South African progressives and the Suez Crisis of 1956

On 29 October, 1956, the Suez Crisis began with an Israeli attack upon Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, with the UK and France intervening the subsequent days to ‘protect’ the Suez Canal. Many historians have viewed these actions as the last major ‘roll of the dice’ for the British and French governments hoping to stem the decolonisation process in Africa and the Middle East, and the drawing of the postcolonial world into closer ties with the Soviet Bloc.

From South Africa, progressives watched as imperialist forces invaded one of its former colonies to prevent a programme of nationalisation, occurring amidst the wider decolonisation process across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. This worried the various progressive groups that still existed in South Africa in the mid-1950s. Eight years into Apartheid rule, the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) had been banned in 1950 and its membership driven underground (its successor, the South African Communist Party (SACP), was not officially established until 1960). The African National Congress (ANC) was still a legal organisation, but a month later, most of its leadership would be arrested and put on trial for treason by the Strijdom government. The remnants of the CPSA that remained in South Africa were often also members of the ANC, while other former CPSA activists coalesced around organisations, such as the ex-servicemen group, the Springbok Legion.

The Suez Crisis, coming at the same time as the Soviet invasion of Hungary, shocked these progressives as a blatant imperialist reaction to the decolonisation process, and an affront to the sovereignty of these newly formed postcolonial nations. In their journal Liberation, the ANC called the action a ‘blatant aggression’ and stated:

British, French and Israeli troops have invaded Egypt and occupied Egyptian territory by force of arms; a wanton, premeditated act of aggression taken in defiance of solemn undertakings under the United Nations Charter.

The reason for this invasion, the ANC declared, was control of the Suez Canal and the revenue generated from this, with the Israeli invasion providing a pretext for seizing control. The journal continued:

[T]hat in fact is exactly what the English and French imperialists are out for – loot. They want to grab the Suez Canal. The Israeli attack was just a feeble excuse (no doubt it was fixed up in advance with the Israeli Government)…

Meanwhile, the newspaper New Age, run by a number of ex-CPSA members, such as Ruth First, published on its front page a statement drawn up by several progressive organisations in South Africa, such as the ANC, the Indian National Congress, the Coloured People’s Association and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). The statement read:

The invasion by the Israeli army and the decision of the British and French Governments to re-occupy the Suez Canal zone constitute a serious act of aggression against Egypt which will have world-wide repercussions…

These acts are in total disregard of the territorial sovereignty of the Egyptian people and cannot be justified by any alleged provocations. Britain and France have used Israel as a spearhead to re-establish themselves as masters of the Suez Canal in order to maintain their domination over colonial countries in Africa and the Middle East.

This idea of Britain and France reasserting their imperial dominance over the postcolonial world was something that was also highlighted by the ANC. As well retaking the Suez Canal, the ANC suggested that the Anglo-French aims were ‘to overthrow the Nasser Government and re-occupy Egypt as a colony’ in the short term, and ‘to teach the peoples of the colonies and former colonies of Africa, Asia and the Middle East “a lesson”’ in the long term. At this time, the British were fighting anti-colonial movements in Malaya, Cyprus and Kenya, while the French were fighting the National Liberation Front in Algeria.

However the actions of the British and French were not successful and both countries were chastised by the United Nations. Both the ANC and those attached to the New Age newspaper celebrated the fact that Egypt had not been defeated by the imperialist forces. Two weeks after the fighting stopped, the New Age newspaper wrote:

The force of world anger at the British, French and Israeli invasion of Egypt has led to a cease-fire and brought to a temporary halt the use of naked aggression to crush the Nasser government. This is a victory for the forces of progress, but it is by no means a final victory.

The ANC were just as celebratory, writing:

The plot to conquer Egypt has failed; the “lesson” has turned out to be the greatest fiasco in modern history. As we write, the aggressors’ armies are still in Egypt, but we cannot doubt that the massive reaction of the peace-loving people of the whole world will compel them to withdraw unconditionally, and to compensate the innocent Egyptian people for the damage and suffering that they have caused.

From this, both publications expressed solidarity between the progressive and anti-imperialist forces in South Africa and the Egyptian people as allies in the fight against imperialism and racialism. The ANC declared that the Suez Crisis had inspired ‘the awakening millions of Britain’s African empire’ and ‘[i[nstead of frightening the colonial world’, the Anglo-French-Israeli attack had:

raised against themselves a storm of mass solidarity, indignation and determination that can only hasten the doom of imperialism and colonialism through-out the world.

The aforementioned statement on the front page of the New Age finished with this expression of solidarity:

On behalf of all peace-loving South Africans we demand an end to force and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Egyptian territory. We express our sympathy with the Egyptian people and our support for their just claim to sovereignty in the own country.

In an editorial contained in the same issue, the links between progressives in South Africa and the Nasser government in Egypt were reiterated:

As an African country we are closely involved in this invasion of Africa. As members of the liberation movement we are closely involved in this attack on a liberation movement. As opponents of national oppression and colonialism we are involved in this oppressive and imperialist war…

We dare not remain quiet. Our voices must be heard in the call for an end to the war in Egypt – in the demand for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the territory of that country.

But while these various groups expressed solidarity in the face of imperialist attack, they did not all consider Colonel Nasser in the same light. Moses Kotane, the General Secretary of the CPSA and then the SACP, stated in New Age that Nasser was ‘no fascist’ as the Western media and politicians had described him, but was ‘an ardent nationalist whose main concern is the freedom, independence, progress and honour of Egypt and her 25 million inhabitants’. Kotane explained that Nasser played an important role in the worldwide anti-colonial movement, saying, ‘Colonel Nasser desires to see colonialism ended in Africa, Asia and the rest of the world.’ He concluded his outline of Nasser with this:

The South African people must clearly understand that the continued independence and progress of the Egyptian people means a lot to their own struggle against apartheid and injustices in this country.

