Posted on June 16, 2007, by & filed under UK Specific.


Imagine that we lost the war in 1945.

What would life be like?

Imagine that England is occupied and ruled by a _foreign power_. Imagine foreign soldiers in tanks and armoured cars patrolling our towns and countryside.

Imagine foreigners with the correct credentials from all over the world coming to make their home in England with the encouragement of the foreign power.

Imagine them taking the best land to build their new homes and to grow fruit and vegetables for export.

Imagine you have to pay four times more for water than the _foreign occupiers_ of your land, and while you have to use water sparingly they have sufficient water to fill their swimming pools and irrigate their lawns and flower beds.

Imagine a grey concrete wall 25 feet or 8 metres high, built by the _foreign power_, running down the middle of the main street of your town. Sadly your house is on the wrong side of the wall. You donat have the right coloured ID card to allow you to pass through the one and only gate in the wall, which is patrolled by foreign soldiers.

You are virtually living in an open-air prison. You cannot get to the shops. You cannot get to work to do the job you used to do on the other side of the wall. High unemployment means you get poorer and poorer and more and more demoralised.

You cannot get to hospital in an emergency. As for getting to Church for Easter and Christmas services, thatas out of the question: youare on the wrong side of the wall.

Gradually the main street has become full of derelict shops where nobody goes, a deserted place for stray cats, a site for dumping of waste.

What is more, from time to time foreign soldiers come into your area in their tanks and armoured cars. They declare that, for _security reasons_, in the next half hour there will be a curfew, a closure, which will last for anything up to three or four days.

No one must leave their home. If you dare to go out you will be shot. The whole family will have to stay indoors, with no where for the children to play, no chance of them going to school.

Thereas not enough food in the house, so you will have little to eat while the curfew lasts; and the power and water will be cut off for hours on end which will make the food in the fridge go bad and the toilet will smell.

The other day your neighbours had a call on their mobile phone from the _foreign military_ to say that their home is to be demolished for _security reasons_; in 40 minutes the huge Caterpillar bulldozer will arrive so they had better pack up and move quickly. They have no where to go and will just have to live under a tarpaulin on top of the rubble of what used to be their home.

Your other neighbours decided a few months ago that they couldnat put up with living like this any more; this is not the place to bring up children; so they have emigrated.

Gradually through all the hardships, social, economic, racial, and personal, your town is emptying of people and the _closurea policy of the _foreign power_ is succeeding. Soon all the land will be theirs and our local Yorkshire people will all have left or been ethnically cleansed.

A few brave souls who are determined not to be beaten may hang in there, until their will too is crushed.

Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? Again and again the United Nations Security Council has passed resolutions to say that the _foreign power_ must return behind their own borders. International law says that an occupying force is not allowed to populate with their own people the territory they have occupied. _Settlements_ in a foreign territory are illegal. But the “foreign power” pays no attention.

The International Court of Justice has said that the segregation wall is illegal and should be pulled down. But it goes on being built, and soon it will stretch from here to London and back, gradually squeezing the life out of our people living on the wrong side of the wall.

What is more, the USA and some European countries continue to subsidize the _foreign power_ with billions of dollars of aid and favourable trade agreements and the sale of armaments, tanks, helicopter gun ships, Caterpillar bulldozers, and jet fighter aircraft.

It seems that the world turns a blind eye to what is happening in your town and other parts of Yorkshire and England.

Your fate is sealed by the apathy of the world community and by the illegal occupation of your land by the _foreign power_.

Note:

In 1967 the Israeli army occupied the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem. This year is the Fortieth Anniversary of the Israeli conquest and occupation of Palestine.

Denys de la Hoyde