It’s Refugee Week, and this year the theme is Healing:
“Through creativity and conversations, Refugee Week 2022 will be a celebration of community, mutual care, and the human ability to start again.”
Counterpoint Arts, organisers of UK Refugee Week
In Birmingham, events to mark this week include:
- 11:30am Thursday 23rd June: a visit to Victoria Square by Little Amal, the 3m high puppet who has already been on a journey from Syria to the UK (the Hub may be closed for a short period that morning so we can join in.)
- 4 – 7pm Thursday 23rd June: a Healing Party at Centrala in Digbeth, celebrating healing and unity through dance, song, spoken word and music.
- 10:30am Friday 24th June: a women-only Journeys of Hope Sharing Event at Birmingham City University.
- 1 – 4:30pm Saturday 25th June: Celebrating Sanctuary Festival outside the MAC at Cannon Hill Park, celebrating the contribution and resilience of refugees in the UK, and sharing their stories, campaigns and culture.
So how does this relate to our current theme about the Commonwealth? There is a saying amongst refugees and other diaspora communities:
“We are here, because you were there.”
This refers to the fact that many of the conflicts that people are fleeing from as refugees have deep roots in colonialism, the unfair distribution of resources, and partitioning. Borders were drawn up by Britain and other European empires, with little regard for the areas that indigenous populations had traditionally considered their homelands. Newly created nation states were left with resources in the hands of small elites and international corporations.
Few people want to leave the place they were born and grew up, but conflicts driven by these inequalities create ‘push factors’ that leave people with little choice. Similarly, only 1% of all the World’s refugees come to Britain, but those that do often do so because of exisiting family connections or speaking the English language – both connected to colonialism and ongoing Commonwealth links.
Desipte such a small proportion of refugees arriving here, the UK government has pursued a ‘hostile environment’ against anyone trying to come here. This includes recently bringing in the Nationality and Borders Bill that (amongst many other problems) discriminates against refugees on the basis of how they arrive. It has also tried to bring in a scheme to forcibly remove people seeking sanctuary in the UK to Rwanda (a country the joined the Commonwealth in 2009, but does not have historic ties to Britain).
These are some of the painful collective experiences that we seek ‘healing’ from this Refugee Week, alongside the individual traumas that people may have experienced in their difficult journeys. The struggle against the hostile environment continues, and you are welcome to pop into the Hub for a chat about these issues and how we can campaign against them. But for these few days, it’s a chance to focus on caring for one another, sharing our cultures, and building our communities.
Image: ‘Healing’ artwork created for Refugee Week 2022 by Nima Javan