The quality of mercy is not strained: Irene Clennell
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Title : The quality of mercy is not strained: Irene Clennell
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Title : The quality of mercy is not strained: Irene Clennell
link : The quality of mercy is not strained: Irene Clennell
news-today.world | Hi there guys, I'm sure some of you who came to my blog to follow the Irene Clennell case may have heard that she finally was given a visa to return to the UK. I'm still pissed off at the poor quality of journalism in the Guardian when they claimed that she had spent three decades in the UK when she had spent but 10 years. In the same article, they acknowledged that she had spent long periods back in Singapore - so their mathematics simply isn't adding up. Surely the whole point of being a journalist is to check the facts of the case before reporting it and then any big newspaper would have an editor which would edit the article before allowing it to be published, so how did the Guardian fail so poorly on simply checking the facts of this case? You know, I'm no fan of Donald Trump, but to be fair, he does have a point when he raised the issue of fake news and irresponsible journalists. It was pointed out to me that she and her family probably managed to finally get hold of a decent immigration lawyer who managed to compile a decent case that was accepted by the Home Office. I am still amazed they overlooked all the negative publicity she generated about the system when she was the one who was at fault, but I did question myself for a moment: am I being too harsh on her?
Allow me to talk about another story from way back in the mid-90s, when I was serving NS. There was an older reservist (let's call him uncle Buah - that's the Malay word for fruit) who got sent to DB (detention barracks, military jail) for ignoring letters from MINDEF asking him to report for reservist activities. His was a sorry tale: the guy was barely literate, didn't speak enough English to understand the letters he was receiving from MINDEF. He worked very long hours at a hawker center selling cut-fruit: so he would buy watermelons, papayas, pineapples, mangoes, melons and other fruits from the market, cut them up into bite sized chunks and put them into plastic bags and containers for the office workers who wanted the convenience of a fruit salad. His profit margin was thin as he wasn't adding that much value to the fruit - if you wanted to save money, you'd just pop into the supermarket instead and buy the fruit there. But being an unskilled, uneducated middle aged man, that was all he knew how to do. When business was good, he had enough to spend on his children - when business was bad, he would feed his kids the leftover fruit he couldn't sell for dinner. He faced an increasingly competitive market, with younger Singaporeans craving for more fancy deserts from Taiwanese bubble tea to Japanese green tea ice cream to fancy French macaroons. Uncle Buah worked over 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Given his dire circumstances, he chose rather willfully to ignore the letters from MINDEF asking him to go for reservist activities. When the long arm of the law finally came for him, he pleaded stupidity, poverty and ignorance and he begged for mercy. Everyone involved felt a great sense of pity for him. Uncle Buah's wife was very ill and she couldn't work - his entire family was totally reliant on him and so he simply couldn't find the time to go for reservist training. Now a more educated man would have attempted to bargain with the unit for a deferment or even an exemption (yes there are loopholes in the system) but uncle Buah just wasn't educated enough to do that nor did he know the system well enough to ask for help. His main concern was that his regular customers would go away and buy their fruit salad elsewhere if he wasn't there day after day. So like an ostrich burying its head in the sand, he ignored the MINDEF letters. All of us who handled the case felt sorry for him - we even collected some money to buy food for his sick wife and kids, so they wouldn't go hungry. But in the end, the law was the law and uncle Buah was sentenced to spend some time in military jail for failing to fulfill his reservist obligations. Simply pleading stupidity or ignorance didn't get him off the hook. Thousands of Singaporean men are obliged to fulfill reservist duties and there are proper channels to go through should you have a problem fulfilling those duties - so the system isn't that unreasonable but one is expected to operate within the system.
