Poornima Manco

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What’s the point?

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Every author, regardless of the genre they write in, has some kind of message in their writing. Whether that is good overcomes evil, soulmates exist, happily ever afters are possible, crime doesn’t pay, etc, etc. You get my drift. Now, these messages aren’t necessarily emblazoned on their covers or blurbs. In fact, sometimes, the messages are so deeply buried within the writing that a reader would be hard pressed to vocalise them if asked. But they are there, even in the fluffiest romcom, the bloodiest crime caper, the most nerve-tingling thriller. Search and you will find.

However, sometimes, there is a disconnect between the message sent and the message received. What an author may be trying to say is open to hundreds of interpretations and misinterpretations. It depends on the reader, their mood, their provenance, their cultural history, their upbringing, their exposure to the world and many such factors. That can make for a jarring experience, both for the reader, and also for the author when they read a scathing review of their work. “That wasn’t what I was saying!” An author might cry out in the privacy of their home.

Whose fault is the misunderstanding? The author’s or the reader’s?

Now, having been both, I can tell you that the answer is complex and nuanced. As an author who is trying to put a point across, I want to be subtle. I want to layer my message within the story, the dialogues, the actions of the protagonists and the consequences of those actions. Do I want to beat the reader over the head with my message repeatedly? No! That is the most basic and worst kind of didactic writing there is. Yet, within all of this lies the risk of being misunderstood.

Let’s take the last novel I wrote and released back in 2022: Intersections. Most of the reviews I received were wonderful. Haunting, complex, emotional and compelling were some adjectives used to describe the story. So far, so good. But any writer worth their salt knows that it’s the negative reviews that stick in one’s head. I know of many authors who refuse to read their reviews, content if their works have a high star rating. I, sadly, am not amongst those. I enjoy reading my reviews because I see it as a learning ground. Somewhere I can find out firsthand what my readers are thinking, what I did well and what I could do better.

This one review had me baffled. The reviewer said she found the book was very well written, that I, as the author, had tackled an intricate plot with four alternating viewpoints and kept her engaged throughout. She then went on to talk about the story and finally ended with saying that the reason she wasn’t giving the novel a full five stars, despite having enjoyed it, was because the book didn’t seem to have a point or a higher message. Therefore, she felt it would not endure.

Picture a knife to the heart. That is how gutted I was to read this review. You see, my point had escaped her completely. This novel about four young women from very different walks of life who become friends in childhood, only for their friendship to splinter in their teenage years, for them to go their separate ways and reunite in their forties, had a point and a higher message. I wanted to show how random life can be. How those we perceive to be more fortunate and more blessed than us are subject to the same vagaries of fate as anyone else. Being born into a higher social and economic strata does not ensure happiness nor is it a guarantee of success, while conversely, coming from the lower end of society is not a predictor of misery and failure. Life is messy and unpredictable. Our spheres of control are limited and the sooner we accept that, the quicker we will adapt to and thrive in changed circumstances.

Perhaps it was my fault that my message wasn’t clear enough. Maybe the novel, which begins with an accident, and ends with the reason the accident occurred and the consequences of that fateful evening, felt jarring to this reader because it was too arbitrary to come to terms with. Unfortunately, many a time, life is that way, too.

As I’m working on my next novel, this criticism keeps me wondering whether I’m doing enough to convey my point. This book deals with the circularity of life, of how what goes around comes right back around. Do I keep it understated as I would like to? Or will that be too obscure and unfathomable to a potential reader? I could choose to ignore this reviewer and write what I want to write. That would be at my peril. You see, every reader is precious to me, and their criticism is a part of my growth as a writer.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon me to work on my craft and deliver a reading experience that is consistent with my philosophy, my convictions, and my worldview. Hoping these will be understood and will align with those of the reader, too.

That, after all, is the point.

 

 

Success redefined

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Success means different things to different people. For some, it may be about fame and fortune, scaling professional heights, becoming a household name, amassing riches; for others, it may be about conquering fears, learning a new language, travelling the world, discovering a cure for cancer; for others still, it may be about finding joy in the ordinary and the mundane, about paring back and appreciating the little things, just waking up healthy and whole every morning and being able to put one foot in front of the other.

My idea of success has changed a lot over the years. As a young girl, success to me meant being the best in my chosen field of endeavour. I was competitive and found it hard to settle for being second, especially in the areas I felt I dominated in. English language, elocution competitions, story writing, dance and drama were all arenas I felt I needed to prove myself as being better than my peers.

In time, life softened the sharper edges of my ambition. I realised that I didn’t need to be better than anyone else to know that I was good. If there was any competition to be had, it was with my former self. The idea was to be better than the person I was yesterday, and by better, not just professionally or artistically, but also in my everyday life, as a human being, a colleague, a wife, a daughter and mother. 

As years went by and other priorities asserted themselves, ambition to prove myself took a back seat to my navigating life and all its ups and downs. I wasn’t spared loss or grief. I wasn’t spared guilt or regret either. I learnt that one could plan as much as one wanted, but life would laugh in the face of those plans and everything could and would collapse like a house of cards. At that time, success to me was just making it from one day to the next.

