The United Kingdom prevents London touring to an immigrant creator to attend the theatrical premiere of its award -winning reminiscences | Culture | EUROtoday

“The world is very big. There are continents up and down, and people like you can go from one place to another. For many like me, however, the world is very small and reduced. They never let us go where we have to go and where we need to go,” Licks Ibrahima Balde laments.

This identical week he has had an official response from the United Kingdom Ministry: he will be unable to journey to London to attend the premiere of the theatrical adaptation of his successful memoirs, Little brotherwho wrote collectively with the journalist, berkolar (Improviser of poems in Vasco) and voluntary activist for assist to immigrants AMETS ARZALLUS.

The Jermyn Street theater had managed for months the creator’s visa software, in order that it may very well be current on the first presentation subsequent Tuesday. The British authorities’s response, like a jug of chilly water, got here on Wednesday. “We have not been satisfied that it has been able to demonstrate that their circumstances are really declared, or that I intend to leave the United Kingdom after your visit,” stated the notice, with the standard bureaucratic and depersonalized tone in any such communications. “Any future visa request to the United Kingdom will be taken into consideration according to its individual merits, but in your case it is very likely that it will be rejected again unless the circumstances change. There is no right to resort to this decision,” he completed.

Ibrahima was going to reside, throughout his keep in London, on the residence of the playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, who has translated the e book into English (Little Brother) and has made the theatrical adaptation. An enchanting script turned made the creator, who had spent months of her childhood within the Basque Basque Country and imposed the duty, throughout the pandemic, to be taught Basque, to present a replica of a specimen of Little brother (The first version was in Vasco) and was seduced by the story.

Wertenbaker has written theater for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and got here to obtain six nominations for the Tony Awards for his work Our Country’s Good (for the great of our nation). It is an establishment, revered by its works of political and social content material.

“We are absolutely disappointed with the decision of the Ministry of Interior,” stated the path of the Jermyn Street theater, which has claimed the Government to rethink its place. “The book [de Ibrahima] It has been a source of inspiration around the world and led him to meet with Pope Francis, ”they level out.

In their protest notice, these liable for the theater put their finger on the sore, highlighting the political facet that suggests such a scandalous choice. Keir Starmer’s Labor Government has hardened its immigration legal guidelines, and its rhetoric in opposition to newcomers, in its try and cease the electoral menace of the populist and xenophobic proper of Nigel Farage, in a approach that has unleashed alarms between members of the political formation itself and between humanitarian organizations.

“The denial of a visa to a writer of such magnitude subtracts the British audience an important cultural connection. It is a decision that cannot be abstracted from the current political debate about migration and the rhetoric that surrounds it,” says the theater.

Translated into a number of languages, really helpful a number of instances by the late Pope Francis to know the drama of immigration, the e book tells the horrible journey of bucket (Guinea-Conakri, 31 years outdated) looking for his lacking little brother, to finish up arriving in Madrid, the place he works right now in a mechanical workshop of truck restore.

Before he died, his father requested him to maintain his little brother, who had undertaken the journey to Libya, like hundreds of Africans, with the intention of crossing the Mediterranean and arriving in Europe. He by no means discovered it, however for 4 years he crossed Mali, Algeria, Libya, and lived laborious, virtually insufferable experiences.

It was within the prepare station and bus of Irún, already prepared to cross France, when he met the volunteer, and later pal of the soul, which might assist him inform his story. Arzallus started to arrange a dosier with the non-public historical past of bucket, to assist him put together his asylum software. “He suffered a true ordeal during his trip. Violence and situations that can not even be counted. And he never found the brother. He was disoriented, not knowing what to do. It was impossible to return to his country. Thus ended in Europe. I met him so,” how a lot the Basque activist, who maintains a powerful friendship with bucket, although they now reside a whole lot of kilometers away.

The Guinean arrived in Spain in 2018. After a primary denial of asylum, he lived 4 years in an irregular state of affairs, till he obtained the “social roots”, the authorization of non permanent residence as a result of distinctive circumstances granted by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations. At the second, breathe calm till April 2026.

Both have been going to journey collectively to London and rejoice their success. On Wednesday, the journalist needed to name his pal to inform him the unhealthy information. The frustration on the opposite facet of the road, he remembers, was painful. “Ibrahima has an indefinite contract in Madrid. I, like berkolar Improviser, I haven’t got an indefinite contract, or any job safety. I can go to London and he would not. The criterion is evident, is not it? “, He explains.” I’ve the sensation that he’s nonetheless misplaced within the desert. This time shouldn’t be the African. It is the European desert of the paperwork, which may by no means depart. “