Why did I feel so much compassion for uncle Buah whilst I have nothing but contempt for Irene Clennell? Well, uncle Buah pleaded ignorance and admitted that he was wrong - Irene Clennell didn't even concede that she had willfully broken the rules. The former showed signs of repentance whilst the latter remained defiant; even when your case goes before a judge in a court, you'll be asked to enter a plea. If you plead guilty, you will be often rewarded with a lighter sentence but if you plead not guilty and then you are found guilty, you're going to be hit with a much harsher sentence. Well, that's how it is supposed to work in principle - but it was clear that Irene Clennell was deported screaming, "not guilty!" all the way back to Singapore when she clearly was, yet somehow she was 'rewarded' with a visa to return to the UK? It doesn't make any sense - then there was uncle Buah who was completely repentant, admitted that he was wrong and was totally cooperative when he got caught but still he ended up in jail. Quite frankly, it all seems completely unfair - I would have loved to have seen Irene Clennell banned from the UK for life whilst uncle Buah definitely deserved a bit more mercy from the system. But am I somewhat naive in hoping for life to be fair and is the system meant to be 'fair'?
Nonetheless, I am emotional - as are a lot of Singaporeans from the SUKA (Singaporeans in the UK Association) because Irene certainly isn't the only Singaporean here in the UK, there are thousands of us studying or working here, some of us have British and EU spouses. We all follow the visa rules as laid out by the UK Home Office and none of us have any problems with our immigration status. But such is the nature of the law - after all, Irene Clennell did have some semblance of a family life, which was the basis of her claim to return to the UK, to be with her family. Instead of filing the right paperwork in the first place, she willfully ignored the issue, overstayed the visa and then got into trouble. How strict does the system need to be with someone like that? Time for an analogy: imagine you are a landlord and your tenant hasn't paid her rent. You call her, email her, visit her and each time she says, "yeah yeah I'll take care of it" but you don't see the money. Finally you serve her with an eviction notice and when you arrive with security guards to evict her, she pleads, "wait wait, I can give you the money now, I had it all the time, I just neglected to give it to you." Would you then accept the money and let the matter go? Or would you turn around and say, "no way, you're a troublemaker, you're every landlord's nightmare, screw you - I'm evicting you." Even if Irene Clennell had some legitimate right to appeal, she had clearly demonstrated that she had little regard for the law. Heck, her son as well as her sister-in-law's son have both had their share of trouble with the law - they are a family of petty criminals. Do you expect people like that to follow the rules?
But nonetheless, whether Irene is returning to a millionaire husband living in a beautiful mansion in Knightsbridge or to a sick, old pauper in small town in the north, every person who comes before the law is treated equally. One thing is clear: Irene isn't coming to the UK to enjoy a good life. There are at least two convicted criminals in the Clennell family and her husband who was a builder is now both very poor and very ill: she may have a right to a family life but taking a closer look at the Clennells, you can only shake your head wonder: is this the kind of family you really want to be with? Wouldn't your family in Singapore be better, nicer people to build your life with? But the judge isn't there to tell her what she ought to do or what is best for her: she has decided she wants to be a Clennell. There is no "happily ever after" for Irene, she may have gotten what she wanted, she can pump her fists in the air jubilantly and celebrate her victory now but what did she win? Spend a moment to think about what kind of life awaits her once she returns to England. Sure a rich person may be able to hire the best immigration lawyer in the country to give you the best advice and make sure that the paperwork for any visa application is filed property, but at the end of the day, we are all still subject to the same rules. The fact that Irene was granted her visa eventually shows that the British system is fair, even merciful to Irene Clennell.
I am a big fan of the American TV series Suits - I am totally in love with the principle cast, everyone from Jessica to Harvey to Mike. What has this got to do with the Irene Clennell case I hear you ask? The explanation will come shortly. When I watch a series like that, I identify with the characters and I think, yeah I wanna be like them. I identify with Mike because of his intelligence and the way he had battled against the odds to get to where he was in the firm. I too was given a chance, like Mike, to do a job that I wanted. Oh and in series 1 when Harvey used to just give Mike a task that he had never done before and say, "figure it out!" Yeah, I've been there so many times before. However, the similarity stops there - I find the way he can be indecisive very irritating and that's when I turn to Harvey instead: he is far more ruthless in getting what he wants and on that front I identify with him. I do find him rather uptight though and perhaps it is a cultural thing (like who wears a T-shirt under their shirt anyway? Americans?) but he seems far more interested in his work than sex; despite being a gay man, I don't think he is actually oozing sensuality quite the way Jessica does. I love the way she is smart, successful, confident yet extremely attractive - the best part is she knows she is attractive and isn't afraid to show it. I love the way she struts around the office like she is the Queen bee of the firm: attractive yet deadly, you don't want to mess with her. And then there's Louis Litt: totally brilliant but socially inept and often misunderstood.