Lionel Bernstein, a comrade of Kotane in the CPSA/SACP and editor of the Springbok Legion’s Fighting Talk, was much more critical of Nasser and his government. The revolution that was led by Nasser and his fellow army generals was, according to Bernstein, simply passing Egypt ‘into the hands of the new dictatorship of the military junta, acting without consultation with the people, without elections, without any authority save the force they commanded’. Bernstein pointed to locking up of all political opponents, including Egypt’s communists, as a very negative aspect of the regime, but also pointed to positive changes, such as the creation of a ‘democratic’ constitution. However this constitution was deemed to be a constitution of the bourgeoisie – ‘the creation of the Nasser regime, of the middle-class revolutionaries representing the middle class of Egypt’. Teleologically it was moving the country ‘steadily away from military dictatorship towards bourgeois democracy’, but for Bernstein, the Nasser regime was not socialist.

On the other hand, Bernstein recognised Egypt’s commitment to anti-colonial solidarity:

It is a government of fighters against foreign subjection, taking the first steps against colonialism, against the backward heritage of imperialism. Let its enemies look to their own record in their own territory – in Kenya and Algeria, in Cyprus and in Malaya and Morocco and compare the record.

The Suez Crisis coincided with the Soviet invasion of Hungary and this led to a schism amongst communists, socialists and other progressives across the globe. Unlike other Communist Parties in the West, the fact that the CPSA had disbanded and gone underground meant similar open debates that occurred in the British, French and Italian parties could not happen, and in general, amongst South African progressives, the events in Hungary were seen as justified in comparison with the Anglo-French-Israeli actions in Egypt. In the New Age, it was pronounced that comparison between the two interventions was a ‘false analogy’, stating:

• The Anglo-French aggression was directed against the Egyptian government; the Soviet [gave] assistance on the invitation of the Hungarian government.
• The Anglo-French forces invaded Egypt. The Soviet forces were stationed in Hungary with the recognised responsibility of protecting Hungary’s independence and preventing her return to fascism.
• Britain and France had no shred of legal right to invade; the Soviet armed forces were legally in Hungary in terms of the Warsaw pact.
• Most important of all – the issue of Egypt is between imperialism and national liberation; the issue in Hungary is between socialism and reaction…

In the editorial of Liberation, the ANC made a similar case for the differences between Suez and Hungary:

we should not forget that the Soviet Union has not suddenly ‘invaded’ Hungary, as the British and French have invaded Egypt. Soviet troops have been in Hungary ever since the end of the second world war, and as a result of that war.

From these statements, it is evident that the progressive forces in South Africa were particularly concerned about other national liberation movements in Africa (and across the rest of the world) in their fight against imperialism and colonialism. Experiencing a severe racialist reaction against the decolonisation process in the form of Apartheid, South African progressives expressed solidarity with the Egyptian people and viewed the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion as part of a wider reaction by the global West against decolonisation. In the following years, southern Africa would be viewed as anomaly where the imperialist powers had not relinquished their stranglehold on these settler colonies, in the face of a generally decolonised African continent.

On the other hand, those progressives that were part of the SACP and ANC looked to the Soviet Union, as well as the Non-Aligned Movement (which had first met the previous year in Bandung) as guiding forces in the anti-colonial struggle. The ANC called the USSR ‘a great power openly and irrevocably hostile to imperialism’ that had ‘enabled the former colonies triumphantly to proclaim and consolidate their independence’. Criticism of the Soviets would come later on, but in 1956, there was little dissent amongst what the ANC and the underground SACP expressed towards the Soviet Union.

Like the putting down of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, the Suez Crisis showed South African progressives that the British were unwilling to give up control of some colonies that had strategic value to them, or where they felt that communists could potentially take power. Although Harold Macmillan would speak of ‘winds of change’ across Africa a few years later, the long struggle against Apartheid and imperialism in southern Africa was only just beginning.

 

 

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Age disputes and the non-medical use of x-rays in the UK border control system

Tory backbencher David Davies has recently called for dental x-rays to verify the ages of refugees coming from Calais. Although these calls were dismissed by the Home Office and the British Dental Association, this is an issue that has lingered since the 1970s. Below is a post based on an article that Marinella Marmo and I wrote back in 2013, with a lot more historical data included. This case study also features in our book Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

The motive of suspicion

In the UK border control system, there is a high level of suspicion inherent, with border control practices often starting from the assumption that migrants, visitors and those seeking asylum are attempting to evade or deceive the system. The default thinking of the border control system seems to assume that certain migrant groups are not who they say they are when interacting with the system. As Marmo and Smith (2010a; 2010b) have argued, there has been a long-standing belief in the UK border control system that migrants and asylum seekers, particularly from Asia and Africa, are potentially ‘bogus’ migrants, with constant mention by the authorities about the unreliability of the testimony of migrants and asylum seekers from these parts of the world, as well as a suspicion that documentary evidence provided by these migrants is likely to be fake. The authorities claim to weigh up decisions ‘on balance of probabilities’, but it is often the case that the border control staff begin from a point of total disbelief and shift the burden of proof onto the person applying to enter the country. With this burden of proof placed upon the individual, it is often difficult to persuade the authorities that their reasons to enter the country, as a visitor, a working migrant, a migrating family member or even as a refugee, is genuine, which is made more difficult by the presumption that testimony and documentary evidence provided by certain migrant groups is likely to be falsified. Under the intense scrutiny of the border control authorities, if testimony and documents are not considered to be convincing enough, the focus of the authorities may shift to physical examination, with the body becoming the marker of ‘truth’. As Didier Fassin and Estelle d’Hallunin (2005: 598) wrote about refugees in the French border control system, ‘their word is systematically doubted [and] it is their bodies that are questioned’.

