ousou is a 24-year-old Syrian-Palestinian woman who arrived in Britain a few weeks ago in a rubber dinghy from Calais. Her husband was also on the boat, along with 70 other men and women. Sousou was (and is) pregnant and the passengers all nearly drowned – as her aunt had done on a previous crossing attempt. There were too many people on board and the overloaded dinghy began to take in water. Sousou and her husband were rescued by the British coastguard and for a while they felt safe – until the riots began. Now, after things seem to have quietened down, she talks to me from a hotel in south London. ‘I was scared. I was watching it all on the news,’ she says.
Rioting men hurled chairs through the windows of asylum-seeker hotels and the people inside feared arson. I spoke to Sheyda too, a 20-year-old Iranian student and former uprising leader who claimed asylum in the UK after being shot by police in Iran. ‘Everyone in my hotel is still terrified. We’re mainly women and children.’
Unexpectedly though, Sheyda has some sympathy with the rioters. She was moved to London by the Home Office from her previous hotel in Somerset and was shocked by the amount of violent Islamism she discovered in the city. ‘You’ve got too many people here from the Middle East,’ she said. ‘I came here to escape radical Islam. My Generation Z grew up in Iran with social media and western values. Those are the values we want to live by. But you’ve got some people here who want to spread Sharia law.’ Somerset, she said, felt very different: much safer, much more the sort of Britain she’d hoped for when she fled. ‘Most of the people there were born in Britain.’
I met Sousou and Sheyda because I’m involved in a drama programme for refugees and asylum seekers called the Trojan Women Project. Sheyda is a participant and Sousou’s elder sister Arwa, who claimed asylum in the UK in 2016, is our lead actress and a workshop trainer. Arwa is also now married to a British citizen with whom she has British children. Our charity helps refugees to overcome isolation, depression and trauma – and to tell their stories to the world in the hope that when people understand what made them leave home, it will defuse the anger.
Asylum seekers are not the problem here. Only 67,337 asylum applications were made last year and 36,704 people arrived illegally. That number is dwarfed by the 685,000 legal migrants. But the issue won’t be resolved until we wean ourselves from low-cost immigrant labour by incentivising Brits to do the jobs that immigrants currently do. And that can only be done by carrot and stick – higher pay and tougher benefit rules. The former may happen under a Labour government, but the latter is looking unlikely.
It’s doubtful that many of the men who’ve thrown bricks at hotels and mosques around the country over the past few weeks would rather Sheyda be tortured, imprisoned, even executed. But surely it would help soothe tensions if they understood that many Muslims, like her, are as worried about radical Islam as they are. Our project is a microcosm of the asylum process. This year we’ve been completely inundated: 90, mainly Iranian participants instead of the 30 our 11 years’ experience had led us to expect. The majority of them are fleeing from the Islamic Republic’s crackdown after last year’s uprising.
Most asylum seekers I’ve met are desperate to work and to integrate. They don’t want to live off the state, but months of legally enforced idleness and moping in hotel rooms is catastrophic for their sanity and future employability. There are pitifully few communal spaces where they can make friends. Most are forced to eat hotel-provided ready meals in their rooms and rarely communicate even with the people in neighbouring rooms for fear they’re from the Iranian security service or Home Office plants. Sousou and her husband hadn’t spoken to anyone else since they arrived. When asylum seekers do finally get refugee settled status, they’re often in a terrible state: penniless and with no work experience or contacts in this country. Many become homeless and unemployed.
‘We’d much rather work, pay tax, be part of this country,’ says Sheyda. ‘That’s why we’ve come here.’ Work would also help them learn English, which is the real key to integration. The solution is to make compulsory work part of the asylum process so that the government can use asylum seekers’ earnings to pay for their food, accommodation and tax. Then, if asylum is granted, they will have experience and a way of beginning a productive new life rather than trying to get money by illegal means. Less crime means fewer tabloid horror stories and less frustration among the British working classes. This would be a virtuous circle.
Despite the riots, both Sheyda and Sousou are optimistic about the long-term. ‘These aren’t British values. These are just rough men. Most of the people I met in Somerset were nice and kind,’ Sheyda tells me. ‘Arwa’s husband Jonathan apologised to me,’ says Sousou. ‘Britain is really a very welcoming country,’ adds Arwa. ‘Jonathan was the sort of person who was suspicious of immigrants. And then he met me.’