The world of Pearson Hardman - the New York law firm where Suits is set - is the kind of world that I want to be a part of, that I find fascinating. I work in corporate finance so obviously I don't deal with law - but the same kind of ambition and aspiration exists in my company. I am surrounded by highly intelligent and talented people - let me give you some examples: one of our securitization experts is from Germany, has headed up securitization departments in major banks and she is our equivalent Jessica Pearson: super intelligent, multi-lingual and beautiful. Then we also have the younger staff in their 20s, one of our structuring managers has lived in Germany and Argentina, speaks six languages and she too is stunningly beautiful. Another colleague in that department gave up a good job at a Swedish bank to come and work in this company, so I feel a lot of pressure to keep up with the extremely high caliber of my colleagues there. Sometimes I even feel somewhat intimidated. Thus from the kind of world I am in and more importantly, the kind of world I identify with and aspire to be a part of, the stories of Irene Clennell and uncle Buah seem to be quite remote, totally from another world. People like uncle Buah fit a simple narrative that makes it easy and convenient for me to offer my sympathy. I reached into my wallet back then and donated money to his family and if his family is still in need today, I would gladly do the same again. Hey, I'm not a monster, I am capable of compassion but there are limits and conditions. If I may be blunt, uncle Buah knew his place in society: he didn't speak out of turn or challenge the system, instead he merely begged for mercy. That he made it easy and convenient for us to feel superior to him and once he gave us that feeling of power, we naturally responded with charity. The story fitted into our idea of what the natural order of things in society should be.
Irene Clennell however, did the complete opposite. She had flouted the conditions of her visa and had been an illegal immigrant the moment she overstayed her visa, yet there was no acknowledgement of any wrongdoing on her part. Instead, she played the victim's card and claimed that she was treated unfairly when really, she had refused to follow the rules. Sure, there are some merits to her case, otherwise she wouldn't have been granted the visa this week - putting aside her unreasonable behaviour, she wants to return to the UK to act as a carer for her very sick husband. Without her being by his side, the local council would have had to appoint a carer to take care of him - that would cost a lot of money, money that could be saved if Irene is happy to assume the role of his carer. From his point of view, it would be better to have his own wife to do that job, than to see a different lowly paid carer from an agency every week. It is an unglamorous, dirty and banal job, but Irene is so desperate to do it and it just makes complete sense to let her do that. Any decent immigration lawyer would have been able to put together a more than compelling case on that basis alone - yet Irene shot herself in the foot by refusing to seek professional advice and allowing her sister in law to court the media by telling so many lies. She made a poor judgement call and foolishly trusted the wrong people, that is why she got deported - she then turned around and blamed the system rather than accept any responsibility for her stupid mistakes.
So uncle Buah made is easy for us to feel sorry for him, whilst Irene did everything she could to make us dislike her. You could accuse me of having a lack of empathy, for failing to offer sympathy just because Irene's story didn't fit a simple narrative of the 'deserving poor'. Those of us who are in the position to offer kindness and charity often expect the recipients of our charity to be grovel and be grateful, just like uncle Buah and his family but when they don't, how we react is then quite indicative of the kind of people we are. Do we do charitable deeds because we want to be thanked and made to feel generous, nay, make that saintly, or do we do it because it is the right thing to do and we really don't mind or care if the person we have helped is even aware of what we have done. I am sure we all get every slightly cynical when we see yet another news footage of a celebrity kissing babies in an African orphanage and hugging grateful natives (see video below) whilst posing for photos for the paparazzi - I'm sure they're doing something good there and the press are raising awareness of the cause but would they have done the same if the press wasn't there? Then you have George Michael who isn't the kind of celebrity who would do things like that, but after his death, many stories about his acts of incredible charity emerged - acts that he did in private, without caring if anyone ever found out about them.
