this week

Economic survival, part 2

YOU ONLY NEEDED TO KNOW MUFTA TO FIND A WELCOMING FAMILY IN THE HALFWAY HOUSE… IN THE SECOND OF A TWO-PART SERIES, VICTOR PAUL BORG DRAWS ANOTHER TRAVESTY ABOUT SURVIVING CAPITALISM

One Big Happy Family
For two long years Mufta’s name was the password to the halfway house where many Algerian immigrants found refuge, sleeping on the wooden floor. If it were women trickling in and out on temporary stays, the neighbours might have thought it was a whorehouse; so many Algerians came that even Mufta’s flatmates lost track of the names and faces. They blended innocuously in the neighbourhood, in the labyrinthine block called Moorlands Estate, a crack and petty crime ridden large concrete grid where many blacks from the East Indies are holed at the heart of Brixton, London. Sometimes three of them slept on the raw wooden planks of the living room, covered by a flimsy sheet and huddling together like corpses waiting to be taken away. Every two or three weeks new faces would turn up but none spoke English, or bothered to introduce themselves to their hosts Alessandro and Nick – Mufta’s flatmates. When Alessandro or Nick frowned for an explanation after stumbling on a newcomer, he would say, ‘Mufta…friend,’ and flash a key to the front door. The key legitimised their presence, the reasoning seemed to go.

Mufta was the third flatmate in the house, and he always paid his rent in time. A twenty-something Algerian, he worked as a cook, and he courted Alessandro and Nick’s kindness. He would habitually wrap his arm around Alessandro’s shoulder in great confidence, and explain, ‘These poor Algerians have just arrived in London and don’t have anywhere to stay. Just for two or three weeks.’ Alessandro would nod warily and Mufta would be full of praise. ‘Alessandro,’ he would start, ‘you are the best. You and me…we’re the best. The world is for you and me.’

Every afternoon, Alessandro would return from work to find a clutch of Algerians sprawled in the living room smoking and idling time. They spoke guttural Arabic, their voices loud and dashing, their gestures animated. They would absent-mindedly stare at the TV that was fixed on Algerian broadcasts in Arabic all evening. Meanwhile, the stereo, on the other corner of the room, blared the wail of Algerian songs to anyone who cared to listen. They would eat some grub, their plates clinking, and chatter late into the night. If you shut your eyes, the Algerian waffle – which sometimes kept Alessandro and Nick awake – would transport you to a raucous outdoor market in Algiers.

As he recounted this story, Alessandro’s face sometimes winced. The living room had become alien territory for Alessandro, and when he showed his face, Mufta improvised a show of theatrics. He would spring to his feet, squeeze Alessandro’s shoulders, and say, ‘We are one family now. You and me, and these friends: we are all one family. But you are the best.’

‘Mufta,’ one day Alessandro requested. ‘This is an international house. Your are Algerian, I am Italian and Nick is English, and we live in England so it’s only right to watch English TV.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Mufta replied. ‘You’re right.’

For a few weeks Channel Four crackled on the TV screen unimpeded, while Mufta gathered his friends into his bedroom, chattering behind the closed door in a cloud of cigarette smoke. He did not speak to Alessandro much anymore; he stopped harking about being one family; he even acted sulkily. The peace did not last, however. Slowly, the Algerians’ sidled towards the living room again – the hive of the house where Alessandro and Nick started feeling like unwelcome intruders again. Alessandro started an effort to discourse with the guests. Their English was bad, but the conversations revealed a surprising fact: Mufta was charging them money to sleep on the floor.

This is when Alessandro and Nick decided that Mufta had overstepped his limit. They reported what was going on to the landlord. Alessandro told me that he was scared at the at this point. How would Mufta react when the landlord spoke to him? With so many Algerian stringers who came and went sporadically, the odds were against Alessandro and Nick – what if they decided to seek retribution for being reported? What if they turned on Alessandro the moment he stepped through the front door? Nothing of the sort happened: on the contrary, the Algerians disappeared from the house and Mufta became a recluse. He did not speak to Alessandro or Nick much, and his gaze darted evasively when he passed them in the hallway. He spent most of his time out or behind closed door in his bedroom. Some three months later, Alessandro arrived home to find Mufta waiting in the hallway, all his belongings stuffed in bags and cardboard boxes. Mufta was waiting for the taxi to turn up so he would move out in one sweep.

Alessandro said, ‘Write me a letter or call me sometimes. I am interested in how things are going.’

‘Yes,’ Mufta replied. ‘You are my friend. You are the best.’

That was eight months ago. Alessandro never heard from Mufta again.

Human traffic and misery
As the rift in living standards and wealth between the West and the Third World continues to widen, we are witnessing the largest tide of human migration in history. Millions of poor people, desperate for some of the wealth we wallow in, leave their homes to start the long, difficult path towards Western Europe or North America. They find borders sealed tight and societies that exploit them inhumanely, but their sense of desperation is so overwhelming that they are prepared to give away a lifetime’s savings for the all-too-often empty promise of a safe passage. This scenario has spawned a lucrative trade in human traffic. The story of Mufta’s profiteering is all too common. The stories that make the headlines are only the spectacular disasters: the forty-nine Chinese immigrants who last year suffocated in the refrigerator of a cargo truck as it transported them into Britain, for example, or the dozens who perished off the coast of Sicily in a Malta-based smuggling operation on Christmas a few years back.

It’s a problem that is haunting us, but a problem we have created. For several hundred years, the Western World has plundered the Third World. From the slave trade to factories relocating in the Third World for cheap labour – from the early archeologists scavenging historical treasures to the decimation of rainforests – from the sale of arms to polluting factories banned from the West relocating in unregulated countries – from the brainwashing of Christian missionaries to the alluring hopes created by multinational corporations: we continue to exploit the Third World. The latest, systematic strategy we have sneaked up on them to institutionalise our exploitation is the promise of equal wealth by the process of economic globalisation. Through globalisation, governments have simply handed the Third World to big corporations. In some real terms, this has meant that eighty-nine countries are more economically crippled today than they were ten years ago while, at the other end of the spectrum, the world’s 200 richest people have doubled their wealth in the last four years.

To halt the human tide, governments are resorting to desperate security measures. Frontier countries, such as Spain’s Mediterranean border near Morocco, have sealed borders with tangles of barbed wire and armed frontier police. And yet, the numbers of illegal immigrants is increasing relentlessly, and human traffic taking over from drug trafficking in terms of profit. This deluge threatens to destabilise the security of developed countries, while their number might swell large enough to trigger widespread economic fallouts. Already, illegal immigrants are responsible for much crime, for costly security and assimilation operations, while tensions between immigrants and residents are leading to violent, racist stand-offs. In this climate, is it any surprise that xenophobic far right is rearing its head?

The spectre of this unfolding holocaust should prompt us to give back some of what we have taken. I am talking about redistribution of wealth, but this time round, it’s not simply a kind thing to do inspired by ideology. No, this time round, it may be the only way we can save our own skin.

Victor Paul Borg is a freelance writer based in London and can be contacted at victor@borg.tf. His column appears here weekly.