Well into my fourth decade of life, I consider myself fortunate in the many blessings that I have been bestowed with. I am healthy, first and foremost. I have a loving family, a career that I enjoy, a hobby that I can spend time and money on, a small but trustworthy group of friends I can call upon if needed, and a mind that takes none of it for granted.

What success means to me today is very different from what it meant all those years ago. To see my children happy and healthy, to see my husband enjoy his career and thrive in it, to be able to connect with friends all over the world, in some shape or form, and to be able to write this blog or my books, constitutes success. This may seem very mediocre to some, but to me, it is enough.

I’m sure if you were to ask me twenty years from now, my idea of success would have changed once again. It is a moving target after all. My point is never to get bogged down in the details of what success should look like. It is what it looks like to you, and that is and should be an evolving thing. After all, in the eternally wise words of Maya Angelou: “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”

The trouble with Brexit (Part 4) – Project Fear: EU Immigration

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As a Dutch person, there is one particular issue about the UK that has had me puzzled for years: Why on earth does the UK, a country that is so obsessed with immigration, not have a national registration system for its citizens?

When our children were younger, my husband and I used to have au pairs living with us at our flat in London. Most of those au pairs were Dutch, and as soon as they arrived, they would usually ask us where they were supposed to register their arrival. “You are not required to get registered anywhere”, I used to reply. “So how will the authorities know where I am?”, they asked. “Well, don’t take it personally, but they’re really not interested! If you were to stay here, and get a proper job at some point in the future, you would need to get a National Insurance number and register with HMRC to pay your taxes. But right now, you don’t have to go to town hall and tell someone where you live, like you do at home. I have been here since 17th September 1990, but that arrival date isn’t registered anywhere in the UK.“

The reason why all of us cloggies were so surprised was because we were used to doing things very differently at home. In The Netherlands, there is one big citizen’s database, which covers the entire population of about 17 million people. No real distinction is being made between people who were born in Holland, or those who moved there later: everyone is required to be registered at their home address. When you move house, even if it’s just down the road, you must inform the authorities.

Everybody also has their own Burger Service Nummer, or BSN (citizen’s service number). You need this for everything to do with your administration, and you will get asked for it on a regular basis. You want to open a bank account, or get health insurance? Not without your BSN. Receive your salary? Apply for benefits? Make a hospital appointment? You and your BSN are inextricably linked.

In contrast, the British system has never been as rigorous. There are some registration structures in place, of course, like the electoral roll, HMRC, or GP patient lists, but there is no Dutch-style umbrella government database that covers everything and everybody comprehensively.  Do you remember Grenfell Tower? Nobody knew exactly how many people lived there when the fire broke out. In fact, ten people managed to convince the authorities that they were Grenfell residents when they weren’t, and received financial assistance that they were not entitled to, because there was no registration system.

So yes, the Dutch way of doing things may be a bit much for anyone who is concerned about privacy and personal liberties. And to be fair, it is a bit like a mix of George Orwell’s 1984 and the 1960’s tv series The Prisoner: Big Brother is watching you, and you are most definitely a number. But at least the authorities know who lives where, how long they’ve been there, and who is entitled to healthcare coverage or unemployment benefits.

Is it the EU’s fault that the UK doesn’t have a citizen’s registration system? Of course not. The UK is a sovereign country, that has made its own decisions. Do other EU countries have it? Yes, many of them do. The UK has just chosen not to.

So if there is no real system that tells you who has moved in and out of the country, how does the UK actually measure immigration? Well, you know those nice ladies who sometimes jump in front of you at airports, wanting to ask you a few questions? Believe it or not, but the UK’s immigration count is for about 90% based on those questions, that culminate in the so-called International Passenger Survey (IPS). The IPS operates at 19 airports, 8 ports and the Channel Tunnel rail link, and a sample of passengers get asked where they’re from, why they’re in the UK and how long they are planning to stay. That data is then combined with numbers from the Home Office, the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), and the UK census (which is carried out every 10 years). Based on all of that, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) publishes a migration update every three months.

As you can imagine, those final figures are more an educated guess than an exact science, but there are a few things that we can deduct from them. One of them is that immigration from non-EU countries, which has nothing to do with Brexit for obvious reasons, has been consistently higher than EU immigration for decades: at the moment, net figures hover around 261,000 a year. And the UK has always had full control over immigration from non-EU countries, of course.

Talking about non-EU countries, whatever happened to Turkey? During the referendum, big Vote Leave posters shown all over the country informed us that “Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU”. Surely that must be imminent by now?

No, it isn’t, because it wasn’t true. Turkey applied to join as far back as 1987 (32 years ago), and in all that time has only managed to get through 1 out of the 35 chapters that it needs to complete in order to join. Negotiations have completely stalled in recent years due to Turkey’s human rights violations, so it really doesn’t look like the country will be eligible anytime soon. And even if Turkey ever does manage to complete the other 34 chapters through some kind of miracle, then every single EU country, including the UK, can use its veto to block accession. So let’s not mince words: the language on the poster was a blatant lie.