This then begs the question - do people like Irene Clennell deserve to have a voice over issues such as immigration, or do we dismiss her because she isn't that educated, "shut up already you stupid woman, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about, leave the issue to the experts - nobody cares what you think because you're incredibly stupid." Am I being cruel? Oh yeah, but take a topic such as air traffic control for example. When I have to take a flight, I just trust that the experts in the airport control tower know what they are doing and keep the all the planes safe. I am quite happy to put my faith in them and simply relax on my flight. After all, I do know that I don't know enough about air traffic control to express an opinion on it. But it is easy for me to ignore an issue like air traffic control since I am not interested in it anyway, the British immigration system however does affect Irene directly (as it did me when I moved to the UK and naturalized as a British citizen) - surely she has the right to voice an opinion about how she is treated by the system? Again, no - the same way we really don't have a right to voice an opinion on air traffic control just because we happen to be a passenger on a flight. There are many issues from immigration laws to air traffic control which are simply out of our control and we trust the government to put the right experts there to make sure that the issue is always handled properly. So unless you happen to me an expert on either air traffic control or immigration law, you're offering an unqualified opinion: that's a nice way of saying you're talking bullshit and that is why I have been so disparaging towards Irene Clennell and her sister-in-law, because they have both been spouting so much bullshit. Even an idiot has the right to express her opinion, but you have to wonder what she would gain in doing so. There's a colloquial saying in Chinese that translates to something like, "if you don't open your big mouth, nobody will actually find out just what an idiot you are."
Nonetheless, the difficult question to be answered is whether or not someone like Irene Clennell still deserves justice and be treated fairly by the law in spite her unreasonable behaviour? The answer is clearly yes - being an uneducated, unreasonable idiot isn't grounds to deny her the justice she deserves, even though some of us may not approve of what she has done so far. Indian philosopher Gayatri Chakravoty Spivak wrote her influential piece, "Can the subaltern speak" in 1983 and of course, that was way back in the pre-internet days. Spivak talked about how history was always told by people who had been in positions of power: by kings, princes, rulers, governors, scholars, mayors but the voices of the peasants, workers, labourers and especially the women were rarely captured in historical texts. Being an Indian woman, Spivak was particularly interested in capturing the authentic voices of Indian women for their voices in Indian history had always been ignored in a largely patriarchal society where they were not seen as equals. But there was a dilemma of course: the subaltern were often uneducated, inarticulate and even if you were to shove a microphone in their faces to try to capture their 'true, authentic voice', they are simply not eloquent people who would be able to offer a cogent narrative about their own experiences. You would then have to bring in a sociologist to observe them, study them, write about them, document them before putting their stories into a beautifully crafted narrative but that is not the same giving them a voice and the information is still being recorded and retold by a well-educated person who is anything but a subaltern.
I wonder what Spivak would say about Irene Clennell's case, since they are both Indian women. After all, Irene is indeed the subaltern in so many ways: she is a woman, an immigrant of ethnic minority, she wasn't particularly educated, she worked a blue collar job, she is married to a man who was a labourer but is now poor and sick. Her son and other member of her family in the UK have gotten into trouble with the law and she herself has been in trouble with the law as an illegal immigrant. It seems that she has ticked every single box there is to tick to qualify her as a modern day subaltern in the UK. Back in the pre-internet days, she would not have had a voice at all but in this day and age, amazingly through non-mainstream media outlets and social media, she has managed to find her voice and tell her story (even if half of it was a pack of lies). Would Spivak be thrilled that at last a modern day subaltern has had her voice heard through the power of the internet - or would she shake her head in dismay at the way Irene Clennell has turned out to be a liar and an unreliable witness, discrediting and giving a bad name to other women in her position? After all, what good is giving the subaltern a voice when they turn out to be dishonest and unreliable witnesses, who still have to rely on well-educated journalists to get their voices heard anyway? After all, social media is but like a crowded room - you can get heard eventually if you shout loud enough but is that enough to make people believe you even if they do hear you?