This post examines one particular way in which the body is questioned by the border control system – the use of x-rays for age assessment. The use of x-rays for this purpose is a non-medical use of the technology and is used solely for the administration of the border control system in an attempt to determine whether a person intercepted by the system is telling ‘the truth’ or not. This post will look at how x-rays were used in the UK border control system in the past and the continued debate about whether to reintroduce the practice for border control purposes, particular the decision by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to trial the use of dental x-rays for age assessment in 2012. Within the UK border control system, the authorities have relied on the use of x-rays in an attempt to extract ‘the truth’ from people whose testimony and documentary evidence is not believed, despite the ethical concerns raised in using medical technology for non-medical purposes and criticisms that x-rays are not satisfactory tools for assessing age.

The use of x-rays in the 1970s

In the UK context, x-rays were used in controlling immigration from South Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. By this time, the largest number of migrants entering the UK was from the Indian subcontinent in the form of family reconciliation. Many young men came to the UK from South Asia in the 1950s and early 1960s before the introduction of immigration controls and with a decline in labour migration from this region in the early 1970s, the majority of migrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were the families of the young men who had arrived in the UK in the decades before. Several pieces of legislation had been introduced between 1962 and 1971 to limit mass migration from the British Commonwealth, but the Immigration Act 1971 still allowed the wives and children (under the age of 18) to join their family members already residing in the UK. With the significant number of migrants applying to enter UK under the guise of family reconciliation, particularly as children aged under 18, the UK authorities thought that this was a loophole that could be exploited, often as documentation regarding children was less substantial than an adult (for example, children often did not have their own passports and were simply listed on an adult’s passport). The UK border control staff were especially concerned about teenage male migrants, who, if they were over the age of 18, would not be allowed to enter the UK and who were the least ‘desirable’ (due to their labour capacity) in 1970s Britain. To determine whether teenagers were falsely claiming to be under 18 for migration purposes, the UK border control system, particularly at the British High Commissions in South Asia where applications for entry clearance certificates were first assessed, used x-rays of the wrists of individuals to estimate the skeletal age of the applicant.

Although the practice had occurred for most of the 1970s, it was not until The Guardian published details of gynaecological examinations being conducted on migrating South Asian women in early 1979 that the practice became widely known. At the height of the ‘virginity testing’ controversy in February 1979 (see Smith and Marmo 2011), details also emerged that x-rays were being taken of women and children to ascertain the age of suspected ‘bogus’ migrants, as well as for supposed communicable diseases. It was claimed in The Guardian that these x-rays were being conducted by unqualified immigration officers at Heathrow, as well as at High Commissions abroad, which ‘expose[d] both the passengers and clerks to considerable radiation hazards’ (The Guardian, 9 Feb, 1979: 1). The Guardian (8 Feb, 1979: 1) also reported that at the British High Commission in Dacca, a pregnant woman had her skull x-rayed, ‘despite the fact that Department of Health regulations would prevent such a test on pregnant British women’. A possible indication that the British Government held strict immigration control as a primary concern, rather than providing humanitarian approach to potential migrants, was in the response to these allegations by Eric Deakins, a junior Department of Health Minister, who said that ‘immigration screening cannot be measured against [domestic] NHS standards’ (The Guardian, 9 Feb, 1979: 1). Like the virginity ‘tests’, the veracity and usefulness of these examinations was questioned, with Labour MP Jo Richardson stating, ‘medical opinion… is beginning to query the practice. It is beginning to say that it is an unreliable method of determining age’ (House of Commons, Hansard, 19 Feb, 1979: 216). In response to the questions surrounding the use of x-rays in immigration control, the Labour Government acquiesced somewhat in the face of mounting criticism and Rees announced the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Henry Yellowlees would ‘carry out a review of the objects and nature of all medical examinations in the immigration control context’ (Cited in, Juss 1997: 109).

However there were many who felt that an internal investigation to be conducted by Yellowlees seemed to be an attempt to stem further discussion of the subject and to deflect further criticism of the Government in the lead up to the 1979 General Election. Various critics, from Jo Richardson in Parliament and from the editorial pages of The Guardian in particular, condemned the lack of transparency in the Government’s immigration control procedures. Ms Richardson declared in Parliament, that it was ‘high time that the secret instructions given by the Home Secretary to immigration officers under the immigration legislation were made public’ (House of Commons, Hansard, 19 Feb, 1979: 217). The treatment of legitimate migrants and the scrutiny placed upon one’s application to enter Britain was heavily determined by the discretion of individual Entry Clearance Officers, but the manner in which these discretionary powers manifested were open to any kind of evaluation by anyone outside the border control system. An editorial in The Guardian (10 Feb, 1979: 8) criticised the extent of the discretionary powers of ECOs and the lack of transparency in the application of such powers:

The central issue thrown up by the variety of medical tests remains that of discretion and its monitoring… When the virginity tests first came to light, we said that investigation of a particular case was not enough and that a full debate on immigration procedures was needed… But it cannot begin until the full codes of guidance for immigration officers and their medical colleagues as well, are published and the scope of their practices is clearly and publicly disclosed.

