Refugee week events

The first event in Wakefield for this year's Refugee Week has just finished, and I ate and danced and helped clear up and still I'm home at a reasonable hour to blog, which is an added bonus.

It was the Iranian Cultural Celebration tonight, and there were a couple of live performances as well as DJs and lots of delicious food. First up on violin was a former member of the Iranian Philharmonic Orchestra (from the time of the Shah). There was a bit of a band going on here, but I sadly missed most of it as I ended up working the door. Later a different man with the same name played a saz I think (see pictures here) which is very similar to an instrument an old Turkish friend of mine used to play which he called a 'ballamer' (phonetically, approximately). In and around these performances the DJs kept the party dancing.

Later in the week we have a 'refugee day' event hosted by the local MP on Friday (invitation only) and an African Night in Wakefield Cathedral on Friday evening (free, just turn up). Then on Saturday, 6-10pm, there is a Kurdish Cultural Celebration in Lightwaves Leisure Centre again (ticket required, call RASA on 01924 368855).

Someone said to me that these events weren't very cohesive or didn't seem to promote integration: Iranian, African and Kurdish events on different nights...

I think there are two responses to this. First I can't help but remember the joint Eid/Xmas party I organised in 2003. This tried hard to combine all the cultures in Wakefield, and we had Iranian and Kurdish DJs, people came from many different countries including quite a few from Albania/Kosovo, and from different parts of Africa. As the finale we had a proper 5 piece African salsa band (afficionados may know that salsa originated in Africa - like 'all' music - and was transported to South America on the slave ships...). Anyway this band started playing, and 5 minutes later 146 people had left the room - and there were only 150 to start with. Even the African people, faced with this mass exodus, got up and walked out too.

Now I've personally always taken the approach that if some people are willing to go to the effort to perform for me, then I'll at least give them the courtesy of listening and then applauding their efforts (if not necessarily their musicianship or their taste). I learnt that night not to expect such polite conventions from refugee audiences.

There is in fact a whole article, to be carefully written, about racism and discrimination and refugees. Of course I know that there have been bitter conflicts in many parts of the world where refugees come from, and the memories of these conflicts and the deep seated prejudices that come with them are difficult to forget. They have also not had the advantages of the strenuous and focused anti-discrimination campaigns we have learnt from in the West over the last century (starting from women's suffrage, and moving through the American civil rights movement, etc). And finally, refugees tend not to discriminate against English people in my experience, but people with darker skin than them for example are more likely to lose out (along with their traditional enemies) in a movement that we can see being replicated around the world again and again.

I don't want to make any sweeping generalisations here, but I always half expected refugees who had fought for freedom and justice for people in their own societies to still be standing up for freedom and justice in their new lives in the UK, and I've usually been disappointed (although I love working with them anyway, and they're no more intolerant than many English people, just in different ways).

So all sorts of clarifying statements are rushing into my head, and I know what I've just written could be contentious, but with all that in mind I'd like to move swiftly on to the second response to the lack of cohesion/integration suggestion.

These people are living in the UK every day. Sure there are positive steps we can make towards integration, and we're taking them on many of these days: finding work, getting on ok at school, bringing our children up well, etc. All this needs integration. This is happening every day.

So why can't we, one or two days a year, have a day to celebrate native cultures? In fact I think it's imperative to do this: refugees need to do it for their mental health, to help them maintain their sense of identity and history, and to help their children understand their origins; and the rest of the population need occasional days like this to add a bit of colour and spice to their lives and relieve the exhausting boredom.

And who are we to say that these different cultural traditions should be celebrated within the confines of a single event, or that refugee week events should be concentrated on being more cohesive and on delivering the Government's integration agenda? In fact there were quite a few English people there tonight, quite a few Kurdish people, a chinese woman, and an African man (with a work permit of all things :-) ). There was integration here as well as cultural stimulation and mental tonics.

I'm looking forward to the next event - but you have to have an invitation to attend, so how integrational will that be...?