Gary Lineker was undoubtedly a pretty good footballer, and certainly much loved by the fans of each of his clubs – Leicester City, Everton, Barcelona, Tottenham Hotspur and Nagoya Grampus Eight. And his appeal shone brightly in Spain, where his positive engagement with the local way of life was so dissimilar to the distant, golf loving Gareth Bale.
Despite his obvious aptitude to learn foreign languages, I guess Gary is unlikely to be invited by Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank to give an address at the Members Event in April – 'can diplomacy advance human rights?'
No, Lineker is simply what we all can see. A confident, articulate, TV presenter, who knows about football and someone who has all of the required range of social media skills to maintain his successful public profile.
Therefore, how pathetic, disappointing and just a tad disturbing, has it been to have his dislike of the recent UK Government proposal to deal with ‘the invasion of boat people’, turned into an issue of, ‘out of place political comment’. With his few words so damaging to all concerned, that the BBC is on the brink of corporate collapse, and my wife went to bed on Saturday night without knowing if Bournemouth’s 28th minute winner against Liverpool was a good goal, an average one or the Cherries were simply lucky – where was the commentator when she quite clearly needed him or her.
Lineker’s opinion that the policy being developed by government is awful, was apparently formed by his observation that too many politicians were using language reminiscent of much earlier troubled and dangerous times.
Our government, and so many others, should have been far more resilient and perhaps quietly dismissive, than has been evident in recent days.
If only the Twitter comments had been digested, maybe as Lineker had intended. Stop the political bickering, think, and consider the situation of so many desperate people. Do not posture, or indeed support the posturing. Nothing will change for months and probably years, as the hundreds of eager lawyers sink their ‘KC teeth’ into the inevitable legal feast that our government is inadvertently preparing.
But as the Lineker maelstrom developed, my thoughts turned to W.H. Auden.
“Refugee Blues” was written by the British poet W. H. Auden and first published in 1939, on the eve of World War II. The poem considers, through the eyes of the ‘speaker’, the plight of Jewish refugees, who were forced to flee Nazi Germany, but unable to find refuge elsewhere. As the poem does so, it raises broader questions about isolation, loneliness, and exile.
It depicts the trauma and pain of being forced to leave home - and of being unable to find a place of safety and security in a violent and uncertain world.
“Refugee Blues” is, in part, about the fear and desperation of being a refugee. The speaker is terrified of returning to Germany, but also is unable to find a safe haven elsewhere. As a result, the speaker is isolated and in limbo, trapped between countries without a clear sense of home. The speaker does not hold out hope that this situation will get better, and the poem uses the speaker’s despair and frustration to convey the loneliness, pain, and sense of stagnancy that accompany exile.
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Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.
Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.
In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.
The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.
Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?
Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.
Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.
Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.
Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.
Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.
Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.
Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.
WH Auden, first published 1939
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