Refugee Narratives on The Reunion
Episodes of BBC Radio 4 programme The Reunion have given refugees to Britain opportunities to narrate their stories in dialogue with each other, but within parameters it also set.
Please support my work by becoming a free or a paid subscriber to the newsletter. Paid subscribers are vital to me being able to continue producing and expanding this newsletter.
You can also support my work by making a one-off payment, at a price you consider affordable.
This post is part of the ‘Research and Reflections’ occasional series, consisting of pieces based on my ongoing academic research, as well as on my musings on and responses to current affairs and personal developments.
Content warning: The Holocaust; Domestic abuse; Bereavement; Racism; Gendered Violence.
I’ve previously written for this newsletter about BBC Radio 4’s The Reunion – or more specifically an 2012 episode of the show on ‘Ugandan Asians’. The Reunion, produced for the BBC by Whistledown Productions, has been broadcast on Radio 4 since 2003, with its presenter – originally Susan MacGregor, and then, since 2020, Kirsty Wark – hosting a panel discussion bringing together several people to discuss their experiences of a particular historical event in which they were all involved in some capacity.
The ‘Ugandan Asians’ episode marked forty years since the expulsion of Uganda’s South Asian population in 1972 by dictator General Idi Amin. MacGregor was joined by a group of guests who had subsequently relocated from Uganda to Britain: businessman Manzoor Moghal, physiotherapist Tahera Aanchawan, Conservative councillor Ravi Govindia, dentist Chandrika Joshi, and writer and journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. With the exception of Moghal, they had all been teenagers or young adults at the point of expulsion.
My previous post on this episode was the second half of a two-part piece comparing it with a discussion on another BBC radio programme and initiative, The Listening Project, between Leek-based retired publisher Prakash Samani and his son Sunil, a solicitor, about Prakash’s experience of fleeing Uganda with his family as a teenager and subsequently resettling in Britain. What I want to do in this current post is set the ‘Ugandan Asians’ episode of the programme in comparison with two other episodes of The Reunion that focused on the experiences of refugees who resettled in Britain.
The first is a 2010 episode on the Kindertransport, with five guests who had left Nazi Germany for Britain in 1938, as part of the sponsorship scheme to give Jewish children sanctuary from worsening state antisemitism: the Labour politician Lord Alf Dubs, entrepreneur Sir Eric Reich, former journalist Hella Pick, campaigner Ruth Humphries, and teacher and psychotherapist Ruth Barnett. The second is a 2017 episode on the Vietnamese ‘boat people’, who fled by sea from the communist regime that took power across the country following the Vietnam War. This discussion reunited Dr Philip Huynh, Diep Quan, Dr Dao Nguyen, and James Huynh, who were among 346 Vietnamese refugees rescued in 1978 by British cargo ship MV Wellpark from a sinking fishing boat in the South China Sea, with the Wellpark’s former training officer Graham MacQueen.
In comparing these episodes, I want to explore how The Reunion’s format as a programme shaped the way former refugees related their experiences of fleeing political and racist persecution to resettle in Britain. I also want to consider – at a time of increasingly vocal general anti-migrant and especially anti-refugee sentiment in Britain – which ostensibly liberal institutions have served to amplify and legitimise, which positively framed histories of refugees in Britain still do get a hearing? In particular, how does this depend upon the identities of their persecutors, and upon their relationships with their new host country?
The Reunion
While there have been variations in the precise structure of the programme over time, the general format of The Reunion has been for the host to be joined by four or five people to discuss an historical event in which they were all involved in some capacity, their discussion being bookended and often interspersed with archive BBC coverage of those events, as well as sometimes additional pre-recorded contributions from other participants or expert commentators.
The nature of the events covered has varied broadly, including scientific breakthroughs, the making of landmark television programmes and films, major political watersheds and campaigns, and often tragic and traumatic instances of historical injustice. These include events that occurred with Britain and beyond (albeit often with a British involvement, represented among the guests), such as high-fatality disasters, medical scandals, imprisonment, miscarriages of justice, humanitarian crises, terror attacks, killing sprees, targeted assassinations, and genocides; some particularly egregious conflicts and regimes were revisited from different angles, including the Second World War, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Bosnian War, Apartheid in South Africa, and the War on Terror.
The selection of guests for these episodes has at times been intended to ensure a balance of views on controversial events, such as the 2010 episode on the Maze Prison hunger strikes in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, for which McGregor was joined by both Republican and Loyalist ex-prisoners, and a former prison officer. On other occasions, especially where there is more consensus on the nature of the injustice and the lines between perpetrators and victims are, on the face of it more clearly drawn – and the former usually not specifically the British state – it has been more common to centre the experience of the ostensible ‘victim’ group.
‘Kindertransport’
In the case of ‘Kindertransport’, after some scene-setting (involving a combination of archive BBC news radio coverage, and excerpted interviews with other children evacuated through the initiative, as well as with historian Sir Martin Gilbert), the panellists themselves relayed their own fragmented recollections – both first-hand and gleaned from surviving relatives – of worsening authoritarian rule and antisemitism in Germany and annexed neighbouring territories prior to their departure. They spoke of painful separation from their parents, recalling vividly their and their parents’ emotional responses in the moment of parting, and the subsequently harrowing journey to Britain, amid the callousness and harassment of the German soldiers they encountered. They also remembered the unfamiliarity of the sights they encountered upon arriving in London, such as red buses, and their subsequent relocation to varying parts of the country.
