And It’s No Surprise They Allocate Them To More Of Their Own Kind, Is It?

On a cold morning in the heart of London, recently arrived refugees and more established migrants gather in a community centre. Their mission? To decide how £500,000 in funding will be used to support people like them.

Not 'the community', or 'the borough residents'. Just more moochers and fake asylum seekers. Are we mad? 

The initiative is part of the Borough of Sanctuary grants programme, which takes the government’s commitment to devolution a step further, using it to empower migrants and refugees. Islington in north London is one of the boroughs that has been recognised for its work welcoming people seeking refuge, people with experience of seeking asylum and those migrating, and is a participant in the scheme. The council recruited 18 people living in the borough originally from countries including Afghanistan, Ukraine, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Iran and Sri Lanka to decide how the funds should be allocated.

I wonder if there are similar programmes in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka to assist UK people who have fled the insanity for a new life?  

Having faced the challenges of navigating a new country, language barriers and the complexities of the asylum process, their insights are shaping how the grants are distributed to ensure the funding reaches those who need it most.

'Those who need it most' not including the mugs taxed to the hilt to pay for it all, of course... 

At a time when openness to refugees and migrants is often considered politically toxic, Islington council said it wants those people seeking asylum to feel not only welcome but also empowered to shape their local community. “We’ve got 250,000 residents in Islington. How many know we’re a borough of sanctuary? Probably not that many. I want all 5,000 people who work for Islington council to know we’re a borough of sanctuary,” said Sheila Chapman, an Islington councillor who leads on equalities, communities and inclusion.

And the ratepayers of Islington? Don't they get a say? I mean, they are mostly dim progressives but not all of them.  

Chapman added that welcoming people is not just morally right but also beneficial. “People who have fled war-torn places or persecution are the ones with the bravery, courage and ingenuity to get from there to here. They are the people you want.”

They are the people their country wants too, if it's ever going to break out of the Third World, did you ever think of that?  

When Your Restaurant Review Comes With A Side Order...

...of diversity fawning:

Some restaurants are just a nice place to go for dinner. Yemen Heaven in York is obviously that. You will eat well there.

That's it, Jay, that's all that's needed, right? Recommendations for where to take the little ladie or genrtleman for a nice Valentines Day meal? 

But the restaurant is more than that.

Oh. Clearly not.  

Much like Arabic Flavour in Aberystwyth, which I visited last year, it is both the story of exile and an act of memory. It is the product of one woman’s determination to maintain her family’s traditions; to free the country of her birth from a single narrative of war and hardship, however overwhelming that narrative might seem right now.

*sigh* Anyone else just go to a restaurant to eat some great food and not have washing up afterwards? I do. History and current geopolitical affairs are for the telly afterwards. 

Muna Al-Maflehi was born in Taiz, a brown stone city in the highlands of southwestern Yemen, known before the current civil war for its quality coffee production and for the abundant citrus fields with which it is surrounded. When she was seven, Muna moved with her family to Saudi Arabia, where her father taught her the dishes his father had cooked for him. It was a way of keeping alive a connection to the country and culture they had left behind. In 2013, looking for a better life, she moved with her five children to live near Salzburg. There she started her first food-delivery business before, in 2017, following close relatives to York.

So she’s moved around a lot. Why? 

The plan was always to open a restaurant, but it’s never easy; harder still for those who are newly arrived. Eventually, they found an old pub, the Spread Eagle on Walmgate, in need of custodians and love. The wood-panelling and parquet is still there, and so is the bar, though beaten copper teapots now stand upon it. Otherwise, the space has been carefully papered and polished, and rubber plants strategically placed. According to the blackboard on the pavement by the front door, there is now a “secret Mediterranean garden” for smoking shisha out back.

Just what’s needed, I suppose. Say, why aren’t the usual suspects complaining about this? Why does she get a pass? 

Shortly before they were due to open, at the end of 2021, the newly decorated restaurant was broken into and ripped apart by vandals who splattered the walls with paint. “It was like a bomb had just hit it,” Muna told the York Press at the time, despairingly. “It was like being in the war in Yemen. I couldn’t believe that this had happened in the UK.”

Obviously the war in Yemen was a fairly tame affair!

But the community wanted the restaurant. A crowdfunder was launched. More than £21,000 was raised. Yemen Heaven opened and it remains very much a family affair.

Well, if 'the community' wanted it, they got it. But which 'community' was it, I wonder?