Surely the Leave campaign must have known this? So why did it choose to mislead the public like that? Well, it’s probably for the same reason why Nigel Farage’s Ukip produced that famous Breaking Point poster: because the fear factor is such an effective and persuasive tool. Remember that this was 2016, when both Isis and president Assad were committing terrible atrocities in Syria, and the refugee crisis was in full flow. Against a background of tabloid newspapers that had been fanning the flames of fear for years, many people were terrified of the two particular bogeymen du jour: muslim terrorists and refugees. And seeing as a combination of both was clearly about to infiltrate the UK, Trojan Horse-style, we needed a heroic act like Brexit to stop that from happening.

Never mind that the Breaking Point poster showed people who had nothing to do with Brexit, because they were from outside the EU (there was a sea of brown faces, when there is no EU country where most people have brown skin – was this a bit of a dog whistle to racists?). The people in the poster were obviously supposed to be Syrian refugees, and the implication was that the UK would be forced to take in scores of them by the EU. Never mind that the UK only engages selectively with EU rules on asylum and immigration, and is not even part of the second phase of the EU’s Common Asylum Policy. Never mind that even if someone is eventually granted refugee status in another EU country (a painstakingly long process) it takes years to get an EU passport so he or she can travel abroad – 7 years in Germany, for instance. Never mind that the UK isn’t part of the Schengen zone and has full control over its borders (apart from illegal immigration, but that’s already illegal, of course). And never mind the fact that there are about 1.8 billion muslims in the world, and none of us would be here if just one percent of them wanted to blow people up – so let’s keep a little perspective.

Never mind any of that: the simple Leave campaign messages about immigrants resonated with people, even when they made no sense at all, and even if immigration from EU and non-EU countries got completely mixed up in public discussions. Facts didn’t matter; feelings did. It was in this toxic climate of hatred and resentment towards foreigners that pro-migrant MP Jo Cox was murdered by far-right terrorist Thomas Mair, just hours after the Breaking Point poster was revealed.

So let’s now talk about the only type of migration that is relevant in the context of Brexit: migration from EU countries. Net migration from EU countries was around 57,000 in the year up to September 2018 – the lowest it has been in years, and down from 189,000 in the year before the referendum. How much control does the UK have over EU citizens coming into the UK, if any? To answer this question, we must again make a distinction between the free movement of people within the Schengen zone, and freedom of movement as part of the Single Market.

Last time, we found out that the UK and the Republic of Ireland have an opt-out from the Schengen zone, that there is a physical border, and that everybody coming into the UK or Ireland still has to go through passport control. The Schengen zone is therefore pretty much irrelevant in the UK’s Brexit debate, because the UK is not part of it.

What does matter, however, is the famous ‘freedom of movement’ principle. That does apply to the UK, because it is in the Single Market – and in order to enjoy the advantages of the Single Market countries have to adhere to the Four Freedoms:

  1. Freedom of goods
  2. Freedom of services
  3. Freedom of capital
  4. Freedom of movement.

It is this freedom of movement principle that became a big issue during the Brexit debate. For many people who voted for Brexit, it was a no-brainer: we can’t just let anybody come into the UK; there should be some kind of limit to it. Particularly when it comes to people from poorer EU countries, with lower wages and lower living standards, who may be entitled to claim benefits in the much richer UK. “Surely we are not being unreasonable if we don’t want to ‘sponsor’ EU immigrants who are going to sit on their backside and sponge off the state, while the rest of us have to work hard every day and pay our taxes?”, they reasoned. Sounds fair enough, right?

Actually, even though there is a perception in the UK that the EU has some kind of open door policy, freedom of movement is not an unconditional right at all. Article 7 of the EU Citizen’s Rights Directive states that after three months, if you’re an EU citizen who moves to another EU country, you must:

  • have a job or be self-employed, earning money and paying taxes (in other words: you are economically active); or
  • have ‘sufficient resources’ in order not to become a ‘burden on the social assistance system of the host country’, and have comprehensive sickness insurance (in other words: you are financially independent).

That’s it. Either you work (or you’re in education), or you’re so rich already that you don’t need to work. In addition to that, immigrants can also be sent back for reasons like public policy, public security and public health, and David Cameron’s February 2016 EU deal gave the UK stronger powers to deport EU criminals.

This is where the UK’s, shall we say, rather lax administration system comes in. Because how can you send people back, if you don’t know who has come in, and where they live? EU citizens who moved to the UK have never been obliged to register at their local municipality, and once they arrive in the country, the authorities don’t really keep tabs on most of them. As long as they keep a low profile, it is pretty easy to get lost in a big city like London.

Sensible restrictions on the freedom of movement principle have always been available under EU law, but successive UK governments have never bothered enforcing them. They have never insisted that EU immigrants had to have a job, or be wealthy enough to support themselves. They have never demanded that they have comprehensive sickness insurance. And they never deported anyone who wasn’t economically active or financially independent after 3 months – possibly because they wouldn’t know how or where to find them!