So that's it from me on this story. What do you think? How do you feel about the Irene Clennell case, now that she is on her way back to the UK? Should she have been deported in the first place for messing up her paperwork despite having a valid case to stay in the UK? Should people like Irene and uncle Buah be punished for their stupidity and ignorance, or should we as a society show them far more compassion? Should Irene be disciplined for her audacity to speak out of turn, or should we simply accept this as the new reality in the age of social media? Is this the last we'll hear from her or would she continue to try to speak up on the issue? Is she a subaltern victim guilty of no more than being plain stupid, a compulsive liar who needs to be punished or possibly both? Leave a comment below, please, many thanks for reading.
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| Has justice been served in this case? |
Allow me to talk about another story from way back in the mid-90s, when I was serving NS. There was an older reservist (let's call him uncle Buah - that's the Malay word for fruit) who got sent to DB (detention barracks, military jail) for ignoring letters from MINDEF asking him to report for reservist activities. His was a sorry tale: the guy was barely literate, didn't speak enough English to understand the letters he was receiving from MINDEF. He worked very long hours at a hawker center selling cut-fruit: so he would buy watermelons, papayas, pineapples, mangoes, melons and other fruits from the market, cut them up into bite sized chunks and put them into plastic bags and containers for the office workers who wanted the convenience of a fruit salad. His profit margin was thin as he wasn't adding that much value to the fruit - if you wanted to save money, you'd just pop into the supermarket instead and buy the fruit there. But being an unskilled, uneducated middle aged man, that was all he knew how to do. When business was good, he had enough to spend on his children - when business was bad, he would feed his kids the leftover fruit he couldn't sell for dinner. He faced an increasingly competitive market, with younger Singaporeans craving for more fancy deserts from Taiwanese bubble tea to Japanese green tea ice cream to fancy French macaroons. Uncle Buah worked over 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Given his dire circumstances, he chose rather willfully to ignore the letters from MINDEF asking him to go for reservist activities. When the long arm of the law finally came for him, he pleaded stupidity, poverty and ignorance and he begged for mercy. Everyone involved felt a great sense of pity for him. Uncle Buah's wife was very ill and she couldn't work - his entire family was totally reliant on him and so he simply couldn't find the time to go for reservist training. Now a more educated man would have attempted to bargain with the unit for a deferment or even an exemption (yes there are loopholes in the system) but uncle Buah just wasn't educated enough to do that nor did he know the system well enough to ask for help. His main concern was that his regular customers would go away and buy their fruit salad elsewhere if he wasn't there day after day. So like an ostrich burying its head in the sand, he ignored the MINDEF letters. All of us who handled the case felt sorry for him - we even collected some money to buy food for his sick wife and kids, so they wouldn't go hungry. But in the end, the law was the law and uncle Buah was sentenced to spend some time in military jail for failing to fulfill his reservist obligations. Simply pleading stupidity or ignorance didn't get him off the hook. Thousands of Singaporean men are obliged to fulfill reservist duties and there are proper channels to go through should you have a problem fulfilling those duties - so the system isn't that unreasonable but one is expected to operate within the system.
