Calais - Are they real refugees?

Like most of us here in the United Kingdom I see the pictures of the Calais migrants and have that feeling that somehow they are not real refugees. And then, again like most British people, I have that stab of regret, am I being unfair to these people? So why am I still uneasy? Are they real refugees? So those are the questions that I have pondered.

I was born in 1937 so grew up being bombed, seriously being blitzed in Plymouth where over a thousand died, well over four thousand were injured, and thousands moved away from the city. I remember seeing many photographs in the daily papers of the 60 million refugees in Europe resulting from that terrible conflict. When the war was over, and we were then living in Bath, my family participated in that city's temporary adoption of Dutch children from Alkmaar, a town that had been ravaged by the Nazis. There were still hundreds of thousands of refugees in 1953 when I became a merchant navy cadet and then I actually visited many of the areas affected in Europe and the Balkans. I also sailed with men who had been refugees from the Baltic and Soviet aggression.  One could say that I am familiar with refugees.

Many of those we see nightly on our television news in Calais do not seem to be refugees. To remind myself of the sight of those past victims of war and violence I revisited this following source in Time for valid visual comparisons:

http://time.com/4029800/world-war-ii-refugee-photos-migrant-crisis/

Now that I have revisited memories I find that my misgivings are warranted for the following reasons :-

• the significant absence of womenfolk amongst these migrants, in fact there is a  remarkable imbalance of all ages, children etc. If you look at the refugees of the World Wars then you will see that pictures reflect the total populace, the fathers, the mothers, the grannies, the cross section of any street or village fleeing danger seeking life. The pictures we are now seeing show mainly young men and that is not encouraging because society needs the total family balance and that is only achieved with womenfolk being a key part.
• the lack of possessions. If you look at the old pictures then you will see refugees carrying possessions and sometimes utilising a pushbike or cart to carry these items. Often they are seen using a pram. These migrants today bring very little. They do not bring tools, family heirlooms, pictures, etc. I remember Jan, our short term child refugee, homeward bound clutching a dartboard wrapped in brown packing paper. They all seem to need the solace of something and that more often is accompanied by a desire to ultimately go home. A great many of these present day individuals in Calais do not have anything more than the ubiquitous knapsack.
•  the attitudes of the majority of these migrants. Aggression is a commonplace whereas the predominant attitude found in the wartime refugees is one of treating everything and everyone with great caution bordering on fear. I remember Jan, the Dutch refugee, keeping his guard up, even with my family, until he had other refugee children in support.    

In my view, the predominance of the people one sees in transit in Calais are most certainly not refugees. Yes, there are some elements of those poor souls in their company but the majority are not and, what is more, do not deserve the title "Economic Migrant". Genuine Economic Migrants are the Filipino nurses bolstering the NHS, the Indonesian seafarers, the Ghanaian fishermen, the Fijian soldier etc., and these people become part of our community and and rightly so. They are professionals, have a trade, have a useful skill with experience, and they speak English. And, by the way Mr. Cameron, they should not have to "earn" their benefits, rights, and so on , if they are worth their salt then they should immediately be covered by the NHS etc. It is insulting and unfair to make a difference. Canada made no exception to me [and my family] when I was an economic migrant and bringing my unique marine experiences to their endeavours.
There is another perspective to this economic migration and that is in the Philippines where 12 million of their nationals work overseas, the biggest diaspora in the modern world, and it is so important to the Phillipines - I believe it makes about 9 or 10% of that country’s GDP.
Migration can be an enormous cost problem if unplanned. This cost of moving people into the United Kingdom can be very readily gauged by an event where the Government is undertaking this with extremely careful planning and costing. In June of this year the BBC stated "After 70 years, British troops are leaving Germany in one of the biggest moves undertaken by the Army in decades. Six regional hubs in England will host 39,000 troops and their families by 2020, as part of a wider defence shake-up, with a further 4,000 in Edinburgh and Leuchars." Now these are our own people and they will require exactly the same range of services that we get and expect at this time. Actually the same things would desired, no demanded, by immigrants. The MoD is investing £1.8bn in the overall re-basing programme, plus funding from the Department for Education and other governmental departments. It is this innocuous "plus funding" that suggest that £1.8 bn is the tip of the iceberg. This event does provide foo for thought and a signpost to the enormous costs of illegal immigration - it is an economic timebomb.
 In conclusion I would say that the majority of Calais migrants are potentially more than an economic problem. The have arrived at that port by illegal transport provided by criminals and paid significant amounts of money - that rings a tocsin. But above all they distract us from the real refugees in their millions in camps in the Middle East and Africa where there are all ages, all sexes, loads of children all desperate to return to their homelands that they love. That's where we need to focus our efforts and money. Most of those in Calais seem to be freeloaders who need sending back whence they came.