Glenda Simms
THE STATUS of immigrant is often the first tier towards the distinction of citizen in most nations, including the Euro-dominated societies in Europe, North America and Australia. In such places, the majority of immigrants who are of European stock adjust to their host or mother country in a fairly smooth process and short time.
This is not the situation of immigrants who are not of European origins. In fact, it can be argued that in the broad scheme of people movement from the hinterlands to centres of development, the immigrants of African origins who seek fame and fortune in their 'mother' countries have remained rigidly confined to the lowest levels of the societies.
This situation of extreme marginalisation and exclusion of the black immigrant has been dramatically and tragically spotlighted by a series of devastating fires which occurred in France in a short period of time.
POOR, UNFORTUNATE PEOPLE
According to the August 26, 2005 edition of the New York Times, 17 African immigrants died in a Paris apartment fire. The conditions under which these poor, unfortunate people perished were described by
writers Craig Smith and Ariane Bernard as extremely poor by Parisian standards. The seven-storey building was 'dilapidated' and overcrowded and not fit for human habitation but poor black people had no choice.
Four months prior to this incident 24 adults and children of African origins also perished in a fire which raged through a six-storey hotel in the heart of Paris.
And just when the concerned citizens of France were trying to come to grips with these tragedies and the glare of the international media, seven more Africans were trapped and burnt to smithereens in a fire that 'tore through a rundown Paris apartment'.
These modern day tragedies should force all former colonised and currently non-independent peoples to recognise that it is really accidents of history and the greed of the colonising forces that selected those who have been forced to leave their countries of origin to settle in hostile environments and in dehumanising circumstances in different parts of the western world.
DILAPIDATED FIRE TRAPS
In other words, if Jamaica had been colonised by the French, in 2005 many Jamaicans would have ended up in those rundown, dilapidated fire traps of Paris.
In the 50s and early 60s, many of the residents of the one-stop shop villages in St. Elizabeth, Manchester and other rural parishes migrated to their 'mother' country Great Britain.
Those of us who were left behind heard about the horrors of those early days in overcrowded cold flats in Reddich, London, Birmingham and countless other industrial and urban centres in Britain.
We imagined the faces of our friends and relatives who slept in shifts on the same bed in dingy rooms. We wondered aloud why anyone would want to leave the big yards with the communal standpipe and go to another type of 'big yard with a communal bath'. We just couldn't imagine not having the luxury of your own bathtub even if it is a plastic one behind a cotton tree root.
While it is a fact that not many Jamaican immigrants were burnt to death in the inner cities of Great Britain, far too many of them retain the scars of the pressures that are linked to the status of 'black people in a white
society'. The social and psychological scarring of this band of immigrants can be gleaned from a full understanding of the many systemic barriers that still continue to erode the human rights and dignity of racial minorities in the British society.
CANADIAN EXPERIENCE
Moving the spotlight from the immigrant experience in Paris and London, we can now take a peek at the Canadian experience. During the period when the Honourable Alvin Curling of Jamaican origin was Minister of Housing for the Province of Ontario, I was appointed by him to be a member of the board of the Ontario Housing Co-operation.
I vividly recall the first of many board meetings that were held in the meeting room of one of the high-rise buildings in the Jane and Finch corridor of Toronto. A tour of the building convinced the board that the high-rise apartment buildings were not places in which children should be raised.
Children deserve safe, clean spaces for living, playing and developing. They need open spaces, playing areas, flowers, fruit trees, shrubs and greenery to link them to the essential benefits of the natural environment.
In the high-rise concrete
jungles of Jane and Finch and Tobermorey, poor immigrant children and youth including many of Jamaican origins wreck the elevators, defaced the hallways with graffiti, played loud music from their boom boxes and literally terrorised the weak, the disabled and the little girls. Of course, much has changed over time, but there are still pockets of serious conflict and uncomfortable criminal activities in some of the immigrant enclaves in the Metro Toronto region of Ontario. While these folks might not die in the burning inferno that engulfed their brothers and sisters in the hovels of Paris, far too many of their young men and women who were socialised in the concrete jungles of the North face serious personal and group problems.
The former colonised people of Africa and the Caribbean did not choose their colonisers. Perhaps if they had a choice they would have chosen 'mother' countries that were not too cold, not too hostile nor racist, and ones that had proper housing, lovely beaches, good jobs and an educational system that allowed every child to develop to his or her potential. With this choice, some colonised peoples would choose Heaven for the "milk and honey" and others would choose Hell where the fire hoses, fire brigades and escape routes would be always available in all apartment buildings.
Since we had no such choice, we continue to be Citizen Minus in Paris, London and Toronto and in Kingston, Jamaica.
Dr. Glenda P. Simms is a gender expert and consultant. You can send your comments to infocus@gleanerjm.com.
