Archive for category Football
The Refugee World Cup – Thursday 19 June
Posted by cathannabel in Football, Refugees on June 19, 2014
Colombia, Ivory Coast, Uruguay, England, Japan, Greece
Colombia has one of the world’s largest populations of displaced people – somewhere between 2.6 and 4.3 million – due to ongoing armed conflict in the region.
See here for information on the photo project, Land of Light, undertaken by UNHCR Colombia and the Colombian photographer Santiago Escobar Jaramillo, which was realized through a series of workshops with displaced communities.
Ivory Coast
Bere Tassoumane’s journey from stateless person to state official.
Some who left Liberia for safety in Ivory Coast during its civil war later returned the hospitality when Ivory Coast went through the same terrible trauma. “During the Liberian war, refugees who left from Liberia to Ivory Coast stopped with people who also fled this Ivorian war,” Kolubah added. “So those who were hosted as Liberian refugees in Ivory Coast do not want their host to go to the camp. They want them to stay with them no matter what it is.”
Uruguay
Uruguay’s president has agreed to take 100 Syrian child refugees. The complexities of refugee politics are clear from this article – both in terms of the contribution relative to that of other nations, and to the problem as a whole, but also in terms of the way domestic politicians respond to even this ‘drop in the ocean’.
England
Refugee Action tells the stories of some of the refugees they work with, and the struggles they face in the UK.
I am, probably, more critical of my own country’s response on refugee and asylum issues, than of most others. I expect more, I hope for more. And there is so much to be disappointed, or angry, about. I had to make a mental readjustment, however, talking to a taxi driver yesterday – father from Djibouti, mother from Britain, born in Dubai, and in no doubt at all that this was the place to be, a generous and welcoming society. I found myself giving ground, acknowledging, I hope not too grudgingly, that it was good, even if I believed it could be better. He’d have passed Tebbitt’s cricket test too, with a higher score than me…
Japan
Even a wealthy, peaceful nation, which tends not to persecute its citizens, can encounter a refugee crisis as the result of natural disaster. The tsunami in 2011 left many homeless and facing desperate conditions. ‘Freezing winds, hail storms and thick snow are the latest threats to 430,000 beleaguered survivors of northern Japan‘s week-long cascade of disasters. After a massive earthquake, devastating tsunami and nuclear crisis, many people made homeless are now facing icy weather, with temperatures forecast to plunge to –5C (23F).’ (Guardian, March 2011).
Greece
Syrian refugee Hussein finds safety in Greece.
In 1923, Greeks from Asia Minor were evacuated or relocated in Greece following the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations signed in Lausanne. This followed a period of brutal massacres and ‘ethnic cleansing’ instigated by the government of the Ottoman Empire. The first census after the evacuations showed the number of Greeks of Asia Minor origin to be 1,164,267. Descendants of the refugees took part in the great Greek migrations of the interwar period, as well as the large immigrations to the United States, Australia and Germany in the 1960s-1970s. Today, about 40% of the population of Greece claims full or partial descent from the Asia Minor refugees; as does an almost equal percentage of diasporan Greeks.
The Refugee World Cup – Wednesday 18 June
Posted by cathannabel in Football, Refugees on June 18, 2014
Playing today: Australia, Netherlands, Spain, Chile, Cameroon, Croatia
Australia
In December 2010, a flimsy boat was wrecked by a storm on the cliffs of Christmas Island. 50 of the 89 men, women and children aboard, all asylum seekers, predominantly from Iran and Iraq, died.
Netherlands
In the mid-16th century, many Protestant Walloons and Flemings came to England to escape warfare and religious persecution, arriving in England through the Channel ports, many initially settling in Sandwich, until the numbers became too great. Subsequently, the Walloons were permitted to move to Canterbury, and were welcomed by the city. ‘The strangers (as they were called), were allowed to gather for worship at the church of St Alphege, opposite the Archbishop’s Palace, and later in the western crypt of the Cathedral. Most of the refugees were engaged in the weaving trade, and provided local employment, and a flourishing trade in finished cloth for sale in London or abroad.
