Immigrants are nice. Tories are tossers
As we have been reporting, the Hammersmith Law Centre will lose 60% of its funding in cuts voted for by the Tory Hammersmith and Fulham Council. Thousands of poorer people in the borough will lose access to the free legal advice and representation that the centre has provided for nearly 30 years.
This site is adding interviews with people who have gone to the law centre for legal help and advice over the years. Law centre clients are often immigrants and people seeking asylum.
Below, law centre client Salah Almesaouil talks a bit about moving to London. He has been a client of the law centre for some years, and had help with Home Office and housing problems.
Salah Almesaouil is a small, witty guy from Syria who lives with his wife and eight young children in a three-bedroom council flat in a West London block called Hamlet Gardens. 'Good flat,' he says, as his four littlest kids stampede through it. 'Bit small, maybe, for ten of us living here. Bit small.'
He's not exactly complaining about his general direction of travel, though: the UK remains a land of opportunity as far as he is concerned, and he and his kids are taking it.
His three eldest - teenagers Heba, Mohamad and Hamza - are doing well in school, particularly in the scary subjects: Heba is studying A-level chemistry, physics and maths, Mohamad is taking A-levels in maths, applied science and computing, and Hamza is sitting GCSEs in science, double science, maths, English language and literature, RE, design and technology, history, French and Arabic.
They want to be doctors and computer engineers and that kind of thing. Almesauouil is a happy Dad.
Ten years ago, while still in the Middle East, Almesauouil was a farmer and a shop-owner. He'd spent most of his life in Syria and Jordan. He left the area permanently in 1998 because, he says, of a less-than-convivial relationship with the Syrian government.
He won't go into the details of that relationship at the moment: suffice to say, he says, that you don't have to make a lot of trouble to be considered a lot of trouble in some parts of the world.
'I had some problems in Syria. The government in Syria is not a democracy. They ask about me. They would ask about me. It was not secure. It has not changed. Then, it was not safe in Jordan if you're Syrian.'
So began Almesaouil's life on the Middle Eastern immigration circuit - a place that is not without its amusing aspect, Almesaouil says.
What you have at the moment, he says, are large numbers of people in the Middle East who are desperate to escape the fallout of UK foriegn policy in the Middle East. The witty part is that they largely want to do this by moving to the UK.
Syria is full of Iraqis who want to get away from the US-UK Iraq war, and move to the UK, because they think that life here is good and the people are civilised. London, meanwhile, is full of Iraqis who want to get away the US-UK war in Iraq, and move to the UK, because they think that life here is good and the people are civilised.
The upshot is that everybody in the Middle East is moving here and moving there and hoping to be allowed to stay in the Western countries that are busy trying to wipe the Middle East off the map. Things have been shambling along in this kooky tenor for a while. Almesaouil laughs. That's why he loves London, he says. Everybody's here. Western foriegn policy keeps them coming. It's one of the most multicultural places that he's been.
Almesaouil is a British citizen now. He's training as a lorry driver, and he's keen to start work soon. He'll sit one more test in July, and then he'll be underway.
He found the Home Office a challenging place when he first came to the UK seeking asylum. His application to stay was turned down, as first applications often are. Almesaouil believes that the Home Office failed to understand the trouble that being known to authorities in Syria can cause an individual. He is a little vague with the details.
'The reason [for the failed application] from the Home Office - [my explanation wasn't accepted]. They did not understand what this case is about, my case in Syria. It is plain [to me], about the reason. I cannot do it myself. I need one solicitor to go through it for me, step by step.'
He won the right to stay in the UK on appeal. He says that 'of course' he misses Syrian and Jordan, and that he is a little concerned that the children will either forget that part of the world, or never see it, or see it only through Western eyes . 'It's a long time. Just me really knows what Syria is like. My children are from here.'
'Yep,' Mohamad says. 'We're combinations.'
'It is easy to live here,' Almesauouil says. 'If you try to make it, try to have a good job, try to [do well] in a good school.
'My children do well at school. It's home for the children. It's very, very good for them, and very interesting.
My family is happy now. We're all together and they are studying. They are safe. It's difficult for the children when you change where they live.'
He says that he finds London 'very good, very welcoming.' He doesn't find people xenophobic: he can't quite understand why some people claim things are difficult for immigrants here. He feels that the main obstacle he faced here was the Home Office: other than that, he's been welcomed, supported and able to watch his kids succeed. What's not to like?