It’s a similar story regarding the so-called A8 countries: 8 Eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004. It would have been perfectly possible for the UK to impose temporary labour market restrictions on workers from these countries under EU law. However, the UK, Ireland and Sweden decided not to. This meant that there was a sudden surge of Eastern European immigrants, who often settled in rural areas in which immigration was uncommon.

My mum and dad always used to say: “Everything that has too in front of it is not good: too much, too little, too excessive etc.” Everything in moderation, in other words. The arrival of large numbers of migrants 10-15 years ago (too many, too sudden, some would argue) did put an extra strain on schools, housing and GP surgeries in certain parts of the country. This often happened in areas that successive governments had already underinvested in for years. But is worth remembering that the vast majority of those migrants are law-abiding citizens who work, pay their taxes and therefore pay their own way (and the ones who don’t shouldn’t have been allowed to stay after 3 months according to EU rules, remember?). What would really help poorer areas in the UK is not so much getting rid of the foreigners (or the EU, which has invested very heavily in those areas), but some proper government funding for local services, particularly in those areas that have been left behind for decades.

Another common argument is that some (mainly Eastern European) communities should integrate a bit better into British society. That may be true to a degree, but it is a lot harder to integrate when you’re constantly being met with hostility, the locals don’t talk to you and you don’t feel welcome. And isn’t it funny how some of the same people who have a problem with Polish shops love going to the Dog & Duck and that little expat shop that sells hobnobs when they are in Benidorm?

Listen to what Conservative Lord Michael Heseltine has to say about immigration and freedom of movement, and about someone who was Home Secretary for 6 years between 2010-2016. Someone whose name will always be associated with Brexit, but also with expressions like ‘hostile environment’, ‘queue jumpers’, ‘Windrush scandal’, ‘go home vans’ and ’citizens of nowhere’: Theresa May.

“The interesting thing in the European context is that now the overseas immigration from outside Europe is in a different league or scale to those from Europe. And that was the case whilst Theresa May was home secretary for all those years. Why did she do nothing about it, if this was the burning issue? And the reason why I think she didn’t do anything is because our social services depend upon the skills of the doctors and the nurses in the health service that have come from outside that actually make immigration a very important strength to our economy. And the government didn’t want to be put in a position where it is obviously controlling these numbers, creating shortages, lengthening the queues, in a way that would have happened if immigration had been controlled in the way they wanted it to be.” 

Lord Heseltine is absolutely right: immigrants are indeed a ‘very important strength to our economy’, particularly to the NHS. The UK is lucky enough to have an extremely low unemployment rate, which together with an ageing population means that there are shortages in certain sectors of the economy that immigrants – both skilled and unskilled – help fill. 9.5% of doctors are EU nationals, for instance (23% of doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital even), as well as 16% of dentists and 6.4% of nurses and midwives. From care workers to seasonal farm labourers, teachers to abattoir vets, surgeons to chambermaids, EU citizens have been a vital part of the UK economy for years.

And not only do most of those EU immigrants work (83% of those of working age, compared to 76% of UK nationals), there is overwhelming evidence that they actually boost public finances rather than costing the UK money. That is because they contribute more in taxes, and make much less use of benefits and public services than the average British person. And yes, this includes people from those so-called A8 countries I mentioned earlier. Immigrants from these countries often do low-paid work that local British people don’t want to do, such as fruit picking, factory work or cleaning. But their high employment rates and hard work offset the fact that they usually get paid less than either UK citizens or immigrants from the older EU countries, meaning that they still contribute more than they take out.

A major study on the impact of 20 years of immigration (up to 2015) by the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance concluded  that “EU immigrants pay more in taxes than they use public services, and therefore help to reduce the budget deficit. Immigrants do not have a negative effect on local services such as education, health or social housing.” The report found that rather than being the fault of immigrants, these problems were the result of the 2008 cash and the slow economic recovery. Another huge study found that European migrants made a positive net contribution of £22 billion to UK public finances between 2000-2011. A research paper published by University College London states that immigrants from the European Economic Area (EEA) paid 34% more in tax than they took out, whereas UK-born citizens paid for only 89% of the benefits and services they received through taxes, costing the state £624 billion between 2001 and 2011.

In other words: EU immigrants actually sponsor British society, not the other way round.

The reason for this is that they are much more likely to be of working age than the general population. Think about it: until we are, say, around 20 years old, we cost society money, in childcare and education costs. We then start working, hopefully for several decades, and instead of taking, we start contributing to the public coffers instead. Our income taxes pay for schools and hospitals, teachers’ salaries and the police. At the end of our lives, when we need more medical attention and draw our pensions, we become expensive again.

Likewise, your typical Polish builder arrives in the UK fully educated and immunised, so the expensive early part of his life has been paid for by his home country. He works and pays his taxes to his host country during the long productive years of his life, so the UK benefits from him and gets pretty good value for money. And quite often, he retires ‘back home’ before he needs a care home or a hip operation.

