Talk: Crisis in the Mediterranean

Tonight saw me finally go to the Frontline Club, a place I've thought about going to - or meant to go to - a couple of times, but never before made it. Meetup's London European Club was organising a trip to the Crisis in the Mediterranean talk there, and had a discount code. And so I finally booked.

Mind you, there was a last-minute rush at work, which saw me leave straight from the office, even though it's not that far. Tube to Paddington and a short walk. However, I had a 10-minute wait at Earl's Court - five minutes on the platform waiting for the train and five minutes on the train waiting for the green signal - which meant I was rushing. Then I got all confused upon leaving the station - I'd left by a different exit from the one I'd seen on Streetview, and had no idea which way to go! I finally recognised a scene, headed off in the right direction, and arrived in the nick of time.

They have a restaurant at ground level, but you want the room upstairs. Entry is by a simple black door to the side - there's a desk at the first landing, and the venue is up another flight of stairs. It's quite a small room, filled with folding chairs - I took one at the back. Despite the time, it was another while before we started, with five people occupying chairs on the dais. We were asked to turn our phones off or to silent, and informed that the talk was being broadcast live and recorded.

The subject, of course, was the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing across the Mediterranean to Europe, often under dangerous conditions. They called it a debate - but it wasn't, actually: not with no dissenting voices. This was a panel discussion. Not that I'm complaining - I agreed with their views, and didn't fancy the slagging match that would doubtless have ensued, had there been opposing voices present.

There were a lot of journalists present - I think this is a journalists' club anyway. One of the panellists is the foreign correspondent for the Guardian, based in Cairo, who was first to speak, and made the first of many interesting points of the evening. At the other end was an Irish lawyer, who was a rather annoying speaker - not because of what she had to say, but because her voice, not that loud to begin with, kept trailing off, and although the speakers on the dais were all miced, her mic was positioned too far away from her mouth, and it was often difficult to distinguish what she was saying.

Several people were taking notes - I almost wish I had. I found out a number of things this evening:

• Most refugees are Eritrean. Apparently, military service in Eritrea is both compulsory and lifelong, and many are persecuted and flee.
• It's unpoliceable at source. People buy boats to cross in for cash from fishermen. That's impossible to police, even if the local police weren't taking backhanders. Plus, they're under-resourced.
• As for the danger, they'd rather die than deal with their current situation. The Guardian correspondent has a Syrian friend who tried to get on a boat that subsequently sank, and is still trying. When asked why, he replied, "If I die, just I die. But if I live, I give my children a future they couldn't otherwise have."
• If there were the will to deal with refugees, the UNHCR has excellent resettlement programmes that could be utilised. There just isn't the political will, with some governments (including the UK).
• Merchant vessels are great at rescuing refugees. Unfortunately, the smugglers know this, and are in the habit of throwing pregnant women, and children, into the water, knowing that the merchant vessels will pick them up. Norway has gone so far as to extend training to its merchant seamen, bringing in NGO representatives to instruct them on how refugees are likely to react, how they should be treated. When a similar plan was mooted to the British Home Office, they just laughed.
• Sweden and Germany are the most hospitable to refugees, taking in more than anyone else. There are more Iraqi refugees in Malmo than in all of the UK.
• The UK government has been chatting with the Australian government, famous for their harsh treatment of "boat people".

And then there was the stuff they didn't have to tell me - like the reactionary attitude of the majority of the British media. I shop for my lunch in Tesco every weekday, and I pass the newspaper stand and have a glance at the headlines. Over the last while, I've found it quite disturbing to read those headlines. Full of vehement spite, I would call them. Ranting about the EU, ranting about foreigners.. it doesn't paint a pretty picture.

Very different from what one of the panellists tonight had to say about the wonderful possibilities at grassroots level, and what great resettlement programmes are actually in place in the UK - if you can only get past the border.. he had a lovely story to tell, about some people in Edinburgh who asked how they could get permission to house Syrian refugees; they felt sorry for them. Well, no bother at all, they were told - and now Edinburgh is home to a small Syrian community. :-) There's hope yet - don't believe everything you read in the papers!

The most thought-provoking evening I've had in years. Oh, and you can catch the whole thing on YouTube! as with all their talks, it seems. Afterwards, there were free drinks, and somewhere was a Meetup group I could've joined. But I was hungry, and headed away. I'd passed a KFC on the way, and hadn't eaten there in an age, so decided to try it. They were very busy, but trying their best, and I was soon fed. I must give them credit for keeping it clean, despite their busyness at the counter. They did forget to give me a fork for my beans, and I couldn't see any myself, so just left them - frankly, I was getting enough salt from the rest of the meal anyway. It really has been ages since I ate at KFC, and I'm not used to it anymore. The chicken itself was nice, but I didn't finish the rest - it felt positively unhealthy.

Anyway, I managed to walk off a considerable quantity of it, just heading back into the station - down steps, up steps, down steps - it was several minutes before I wound my way to the platform. Tomorrow, I'm back to Ireland for the weekend, and the day after, we're headed to the Limetree for a production of Rigoletto.