Wednesday 25th January 2006
Although I never carried out the experiment I was once told that, if you wanted to kill a frog, then the way to do it was to place it in a saucepan of cold water and heat it up. The frog would not notice the increase in temperature - as it would do if it touched very hot water - and would perish as a result.
Shortly before Christmas I was reminded of this on two occasions.
The first was when I went to Campsfield Detention/ Removal Centre. There I was introduced to two detainees. One, from Turkey, hardly knew whether he was coming or going as Campsfield was the third Centre he had been in in four days. Nor is he alone in that. The days when chaplains could build solid relationships with the people there are long gone and the speed with which they are moved through - or moved around - seems to be steadily increasing. As a result it is easy for them to lose touch with their belongings, their lawyers and their friends. The second, from the West Indies, has been living in the Midlands for a few years working hard to support himself, his partner and her children. He was, I think, resigned to being deported but what was really concerning him was that his girlfriend was seven months pregnant. She was finding it increasingly difficult to get to see him as she had been very sick throughout her pregnancy and had just been told that he was to be moved down to the Centre in Portsmouth - an additional 75 miles away.
Neither of those stories will ever get into the National Press. But are our current systems as humane as they can be if they are operating like this? Should we continue to allow this to go on in our name or are we failing to notice a damaging change to the way we treat our fellow human beings?
Then came the report about the children that are currently in these Centres. It is deeply critical, not so much of the ways in which they are being treated, but of the fact that they are there in the first place.
My own experiences of visiting all the Centres where children are held echo the findings of that report. They and their families are well looked after. Teachers are provided. Activities are laid on. But, and this is a very big 'but', should they be there in the first place in that ‘prison’ environment? Perhaps it is better than splitting families up, but is there really no other way that can be found? Should children be being taken without warning early in the morning, along with their parents, when they have no time to say 'goodbye' to their friends?
Is that a mark of a just and humane society? Or have I become, and have we become, like the frogs in the warming water, getting used to something that will ultimately damage us all?