In the afternoon there is a Volunteers Meeting. They too are getting organised. Eva has turned up with a chart, drawn onto two large pieces of cardboard. She has mapped all the sectors: sanitation, food, shelter, health care, arts, and education, as well as which groups are trying to address which needs in different parts of the camp. It is the Who, What, Where, When chart beloved by humanitarian communities in emergencies. These volunteers—many of whom have never done anything like this before in their lives—have worked it out for themselves. They have also worked out that they need some kind of security guidelines and a code of conduct: no volunteers consuming alcohol or drugs on the site, for example: Volunteers getting shitfaced is completely inappropriate—someone says. There is a lively discussion on how female volunteers should dress. Tifa, who is Iranian and works in the Women and Children’s Centre, stands up in baggy jeans and a loose long-sleeved top. Her long dark hair is neatly tied.
– This is the appropriate way for us to dress here. No miniskirts, no tight jeans, no long loose hair and we have to be careful about touching and hugging. It is not appropriate. For many people here, these things are provocations and misunderstood, and we are not the ones who suffer the consequences, it is the women who live with these men. I understand what the men are saying and it’s not polite.
A woman from No Borders disagrees:
– They are coming to Europe; they will be living amongst women like us. This is a chance to educate them.
– This is not the place to start, in a vulnerable community where 90% are young men. There will be time for that. Right now, our job is to protect any women living here from harassment.
– What about rape alarms?
– No woman refugee would use a rape alarm. It would be shameful to for them to do so.
Distribution is also a contentious subject. Mass distributions from the warehouse are efficient and safe, but do they reach the most vulnerable? Smaller distributions are needed, under the control of the communities themselves, but how can we avoid stuff getting onto the black market? What about containers on site and allowing refugee leaders to distribute directly? And what about people who turn up at night? Where should they go?
There is a call for better coordination with the French NGO’s who have been working with the migrant community for fifteen years; the sudden mass influx of British volunteers has taken everyone by surprise. Notice boards in prominent locations are planned to help the ‘weekend warriors’ (kind people who drive across the Channel for a day to drop off donations) orient themselves and avoid getting their mobiles stolen.
– This is all very good—a tall, thin young man speaks up—and humanitarianism is essential for people’s day-to-day needs, but what they want is to get to the UK and nothing we have discussed here addresses that…Blankets won’t solve the problem of police violence. Fascist rallies are planned in Calais.
I don’t completely agree. It’s clear to me, and to the French Authorities, that the existence of the camp itself is politically threatening, it challenges the whole organised asylum process and exposes its weaknesses. In fact, this camp has much more in common with the Occupy movements or Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp,6 than any humanitarian operation in which I have been involved. For one thing, the volunteers have been much more successful at breaking down the usual barrier between givers and receivers. At many points in the meeting, I have no idea whether it is a volunteer or refugee voicing a view, and when Tom, who is chairing, announces: If anyone wants to help and volunteer, they may. A volunteer is someone who helps other people. There is no distinction in this respect between volunteer and refugee—no one disagrees.
The question is where are the big agencies? Alongside MDM, MSF is here. They have been laying down rubble in the mud for the last few days and dealing with toilets and garbage. They tell me they are planning a hospital outside the camp boundaries, but the other big NGOs, and UNHCR and UNICEF, are noticeably absent.
– It’s completely political—Ben, volunteering in his gap year between Eton and Yale, tells me. He is fluent in French and goes to their coordination meetings. The French authorities don’t want anything that attracts more migrants, but they don’t want it to be so awful it creates a scandal. Possibly in some way we are playing straight into their hands just preventing things tipping over the edge.
– You’re saying it might be better if there were a mass outbreak of disease or people froze to death?
– Of course not, but how do we actually get people out of this situation?
– Argue for HMG to come here and sort out asylum claims jointly with the French. That’s what the UN is asking them to do.
– It will never happen. The French don’t want this place to be a magnet for refugees all over Europe.
– They are already coming.
One of the first films I saw as a child was Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’ There was an unforgettable scene where a child is killed under the carriage wheels of a French aristocrat. I remember wondering how could people live right next door to abject suffering and poverty and remain unmoved—how did you drive by it and over it? The consequences of such indifference were clear, the downtrodden took matters into their own hands. They pulled down the walls and gates and executed both the indifferent and those who were not indifferent but had not done much to change things. Now the downtrodden are at our own gates. All they want is to come in.
It’s dark and late. We sit round Raul’s fire. He and a handful of Kurdish friends share a large tent near the south entrance. We are always welcomed with tea. Raul is 25 and was studying literature in Mosul. He had spoken eloquently at the meeting. It was the first time he did such a thing and he is rightly very proud of himself.
The Jungle, Calais, October 2015
The Jungle, Wednesday 21 October
Some people at the volunteer meeting asked me to do a session on volunteer self-care. I turn up at 10am at the Ashram tent. Scott undoes the marquee door tape and lets me in. The volunteers are already preparing breakfast, although, at this time, most camp residents are still asleep, having tramped three hours to the tunnel entrance, spent two to three hours climbing fences, evading police and dogs, and another three hours walking back during the night.
Scott tells me he just came for the day originally, but then he got asked to lay a floor in this tent. Then they started cooking a few meals for volunteers, then it sort of grew, and now they cook twice daily for hundreds of migrants. He stayed and organises. Outside it’s raining a light drizzle, but as the weather worsens, these communal spaces will become vital. That’s if the French allow the camp to stand. Rumours abound. Yesterday’s local paper had a two-page spread on how the mayor was calling in the Army to help deal with security. L’Auberge was quoted as suggesting the French army should learn a lesson from the Germans and help build good facilities.
And apparently there is a plan for a new camp. But it will only house the most vulnerable 1500, will have fences and security around it, and will mean the eviction of at least 400 camped out in the planned space. Besides, how many will want to move into a new camp if they are not allowed out of it?
Meanwhile, the Jungle has petty crime, a black market, drugs, alcohol, and violence, as in any community. I was having a coffee with Bahirun in his restaurant in the Afghan area, when he was called, because a young Sudanese man had gone to the MDM tent with a knife. Bahirun got some other Sudanese to mediate and went and