The UK needs immigrants to fill jobs. Some people seem to fantasise that British workers will replace them all after Brexit, but evidence suggests otherwise. Many EU citizens have already left the UK in recent years, and this has not lead to a sudden uptake of jobs by British workers, but to fruit rotting in the fields, and to 100,000 vacancies in the NHS. Some of those vacancies are having to be filled by temporary staff, which costs the NHS more money, and it is likely that EU workers will simply be replaced by non-EU workers. Will the NHS really be any better off when your doctor comes from Argentina instead of Spain, or from China instead of Malta?

So how do those 3.6 million EU citizens in the UK, and the 1.3 million British citizens in the EU-27 countries feel about Brexit? A total of nearly 5 million people, most of whom didn’t even get a vote over their own future during the referendum? Well, some of their testimonies have been documented in two poignant books called “In Limbo” and “In Limbo Too”. This is how one Italian lady in the UK expresses herself:

“One morning, after years and even decades, you suddenly feel unwelcome, unwanted, betrayed. Your certainties, your life and your security are gone. Through no fault of your own you are stuck in a painful limbo.” (Elena Remigi)

Sadly, it sums up how a lot of people feel. For years, many decent EU citizens have been portrayed as freeloaders and parasites by the Leave campaign and the British press, even when the opposite was true. Some have even been mixed up with terrorists or refugees in the public mind. Foreign simply equalled bad. It is one thing to be under appreciated, but it is quite another thing when your presence in the country is the second biggest reason why people all around you voted to leave the EU.

We are not just talking about anonymous immigrants here. These EU citizens are our neighbours, friends and colleagues, who have jobs, spouses, children and social lives in the UK. It’s the lady who looks after your parents in their care home, the guy who fixed your roof, your Amazon delivery driver. People who contribute to society, both in taxes and in services, and have often done so for many years. They exercised their right to move to another country in good faith, and have now found that the rules have suddenly changed. Some are not even sure if they will be entitled to Settled Status (a brand new registration system that only applies to EU citizens) because they may have taken a career break to look after children or a sick relative, and now the government suddenly and retroactively demands to see proof of comprehensive health insurance – something it never mentioned before.

And freedom of movement works both ways, of course: Brexit also takes away the rights of British citizens themselves to live, work, study or retire in any of the other 27 EU countries. Something that a lot of voters, particularly older people, may not have taken into consideration in 2016. It means that their own children and grandchildren will now be denied the chance to enjoy any of the benefits of the freedom of movement that they themselves had access to, like living in Prague for a year, or studying in Sweden under the EU’s Erasmus programme. The British people essentially voted to lose their own rights in this respect, because they will be stripped of their EU citizenship.

For years, successive governments have only been too happy to join in the populist blame game against immigrants. Nobody has been brave enough to go against the grain and articulate the benefits of immigration and the work that EU citizens do, or the advantages of free movement for UK citizens. Perhaps it suited them when the victims of austerity and government policies blamed the foreigners lower down the social ladder for their plight, rather than the politicians making the decisions higher up the ladder. Is it any wonder that in this hostile environment, there has been a rise in hate crimes against EU citizens, and against all immigrants in general?

In a sensible Brexit deal, there will be some kind of safety net, and the rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU-27 countries will most likely be protected. But the UK has deliberately left the option of a No Deal on the table during the past few years, meaning that those rights are in no way guaranteed. This is what has led to 3 years of uncertainty and anxiety. Not only do 5 million people still not know exactly what their residency rights will be after Brexit (and thankfully, most EU countries have been very generous in this respect), they also don’t know if they will be able to keep any of the associated rights regarding employment, frontier work, education, health and social care, pensions and voting rights. 5 million human beings without a voice or vote, who didn’t deserve to be used as bargaining chips in some cynical political game. But sadly, that is exactly what has happened to them.

Next time, let’s examine the number one reason why people voted for Brexit: sovereignty.

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Johanna Brunt was born and raised in The Netherlands. She has spent half her life there on the continent, and half her life in the UK. After studying English and European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, she moved to London where she started working for an international airline. She is married to a Brit, and they have three children together.

The ubiquity of abuse

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I was having coffee with a bunch of ladies I didn’t really know. A common hobby had brought us together and as we met (some, for the first time) and chatted and ordered coffee and cake, the conversation veered off course as it inevitably does when you put women together. This wasn’t a business luncheon, it was very much a ‘getting to know you’ do. Our common hobby had brought us together, but we wanted to know if there was something else, beyond that, which could connect us.

As we talked backgrounds, languages, cultures, careers, husbands and children, we delved into each other’s lives, hesitantly at first, and then boldly, asking forthright questions and receiving some compelling and often hilarious answers. A sisterhood was emerging right there in that little coffee shop.

Interestingly, because we were, in effect, strangers to one another, there was a frankness and a candour to our conversation. There was no previous baggage nor was there any judgement. Each one was free to divulge as much or as little as they wished. Which is perhaps why some shocking truths emerged.

I have thought long and hard about writing this blog post. Am I betraying these ladies’ confidences if I do? Is this a kind of treachery to the very sisterhood I espouse? Am I worthy of being a confidante if I am unable to zip my lip?

However, upon reflection, I decided that yes, I would indeed write about it. No names or details of the women in question will be revealed here. That is not the purpose of this post. The purpose is to highlight the vulnerability of young children and how, it is so important for us as adults – parents and carers, to be vigilant about any possible signs and symptoms of abuse.

