Dignity in Illegality
by Henk Wildschut
In November 2005, I was on an assignment in northern Pakistan, which had been hit by a heavy earthquake. It was the very first time I would visit a large-scale refugee camp. I was already familiar with the appalling conditions I encountered there from the TV pictures, but I also noticed something that I had never seen before.
Although a lot of media reports about this kind of disaster place the emphasis mainly on the suffering and despair of almost anonymous victims, I stumbled upon an incredible amount of determination and adaptability. The emergency tents were equipped with household goods rescued from the rubble, the gardens around the tents expressed individuality and marked out the occupants’ private domains. They were making the most of things and getting on with life again.
I found the sight of this both moving and startling. Witnessing the need to create order and domesticity seemed to make it easier for me to empathize with the misery of the Pakistani people.
Back in Amsterdam, I read that hundreds of refugees and illegal immigrants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan, and Pakistan were bivouacking in the woods around the French port city of Calais. To them, Calais was the departure point for the final and most sought-after crossing of what had often been a long journey of escape. The crossing to England: the destination of their dreams. Not that they are welcome there; as illegal immigrants, they are deterred and excluded by an extensive system of legislation.
In January 2006, I set off for Calais, which is just under 350 kilometers from my home in Amsterdam. In the woods around the city, I discovered numerous colorful shacks made out of sheets, clothing, and various waste materials, carefully tied together with bits of string and tape. It quickly became clear to me that this motley collection of shelters had become my personal symbol for illegality. By showing them, I was able to provide an indirect and more subdued image of what it means to be excluded.
I traveled to many different places in Europe for this photography project, but to me, Calais would remain the most arresting of them all. Whereas illegal migrants usually merged into anonymity, here they were visible as a group. Their common goal: the illegal crossing of the English Channel.
By concentrating on something as “trivial” as the shelters, I hoped that I might be able to provoke more compassion in the viewer than with the conventional human-interest approach. It was to be an approach in which the “story” of our wretched fellow human being would be explained, paying particular attention to their victimhood. It is similar to the way a background report relates to hard journalism.
By actually leaving out information, I wanted this photo series to appeal to the viewer’s imagination and empathy. I believe that by doing so it would create a picture in people’s minds of how others held on to their dignity despite the repression and deplorable living conditions they had found themselves in. This dignity is expressed in all manner of ways; the neatly folded clothes, the sleeping bags and blanket hung out, the way the surroundings are kept clean and waste is disposed of. Although the shelters reveal nothing of the wellbeing of their occupants, they serve as a model for the greater underlying story — one full of violence, fear, longing, courage, turmoil, and sadness. This project is all about people who carry on being human in an inhuman situation.
Ville de Calais
I kept on returning to Calais. This led to the Ville de Calais photo project, which followed on from my Shelter project, the source for my 2010 book of the same name. Whereas my work from 2006 to 2010 mainly covered the shelter as a symbol for individual resilience, the years that followed saw in me a growing fascination with the power of the crowd. A crowd that, free from any interference from a government, was able to build up its own existence.
In 2009, the European borders suddenly appeared to shut. In the wake of the financial crisis, there seemed to be a drop in the number of people living in the woods near Calais. However, in 2013 the numbers gradually increased again due to the continuing conflicts in the Middle East. The French government remained aloof; they appeared to be in complete denial about the situation.
This lasted until March 2015. The ever-increasing influx of refugees into Europe started to create a considerable nuisance in the woods around Calais. At the end of March, police forced more than 2,000 inhabitants out of the woods. Just outside the Calais ring road, they were granted a spot in the dunes where their presence would be tolerated. The government provided drinking water and local NGOs set up a basic infrastructure, which meant the camp could now be accessed by motorized transport.
These small interventions worked like a catalyst in the development of the new camp. The inhabitants realized that their camp had entered a more permanent phase. Entrepreneurs saw opportunities for earning money during the long period that people had to wait for a possible crossing to England. Here and there, small shops sprung up.
Within a few months, the camp’s gravel path was transformed into a shopping street. Shelters were converted into restaurants or hairdressers, the Christian community built a church and people set up bakeries. The camp changed organically into a village with a “district” for each ethnic group. I systematically documented this change in process. By the end of 2015, the population of what was to be called the Calais Jungle had grown to 7,000. In January 2016, I counted 40 restaurants, 43 shops, six bathhouses, eight bakeries, and seven discotheques.
So far, the French government had stayed away, but in July it responded to the camp’s rapid growth by erecting a large fence around its perimeter. The fence was intended to prevent the inhabitants from reaching England illegally, although it failed to take away the “English dream.” After all, it was just another barrier to a better life.
In January 2016, the French government decided to take action and started evicting people from a small stretch of the camp. The clearance of the larger southern section followed in April 2016. It seemed that the government had been expecting this dismantling of the camp to deter and discourage the migrants. However, after a brief dip in the population numbers, the spring of 2016 saw the camp grow more than ever. In September 2016, it was home to 10,000 immigrants.
The increase in the number of inhabitants, the increasingly aggressive methods they were deploying to try and reach England, along with the growing social unrest between the ethnic groups, led the French government to take the decision to clear the camp once and for all before the end of this year.
It is not hard to guess whether or not the eviction will prove to be a final solution to the problem. As long as people have a dream, no fence is too high and no sea too deep. I asked a friend in the camp whether he thought that the crossing to England was simply impossible. His reply was: “As long as ships continue to sail and trains continue to run through the tunnel, there is a chance that one day I’ll make it. It is just a matter of when.”