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| Uncle Buah led a very hard life selling sliced fruit. |
Why did I feel so much compassion for uncle Buah whilst I have nothing but contempt for Irene Clennell? Well, uncle Buah pleaded ignorance and admitted that he was wrong - Irene Clennell didn't even concede that she had willfully broken the rules. The former showed signs of repentance whilst the latter remained defiant; even when your case goes before a judge in a court, you'll be asked to enter a plea. If you plead guilty, you will be often rewarded with a lighter sentence but if you plead not guilty and then you are found guilty, you're going to be hit with a much harsher sentence. Well, that's how it is supposed to work in principle - but it was clear that Irene Clennell was deported screaming, "not guilty!" all the way back to Singapore when she clearly was, yet somehow she was 'rewarded' with a visa to return to the UK? It doesn't make any sense - then there was uncle Buah who was completely repentant, admitted that he was wrong and was totally cooperative when he got caught but still he ended up in jail. Quite frankly, it all seems completely unfair - I would have loved to have seen Irene Clennell banned from the UK for life whilst uncle Buah definitely deserved a bit more mercy from the system. But am I somewhat naive in hoping for life to be fair and is the system meant to be 'fair'?
Nonetheless, I am emotional - as are a lot of Singaporeans from the SUKA (Singaporeans in the UK Association) because Irene certainly isn't the only Singaporean here in the UK, there are thousands of us studying or working here, some of us have British and EU spouses. We all follow the visa rules as laid out by the UK Home Office and none of us have any problems with our immigration status. But such is the nature of the law - after all, Irene Clennell did have some semblance of a family life, which was the basis of her claim to return to the UK, to be with her family. Instead of filing the right paperwork in the first place, she willfully ignored the issue, overstayed the visa and then got into trouble. How strict does the system need to be with someone like that? Time for an analogy: imagine you are a landlord and your tenant hasn't paid her rent. You call her, email her, visit her and each time she says, "yeah yeah I'll take care of it" but you don't see the money. Finally you serve her with an eviction notice and when you arrive with security guards to evict her, she pleads, "wait wait, I can give you the money now, I had it all the time, I just neglected to give it to you." Would you then accept the money and let the matter go? Or would you turn around and say, "no way, you're a troublemaker, you're every landlord's nightmare, screw you - I'm evicting you." Even if Irene Clennell had some legitimate right to appeal, she had clearly demonstrated that she had little regard for the law. Heck, her son as well as her sister-in-law's son have both had their share of trouble with the law - they are a family of petty criminals. Do you expect people like that to follow the rules?
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| What made Irene think the rules didn't apply to her? |
But nonetheless, whether Irene is returning to a millionaire husband living in a beautiful mansion in Knightsbridge or to a sick, old pauper in small town in the north, every person who comes before the law is treated equally. One thing is clear: Irene isn't coming to the UK to enjoy a good life. There are at least two convicted criminals in the Clennell family and her husband who was a builder is now both very poor and very ill: she may have a right to a family life but taking a closer look at the Clennells, you can only shake your head wonder: is this the kind of family you really want to be with? Wouldn't your family in Singapore be better, nicer people to build your life with? But the judge isn't there to tell her what she ought to do or what is best for her: she has decided she wants to be a Clennell. There is no "happily ever after" for Irene, she may have gotten what she wanted, she can pump her fists in the air jubilantly and celebrate her victory now but what did she win? Spend a moment to think about what kind of life awaits her once she returns to England. Sure a rich person may be able to hire the best immigration lawyer in the country to give you the best advice and make sure that the paperwork for any visa application is filed property, but at the end of the day, we are all still subject to the same rules. The fact that Irene was granted her visa eventually shows that the British system is fair, even merciful to Irene Clennell.
