Ashamed to be British

I really was ashamed and disgusted to be British once again, when I heard the news that the Home Office had subsequently succeeded in deporting Assia Souhalia and her husband Athmane, who have been in the UK since 2002. (See previous post)

Their 2 year old daughter Nouha was born in Brighton in 2006 and had lived here all her life. The family had made a life here and has many links in the local community.

Assia Souhalia fled Algeria in fear for her life in 2002 after her family had suffered years of violence. Two of her brothers, Rachid and Brahim, both policemen, were murdered in two separate and premeditated shootings in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Neither brother was involved in political action. Upon hearing of the death of Assia’s eldest brother Rachid, their mother, Cherifa, suffered a heart attack and died. Since then Assia’s family have repeatedly received death threats and in 1994 Assia’s brother, Brahim, was murdered. Two of Assia’s remaining brothers and sisters both fled Algiers.

Well done, Home Office, I mean really well done. A two year old child, for God's sake, snatched from her bed at 6.30AM and driven to a detention centre, probably with armed guards. Cells, bars, deportations, kangaroo-court decisions with lack of due process and no respect for the individual human experience. Deported to a place where she is quite likely to see one or both parents gunned down, sooner or later.

This is the sort of thing we went to war over, in 1939, to stop it happening to the Jews. This is the sort of thing we used to deride the so-called "Communist" regimes of the Eastern Bloc for. This is the sort of thing Saddam Hussein's goon squads used to do, to those who dared defy the leader's whim. And now we're doing it. Here in Britain. In the year of our Lord 2009.

Well, that's official. We're no longer the good guys. And until the Souhalia family is granted a pardon and invited to return, until those responsible for this travesty of justice are set to work in a quarry breaking stones until they see the error of their ways and repent, we never will be the good guys again. A two-year old child.

I hope the bastard at the Home Office who took the decision has sleepless nights for the rest of his or her miserable days on earth, but I doubt it. Like those at Nuremburg, he or she was probably "only obeying orders. "

Thank you, the Government, for taking away my nationality. Thanks to you, the Union Jack is not worth jack shit. Thanks to you, the Trooping of the Colour, Remembrance Day, Brass Bands, Warm Beer, Steam Trains, The Common Law, Cathedrals, Morris Dancing, Village Cricket and Spinsters cycling to Matins are all about as appealing as the Hitler Youth. Thanks to you, even the very country lanes, the dry stone walls, the mills, the hills, and the valleys dotted with distant sheep all across our green and pleasant land, are now tainted, because they have been touched by you, touched by this.

And from now on, I think I'll just pretend to be Dutch, if anyone asks. Till the hurt and the shame goes away. If ever.