This frustration with the internal inquiry being conducted by Henry Yellowlees led to the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) to propose an independent investigation into discrimination within immigration control, which lasted from 1981 to 1985. The inquiry performed by Yellowlees and his assistant, Dr N.J.B. Evans, on the other hand, was undertaken during 1979-1980, with the final report released to Parliament in April 1980.

Evans travelled to South Asia in 1980 to investigate the broad topic of medical examination within the immigration control system and with his fieldwork, much of the final report was written by him. A draft version of the Yellowlees report (1980a: appendix 1, 2) stated, according to ‘orthodox radiological opinion in the UK and overseas’, it was ‘acceptable to use such bone X-rays to assist in estimating the age of children’, while the final report concluded that x-rays were ‘a potentially more accurate method of estimating the age of children’ than other examinations of the body, such as ‘skin texture, wrinkling or firmness of tissues, and of noting indications of puberty’ (Yellowlees, 1980b: appendix 1, 1-2). Based on North American studies, the report claimed that ‘[t]he accuracy attainable is in the order of plus or minus six months and the radiation exposure negligible’ and while noting that tables of skeleton maturity were based on North American children and there is ‘very little firm data’ on how these tables compared with the skeletons of children from South Asia, the report argued that it was assumed that skeletons matured earlier in South Asian children and were thus still useful (Yellowlees, 1980b: appendix 1, 2). The major finding of the report regarding the use of x-rays for age assessment purposes was:

5. I conclude that the use of X-rays of the bony skeleton provides a useful, fairly accurate and acceptable safe way of estimating age of children when it is important to do so. (Children in this context means up to about 21 years…) Only one or two X-ray pictures need be taken, of the upper limb or the lower limb excluding the hips. Provided proper shielding is used in accordance with normal radiological practice, the radiation dose to the parts X-rayed is minimal and the scattered gonadal dose is insignificant. These views accord with informed radiological opinion in the UK and overseas (Yellowlees, 1980b: appendix 1, 3).

The report also concluded that ‘United Kingdom radiological opinion holds that X-rays are not particularly useful for estimating the age of adults’, but acknowledged that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had instructed Entry Clearance Officers in October 1979 that x-rays should not be administered on anyone thought to be over 21 years of age (Yellowlees, 1980b: appendix 1, 3-4).

Despite the Yellowlees Report recommending that the border control system continue to use x-rays to assess the age of migrants thought to be under 21 years of age, several other people and organisations criticised this viewpoint. At the AGM of the British Medical Association in 1979, a resolution was passed that stated that ‘radiological examinations, carried out solely for administrative and political purposes, are unethical’ and proposed that the BMA ‘make the strongest possible representation to the Government to ban these practices’ (cited in, Gordon, 1983: 15). A report prepared by Edward White for Lord Avebury, a Liberal member of the House of Lords, cited the past chair of the National Council of Radiation Protection as warning against unnecessary x-rays and claiming that ‘there is no safe level of exposure’ (cited in, Gordon, 1983: 15). White also questioned accuracy of age assessment through the use of x-rays, particularly in relation to the use of generalised data on age/bone ratio based on North American children to assess South Asian children, and concluded:

After a thorough and objective examination of the practice, one must conclude that radiological examinations are a highly inaccurate method of determining chronological age (cited in, Gordon, 1983: 16).

As mentioned before, the Yellowlees Report sidestepped the issue of data on the skeletal maturity of South Asian children and recommended that further research in this area was required. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (1981: 13) stated that the report’s findings on x-rays ‘managed to contradict itself and most accepted medical opinion regarding the reliability of such assessment’. However in FCO briefing notes for answering press questions on the report, it stated that the Home Secretary was ‘not aware that the balance of informed medical opinion is against such tests’ (FCO 1980a: 2) and the government persisted with the claim that x-rays for age assessment purposes was both useful and relatively safe (for example, FCO 1980b).

So the x-raying of children continued throughout 1980 and 1981. In January 1981, the Foreign Minister Lord Carrington stated in the House of Lords that in the last nine months of 1980, around 360 children under 21 had been x-rayed in Dacca and around another 300 in Islamabad (House of Lords, Hansard, 19 Jan, 1981: 336w). The following January, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the FCO, David Trefgarne, announced in the House of Lords that during 1981, approximately 420 children had been x-rayed Islamabad and 262 children in Dacca (House of Lords, Hansard, 28 Jan, 1982: 1114w).

However the following month, the Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw announced that the FCO would no longer be carrying out x-rays on children for these purposes. Whitelaw stated in parliament that Yellowlees had revised his opinion since the report was released in 1980 and advised the Home Secretary that x-rays were now ‘unlikely to provide more accurate evidence of age than the assessment of other physical characteristics of an individual, and therefore can add little to the general clinical examination’ (House of Commons, Hansard, 22 Feb, 1982: 279-280w). The Runnymede Trust archive at the Black Cultural Archives in London has a copy of the letter that Yellowlees wrote to Whitelaw, which concluded that ‘the usefulness of the X-ray method of estimating age must be limited in the immigration context’ (Yellowlees, 1982: 2). Yellowlees maintained that the x-rays were relatively safe, but chiefly found that using the template of the skeletal maturity of North American or European children to assess the age of South Asian children was insufficient to make an accurate assessment of age. Yellowlees (1982: 2) stated ‘the scientific foundation for this when applied – for example – Asian children must be open to doubt’. Whitelaw said that Yellowlees had ‘concluded that such X-ray examinations are of limited value and their continued use in the immigration context can no longer be justified’ (House of Commons, Hansard, 22 Feb, 1982: 279-280w). In its report, the CRE (1985: 40) argued that since the government acknowledged that x-rays were not satisfactorily reliable for estimating age, ‘it should attempt to review previous cases where such evidence was a substantial factor leading to refusal’, but this recommendation was not enacted by the government. In a document outlining the government’s response to the CRE report, held in the Runnymede Trust archive, stated that it was ‘not feasible’ to review all of these cases ‘given the immense amount of work it would involve’ (Home Office, 1985: 12).