I am a big fan of the American TV series Suits - I am totally in love with the principle cast, everyone from Jessica to Harvey to Mike. What has this got to do with the Irene Clennell case I hear you ask? The explanation will come shortly. When I watch a series like that, I identify with the characters and I think, yeah I wanna be like them. I identify with Mike because of his intelligence and the way he had battled against the odds to get to where he was in the firm. I too was given a chance, like Mike, to do a job that I wanted. Oh and in series 1 when Harvey used to just give Mike a task that he had never done before and say, "figure it out!" Yeah, I've been there so many times before. However, the similarity stops there - I find the way he can be indecisive very irritating and that's when I turn to Harvey instead: he is far more ruthless in getting what he wants and on that front I identify with him. I do find him rather uptight though and perhaps it is a cultural thing (like who wears a T-shirt under their shirt anyway? Americans?) but he seems far more interested in his work than sex; despite being a gay man, I don't think he is actually oozing sensuality quite the way Jessica does. I love the way she is smart, successful, confident yet extremely attractive - the best part is she knows she is attractive and isn't afraid to show it. I love the way she struts around the office like she is the Queen bee of the firm: attractive yet deadly, you don't want to mess with her. And then there's Louis Litt: totally brilliant but socially inept and often misunderstood.
The world of Pearson Hardman - the New York law firm where Suits is set - is the kind of world that I want to be a part of, that I find fascinating. I work in corporate finance so obviously I don't deal with law - but the same kind of ambition and aspiration exists in my company. I am surrounded by highly intelligent and talented people - let me give you some examples: one of our securitization experts is from Germany, has headed up securitization departments in major banks and she is our equivalent Jessica Pearson: super intelligent, multi-lingual and beautiful. Then we also have the younger staff in their 20s, one of our structuring managers has lived in Germany and Argentina, speaks six languages and she too is stunningly beautiful. Another colleague in that department gave up a good job at a Swedish bank to come and work in this company, so I feel a lot of pressure to keep up with the extremely high caliber of my colleagues there. Sometimes I even feel somewhat intimidated. Thus from the kind of world I am in and more importantly, the kind of world I identify with and aspire to be a part of, the stories of Irene Clennell and uncle Buah seem to be quite remote, totally from another world. People like uncle Buah fit a simple narrative that makes it easy and convenient for me to offer my sympathy. I reached into my wallet back then and donated money to his family and if his family is still in need today, I would gladly do the same again. Hey, I'm not a monster, I am capable of compassion but there are limits and conditions. If I may be blunt, uncle Buah knew his place in society: he didn't speak out of turn or challenge the system, instead he merely begged for mercy. That he made it easy and convenient for us to feel superior to him and once he gave us that feeling of power, we naturally responded with charity. The story fitted into our idea of what the natural order of things in society should be.
Irene Clennell however, did the complete opposite. She had flouted the conditions of her visa and had been an illegal immigrant the moment she overstayed her visa, yet there was no acknowledgement of any wrongdoing on her part. Instead, she played the victim's card and claimed that she was treated unfairly when really, she had refused to follow the rules. Sure, there are some merits to her case, otherwise she wouldn't have been granted the visa this week - putting aside her unreasonable behaviour, she wants to return to the UK to act as a carer for her very sick husband. Without her being by his side, the local council would have had to appoint a carer to take care of him - that would cost a lot of money, money that could be saved if Irene is happy to assume the role of his carer. From his point of view, it would be better to have his own wife to do that job, than to see a different lowly paid carer from an agency every week. It is an unglamorous, dirty and banal job, but Irene is so desperate to do it and it just makes complete sense to let her do that. Any decent immigration lawyer would have been able to put together a more than compelling case on that basis alone - yet Irene shot herself in the foot by refusing to seek professional advice and allowing her sister in law to court the media by telling so many lies. She made a poor judgement call and foolishly trusted the wrong people, that is why she got deported - she then turned around and blamed the system rather than accept any responsibility for her stupid mistakes.
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| I think Irene should be held responsible for her bad decisions. |
So uncle Buah made is easy for us to feel sorry for him, whilst Irene did everything she could to make us dislike her. You could accuse me of having a lack of empathy, for failing to offer sympathy just because Irene's story didn't fit a simple narrative of the 'deserving poor'. Those of us who are in the position to offer kindness and charity often expect the recipients of our charity to be grovel and be grateful, just like uncle Buah and his family but when they don't, how we react is then quite indicative of the kind of people we are. Do we do charitable deeds because we want to be thanked and made to feel generous, nay, make that saintly, or do we do it because it is the right thing to do and we really don't mind or care if the person we have helped is even aware of what we have done. I am sure we all get every slightly cynical when we see yet another news footage of a celebrity kissing babies in an African orphanage and hugging grateful natives (see video below) whilst posing for photos for the paparazzi - I'm sure they're doing something good there and the press are raising awareness of the cause but would they have done the same if the press wasn't there? Then you have George Michael who isn't the kind of celebrity who would do things like that, but after his death, many stories about his acts of incredible charity emerged - acts that he did in private, without caring if anyone ever found out about them.