Spain
In 1937, during the Spanish civil war, a group of almost 4,000 children was evacuated from Bilbao in the Basque region of Spain. They embarked from Santurce, Bilbao, on the ‘Habana’ on Friday 21st May and dropped anchor at Fawley, at the entrance to Southampton Water, on Saturday evening. The following morning, Sunday 23rd, they docked at Southampton. Initially accommodated in a large camp at North Stoneham, Eastleigh, they were eventually dispersed to many ‘colonies’ throughout the country.
Chile – Julio Parrado tells the story of his arrest and torture after the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile, and how he found sanctuary in Sweden.
Cameroon
A few weeks ago photographer Frederic Noy went to Cameroon with UNHRC to photograph the arrival of Central African refugees fleeing the violence in their country.
The UN Refugee Agency is recommending that the process of ceasing refugee status of refugees displaced from Croatia in the 1990s begins. Almost 20 years after the conflict in the former Yugoslavia ended, the circumstances that triggered displacement have fundamentally changed. Regional cooperation has intensified, voluntary returns have taken place, different ethnic groups have proven able to peacefully co-exist and economic and political progress is increasingly visible. Meanwhile, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia continue their efforts to find sustainable housing solutions for some 74,000 vulnerable refugees, returnees and IDPs from the 1991-1995 conflicts.
The Refugee World Cup – Tuesday 17 June
Posted by cathannabel in Football, Refugees on June 17, 2014
Playing today – Brazil, Belgium, Mexico, Algeria, Russia and South Korea
Belgium‘s invasion in two successive World Wars led to an influx of refugees into the UK. A local newspaper reported in 1916 on the celebration in Manchester of the Belgian Day of Independence,when ‘over 700 refugees were entertained by the Co-operative Wholesale Society. They had come from various parts of Manchester and the surrounding industrial towns’. The Bishop of Salford ‘alluded to the trials through which the refugees had passed, and remarked that that day they had shown to the British race how strongly united they were. He assured them that the feelings of the English people for what the Belgians had done in the great European struggle would be always as they were to-day’.
Algeria is ‘home’ to a significant number of Sahwari refugees from Western Sahara. Fadala was born in the refugee camps there and now works as a community outreach officer, particularly with young people in the camps:
I am working with Solidaridad Internacional as a community outreach worker. I am in charge of awareness raising efforts about the use of water. When I arrived here, it was almost a cultural shock. The situation in the camps is extremely difficult. Especially for the youth. There are no opportunities here. If there were no NGOs here, many youths would be out of jobs and would not be able to support their families.
If I did not find this job, I would have been at home. We cannot keep on waiting to receive humanitarian assistance without doing anything. Until when? The humanitarian assistance will not last forever.
I am very concerned about the dependency of Sahrawis to foreign aid and I would like to be a motor for a change in my community. My dream is to work one day as a journalist, to be able to convey the difficult life conditions my people are going through.
Brazil was the first country in Latin America to offer humanitarian visas to Syrian refugees.
Mexico – Martin Gottwald, UNHCR Deputy Representative in Colombia, shares his story for World Refugee Day here.
Russia – after the Revolution, from 1917-22, more than a million people left Russia. Refugees moved eastward to Manchuria and China, via Vladivostok to Canada and the US, and westward, via the Balkans and the Baltic states, to Western Europe, particularly France. Irene Nemirovsky and her family were amongst those who took refuge in France. Irene, who became a highly successful writer, was still there when France was occupied by the Nazis. As a Jew, she was deported to Auschwitz where she was murdered, along with her husband, in 1942. Her final, unfinished book, Suite Francaise, was published in 2006, after her surviving children read the manuscript and realised its importance.
South Korea – Hungarian journalist Csaba Lukács tells his story of Soon-Sil Lee, a North Korean refugee
The Refugee World Cup – Monday 16 June
Posted by cathannabel in Football, Refugees on June 16, 2014
Playing today, Iran, Nigeria, Ghana, USA, Germany and Portugal
Not all of them obvious sources of refugees, nor obvious havens for them. In fact most are, or have been, both.