The UKBA trial and its critiques

Since Whitelaw’s decision to end the use of x-rays for the assessment of age in migrant children, the topic has been referred to from time to time by parliamentarians. For example, in the House of Lords debate on the Asylum and Immigration Bill 1996, Lord Avebury sought to insert an amendment which would effectively ban the use of x-rays for the assessment of age, but was rebuffed by Lord David Renton who said that, ‘[i]t is difficult for the immigration officers, medical people, or anyone to say what those people’s ages really are. If the X-ray can decide the matter, we should keep an open mind on the issue’ (House of Lords, Hansard, 20 Jun, 1996: 562-563). Aynsley-Green, et. al. (2012: 102) has shown the matter was brought up again in 2006 and 2009, and most recently has been revived by the UKBA in early 2012.

In March 2012, Zilla Bowell, the Director of Asylum for the UKBA, wrote in a letter, reproduced on the website of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, to various stakeholders announcing that there would be a three month trial of using dental x-rays to determine the age of asylum applicants. The letter said that many would ‘be aware of the difficulties that arise when we are not able to establish, with any certainty, the age of an asylum applicant’ and that the UKBA were ‘keen to utilise any appropriate tool which can increase our levels of certainty (as long as it does not have a negative impact on the individual in safeguarding terms, of course)’ (Bowell, 2012a). The trial was aimed at people assessed as adults, ‘but who continue to contend that they are children’ and the UKBA argued that ‘participation in the pilot is completely voluntary’ (Bowell 2012a).

However this proposed trail received significant criticism from immigration lawyers, medical and dental professionals and the four UK children’s commissioners, who were quoted in The Guardian (30 Mar, 2012) as claiming the proposed actions were ‘a clear breach of the rights of vulnerable children and young people and may, in fact, be illegal’. While talking to some stakeholders, Damien Green, the Conservative Minister for Immigration, admitted in parliament that the UKBA had not discussed the trial with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but had ‘sought legal advice on the legality of the trial’ (House of Commons, Hansard, 30 Apr, 2012: 1081w). A month later, Bowell sent another letter announcing that the proposed trail was being halted, after the Chief Medical officer suggested that the UKBA discuss the trial with the National Research Ethics Service (NRES). According to Bowell (2012b), the NRES ‘concluded that our proposed trail constitutes “research” and that, as such, it requires the approval of a research committee before it can proceed’. Bowell (2012b) argued that this was ‘contrary to their expectations’, explaining that the view of the UKBA was that ‘the trial did not constitute “research” and ethical approval was not therefore necessary’. The Guardian (27 Apr, 2012) called this ‘a profound embarrassment for the Home Office’ and claimed that the Home Office had refused for a month to publicly reveal whether the agency had ever sought ethical permission for the programme’. Both Bowell (2012b) and the Minister for Families, Sarah Teather, said that no x-rays had yet taken place (House of Commons, Hansard, 30 Apr, 2012: 1236w), and the UKBA were looking into whether to proceed with the trial in the future.

With the possibility of the trial still going ahead in the future, the British Medical Bulletin published an article on the various issues surrounding the assessment of age of young people in immigration control, which declared that ‘age assessment practice in the UK remains highly inconsistent’ and was therefore unreliable for border control purposes (Aynsley-Green, et. al., 2012: 23). The authors listed five main reasons for opposing the use of x-rays to assess the age of young people:

• Firstly, the authors pointed out that x-rays of bones or teeth ‘can never indicate precisely the chronological age of the individual’ and at best could provide an estimate of skeletal/dental maturity compared to an average control subject (Aynsley-Green, al., 2012: 24). Further to this, as x-rays for age assessment were most likely to be used to establish whether a young person was over the age of 18 or not, the authors acknowledged that the most salient group affected by this practice would be young persons between the ages of around 15 to 20 years old and in the article. However, the authors stated, ‘there is no “scientific method” that can provide a precise assessment of chronological age in individuals between 15 and 20 years of age’ (Aynsley-Green, et. al., 2012: 27).
• Secondly, the authors noted, which the Yellowlees report had sidestepped in 1981, that ‘standards of normality’ in regards to age assessment using physical characteristics are ‘simply not available for children and young people from many countries in Asia, Africa or the Middle East’, with the authors further stating that it would ‘unsatisfactory to assess their images from the standards derived from Caucasian, European or North American children’ (Aynsley-Green, al., 2012: 24).
• Thirdly, the authors simply state ‘although superficially easy to do, radiography demands expert interpretation by experienced paediatricians, dentists or radiologists’ (Aynsley-Green, al., 2012: 24). What the authors seem to be implying with this statement is in the border control context, x-rays for age assessment might be utilised by border control staff, rather than medical professionals. This was also a concern in 1979 when the controversy over x-rays first emerged.
• Fourthly, the authors point out that x-rays give a dose of radiation and that the non-medical use of x-rays is not safe or ethical on these grounds, stating that the x-rays are ‘driven solely by a government’s administrative convenience and is without therapeutic benefit to the individual’ (Aynsley-Green, al., 2012: 24).
• Lastly, the authors propose that all medical procedures should only be conducted with fully informed consent of the individual, but ‘[i]n the immigration context, ensuring that full and informed consent is obtained is complicated by cultural, religious and linguistic factors, often coupled with a general lack of understanding of medical environments’ (Aynsley-Green, al., 2012: 25). Also in the border control context, if a medical procedure is to be used as evidence where the burden of proof falls on the applicant, then the applicant has no choice but to consent or else their application will probably be unsuccessful. This can no longer be considered consent.

