Let's get back to work

During the last three weeks all my meetings and lunches have been negotiated around World Cup games.

I have been enthralled with the drama that is this four-yearly competition. Sven's boys, for example, have done us proud, particularly Sven's Black boys who not only scored more than half of all England's goals, but also proved to be one of the strongest defences in the world.

And who could forget the David and Goliath battles that have seen the outsiders South Korea knock out favourites Italy, Spain and Portugal. Not surprisingly, all three defeated nations have cried foul play, unable to accept defeat by the footballing minnows that now stake their claim on the highest prize.

Senegal, representing Africa, also acquitted itself with immense pride. Every game they won they lifted an impoverished nation to great heights on the world stage. Black Briton and neutrals alike willed Senegal on to be the first African nation to go all the way. But it wasn't to be.

Now our hopes turn to Brazil, to many, the African's of South America. Although it would be wrong to believe that Brazil is the multi-cultural melting pot it likes to portray. Racism is so entrenched in the Brazilian physique that the issue of racism is a non-issue: as far as most white Brazilians are concerned and some Black, white is positive, Black negative. Therefore, if Brazil get to the final and win don't expect Ronaldo or Rivaldo to wax lyrical about their African roots.

But now that World Cup football and its politics draws to a close I can return to the politics of power, which I have shamefully neglected. I say shamefully because whilst I and others have had our head in the footballing sand, the nation's and Europe's power brokers have been cooking up plans to scapegoat asylum seekers and cite them as EU's number one problem. That in itself is scandal.

Over the last ten years immigration and asylum across Europe has declined from 675,460 to 384,530. True, the numbers in the UK have risen but they still only make up 0.05 of our population or just over 1 in every thousand inhabitants.

Why then have governments made such a big issue out of a situation, which with a little common sense could transform what is perceived as negative, into a real positive work force? Why? Because Governments throughout the EU have pandered to people's base prejudices to mask failed policies and wins cheap votes

During a recent radio debate the MP for Brixton Kate Hoey, almost gleefully proclaimed that her Black constituency were also complaining about the number of refugees that were coming here. The subtext being that if Black people complained about the number of refugees here, then the Governments actions could not be construed as being racist. Wrong.

A few complaining Black people do not legitimise or disguise profoundly racist polices. What it does demonstrate however is the success of the media, and political onslaught that portrays this country as being swamped by an onslaught of foreigners.

The Government's response to this so called deluge is to bring in measures which if they were introduced by a Conservative Government the liberal left would have been justifiably outraged. Government plans include apartheid detention centres, that will see refugees and their children live and be taught separately.

When they are let out of the camps they are to be issued with ID cards, which like the ill conceived food voucher system, ensures that refugees are clearly marked out as third class citizens. But the most draconian proposal of all is the idea of pulling aid from some of the poorest countries in the world if they are not seen to be doing enough to stop people fleeing their shores.

Take a country like Malawi. Three million or 70% of its population are facing starvation. Those fit enough to attempt to leave this poverty-stricken nation surely would be forgiven for trying to do so. Not if Blunkett has is way.

If he felt the Malawian Government had not done enough to prevent people from fleeing the country, desperately needed aid that literally keeps children alive could be cut. To even contemplate such a plan beggars belief, to want to implement it throughout our EU partnerships drags the ideal of a fair and just Europe into the gutter.

Worse still it doesn't end there. The West's strangle hold on African countries begins with trade protectionist policies, which according to Oxfam represent a loss of earning to the tune of 100 billion a year. Africa's debt of 300 billion would substantially diminish if western countries afforded Africa free trade agreements.

Better still if the dubious debt was written off Africa could, on its own esteem, begin to rebuild itself in a self sufficient and sustainable way. But the henchmen of western governments: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), refuse to unshackle the African continent.

In negotiating debt, banks will force countries such as Malawi to sell its principal crop -maize-, to repay its debt. If, as in Malawi's case, a bumper year is followed by a bad year, with their surplus already sold another catastrophic African famine looms large.

These issues are alarming and we must be prepared to challenge and fight injustice wherever it appears. The immigration and asylum debate will define what type of society we seek to be. We as a community must therefore be at the forefront of that debate. The same goes for Africa - a continent ravaged by poverty and aids - with Western Governments economically strangling it with one hand and administering crumbs with the other, which barely keep it alive.

Further reading:- Ross Slater - 'How greedy Europe and America conspire to keep Africa poor, hungry and in need' - (New Nation), June 17 2002.