The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to host one of the largest and most protracted refugee populations in the world, despite the voluntary return of hundreds of thousands Afghan and Iraqi refugees to their countries of origin over the past decade. But during the Shah’s regime, and the Islamic regimes which have followed, intolerance of political dissidence has also created a flow of refugees out of the country, with a significant group now based in Australia. Koroush came to the UK with his family and describes the pressures of life as an asylum seeker.
The USA‘s history is built on the movements of people fleeing intolerance and violence, from the religious dissidents of the 17th century, to the Jewish communities driven out by pogroms in the late 19th, to the victims of Nazism in the 1930s and ’40s. Recently it has seen a huge influx of unaccompanied child refugees from Latin America. Its history also includes, of course, the displacement of the indigenous Native American populations.
Nigeria in the mid-60s saw floods of refugees, mainly Igbo, driven from the north by massacres, even before the secession of Biafra and the resulting Civil War. More recently the terrorist violence of Boko Haram has driven people from their homes into South Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The UNHCR says that ‘in Nigeria, internal displacement is endemic. Recurrent ethno-religious conflicts and natural disasters have prompted people to flee their homes and seek safety elsewhere. If the general security situation remains unresolved, displacement and the need for a humanitarian response in the north of the country are likely to persist in 2014. Owing to the lack of security and limited access to affected populations, it is difficult to assess IDP numbers and needs.’
Ghana took in many people from Liberia and Sierra Leone during the vicious civil wars which tore those countries apart. Many of these refugees have now returned home, but the Buduburam refugee camp near Accra housed over 40 000 displaced people until recently. Jean fled from Ivory Coast and found sanctuary in Ghana.
Germany, leaving aside the movements of populations arising from war and occupation, drove out many of its own citizens as they were stripped of their professions, their property and their rights, in preparation for taking their lives. German Jewish children were amongst those taken to safety by the Kindertransport.
Portugal became a sanctuary for many refugees from Nazi occupied Europe. Salazar’s nationalist regime was not based on racial theories, and although under pressure from Hitler visas were severely restricted, Lisbon became the doorway to freedom. It’s not clear how many people escaped via Portugal – but Portugal’s own Jewish population, and most of those who came there, survived.
Help for heroes
Posted by cathannabel in Football, Refugees on June 13, 2014
Launching this year’s Refugee Week with a contribution (suitably football related) from Nowt much to say’s excellent blog. More from me to follow.
I followed Iran during the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Working as a volunteer English tutor at the Refugee Education & Employment Programme in Sheffield, I’d recently met a lad from a Persian speaking part of Afghanistan that has close links to Iran. Me and Hossein (not his real name) chatted about life in Sheffield and football. He loved football and was supporting Iran in the World Cup. His eyes lit up when he recalled how the Iranians had beaten the USA in France ’98. “We win, we win…” he said punching the air. I tried to throw my own love of FC United of Manchester into our conversations but my English skills weren’t up to it. He preferred Liverpool when it came to English football.
REEP offered free English lessons to asylum seekers and refugees in the city and I was one of the volunteer tutors who worked on…
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The 96 – 7 minutes for 25 years
Posted by cathannabel in Football on April 12, 2014
As all this weekend’s football matches kick off seven minutes late, to commemorate the time that the semi-final between Forest and Liverpool at Hillsborough was called off, on 15 April 1989, and as the inquests into the deaths of 96 men, women and children proceed in Warrington, we seem to be within reach of truth and justice at last.
For so long, any time anyone tried to tell the real story of what happened – the failures in planning and organisation, the lies, the callous treatment of the bereaved – they were immediately countered with the narrative that was propagated so assiduously in the days after the tragedy, most notoriously by the Sun. It had become an accepted fact that the cause of the disaster was the behaviour of drunken, ticketless fans, arriving late and forcing their way into the ground, even when the Taylor report scotched so many of these cynical fabrications. Finally, with the report of the Independent Panel, and the overwhelming weight of evidence to vindicate the families’ and survivors’ accounts, that has irrevocably changed.
Too late for too many, and just too bloody late – how could it have taken so long for the truth that was known at the time, even as the events unfolded, to be brought back into the light?