As well as listing these concerns, the authors mentioned a number of medical and dental bodies that opposed the use of x-rays for age assessment purposes, stating that growing concern that this use of x-rays was ‘imprecise, unethical and potentially unlawful has led every relevant statutory and professional body in the UK to argue against its use’ (Aynsley-Green, et. al., 2012: 25).

Does the border control system lack institutional memory?

The fact that the UKBA has not completely shelved the idea of using x-rays for age assessment purposes shows two things. Firstly, it shows that the border control system maintains the idea of shifting the burden of proof onto the individual applicant and that physical examination is necessary as the applicant is inherently untrustworthy. Secondly, it shows that while this idea has a long history within the border control system, it also shows that the institutional memory of the system is not as far-reaching in other areas as it attempts to recycle ideas that were dismissed as unsatisfactory thirty years ago. As long as the emphasis of the border control system lies in attempting to maintain the ‘secure’ border and the idea of the border as separating the domestic British population from the threat of migrant ‘other’ is still fostered, there will be strict scrutiny placed upon those who attempt to traverse through the system. In this world, the applicant must prostrate themselves to the interrogations of the system and all available avenues are explored to satisfy the administration of a ‘firm’ border control system. Lord Renton’s quote on keeping an ‘open mind’ on the matter of using x-rays, despite the criticisms, for immigration purposes highlights this. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants wrote in 1985:

entry clearance procedures abroad are operated on the assumption that they need to be directed towards the detection of bogus applicants even if in the process genuine applicants are refused. This licenses entry clearance officers to behave like a fraud squad, rather than as neutral officials processing applications from the wives and children of British and settled men (JCWI, 1985: 2).

This post would argue that this still seems to be the case now.

References

Aynsley-Green, A, Cole, T, Crawley, H, Lessof, N, Boag, L & Wallace, R (2012) ‘Medical, Statistical, Ethical and Human Rights Considerations in the Assessment of Age in Children and Young People Subject to Immigration Control’, British Medical Bulletin, 102 (14 May) 17-42

Bowell, Z (2012a) Letter to stakeholders ‘Age Assessment – Dental X-Rays’ (28 Mar) http://www.ilpa.org.uk/resources.php/14476/letter-from-zilla-bowell-ukba-on-plans-to-reintroduce-use-of-x-rays-for-age-assessment (accessed 19 Dec, 2012)

Bowell, Z (2012a) Letter to NASF members (27 Apr) http://www.ilpa.org.uk/resources.php/14631/zilla-bowell-ukba-letter-on-dental-x-rays-trial-suspended (accessed 19 Dec, 2012)

Commission for Racial Equality (1985) Immigration Control Procedures: Report of a Formal Investigation (CRE, London)

Fassin, D & d’Halluin, E (2005) ‘The Truth from the Body: Medical Certificates as Ultimate Evidence for Asylum Seekers’, American Anthropologist, 107(4) 597–608

FCO (1980a) ‘X-Ray Examinations’, FCO 50/679, NA

FCO (1980b) ‘Notes for Press Enquiries: Yellowlees Review’, FCO 50/679, NA

Gordon, P (1983) ‘Medicine, racism and Immigration Control’, Critical Social Policy, 3(7) 6-20

Home Office (1985) ‘Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) Report into Immigration Control Procedures: Government Comments’, RC/RF/1/01/B, Runnymede Trust archive, Black Cultural Archives, London

Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (1981) JCWI Annual Report 1980/81 (JCWI, London)

Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (1985) ‘Briefing on Immigration Control Procedures: Report of a Formal Investigation by the Commission for Racial Equality’, RC/RF/1/01/B, Runnymede Trust archive, BCA

Juss, S (1997) Discretion and Deviation in the Administration of Immigration Control (Sweet & Maxwell, London)

Marmo, M & Smith, E (2010a) ‘Racial Profiling at the British Borders: An Historical Overview of the Process of Selection and Scrutiny’, in J. Shantz (ed.) (2010) Racial Profiling and Borders: International, Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Vanderplas Publishing, Lake Mary) 35-69.

Marmo, M & Smith, E (2010b) ‘Is There a Desirable Migrant? A Reflection of Human Rights Violations at the Border: The Case of “Virginity Testing”’, Alternative Law Journal, 35/4 (December 2010) 223-226.

Smith, E & Marmo, M (2011) ‘Uncovering the “Virginity Testing” Controversy in the National Archives: The Intersectionality of Discrimination in British Immigration History’, Gender & History, 23(1) 147–65

Yellowlees, H (1980a) Draft of The Medical Examination of Immigrants: Report by the Chief Medical Officer, FCO 50/676, NA

Yellowlees, H (1980b) The Medical Examination of Immigrants: Report by the Chief Medical Officer, FCO 50/677, NA

Yellowlees, H (1982) Letter to Willie Whitelaw (14 Jan), RC/RF/1/08, Runnymede Trust archive, BCA

 

Starting a discussion about self-archiving political movements and the international left

I have been in discussions with various people over the last few months about how movements ‘remember’ themselves and how they engage with their ephemeral history. I am interested in how these movements have often self-archived their materials and what they have done with these materials – are they open to researchers and people interested interested in the history of these movements? Some organisations and movements (as well as certain individuals) have donated their historical papers to various university archives or museums. These are valuable to researchers, but still privilege those who can gain access – usually academics and independent researchers who can afford to do archival research on site.