70% of the ladies at that table had been subject to some kind of sexual abuse as children. This ranged from an elderly relative using his trustworthy position in the family to inappropriately touch a child, to older children molesting a young girl in their midst, to a cousin leveraging his way into his sister’s affections to try and rape her.

Where were the adults when all this happened? Oblivious, too trusting or incapable of translating the traumatised child’s words and actions as a symptom of their ordeal.

Following on the heels of the #MeToo movement, the awareness of society’s ability to use and discard vulnerable adults has emerged strongly into the forefront. Yet, child abuse is so much more rampant and ubiquitous than anyone of us could have imagined.

All of these women were educated, erudite professionals who had carved out amazing careers and on the outside looked as put together as anyone else. Yet, fragments of their abusive past still lingered, making them feel ‘less than’ and handicapped in ways that even they could not articulate. If our pasts are the foundations to our future, it must have been doubly hard to build their future on the quicksands of trauma, betrayal and abuse.

I have spoken freely about the kind of sexual harassment I encountered growing up in India. Thankfully, because my mother was a very forward thinking individual, she was particularly circumspect about the adults who had access to me as a child. I had been told time and again to tell her if anything inappropriate was said or done to me. I was amongst the lucky few.

How many others had to stay ‘schtum’ because of the joint families they were growing up in wouldn’t tolerate any rent in its fabric, even if the casualty was a child’s innocence? How many parents believed that shrouding the truth or simply disbelieving the child were the only ways forward? How many ‘uncles’ or manservants got away scot-free because the ‘good name’ of the family was far more important than offering the victim love, support, understanding and challenging the perpetrator’s dirty deeds?

Too many.

Which is why it is so important that we talk about childhood sexual abuse. Children have nothing to be ashamed of. They are completely innocent of any wrong doing. It is the sick and depraved adults who choose and groom their victims alongside their families, that need to be brought to task.

I hope there comes a day when that coffee table conversation will not be limited to the tales of abuse suffered by young children, but will go on to elaborate the punishment society accorded to the abuser, and the counselling that was offered to the child to overcome that early trauma. As things stand right now, most children have to find their own coping mechanisms and unlike my ladies, can and do, spiral into self destructive behaviours.

I am not naive enough to believe that we will eradicate child sexual abuse completely. Wherever there is a power imbalance, abuse will exist and thrive. Sadly, there will also always be individuals with a sexual predilection for children. A multi-pronged approach that includes awareness, education, therapy, counselling, stricter laws and most importantly, a gradual erosion of patriarchy, may bring about the much needed change that will protect our children and ensure a safer future for them.

 

 

Wrung out

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“I don’t know how you do it!” is a refrain I hear often. The ‘it’ being – working which involves a lot of travel, taking care of home which involves cleaning, cooking, doing the chores while also parenting and trying to be a supportive partner, while keeping up with my exercise and friends, TV shows, movies, reading and writing. All of this is in no particular order as depending on the day and the need, the hierarchy gets moved around a fair bit.

Now, if I were to be honest, while I may look swan-like getting it all done, there is some furious paddling going on beneath the water, and often times tasks are either hurriedly done or left completely by the wayside. Neither of which are desirable outcomes. My story is no different to any other working mother, some of whom don’t even have the kind of super supportive husband that I do.

The month of June was meant to be the month I took off social media to focus on work and writing. I have done both, but life does have a funny old way of throwing a spanner in the works.

My daughter’s A levels are going on, and rather than being that nagging mother who is on her back 24/7 haranguing her to study, I thought, this would be the perfect month to work to my max, and stay out of her hair. After all, at this late stage, it’s better for her to have a relaxed state of mind to sit her exams. What I couldn’t possibly have foreseen is the ill health of my second daughter. An ear infection that has her screaming in agony, sleepless nights, an allergic reaction to the antibiotics, another rushed visit to the doctor’s, being given an unsigned prescription on a Friday evening making it near impossible to procure the medication, husband running from pillar to post and finally, miraculously, through some fortuitous messaging, getting a hold of the meds.

While the medicines do their work, I am at work again. This time, however, I find I have a short fuse, am completely exhausted and totally unable to string a coherent sentence together. Writing? Once again on the back burner.

Sometimes I despair that I’ll never become the sort of serious writer I aspire to be. The one who gets up each morning and in a very disciplined manner, trots out a couple of thousand words before serenely taking out the garbage and getting the rest of her chores done.

Me – I write when I can, where I can. Sometimes, not for weeks. And when I do, it’s not always the best quality. What hope is there for me?

My mother always said that I could be a bulldog about the things that I wanted. I really want… no, I really need to write. I guess its sheer tenacity that keeps me going. That, and a sense of catharsis and peace. Each time I sit down to write, I feel like I’m coming home. This is where I’m meant to be, this is what I’m meant to do.

So, in answer to the oft repeated question, how do I do it? I do it. Badly, haphazardly, intermittently. Still, I keep going. Tired and wrung out as I am, it’s the only way I know how to live. All those multiple balls in the air… some will fall, some will roll away, but I’ll keep juggling them till I have breath left in me.

