As requested by friends long time ago, this piece is about my sharing of personal encounters in Amsterdam during the exchange study between 2015 and 2016, with some updates from the short trip in summer 2017 . I shall stress that this article is primary thoughts (from the perspective of an “international student”) serving for reference and discussion only; further investigation is needed.
During my stay in the Netherlands, I engaged with the group We Are Here. We Are Here (WAH, in Dutch: Wij Zijn Hier) is a collective of refugee, more precisely, undocumented asylum seekers, based in Amsterdam. The asylum claim of these refugees are rejected by the Dutch government and have to lodge another appeal for the application. More importantly, due to the EU Dublin treaty, they can only seek for asylum in the countries they first apply for asylum because their fingerprints have been saved there, so they cannot go to other countries where the chance of claim approval is higher or working is allowed (since The Netherlands does not allow asylum seekers to work before their asylum claim is deemed successful). I happened to meet some Sudanese, Somali and Nigerian and other African friends there through volunteering in a cooking event organized by Guerilla Kitchen Amsterdam . The event was held in Vluchtgemeente (fight government) in Lelylaan, West Amsterdam. As in other places WAH members lived before and are still living, Vluchtgemeente is an empty government office squatted by WAH together with a group of squatters, meaning they occupy the (empty) places. Due to the private property rights, they have been squatting and being evicted for over thirty times in just five years. Feeling home is nearly not possible; people need to make second plan in case they need to move , again and again. Some of them have been living in the Netherlands for several and even over ten years. Although their asylum claim were rejected by the government, they cannot go back to their home countries because these places are still dangerous for them. You may wonder, in contrast to the situation in Hong Kong, why these refugees need to squat places — this point is related to the government’s provision for the undocumented asylum seekers, the BBB (Bed-Bath-Bread) shelter.
In the case of Amsterdam, the municipality offer two night shelters, including the one in Walborg where I joined the good morning team. The shelter in Walborg opens from 16.00 to 9.00, meaning the residents has to wake up at 7.00 and to be put on the street in the early morning. No money was given to these out-of-procedure asylum seekers from the government. So, the residents need to find places which are free admission, such as libraries, churches and NGOs to stay or wander on the street during daytime. Among the NGOs, worldhouse (het wereldhuis) provides these migrants with free hot meal for lunch, as well as a variety of classes like Dutch language class and women’s workshops. Because of this, the idea of good morning team is to greet the residents at the entrance and see if they need any help, such as medical needs. In addition to providing help, the rationale of the good morning team was to empower and unite the people in order to demand for a 24-hour shelter (that’s why I saw the facebook page of Wij Zijn Hier and took part in the first demonstration). A 24-hour shelter is not only a basic human right, it also a means to provide sense of safety and physical protection for vulnerable people, especially in winter time. During my stay in the Netherlands, unfortunately, one lady living in Walborg shelter died in a park. BBB service is never enough — there are still 200 people on the waiting list. People ended up squat the places to live, but not only to survive.
In regard to the government support, the allowance is cut this year, as at the time I stayed in the Netherlands in July 2017. In the past, the municipality offered free transportation tickets, the only assistance, to the residents. However, in 2017, the policy has been cancelled. As a result, the residents could only travel on foot, walking for 2 hours to the city center, or, by bike. Walking for such a long time is not as easy as you might think. Some of the residents’ legs are broken and were not in good health condition for biking. Even though they have the document proof from the doctors, the government does not consider the proof sufficient to support their claim. This makes life more difficult… Is there any way out?
Well, as I learnt from the class (and mix them up), for policy there is an inertia, something like path dependency because of institutional constraints. If the opportunity window opens, the policy might change. These opportunities might be induced by the change of government, and how interest groups lobby with the government. Yet, on asylum seeking issue, the variety of the cultural background of people is one of the obstacles for uniting people together. For example, there was a tendency separating the group into West and East African groups among the refugees. Whats’ more, living as a refugee is always stressful since you will never know when your application would be approved and for how long you still need to live in limbo — without any legal residence nor work permits.
Again, is there any way out?
Though the situation is tough, but the people are strong and local activists are supportive that many initiative has been set up, such as We Are Here FC (a football team of the group) and We Are Here Academy (A platform to spread the information about the refugees living in limbo and empowerment of them).
The movement is keep going. There is a slogan saying: WE ARE HERE, AND WE WILL FIGHT, FOR FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT IS EVERYBODY’S RIGHTS!
An update: the We Are Here group in Diemen are facing the risk of being evicted..
Further concepts (key words):
governmentality, sovereign power, border, boundary, human rights, humanitarianism, policy inertia, institutionalism, interest group politics, political parties
Originally published at kittykwchan.wordpress.com on October 20, 2017.