However some organisations and enterprising researchers are overcoming these obstacles by scanning and digitising the materials of the various progressive and left-wing movements across the Anglophone world. Sites such as the Marxist Internet Archive have been scanning many American, Canadian, British, Irish and Australian documents from the international communist movement, including various Trotskyist and anti-revisionist groups. A number of institutions across the globe have followed, such as the University of Wollongong’s Communist Party of Australia journals, the collection of South African radical material digitised by DISA, the Anti-Apartheid Movement collection at Oxford University, and the Amiel and Melburn Trust collection of British new left journals and the CPGB’s Marxism Today. As well as these institutional initiatives, others are digitising their historical documents at the grassroots level. This can be seen with the Red Mole Rising website, which is archiving online the materials of the International Marxist Group, the Irish Left Archive, the Red Action archive and the Anti-Fascist Archive, amongst others.

The wonderful thing about these online archives is that they are democratising the research of these movements. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can now access these documents, without incurring the costs of doing archival research. This is particularly helpful for those conducting research internationally. The downside is that these initiatives are often costly in terms of equipment and labour, with individuals having to volunteer a lot of their time and effort to provide these resources for others. Also by relying on the efforts of individuals with access to certain collections, there are significant gaps in what is available online. For example, I would like to see more stuff from Militant and the Workers Revolutionary Party made available.

It is exciting to be conducting research in this era of increased digitsation, but there are limits to what we can access at the moment. More people need to get involved – either providing original documents, or offering their services in the scanning process, or by helping out with the costs of hosting the websites (particularly as Scribd and Dropbox are increasingly used to hold these large file depositories).

At the same time, many original activist documents are languishing in people’s attics, basements, garages and other storage areas. These need to be located and preserved. If you have a collection of left-wing ephemera stored away somewhere, do try to find it and think about donating (or selling or at least, lending) it to people who can digitise it and preserve this (often obscured) history.

I hope this starts a discussion about how historians and activists can work together to help ensure that the documentary history of the international left is not overlooked.

The last time the government evoked the ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ slogan

The new Home Secretary Amber Rudd has, in the wake of Brexit, evoked the slogan ‘British jobs for British workers’, which has been used in the past by Gordon Brown in 2007 and by the British National Party and the National Front in the 1980s. While she has been heavily criticized for her statements, this is an on-going issue. The following is from a 2010 book chapter on discourses of ‘race’ and immigration in the UK under Thatcher and New Labour, which looks at the last time the slogan was widely used – at strikes in 2009 where a section of the British labour movement embraced Euroscepticism. In the aftermath of Brexit, these strikes reveal some of the debates that the left were unwilling to have about the EU, European workers and a consistent anti-racism.

In their 2009 European Parliament elections, UKIP gained 16.5 percent of the vote and thirteen seats,[i] heavily campaigning for withdrawal from the EU and limiting immigration from Europe. Their campaign document for the European Parliament elections, intertwining opposition to the EU with an anti-immigration position, declared:

Our membership of the European Union is already costing jobs in the UK. Major construction projects now hire many of their staff overseas, with British workers not even having the opportunity to apply…

The only people who should decide who can come to live, work and settle in Britain should be the British people themselves. We can only do this outside of the EU political union. The open-door immigration policy has been voted against by only one party–UKIP.[ii]

The 2009 European Parliament elections saw a swing by British voters, albeit a low voter turnout, to the right, with the explicitly Eurosceptic and anti-immigrationist UKIP and the British National Party (BNP) gaining votes and/or seats, and the Conservatives, with a more toned down rhetoric on Europe and immigration, winning a majority of British seats.[iii] However anti-EU politics are not always defined by the right, with the Labour Party until the era of New Labour traditionally opposing British involvement in the forerunners of the EU, and are not always linked to anti-immigrationist politics. The labour movement has also traditionally opposed British entry into Europe, viewing the EU and its predecessors as a capitalist super state that allows the flow of economic benefits into the hands of a supra-national ruling capitalist class and away from the working classes.

The 2009 European Parliament election also saw the creation of a new left-wing anti-EU party, the No2EU: Yes to Democracy party, which sought to promote withdrawal from the EU on less nationalist and xenophobic grounds, but did not make much ground against the Eurosceptic right. No2EU had originally emerged from a crisis in the British labour movement over the free movement of labour within the EU, with wildcat strikes breaking out across Britain in response to several companies employing non-union workers, primarily from Italy and Portugal. The aim of the strikes seemed to be quite varied, with a wider range of different organisations and interest groups intervening.[iv] Some saw the strike as a response to employers using non-union labour to drive down wages, while others focused on the supra-capitalist structures of the European Union.

But the most controversial element of the strike was the slogan, “British jobs for British workers”, used by some involved in the strike. This slogan had been first used by the National Front and the British National Party, but had been revived by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in several speeches in 2007, including the TUC Annual Conference and the Labour Party Conference.[v] The slogan was evoked by some rank-and-file striking workers,[vi] which drew fierce media attention to the strike and divided the labour movement over how to support the strike. The reluctance to explicitly support or condemn the strikers using the slogan can be seen in the comments from the trade unions involved. Derek Simpson, a joint leader of Unite, asserted that “[n]o European worker should be barred from applying for a British job and absolutely no British worker should be barred from applying for a British job”, while General Secretary of the GMB, Paul Kenny said, “You simply cannot say that only Italians can apply for jobs”.[vii] TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber stated:

Unions are clear that the anger should be directed at employers, not the Italian workers. No doubt some of the more distasteful elements in our towns and cities will try to use the fears of workers to stir up hatred and xenophobia.