I do not know how the families and survivors have sustained their fight for so long, and at what terrible cost. But I know that a sense of justice has driven them on. Of course they have been fighting for the people they loved who never came back from that football match, of course. But it isn’t just personal – it comes from a deeper sense of what is right, what is fair, and a refusal to let lies stand in place of truth. I was privileged to meet, very briefly, the father of one of the victims a couple of years ago, and what struck me most powerfully was his belief that the values that he held dear, and that he had passed on to his son, were being betrayed, in the vilification of the victims and the deliberate falsification of evidence, in the lack of respect for those who attended the match on that day, and those who loved them.
I am indebted to Gerry, from the wonderful That’s How the Light Get’s In blog, for finding this very apt quotation from Dickens’ Old Curiosity Shop:
the world would do well to reflect, that injustice is in itself, to every generous and properly constituted mind, an injury, of all others the most insufferable, the most torturing, and the most hard to bear; and that many clear consciences have gone to their account elsewhere, and many sound hearts have broken, because of this very reason; the knowledge of their own deserts only aggravating their sufferings, and rendering them the less endurable.
They have, nonetheless, endured. And the seven minute delay and the 96 empty seats remind us again of what was lost, as the inquest testimonies remind us that each of the 96 had names, stories, hopes and aspirations, and people who loved them.
They’re not alone, they haven’t walked alone, they never will.
RIP the 96
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26765007
https://cathannabel.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/15-april-1989/
https://cathannabel.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/15-april-1989-finally-the-truth-now-for-justice/
Justice for the Hillsborough Families
Posted by cathannabel in Football, Politics on December 19, 2012
Gerry’s blog, That’s How the Light Gets In, marks the vindication of the Hillsborough victims, survivors and families with Dickensian reflections on injustice. RIP the 96, and massive respect to the campaigners.
I’m currently reading The Old Curiosity Shop and, in one of those curious coincidences without which Dickens’ plots would have ground to a halt, I read the following passage shortly after hearing news that the Hillsborough families are one step closer to justice:
Let moralists and philosophers say what they may, it is very questionable whether a guilty man would have felt half as much misery that night, as Kit did, being innocent. The world, being in the constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim of its falsehood and malice have a clear conscience, he cannot fail to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other to come right at last; ‘in which case,’ say they who have hunted him down, ‘—though we certainly don’t expect it—nobody will be better pleased than we.’ Whereas…
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15 April 1989 – finally, the truth. Now for justice?
Posted by cathannabel in Football on September 12, 2012
On the last anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, I wrote this, which summed up my feelings about an appalling tragedy which happened just across the valley from my home:
…the awful truth is that no matter how many of those fans were drunk and how many were there without tickets, if there had been stewards in front of the entrances to the Leppings Lane pens, directing fans away from the already crowded central pen, then no one would have died. No one. It’s horrifically, tragically, simple.
Taylor called this a ‘blunder of the first magnitude’. From this blunder stemmed the desperate attempts by South Yorkshire Police to cover their own backs, to blame the fans, to propagate distortions and falsehoods that would persuade the public that what we had here was yet another example of football hooliganism, rather than a terrible error by those in authority. That’s why, despite the regular calls for the victims’ families to ‘move on’ and ‘let it go’ (clichés favoured in general by those who have not experienced anything approaching this degree of trauma ), there is still a need for information to be brought into the public domain, for light to be shed and records to be set straight. If there had been a swift acknowledgement that a hideous mistake had been made, and the energies of the authorities had been channeled with as much vigour into helping both the victims and their families as they were into blaming them, then the families would be grieving rather than campaigning, commemorating the ones they’d lost rather than fighting for the truth to be told and the lies to be nailed once and for all.
Today we have a report which vindicates the victims and their families, which confirms that the biggest disaster at a sporting event in our history triggered the biggest police cover-up in our history.