Now, I’ll go take a nap.

 

The trouble with Brexit – Johanna Brunt

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It is the beginning of May, 2019 – nearly three years after the UK’s 2016 referendum, during which it decided to leave the European Union. Even at this late stage in the game, nobody knows if Brexit is going to be hard, soft or sunny side up – or whether it will even happen at all! The UK has just been given a Halloween extension, and some much-needed breathing space. The entire country is confused about backstops, trade deals and tariffs, and thoroughly fed up with the way everything has been handled in Westminster. It is high time for a progress report: how did we get here, and where do we go from now?

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  1. The Single Market and the Cherry Picking Myth

Brexit. A subject that has divided the country, parliament and political parties in the UK for three years now, and shows no signs of becoming any less polarising. With a difference of only 3.8%, the Leave campaign won the June 2016 referendum. Why did so many people think that Britain going its own way would be the best course of action?

There were two main reasons why people voted Leave in 2016. The first one was sovereignty. Many people were happy for the UK to cooperate with other European countries on trade and other issues, but they felt that over the years, the EU had grown too big for its boots. They were sick of being bossed around by unelected politicians in Brussels, and wanted to take back control.

The second biggest issue was immigration. A lot of British people didn’t like the European idea of unlimited Freedom of Movement. In their eyes, it meant that any Juan, Jan or Janusz could just enter the country, settle in, and undercut local workers or claim benefits.

So let’s have a look at this big European bully, that seems to feel entitled to impose its rules on the UK. What exactly is the European Union, what are the pros and cons of membership, and is leaving the EU the right thing to do for the UK?

The EU was originally set up with the aim of ending the frequent and bloody wars between neighbours, which culminated in WWII. It is based on the idea that when countries trade together, and have a close working relationship, they are less likely to wage war against each other. The founding values of the European Union still form the core of European policy: freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights.

Today, the EU is incredibly big and powerful – probably a lot bigger, and a lot more powerful than most people in the UK realise! It accounts for almost a quarter of the world’s GDP (23%), meaning that it is also very rich, compared to most of the rest of the world. In fact, out of 193 countries in the United Nations, only 35 are considered ‘advanced economies’ according to the IMF – and out of these 35 countries, 27 are inside the EU.

So how did the EU become so big, powerful and rich? The answer lies in just three little words: The Single Market. This is when things get pretty boring – but please bear with me, as it is absolutely central to the whole Brexit debate!

The Single Market is by far the biggest, and most advanced single trading area on the planet. It is an ongoing process of harmonisation and standardisation, designed to make it as easy as possible for people, goods, services and money to move around those countries that are a part of it: the 28 members of the EU, plus 4 non-EU countries: Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein (EEA countries), and Switzerland. It does not only cover free trade, meaning that the countries within the Single Market don’t charge each other tariffs (import taxes). It also covers something much more advanced than that, and something that is quite unique: frictionless trade.

Frictionless trade means that countries within the Single Market have decided to not only eliminate tariffs and customs barriers between themselves. They have also made it as easy as possible to trade and allow free access to each other’s markets, by having the same standards and regulations for goods and services. That means the same safety regulations, environmentally friendly packaging, food labelling, consumer guarantees etc, to create a fair and level playing field between countries. Kind of as if the Single Market was a single country, really! This way, manufacturers don’t have to set up different production lines, to make different goods for different countries. Essentially, it gets rid of trade barriers and internal borders, making it easier for companies to operate internationally, and enlarge their markets.

Imagine, for instance, that you are a British manufacturer of hairdryers. If you want to sell those hairdryers to other countries, you would normally have to deal with different regulations that other countries have, because of their different legal systems. Spain may have certain laws regarding particular hairdryer components, or they may have completely different safety standards to the ones that you have in your country. And Austria, Malta and Sweden may also have slightly different rules and regulations. That would make cross-border trade much harder for you – those countries wouldn’t allow you to sell your hairdryers in their countries, because you don’t comply with their standards. Setting up different production lines for different countries you want to sell to would increase costs for you, leading to higher prices for your products, and reduced competitiveness. You would probably just end up staying in your own country, and lose out on the opportunity to become a big company that trades internationally.

The Single Market has removed those regulatory barriers by allowing frictionless trade between Single Market countries, both in goods and in services. Incidentally, services are things like banking, insurance and telecommunications which make up about 80% of the economy, so it’s quite important to the UK (fishing is less than 0.5%, by the way..). This way, it is now as easy for you to sell your hairdryers from London to Lisbon, as it is to sell them from London to Leeds.

You may ask yourself: “That’s all very nice, but that’s all about trade and stuff. How does that affect me?” Well, having a healthy economy means high employment (jobs), more people spending their well-earned money and keeping the economy going, and more money for the government’s coffers. Companies have to pay corporation taxes, its workers pay National Insurance Contributions and income taxes, and all of that money goes into HMRC. With that pot of money, governments can then pay for schools, hospitals, housing, the police and other public services. It’s a win-win situation, because your country has high employment and more money to spend. Membership of the EU and the Single Market has undoubtedly been of great benefit for the UK, which used to be known as the ‘sick man of Europe’ in the 1960’s. In fact, it has been so successful that it has made the UK the fifth biggest economy in the entire world (although it dropped to sixth soon after the 2016 referendum).