The overall tone of the discussion was one of gratitude to Britain for admitting them, avoiding the question of Britain’s own culpability, through restrictive migration rules, in preventing greater numbers of persecuted Jews escaping there from the continent before the outbreak of war. Yet the panellists’ accounts of life in foster care during the war were more mixed, with Eric Reich remembering fondly the care and affection he received from the family with whom he was placed, whereas Ruth Barnett described her cruel, ill treatment by her first foster-mother. They also reflected upon the paradoxical position of being refugees at a time when they were also classified as enemy aliens and sometimes abused for being Germans, the challenge of negotiating their own Jewish identities when they were too young to clearly understand what being Jewish meant, and the difficulties of learning English while also losing proficiency in their first languages.
While Alf Dubs and Hella Pick were joined by parents during the war, others were only able to maintain limited contact via written correspondence. Ruth Barnett, who was reunited with her parents after the war ended, spoke of her feelings of estrangement from them, and the legal battle that ensued over custody to her between her birth parents and foster parents. Erich Reich and Ruth Humphreys meanwhile recounted their delayed realisation that their parents had been murdered in the Holocaust. The temporal focus of the conversation then shifted from the early post-war years to the 50th anniversary of the Kindertransport in 1989, and how they negotiated this the prism of having themselves become parents and grandparents, compelling them to recognise the sacrifice that their parents had made, and to reckon with the question of whether they could have done the same.
They also debated and disagreed over the question of their identities as members of the Kindertransport, and especially over whether they should consider themselves to be ‘survivors’, with Hella Pick arguing the term should be reserved for those who had made it out from the camps, whereas Ruth Barnett rejected the idea of such a hierarchy of suffering. The episode concluded with the panellists expressing a shared agreement, however, that they had been fortunate to come to Britain and to have had wonderful lives, although Lord Dubs made a pointed remark about the need for Britain to treat current asylum seekers in the same way as they had been treated.
‘Vietnamese Boat People’
The ‘Vietnamese Boat People’ episode began by emphasising the suffering of the South Vietnamese, and especially the ethnic Chinese population, following the North Vietnamese victory in 1975. It focused on the indoctrinatory nature of the communist regime they found themselves under and portrayed its subsequent war with Cambodia as a product of intra-communist fighting, evading questions as to South Vietnam’s own previous history of political repression, the consequences of the US’s long military campaign in Vietnam, and the role of the West in the Third Indochina War.
There were generational inflections to how the Vietnamese panellists related life under communist rule and the run-up to their eventual departures. Diep Quan and James Huynh, both children at the time of the communist takeover, recalled experiencing authoritarian changes in schooling and their parents being persecuted as capitalists, with James being temporarily imprisoned with the rest of his family. The older passengers were also ardently critical of the ideological nature of the regime, with Philip Huynh emphasising his own existing deepfelt anticommunism, while Dao Nguyen described the inhumane changes she witnessed working in maternity care, including prioritisation of party members for treatment, and forced sterilisation of women with large families. When it came to the escape itself, the then children described realising something was afoot from the conduct of their parents, whereas the adults had previously made foiled escape attempts.
The episode highlighted the general dangerousness of the journeys made by the boatpeople, with news clips from the time detailing attacks by pirates and pushbacks by neighbouring countries’ coastguards. The Vietnamese panellists themselves emphasised the peril they were in, given the unseaworthiness of the vessel they were on, how overcrowded it was, the shortage of supplies, and the rifeness of disease onboard. They remembered the joy and relief they felt upon sighting the Wellpark, and a mixture of gratitude and amazement that they survived. Graham McQueen, for his part, conveyed the desperation he had witnessed during the rescue, including the volume of children sent over on the first lifeboat.
The story of their arrival in Britain, and being temporarily billeted at a barracks in Kensington and Chelsea, was recounted in part through news recordings from the time, with a particular focus on the children attending a tea party held by the comedian Frankie Howerd; it also contextualised their arrival within the broader dispersal of boatpeople from Vietnam, and political wrangling as to who would take how many. The former refugees remembered the shock of the cold weather, but also the pleasure of finally having a relatively nice place to eat and sleep. Graham McQueen spoke about visiting them afterwards at the barracks and his pleasure at seeing them doing so well, as well as his own satisfaction in having helped people in dire need.
Further archive news clips also captured the racism the refugees faced against a backdrop of economic problems and the rise of the National Front, and how the dispersal policy, intended to prevent racism, instead led to them experiencing feelings of isolation. Diep Quan and James Huynh spoke of their experiences of racism at school and in public, although both also stressed the even greater challenge facing their parents’ generation in adapting to the different language and culture, and in finding work. Philip Huynh and Dao Nguyen meanwhile discussed rebuilding their careers in medicine, but also the way they had come to feel at home in Britain, with Nguyen crying upon recalling the act of kindness by a registrar at the Royal Free Hospital in London, where she was attending medical school, who gave her £10 in a card as a Christmas present.