There’s now a mass of information available, and analysis of that information, and I don’t intend to attempt to summarise that here. The thing that has struck me most forcefully is how early the ‘disgraceful lies’ began. Even whilst people were still dying on the terraces and on the pitch, the allegation that a gate had been forced influenced the initial reaction to the unfolding disaster. The first reference to ticketless fans came soon afterwards, and by the following day the ‘surge’ of fans had become ‘crazed’ and allegations of drunkenness were introduced. The language became more and more extreme and hostile – violent, beasts, frenzy – and, on Tuesday 18 April, ‘writing in the Liverpool Daily Post, John Williams noted that ‘the gatecrashers wreaked their fatal havoc’, their ‘uncontrolled fanaticism and mass hysteria … literally squeezed the life out of men, women and children …It was ‘yobbism at its most base’ (2.12.24). The allegations that would form the basis of the Sun‘s infamous ‘The Truth’ report appeared in the Sheffield Star on the 18th – ‘yobs’ attacking and urinating on the emergency services and this was elaborated further with stories of thieving from the dead and dying. Subsequently, as we now know, police and emergency service records were changed to support this version of events, and to camouflage the loss of control and the failures of judgement of those in authority on the day.
How was it possible for the truth to be buried so completely under a mountain of lies? You start with a little lie, that plays on a potent and widely accepted stereotype. You let that little lie grow, and accrue details that add to its verisimilitude. You allow comments made in the middle of chaos by distressed and traumatised people to be disseminated as objective first-hand statements, as long as they back up the little lie and its accretions. And you bury, redact and suppress all testimony that contradicts them.
The odd thing is that the little lie was corrected on the day of the disaster. No matter, its work had been done. And the Taylor report nailed most of the stories that had grown from that first lie. No matter, every time Hillsborough was mentioned in the ensuing decades, the calumnies would be trotted out again, and again.
Maybe now that will change, finally, with the report and the apology from South Yorkshire Police, which acknowledges not only the loss of control on the day but the disgraceful attempt to cover it up with lies.
But now that we have the truth, the survivors and the families of those who died – the 96 who need not have died if a football match had not been hideously mismanaged, the 41 who perhaps might not have died if the emergency services had responded swiftly and appropriately – want justice. And with the possibility of criminal prosecutions, and new inquests, maybe justice too will prevail.
RIP the 96
Jack Alfred Anderson, 62
English: Hillsborough Disaster Memorial – 2, Hillsborough, Sheffield 1254629 1254666 1254673 1182326 725321 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Colin Mark Ashcroft, 19, student
James Gary Aspinall, 18
Kester Roger Marcus Ball, 16, student
Gerard Baron Snr, 67
Simon Bell, 17
Barry Sidney Bennett, 26
David John Benson, 22
David William Birtle, 22
Tony Bland, 22
Paul David Brady, 21
Andrew Mark Brookes, 26
Carl Brown, 18
Steven Brown, 25
Henry Thomas Burke, 47
Peter Andrew Burkett , 24
Paul William Carlile, 19
Raymond Thomas Chapman , 50
Gary Christopher Church, 19
Joseph Clark, 29
Paul Clark, 18
Gary Collins, 22
Stephen Paul Copoc, 20
Tracey Elizabeth Cox, 23
James Philip Delaney, 19
Christopher Barry Devonside, 18
Christopher Edwards, 29
Vincent Michael Fitzsimmons, 34
Steve Fox, 21
Jon-Paul Gilhooley, 10
Barry Glover, 27
Ian Thomas Glover, 20
Derrick George Godwin, 24
Roy Harry Hamilton, 34
Philip Hammond, 14
Eric Hankin, 33
Gary Harrison, 27
Stephen Francis Harrison, 31
Peter Andrew Harrison, 15
David Hawley, 39
James Robert Hennessy, 29
Paul Anthony Hewitson, 26
Carl Hewitt, 17
Nick Hewitt, 16
Sarah Louise Hicks, 19
Victoria Jane Hicks, 15
Gordon Rodney Horn, 20
Arthur Horrocks, 41
Thomas Howard, 39
Tommy Anthony Howard, 14
Eric George Hughes, 42
Alan Johnston, 29
Christine Anne Jones, 27
Gary Philip Jones, 18
Richard Jones, 25
Nicholas Peter Joynes, 27
Anthony Peter Kelly, 29
Michael Kelly, 38
Carl David Lewis, 18
David William Mather, 19
Brian Christopher Matthews, 38
Francis Joseph McAllister, 27
John McBrien, 18
Marian Hazel McCabe, 21
Joe McCarthy, 21
Peter McDonnell, 21
Alan McGlone, 28
Keith McGrath, 17
Paul Brian Murray, 14
Lee Nicol, 14
Stephen Francis O’Neill, 17
Jonathon Owens, 18
William Roy Pemberton, 23
