Stories of transition: The Jungle, Calais

Reporting on the constantly changing situation at the makeshift refugee camp in the Calais area of northern France, known as the Jungle, is a challenge. Here the Rev Simon Jones, senior minister at Bromley Baptist Church, London, does so but by paying close attention to the very human emotions at the heart of all interactions between refugees and representatives of authority. In this article, adapted from his blog, he reports from the Jungle on the 9th of January.

“Apart from inner anxieties about looking foolish, fear is not a big driver in my life. I became acutely aware of this while listening to a charming and reasonable French official from the Calais prefect's office, accompanied by a senior civil servant from the French Interior Ministry, as he addressed a group of muddy people in the Kabul cafe in the heart of the Jungle.

He was urging his audience to seriously consider seeking asylum in France, leaving the mud and inadequate shelters of the jungle and moving to an assessment centre, with three square meals a day, showers, electricity, their own room and the chance to be given documents that confer the right to live in the fifth republic. What's not to like about this offer?

Yet his audience's eyes betrayed a fear that seemed out of place with his offer. Their questions give voice to those fears, at first gently, expressed as a kind of quizzical skepticism about the offer. This quickly gave way to very specific fears of racism, of being refused and sent back to the country from which they fled, of being denied what they most seek.

It quickly became apparent that this was a classic dialogue of the deaf. The urbane Frenchman was making a genuine offer of help. It was interpreted as a threat to strip the last vestiges of dignity from his audience. It’s difficult, though necessary, to understand how fundamentally those fears drive their daily lives.

His audience consisted of men. Many had been in the Jungle for six months or more. All had been driven from their homes and families by fear, the fear of death from indiscriminate bombing and street-to-street fighting, the fear of a knock on the door in the dead of night.

On their journeys from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia or Egypt, fear had kept them awake at night - would they make it across the next border, would they be beaten up in the road, robbed of what little they could carry, would they fall ill, be separated from family and friends, would they drown in the flimsy boats that carry them and their hopes across the angry Mediterranean, would they be denied help because of their nationality, religion, colour, clothes, language, tone of voice, haunted wariness?

For months fear has kept them alive, driven them on in their quest for somewhere warm and secure, a safe place to sleep, take their eyes off their possessions, and relax their guard. The Jungle provides all of this. For all its chill wind and glutinous mud, for all its primitive sanitation, bad shelter, food and clothes shortages and occasional friction with a neighbour, it feels safe. Safer than anywhere they've been in the endless months of travelling, safer than the conflict-torn regions they are fleeing and which they used to call home. Now, in short, the Jungle feels like home.

“I’ve become increasingly convinced over frequent visits to the Jungle that love drives out fear,”

So however urbane the Frenchman, however reasonable his offer, it is met with waves of fear. Underlying all the other fears the residents have faced is the fear that nothing can be trusted any more. The states that they have fled are broken; none of the institutions that ought to have protected them have come to their aid; the markets that gave them the chance of making a living to support them and their families lie shattered, the state that pledged protection for its citizens has fractured. So the man from the prefect's office represents something that none of his audience believes amount to anything other than the fear of being oppressed. Hence his offer falls on deaf ears.

The more so as his government works to complete a new village, Campement de la Lande, which will eventually be home to 1500 residents of the Jungle. It’s cost the French state 25 million Euro and people will start moving in in a few days. Apparently preference is being given to those whose tents were removed to make way for the building of the new village. The homes, made of converted shipping containers, have heating, electricity, access to running water and clean toilets, and are certainly a step-up from anything currently available in the jungle.

But at what cost? Currently the jungle residents are helped by an army of volunteers from all over Europe who provide everything from hot meals, to food for residents to cook themselves, to clothes and shoes, to entertainment and the opportunity to be creative, learn languages, continue their education. None of that will move to the Campement de la Lande. Rather it will be a fenced community accessed by residents only by means of hand-print scanners.

There’s precious little trust in evidence and eventually fear will have to be overcome; perhaps that’s what a ragbag of volunteers and peace-makers can achieve in the coming weeks. For now, the residents trust themselves and their instinct for survival. Hence the nightly cat-and-mouse with the baffled police that line the camp perimeter and dot the motorways as the residents try to make a run to the perceived safety of the UK.

The French official told his audience that if they wanted to claim in the UK, they might get help to do that in an assessment centre. David Cameron would not want to hear that but then he should have a presence in this camp talking directly to the many residents who have a good claim to asylum within our borders. But, of course, our governments are also driven by fear: fear of public opinion turning against them if they are overly-generous to refugees, fear of losing control of their borders, fear of looking like a soft touch in a tough world.

I’ve become increasingly convinced over frequent visits to the Jungle that love drives out fear, that as we reach out in friendship and peace to the stranger in our midst, we find ourselves relaxing into unexpectedly warm, deep, and mutually beneficial relationships. It’s what Jesus told us to expect and, not surprisingly, I’ve found it to be true on every visit so far to the Jungle.

Rev Simon Jones is the Senior Minister at Bromley Baptist Church, London, and an associate tutor in New Testament at Spurgeon’s College, London.