In order to prevent the member states from engaging in unfair competition, and to keep a level playing field, the Single Market also involves countries having certain baseline standards regarding workers’ rights, health and safety regulations, consumer protections, environmental rules, food and animal welfare standards etc. A great number of these kinds of regulations and laws have been written by the UK, which is seen as one of the ‘Big Three’: the three largest and most important countries within the EU (along with Germany and France).

The famous European CE mark, for example, originated from the old British Kitemark. If you see it on a toy that you bought for your children, you can be confident that it is not going to have any tiny components that your baby may choke on, or that he or she is not going to get ill because the toy is covered in toxic paint. All countries within the Single Market have agreed that they will not compete with each other by trying to lower basic standards that exist to protect workers, consumers and the environment, and that they certainly won’t try to get rid of them altogether.

Some of these regulatory rules and standards apply to more than just the 28 EU countries plus those 4 non-EU countries. The Single Market has essentially turned the EU into a huge global powerhouse – one that negotiates its own trade deals with other countries and trading blocs, on behalf of its member states. As an EU member, the UK is part of about 40 trade agreements that the EU has with about 70 other countries, which have taken decades to negotiate. And because it is so big and powerful, the EU has a lot of clout. For instance, if you now buy a toy from China it will have to have a CE mark on it, because the EU has forced China to comply with European safety standards – thus protecting European consumers.

Having these basic common standards is also good news for ordinary citizens, as many EU laws protect them from being exploited by unscrupulous employers. For instance, it means that you can’t be forced to work more than 48 hours a week – you can if you want to, but your employer can’t sack you if you don’t. Things like paid holidays, a ban on age discrimination, LGBT rights, paid maternity leave etc are also enshrined in EU law. It is therefore no coincidence that pretty much all UK unions, as well as the vast majority of economists, campaigned against Brexit during the 2016 referendum campaign.

As you can imagine, the EU has been very keen to protect the integrity of the Single Market during the Brexit negotiations. This consist of four pillars, also known as the ‘four freedoms’:

  1. Freedom of goods
  2. Freedom of services
  3. Freedom of capital (money)
  4. Freedom of people (labour)

EU negotiators set out their strategy from the beginning, and they have been very clear all along: “Anything can be discussed, but we can’t separate these four freedoms, that the success of our Single Market is based on.”

Unfortunately though, the UK spent the next few years trying to cherry-pick bits out of the Single Market cake. Take the Chequers proposal: “We’ll have that freedom of goods part, thank you very much – but you can keep the freedom of movement part that we don’t want.” When the EU explained that you’re either in the Single Market or you’re out of it, and you can’t have it both ways, the UK press were outraged: how dare the EU humiliate our prime minister by refusing our cherry-picking proposals? Surely they should give us what we want?

This rather one-sided British point of view shows a really basic misunderstanding about the importance of the Single Market to the EU, and its role in the prosperity of all EU countries. The EU sticking to its guns is not about it being vindictive, or about punishing the UK. It is about the EU being strong and stable. Its main aim is, of course, to protect the interests of its 27 remaining member states, not that of 1 soon-to-be ex-member. After all, there is not a single organisation in the world that will give better terms to non-members than to members. So why would it be reasonable to expect the EU to change a winning formula, that has taken decades to develop?

When you look back at old footage of pro-Brexit politicians being interviewed before the referendum, you notice how many of them expected the EU to cave in to the UK’s demands. They talk about the UK wanting complete and full access to the Single Market after Brexit, without it having to adhere to the rules on its four freedoms – particularly the freedom of movement part. Or they talk about keeping access to ‘a’ Single Market, rather than ‘the’ Single Market (as if there are two).

It took a little while before it dawned on these Brexiteers that they couldn’t have their cake and eat it. That that unspecified, magical ‘deal’ that they had promised their voters was, in fact, unavailable – and that it had never existed in the first place. It is as if they had decided to cancel their Netflix subscription, but were then completely taken by surprise when they switched on the tv on a Saturday night, and couldn’t watch any movies anymore. And what’s more: they had a go at a rather baffled Netflix afterwards – an organisation that had always been quite clear about its rules.

So where does this odd mix of pie-in-the-sky thinking (“the German car industry will give in to our demands because we are too important to them; we hold all the cards”), victim mentality (“the bullies in the EU want to punish us”) and anti-EU hostility (“it is an elite conspiracy against the public”) come from? And how did we get to a situation where so many British people genuinely believe that the EU is evil, vindictive, and out to get them? Look no further than the British media, and several decades of Project Fear. More of that coming up next week, in part 2.

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Johanna Brunt was born and raised in The Netherlands. She has spent half her life there on the continent, and half her life in the UK. After studying English and European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, she moved to London where she started working for an international airline. She is married to a Brit, and they have three children together.