‘But we immigrants do have to behave ourselves,’ she goes on. ‘Following the laws and values of a country and serving that country should define citizenship. Unfortunately, there are some immigrants who do not want to live according to British values. They still follow Islamic Sharia law and wish to impose it on others. We fled radical, violent Islam in our country and do not wish to see similar behaviours here in the free world. These are not British values.’
Rioting men hurled chairs through the windows of asylum-seeker hotels and the people inside feared arson. I spoke to Sheyda too, a 20-year-old Iranian student and former uprising leader who claimed asylum in the UK after being shot by police in Iran. ‘Everyone in my hotel is still terrified. We’re mainly women and children.’
Unexpectedly though, Sheyda has some sympathy with the rioters. She was moved to London by the Home Office from her previous hotel in Somerset and was shocked by the amount of violent Islamism she discovered in the city. ‘You’ve got too many people here from the Middle East,’ she said. ‘I came here to escape radical Islam. My Generation Z grew up in Iran with social media and western values. Those are the values we want to live by. But you’ve got some people here who want to spread Sharia law.’ Somerset, she said, felt very different: much safer, much more the sort of Britain she’d hoped for when she fled. ‘Most of the people there were born in Britain.’
I met Sousou and Sheyda because I’m involved in a drama programme for refugees and asylum seekers called the Trojan Women Project. Sheyda is a participant and Sousou’s elder sister Arwa, who claimed asylum in the UK in 2016, is our lead actress and a workshop trainer. Arwa is also now married to a British citizen with whom she has British children. Our charity helps refugees to overcome isolation, depression and trauma – and to tell their stories to the world in the hope that when people understand what made them leave home, it will defuse the anger.
Asylum seekers are not the problem here. Only 67,337 asylum applications were made last year and 36,704 people arrived illegally. That number is dwarfed by the 685,000 legal migrants. But the issue won’t be resolved until we wean ourselves from low-cost immigrant labour by incentivising Brits to do the jobs that immigrants currently do. And that can only be done by carrot and stick – higher pay and tougher benefit rules. The former may happen under a Labour government, but the latter is looking unlikely.
It’s doubtful that many of the men who’ve thrown bricks at hotels and mosques around the country over the past few weeks would rather Sheyda be tortured, imprisoned, even executed. But surely it would help soothe tensions if they understood that many Muslims, like her, are as worried about radical Islam as they are. Our project is a microcosm of the asylum process. This year we’ve been completely inundated: 90, mainly Iranian participants instead of the 30 our 11 years’ experience had led us to expect. The majority of them are fleeing from the Islamic Republic’s crackdown after last year’s uprising.
Most asylum seekers I’ve met are desperate to work and to integrate. They don’t want to live off the state, but months of legally enforced idleness and moping in hotel rooms is catastrophic for their sanity and future employability. There are pitifully few communal spaces where they can make friends. Most are forced to eat hotel-provided ready meals in their rooms and rarely communicate even with the people in neighbouring rooms for fear they’re from the Iranian security service or Home Office plants. Sousou and her husband hadn’t spoken to anyone else since they arrived. When asylum seekers do finally get refugee settled status, they’re often in a terrible state: penniless and with no work experience or contacts in this country. Many become homeless and unemployed.
‘We’d much rather work, pay tax, be part of this country,’ says Sheyda. ‘That’s why we’ve come here.’ Work would also help them learn English, which is the real key to integration. The solution is to make compulsory work part of the asylum process so that the government can use asylum seekers’ earnings to pay for their food, accommodation and tax. Then, if asylum is granted, they will have experience and a way of beginning a productive new life rather than trying to get money by illegal means. Less crime means fewer tabloid horror stories and less frustration among the British working classes. This would be a virtuous circle.
Despite the riots, both Sheyda and Sousou are optimistic about the long-term. ‘These aren’t British values. These are just rough men. Most of the people I met in Somerset were nice and kind,’ Sheyda tells me. ‘Arwa’s husband Jonathan apologised to me,’ says Sousou. ‘Britain is really a very welcoming country,’ adds Arwa. ‘Jonathan was the sort of person who was suspicious of immigrants. And then he met me.’
‘But we immigrants do have to behave ourselves,’ she goes on. ‘Following the laws and values of a country and serving that country should define citizenship. Unfortunately, there are some immigrants who do not want to live according to British values. They still follow Islamic Sharia law and wish to impose it on others. We fled radical, violent Islam in our country and do not wish to see similar behaviours here in the free world. These are not British values.’
