Migrant Solidarity Statement

As part of Arika’s beliefs and specifically in conjunction with our Local Organising programme we want to extend solidarity to migrants via the following statement. Those most directly affected by a specific oppression are those best placed to develop methods to overcome it. Migrant led organisations in the UK have consistently sought:

• A priority of movement for those fleeing war, torture and abuse
• Recognition that the experience of poverty is in itself a form of violence and can prompt relocation
• An end to detention
• Provision of necessary means for a dignified, healthy, autonomous and fulfilled life
• An end to the violence attending the maintenance of national boundaries

We are clear that change on a profound level is necessary for this to occur that would entail the end of white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy. This would involve collective re-organisation of society on a mass level and equitable redistribution of resources and decision-making powers.

The process of struggling for these changes – both long term and immediate – is complex and takes place in challenging circumstances. We recognise that the people best placed to develop effective strategies and guiding visions are those with lived experience of migration.  We know that these approaches and ideas are in a constantly evolving process – our aim is to be alongside this process in solidarity as best we can, not to shape it. This solidarity involves recognising that migrants without papers are struggling for the very basis of their lives; sometimes they engage in organised struggle and creating strategies of resistance – at others they are pressed to simply survive. Solidarity in this context involves people without lived experience of being in the (immigration) system doing as much as actively possible to be of assistance.