In June of 2018, Harry Leslie Smith predicted he would be dead before Christmas. He was 95, and his body was tired from old age and the relentless work schedule he undertook for the last five years of his life to do his Harry's Last Stand tour, "to not make his past our future."
He was exhausted and physically weak after being battered by an unforgiving and persistent lung infection. In July, despite his diminished health, he agreed to do a video for UNHCR Canada to help make refugees welcome. My dad knew his time was short, but he didn't want to be selfish with the time left to him. Harry Leslie Smith used his last few months of life to advocate for others, and that is not only remarkable but heroic.
Before the breakfast hour strikes tomorrow, Neimoller's poem about 1930s German fascism coming for one's neighbour before coming for you will be Britain's 21st-century reality. The Rwanda Bill is law, and those concentration camps paid for by the UK but in an African nation won't fill themselves. Across the country, the Home Office with the police will smash open doors with battering rams and people who have experienced war, sexual abuse, unimaginable economic privation, perilous journeys through strife-torn countries, and dangerous voyages sea voyages will have their hands zipped tied together and transported to immigration detention facilities for deportation with no real access to legal counsel. It only took a decade from Theresa May's Go Home Vans to shipping refugee claimants to concentration camps in Rwanda. It didn't just happen. It was part of a deliberate takeover of society by the entitled that whether politically right or centre are at their core fascist. The compassionate society was ground down by austerity, an ongoing cost of living crisis and corporate news journalism doing fascism's heavy lifting by dehumanising anyone who lacks wealth.
Refugee claimants don't have a hope in hell of ever finding freedom or a peaceful life in Britain Europe, North America or Australia.
It is time for us to resist through strikes, sit-ins, boycotts and public demonstrations the treatment of refugees. Voting Labour isn't going to fix things because they are just as bad as the Tories. There is no safe space for compassion in our societies owned by the 1%. If we don't resist our repression will be just as brutal as what is happening to refugee claimants.
Thanks for reading in this case viewing my Substack. It’s an SOS because the end of the month approaches and I am short on rent with only 3 days to go. Your support keeps me housed and also allows me to preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith. A yearly subscriptions will cover much of next month’s rent and I am looking for 6 of them. Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John
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