This then begs the question - do people like Irene Clennell deserve to have a voice over issues such as immigration, or do we dismiss her because she isn't that educated, "shut up already you stupid woman, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about, leave the issue to the experts - nobody cares what you think because you're incredibly stupid." Am I being cruel? Oh yeah, but take a topic such as air traffic control for example. When I have to take a flight, I just trust that the experts in the airport control tower know what they are doing and keep the all the planes safe. I am quite happy to put my faith in them and simply relax on my flight. After all, I do know that I don't know enough about air traffic control to express an opinion on it. But it is easy for me to ignore an issue like air traffic control since I am not interested in it anyway, the British immigration system however does affect Irene directly (as it did me when I moved to the UK and naturalized as a British citizen) - surely she has the right to voice an opinion about how she is treated by the system? Again, no - the same way we really don't have a right to voice an opinion on air traffic control just because we happen to be a passenger on a flight. There are many issues from immigration laws to air traffic control which are simply out of our control and we trust the government to put the right experts there to make sure that the issue is always handled properly. So unless you happen to me an expert on either air traffic control or immigration law, you're offering an unqualified opinion: that's a nice way of saying you're talking bullshit and that is why I have been so disparaging towards Irene Clennell and her sister-in-law, because they have both been spouting so much bullshit. Even an idiot has the right to express her opinion, but you have to wonder what she would gain in doing so. There's a colloquial saying in Chinese that translates to something like, "if you don't open your big mouth, nobody will actually find out just what an idiot you are."
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| It is not easy to capture the true voices of the subaltern. |
I wonder what Spivak would say about Irene Clennell's case, since they are both Indian women. After all, Irene is indeed the subaltern in so many ways: she is a woman, an immigrant of ethnic minority, she wasn't particularly educated, she worked a blue collar job, she is married to a man who was a labourer but is now poor and sick. Her son and other member of her family in the UK have gotten into trouble with the law and she herself has been in trouble with the law as an illegal immigrant. It seems that she has ticked every single box there is to tick to qualify her as a modern day subaltern in the UK. Back in the pre-internet days, she would not have had a voice at all but in this day and age, amazingly through non-mainstream media outlets and social media, she has managed to find her voice and tell her story (even if half of it was a pack of lies). Would Spivak be thrilled that at last a modern day subaltern has had her voice heard through the power of the internet - or would she shake her head in dismay at the way Irene Clennell has turned out to be a liar and an unreliable witness, discrediting and giving a bad name to other women in her position? After all, what good is giving the subaltern a voice when they turn out to be dishonest and unreliable witnesses, who still have to rely on well-educated journalists to get their voices heard anyway? After all, social media is but like a crowded room - you can get heard eventually if you shout loud enough but is that enough to make people believe you even if they do hear you?
So that's it from me on this story. What do you think? How do you feel about the Irene Clennell case, now that she is on her way back to the UK? Should she have been deported in the first place for messing up her paperwork despite having a valid case to stay in the UK? Should people like Irene and uncle Buah be punished for their stupidity and ignorance, or should we as a society show them far more compassion? Should Irene be disciplined for her audacity to speak out of turn, or should we simply accept this as the new reality in the age of social media? Is this the last we'll hear from her or would she continue to try to speak up on the issue? Is she a subaltern victim guilty of no more than being plain stupid, a compulsive liar who needs to be punished or possibly both? Leave a comment below, please, many thanks for reading.
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