Carl Rimmer, 21
Dave Rimmer, 38
Graham John Roberts, 24
Steven Joseph Robinson, 17
Henry Charles Rogers, 17
Andrew Sefton, 23
Inger Shah, 38
Paula Ann Smith, 26
Adam Edward Spearritt, 14
Philip John Steele, 15
David Leonard Thomas, 23
Pat Thompson, 35
Peter Reuben Thompson, 30
Stuart Thompson, 17
Peter Francis Tootle, 21
Christopher James Traynor, 26
Martin Kevin Traynor, 16
Kevin Tyrrell, 15
Colin Wafer, 19
Ian David Whelan, 19
Martin Kenneth Wild, 29
Kevin Daniel Williams, 15
Graham John Wright, 17
http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/2012/09/hooligan-n-rough-lawless-person.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/hillsborough-documents-released-brian-reade-1318730
15 April 1989
Posted by cathannabel in Football on April 14, 2012
I wasn’t at Hillsborough that day, though I’d thought of going, my first football match in years, to watch my team, perhaps meet up with my brothers, like old times. Instead I was standing in our kitchen just the other side of the valley, wondering what was going on, why they weren’t playing football. I’d have known little more had I been there – I would have been a football pitch away from the people dying behind the goal, and I would have been frustrated at the delays, and angry with the troublemakers. Instead I was watching and listening all that afternoon and evening as grief and horror and disbelief mounted.
I wasn’t there that day but I remember afternoons in the Trent End, when a surge from the back of the crowd forced me stumbling forwards, feeling very small and vulnerable, trying to keep my footing, or pressed against a barrier till my ribs were bruised, and I can imagine so easily how it happened. I can understand after so many other games ruined in those days by people who cared more about fighting than football, some of the cumulative, and catastrophic errors in planning, in crowd management, in communication, in emergency response.
But I can’t understand how long it took to see that there were people dying, how the pleas and desperate cries could have been ignored, for so long. And I can’t understand why the injured and the survivors and the families desperately searching for their sons and daughters and partners were treated as criminals, why information was withheld from them, why misinformation was wilfully disseminated (and not just by The Sun). I can’t understand why, still, after the Taylor report, and all of the information we now have in the public domain, the old lies about drunk and/or ticketless fans being to blame are still trotted out, every time that day is discussed.
I’m not naive enough to believe that everyone at the Liverpool end behaved impeccably – some may well have had a drink or several, some may well have headed across the Pennines hoping to get a ticket when they got here, or to get in without. But actually, that’s by the by. Because the awful truth is that no matter how many of those fans were drunk and how many were there without tickets, if there had been stewards in front of the entrances to the Leppings Lane pens, directing fans away from the already crowded central pen, then no one would have died. No one. It’s horrifically, tragically, simple.
Taylor called this a ‘blunder of the first magnitude’. From this blunder stemmed the desperate attempts by South Yorkshire Police to cover their own backs, to blame the fans, to propagate distortions and falsehoods that would persuade the public that what we had here was yet another example of football hooliganism, rather than a terrible error by those in authority. That’s why, despite the regular calls for the victims’ families to ‘move on’ and ‘let it go’ (clichés favoured in general by those who have not experienced anything approaching this degree of trauma ), there is still a need for information to be brought into the public domain, for light to be shed and records to be set straight. If there had been a swift acknowledgement that a hideous mistake had been made, and the energies of the authorities had been channeled with as much vigour into helping both the victims and their families as they were into blaming them, then the families would be grieving rather than campaigning, commemorating the ones they’d lost rather than fighting for the truth to be told and the lies to be nailed once and for all.
That afternoon twenty-three years ago is vivid in my memory, and I’m thinking as I do each year of all the people who never came home from that match, and all the people who waited for someone who never came home, and all the people who still live with that horror.
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