Continuing our roundtable debate, participants discuss integration. What does it mean, and how can it be achieved? Who is responsible and what more can be done to help those who want to be integrated?
Ms B, a refugee from Bosnia, Mr P, a refugee from Eritrea, Mr A, a refugee from Afghanistan, Mrs S, a refugee from Somalia, Mr A, a refugee from Somalia and Ms N, a worker on mentoring schemes, take up the issue.
Ms B, a refugee from Bosnia: We always say ‘Integration is a 2-way street' and we spend a lot of time as advocates for human rights. But we never really say to people what does that look like - how would it work? We don't go out to people who live across the road here and say, well, "We have some people here who want to integrate - can you help them integrate?" That doesn't mean anything. It would be really nice if we could come up with some examples: what does it actually mean - and what does it look like - how would you recognise it if you saw it? So that we can give a real idea to people - because people don't have the words to address it.
Mr P, a refugee from Eritrea: If these newspapers carried the voices of refugees and asylum seekers, there could actually be a genuine debate. Some of the more informed among us could tell people what is going on so that they understand how we try to address our problems. We would learn how to relate to the mainstream communities in a cohesive and friendly way.
Take all the talk of ‘integration'. We are at the receiving end of certain announcements. But what it means in fact - this is not really understood by anyone in the grass roots. We need to understand integration as something that enhances our own and also this country's economic status. If it were to happen, it would touch on everyone's lives. Integration is not something that governments can do: it has to be wanted both by those who actively want to integrate and those who want to be integrated. Therefore this question of communication and how to reach out to the grass roots is a really important challenge.
But can we just blame the indigenous people? We live here in a very individualistic society where computers and televisions have their side effects. They isolate people. You don't really have time to go out and meet your neighbours. If you come from a different culture you have to have shared values of your own. Ideally, you would have some culture to exchange. But, if you keep too much to your own culture, without having any appreciation for anyone else's - then we really do have a big problem for social cohesion.
And this business of going out to meet other cultures and appreciate them doesn't happen by accident. This must be done consciously, deliberately - because the natural, unconscious way to behave is to keep to your own culture.
But we should be teaching the kids, "Look here - in Britain there are a myriad of cultures, black, white, African, Indian - and we have to have shared values - good democratic values."
Are we deliberately, consciously, contributing enough? Are we thinking enough about how they perceive us and what we could do to change those perceptions and to really meet each other? My question is, what must we do to play our part in this?
Mr A, a refugee from Afghanistan: I really appreciate what you said, P from Eritrea, but you know when refugees come from foreign war-zones, after losing people and not knowing anything about the culture, the society you are going to - they can't offer much initially.
Take my case. I was the only person in Newcastle when I first came. I hadn't heard of anyone else from Afghanistan. The first person I met to talk to was an Iranian guy, and he was living very far away and didn't give me his phone number. My English was no good anyway - so I was a bit concerned about how to make the journey to see him. I was watching my every movement to make sure that nothing awful happened to me. I wasn't in any position to go to anyone else and say, "Oh, welcome - please come and share my hospitality." You are not in that position. And it can be very disorienting.
My friends had just come to Newcastle and on their first day, someone knocked at the door and it was some young teenage girls, asking, "You've just moved in?" So they answered in broken English, "0h yes", and the girls said, "Can we come in?" They thought this might be the neighbours coming in to say you are welcome to this society or something, so they said, yes, come in, and then the girls said, "Do you have anything to drink - tea, coffee, alcohol?" Then they began to think, there must be some rules about under-age kids and alcohol: what shall we do with them now? So they rang me, saying: "Something has happened and there are two girls sitting here!"
I had to tell them to invite them to go shopping and then lock the door and go on their way and not encourage this any more: afterwards it transpired that these girls had known a previous occupant and had received cigarettes and perhaps alcohol from him. They thought they'd carry on in the same way with my friends.
Mrs S , a refugee from Somalia: When the July bombers struck, the headline in the Sun was "Ungrateful!" and they insisted from the outset that this was the work of Somalian refugees. After the July bombings, we told the police everything that we knew about what had happened, and that these people were not from Somalia, but were East Africans. But they have never listened to us: what they started they were going to finish regardless.
We were scared to go out for months. If you got on a bus people shouted at you. You were scared to pick up the kids from school. So, we called a meeting in a Community Centre and called the police and reported to them all these threatening incidents that had happened in our area. We didn't contact the media at the same time because everyone felt rather fragile and we didn't know how to approach the media. At that time we had a lot of struggles and no-one was on top of it enough to do anything about it. No-one.
They never did withdraw that allegation. They just kept repeating it. They like to make conflicts between the British people and everyone else: they can always do with a good conflict. As for our neighbours: not surprisingly, they hated us.
Mr A, a refugee from Somalia: Well actually it was different in my case, where I used to live in South London. We had a different relationship with the indigenous people living in that area. It's true, what my colleague says about her area: they thought that Somalians are coming over here, and now they are going to kill us and so forth - because this is what they were reading in the newspapers. A lot of shouting and scaremongering happened.
But in our case it was different because beforehand, people knew us and they came to us, and said - don't worry we know it wasn't anything to do with you. We'd been living there for about ten years in the same place, and we knew the neighbours. We had mixed socially and we had good communications. Our kids played football with their kids and sometimes we'd socialise and invite them into our home to eat food with us, and maybe at Christmas we'd go to their place and so we were working together for a safe neighbourhood, and it works.
My Mum wears a long hijab right down to her feet, and she is frightened of dogs. Often, neighbours would tell the dog not to frighten her - they knew how she felt about them. So, it was like that before it happened, and when the July events happened, they saw our kids getting scared and my sister not going out enough. So that's why they came to us and wanted to reassure us. You don't see those things in the papers, No.
Ms N, worker on mentoring schemes: Our ESOL classes in our community group are fantastic. We have had to apply for a grant, find the teacher, do it all ourselves. It has taken a long time to get it together. But the confidence and the skills the women have got who attend the group now: it's fantastic. They are encouraged. They go to the shops themselves: they don't just send their children. They will talk to their neighbours more. And these small things are what make all the difference in community cohesion. They help integration.
But community groups have to do this. Not the Government.
And this is exactly what's wrong with the current situation. Parents pass their prejudices onto the children and children talk about them and that's how teenagers end up going around attacking people. But if teenagers actually met asylum seekers, and heard their stories, not only would it allow them to understand their issues better, but I think it would put a lot of things into perspective for them, like; "What am I going to do this week-end? - oh I really want this pair of designer shoes!" They will become aware of the things they take for granted when they hear, "I had to flee everything, because my life was in danger..." It would help them and they could send those messages back to their parents. If people had a chance to actually know the ins and outs of asylum, it would help them all.
Ms B, a refugee from Bosnia: One thing I have asked everybody in officialdom including a number of former ministers I get a chance to meet - "Before dispersal did you have any communication strategy for local communities that will be receiving new arrivals?" I never get an answer. It simply never entered their minds that perhaps they should be doing something to ensure that receiving communities understand who their new neighbours are, and why they are there, and what is going to happen to them. Letting someone know that they are coming, where they will be living, what their experience has been - beforehand so that they are prepared. This suggestion is completely off their radar. It is almost as if they are saying, "Why would we bother to have a communication strategy when really we want them all to leave, or we would like to be able to wish them out of existence..." But in this regard, they disadvantage local communities who don't know what is going on.
