Today The Express carries a story claiming that failed asylum seekers are costing UK tax payers £411,000 day. I did not buy the paper as I did not want to give my money to the Express. So i read it free on-line.
Now I don't know if the figures they quote are accurate, their veracity is not what I want to call into question, it's the tone and language of the article. The article is written in such a way as to enrage, the way the story is spun aims in my humble opinion to stir up ill feeling to failed asylum seekers. This is both dangerous and irresponsible.
Such articles are dangerous for a number of reasons;
(1) Such articles effect those who are legitimately in the asylum system, those granted residence and foreign students who might "look" like an asylum seeker. Thus by no fault of there own these people can become subject to differing forms of abuse.
(2) Most people in the UK never come into contact with an asylum seeker or some one who has been through the "system". Thus their only perception of asylum seekers is what papers like the Express feed them - a simplified, distorted version of the truth, an example what it's life to live in a world stripped of grace.
(3) It's also dangerous because it de-humanises those whose asylum application is failed. Their story is lost, thus the reader does not "see" real people but "failed asylum seekers". To view these people abstracted from their story is to lose something of our humanity. To view these people as "a problem" is to lose something of our humanity. Such loss of humanity is dangerous for us as a society as a whole as it desensitizes us to the suffering and humanity of others.
Yes the asylum system is far from perfect, but in highlighting it's inadequacies we must remember there is much a stake. So I'm not angry at the "failed asylum seekers", I'm not even angry at the Government. I'm angry at the Express and the xenophobia they seek to preach.
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