scared, cold, exhausted, totally reliant on the goodwill and helpfulness of strangers and overworked public transport staff. I care that I wasted three hours on the phone, not to mention the coach fare. I care about the message of uncaring incomprehension that the system sends relentlessly to the most vulnerable members of society. I care that most people not only don't recognise they way asylum-seekers are abused, but on the contrary think they are privileged. I care that endless abuse by the system changes the hope in people's hearts to bitterness. I care.

My beautiful girls

2006-10-30T00:15:00.000Z

This is a short poem I wrote today about the girls in my house:

Food is waiting for me at home
and my beautiful girls
and my beautiful girls

The house will be warm for me
and for my African girls
and for my African girls

And Immigration may come to my home
for my refugee girls
for my refugee girls

But tomorrow may never make itself known
for my unwanted girls
for my unwanted girls

I'm not sure if it's any good - if anyone reads it they can judge. In my house I accommodate asylum-seekers who have been refused by the government. They get no benefits and are not allowed to work: the Red Cross gives them a weekly food parcel and there's a network of mostly Christians that take people into their homes.

In the past my house was mixed boys and girls, but lately it's become all girls (apart from me!), and they really are all beautiful, respectful, appreciative - the sort of people any country should be glad to have. They want to work, but these days illegal work is much harder to find. They aren't even allowed to go to English classes unless they can pay.

All of them miss their families, and worry about their situations, and as the months and years go by, it feels like their lives are going to waste. We have plenty of tears in the house, but everyone that visits comments on the generally happy atmosphere.

More than providing a roof, I like to think that here people have a kind of security, they live with dignity and respect, even if they have to share rooms, that they didn't have in Home Office accommodation. It's more than a house, it's a home.

And for me, I would otherwise be living alone. I'm not close to my family, no wife or kids, not much of a social life, a tendancy toward depression - this is my alternative family. It makes it a home not just for them, but for me too.

If anyone wants to help a destitute asylum seeker - which is quite legal, by the way - open your eyes, open your heart, open your home - contact the British Red Cross, or mail me.