Asked, given the present controversy over asylum and immigration, about the responsibility of countries to host refugees, the former boatpeople expressed differing opinions: Philip Huynh expressed sympathy, but said hosting refugees was costly and should be limited to cases of genuine need, whereas James Huynh countered that there should be no restrictions at all, emphasising how he now paid into the system that he had once benefited from. Diep Quan stressed her sense of a strong bond with the people who rescued them, and with the other passengers in their shared quest for a freedom unavailable to them in Vietnam. Both Dao Nguyen and Philip Huynh also expressed their gratitude to the Wellpark’s crew, while Graham McQueen affirmed his own lasting sense of connection with the people he helped rescue.
Narratives of escape and resettlement
There are several useful parallels and comparisons to highlight between these two episodes of The Reunion, and that on ‘Ugandan Asians’. All three followed an overarching narrative structure of an increasingly persecutory totalitarian regime, a harrowing escape, and the challenge of resettling in an unfamiliar new home in Britain, followed by a gradual process of acclimatisation. This was underpinned by its usage of contemporary BBC news coverage and excerpted interviews and the underlying structure provided by MacGregor’s questions, as well as the panellists’ relative commonality of experience. Nonetheless, there were specificities to each episode, shaped by the history being related and the cohort represented. Episodes also illustrated differences in individual experiences shaped by factors such as variations in age or places of settlement. Moreover, panellists at times interpreted the meanings of their experiences in different ways, often with political connotations.
The broader narratives these episodes carried were ones in which popular racism was present in both archival clips and the interviewees’ recollections, albeit historically contextualised, and coexistent with acts of kindness and bonds of lasting affection. Panellists’ accounts of settling in Britain and the challenges involved centred on the traumas not just of racism but also negotiating their identities and coming to terms with loss, in a manner that was often intergenerational in nature. For the most part, however, they expressed their general sense of gratitude to Britain for offering them a haven, in contrast to the regimes they had fled from.
On one level, then, The Reunion represents a liberal democratic, pluralistic, educative form of programming, in keeping with the agenda of a broadcaster that is state-funded but (to a degree) operationally autonomous. In presenting the histories of refugees coming to Britain, it offered members of those cohorts of refugees the opportunity to individually and collectively narrate that story, endorsing their authority and authenticity in doing so. These were not narratives shorn of racism against refugees either, and indeed the existence of racism was highlighted in the contextual passages of archival recordings, with MacGregor as host directly questioning the panellists about it. Guests also had opportunities – again, sometimes arising from MacGregor’s questioning – to make the case for the British government and public to be more open to and supportive of refugees, and migrants more generally.
Yet The Reunion as a programme set distinct parameters to this dialogue. Choices were made as to which instances of refugees coming to Britain would be the subject of episodes (in all three cases highlighted, the persecutory states in question were antagonists rather than allies of Britain); as to whom was invited onto the show to speak as a representative of those refugees; as to what periodisation would be employed in telling these stories (shaped by the usage of archival material and MacGregor’s line of questioning). The BBC lent their accounts legitimacy, as a public broadcaster with a proximity to the state, and yet also drew legitimacy for both as neutral and fair arbiters from precisely this kind of programming. A further underlying dynamic was the fact Radio 4’s audience remained disproportionately white, older, and middle-class at this time, which guests on the programmes were likely at least partly cognizant of, and perhaps inclined to self-censor accordingly.
The outcome was that these programmes, while containing opportunities for and instances of dissent, allowed for relatively sharp delineations between victims, perpetrators, and benefactors. Sanctuary for refugees was treated as primarily a question of benevolence or at most moral compulsion, and its recipients responded with gratitude as a default response (though again, not without ambivalence from at least some guests). As a result, the British state – though not always individual governments or politicians – served throughout as an essentially benign actor, distinct from the popular racism of its citizens. Its choice to admit refugees from Germany in the 1930s, and Uganda and Vietnam in the 1970s, was presented shorn of complicating factors in those stories about Britain’s own culpability for the humanitarian crises presented, whether through its existing racially restrictive immigration regimes, or its role in shaping the postcolonial conflicts that led to displacement.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please consider supporting my work by becoming a free or a paid subscriber to the newsletter. Paid subscribers are vital to me being able to continue producing and expanding this newsletter.
You can also support my work by making a one-off payment, at a price you consider affordable.
Otherwise, please show your appreciation by sharing this post more widely, and referring the newsletter to friends.
You might also enjoy these posts from the Academic Bubble archive:
Ugandan Asians in Dialogue (Part I)
The way the complexity of the Ugandan Asian experience is articulated depends not only on the politics of the narrator, but the format within which they tell it.
The Zone of Interest
In its depiction of Commandant Höss and his family, The Zone of Interest confronts us with the everyday desires that can fuel genocide.
New Labour on Desert Island Discs
Labour politicians who appeared on the Radio 4 show between the mid-1990s and mid-2010s used their musical choices to try and tell stories about their politics and personal lives.