But I am confident that union members will direct their anger at the employers who have caused this dispute with their apparent attempt to undercut the wages, conditions and union representation of existing staff.[viii]

Some “distasteful elements”, such as the BNP, tried to make political capital out of the strikes, using the slogan “British jobs for British workers” in a council by-election in the ward of Newton Hyde in Greater Manchester. In May 2008, the BNP had polled 846 votes in the ward, compared to Labour’s vote of 1,124, and this gap of only 278 votes was expected to close as the economic downturn worsened and the BNP campaigned on the “British jobs” slogan.[ix] But this did not happen as the BNP vote increased marginally to 889 votes, but Labour’s majority soared to 1,379 votes.[x] James Purnell, Labour MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, which encompasses the Newton Hyde ward, said, “I think it’s a victory for hope and solidarity over people who want to bring division and hatred”.[xi] However four months later, the BNP had a surprising result in the European Parliament elections, winning two MEP seats for former National Front members Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, in the North West and Yorkshire, exploiting populist anxiety over immigration and the European Union. On the other hand, No2EU only managed to gain around 1 percent of the vote across Britain.[xii] What the wildcat strikes and the No2EU campaign demonstrated was that it is difficult to disentangle anti-EU politics from nationalist and anti-immigration rhetoric and left-wing, and generally anti-racist, opposition to the EU is a minor part of the discourse, unfortunately trumped by the right, who continue to dominate the discourses on immigration and the European Union.

[i] UK Office of the European Parliament, “Results of 2009 European Elections in the UK”, 17 July, 2009, http://www.europarl.org.uk/section/european-elections/results-2009-european-elections-uk, (accessed 30 November, 2009)

[ii] UKIP, “Campaign Policies Euro Elections 2009”

[iii] UKIP’s vote increased from 16.2 percent in 2004 to 16.5 percent in 2009, with 12 seats in 2004 and gaining one seat in 2009. The BNP gained two seats in the 2009 election, even though their overall vote declined. The Conservatives lost two seats in 2009, but still hold ten more seats than Labour with 25 seats and 27.7 percent of the vote. See: UK Office of the European Parliament, “Results of 2009 European Elections in the UK”; House of Commons, “European Parliament Elections 2004”, House of Commons Research Paper, 04/50, (London, 23 June, 2004) 11

[iv] See: Audrey Gillan & Andrew Sparrow, “Strikes Spread Across Britain as Oil Refinery Protest Escalates”, The Guardian, 30 January, 2009; “This is a Strike Against Bosses”, Morning Star, 1 February, 2009; Socialist Party, “Lindsey Refinery: Workers Show Their Strength”, The Socialist, 4 February, 2009; James Turley, “Critical Support for Wildcat Strikes”, Weekly Worker, 5 February, 2009, 4; “Blame the Bosses not ‘Foreign Workers’”, Socialist Worker, 7 February, 2009, 1, 3

[v] Vincent Keter, Government Policy on “British Jobs for British Workers”, House of Commons Library, (16 September, 2009) 2, http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snbt-04501.pdf, (accessed 4 December, 2009)

[vi] See: http://www.bearfacts.co.uk, (accessed 17 February, 2009)

[vii] Cited in, Unite, “Unite’s Three Point Plan for Dealing with the Current Wave of Unofficial Strike Action”, http://www.unitetheunion.com/news__events/ latest_news/unite_has_today_proposed_a_thr.aspx, (accessed 17 February 2009); “This is a Strike Against Bosses”, Morning Star, 1 February, 2009

[viii] Cited in, “This is a Strike Against Bosses”, Morning Star, 1 February, 2009

[ix] Jon Land, “Labour Sees Off BNP’s ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ By-Election Challenge”, http://www.24dash.com/news/Local_Government/2009-02-06-Labour-sees-off-BNPs-British-jobs-for-British-workers-by-election-challenge, (accessed 8 February, 2009)

[x] J. Land, “Labour Sees Off BNP’s ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ By-Election Challenge”

[xi] Cited in, J. Land, “Labour Sees Off BNP’s ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ By-Election Challenge”

[xii] “Crow’s No2EU Gain 153,000 Votes”, BBC News Online, 8 June, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8088911.stm, (accessed 30 November, 2009)

The Communist Party of Australia reports on ‘the Battle of Cable Street’

The importance of the ‘Battle of Cable Street’ for the Communist Party of Great Britain has been discussed elsewhere on this blog, but I thought readers might be interested in how it was reported on in the Workers’ Weekly, the bi-weekly newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia. On Friday October 9, 1936, the newspaper reported:

Of interest to the Communist Party of Australia, and to historians of Australian politics, was that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who refused to ban the march by Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, had previously been the Governor of New South Wales. As Andrew Moore has written, Game gained similar notoriety in Australia for the dismissal of the Premier Jack Lang in 1932.

As the creation of the Public Order Act 1936 followed quickly in the wake of ‘Cable Street’, the Workers’ Weekly printed a follow up article denouncing measures by the state to curb Mosley. .On 13 October, 1936, the newspaper published this report:

The article mentions that the CPGB could not rely on the state to deal decisively with the BUF, as the POA was more likely to be used against communists than fascists, as discussed by David Renton here.

The fascist threat in Australia, presented by Eric Campbell’s New Guard, had resided largely by 1936 and there is little in the CPA’s literature that discusses combating the New Guard in a similar fashion to the street fighting seen in Europe. By 1936, the fascist threat was largely external, with a number of Australian communists traveling to Spain the fight in the Civil War.