Latest news with #GoBacktoWhereYouCameFrom
Daily Mirror
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Channel 4's Go Back To Where You Came From missed one huge issue with refugees
Campaigner Ella Lambert has visited refugee camps first-hand, and there's one thing that the controversial documentary didn't show at all Channel 4 launched Go Back To Where You Came From earlier this year, following six Brits as they visit refugee camps and make the dangerous journey back to British soil. The idea was for every day people, specifically those who hold strong views against immigration, to replicate the travel undertaken by refugees crossing the border. Across four episodes, the cast were able to speak to and come face-to-face with refugees and get to grips with the reasons behind why so many are desperate to flee their homes. However, Go Back to Where You Came From failed to mention one huge issue in these camps: period poverty, which is thought to affect 26 million refugees. Ella Lambert is the founder of The Pachamamma Project, which collectively creates reusable period products for those in need and has so far helped over 20,000 people. She explained just how unspoken this issue is amongst the mainstream media and its lack of airtime in the series. 'I think what it highlights is that period poverty is always overlooked,' Ella explained. 'And I don't think it's intentionall, it's just that people rarely even consider it.' 'I think the very fact that it's so stigmatised means that it's not going to come up in conversation. If you're going into refugee camps, and you're talking to people about their problems, no one is going to volunteer the information.' Throughout her work with refugees, Ella has noticed that it isn't just a lack of resources but a lack of education, fuelled by long-time myths. She shared: 'There's a widespread myth that you shouldn't wash or shower when you're on your period. 'And so then, you have some people living in refugee camps, like you saw in the show, who don't have access to private facilities; they're in really uncomfortable and not particularly clean conditions; they don't have period products; and on top of that, they're not showering or washing.' Other myths Ella has heard along her time working in camps are 'if your period pad touches a river, the river will run dry' and that 'if you have a menstrual health condition, the only way to solve that is by having sex'. It was during the pandemic in 2020 that Ella founded The Pachamama Project, after her plan to volunteer with refugees in Colombia was disrupted by Covid restrictions. At the time, she saw people making DIY face masks and had known women to use reusable period products, so she combined the two ideas and learnt to create some of the pads herself. As someone who suffers from debilitating periods, Ella was aware of how much it can affect your day to day life and couldn't even imagine what it was like for those with limited resources. With this in mind, she began creating pads that are made to last up to five years, and then donated them to those in need. The impact of her project has had a profound effect on its recipients, including a group of students in Uganda, who are now able to stay in school because they have period products. 'There are women that we supported in our projects in Lebanon, for example, who became really emotional when receiving the pads because they've been having to cut up their kids' clothes,' Ella recalled. She added: 'We've heard of people that we support who were using banana leaves, socks, or scraps of material. Or, unfortunately, just having to free bleed and stay at home because they don't have anything.' For more established camps, there's often a level of infrastructure with washing machines and other facilities that allow people to clean their clothes and therefore make use of the reusable pads. But, as Ella points out, that's not always the case. 'In cases of emergency, we have provided disposable products. And so we did that in Ukraine and bordering countries like Poland and Moldova right in the early stages of the war, where people just didn't have the infrastructure yet to use reusables'. In order to fund this level of transport and equipment needed, the Pachamaama project relies solely on crowdfunding, grant funding and '10 quid here and there'. Ella said: 'We got disposable pads into Gaza, and we did a fundraiser for that. When the wars first started in Lebanon, we did an emergency response, and we got disposable pads into the camp. 'But we also funded water tanks. There were schools that were turned into shelters for displaced people, and we were buying water tanks so that we could provide reusable pads and they could continue using them.' Go Back To Where You Came From received its fair share of criticism, particularly from those in the NGO sector, but the Pachamama founder thought it was "fantastic". As Ella watched the documentary, she was reminded of her own experiences in camps. 'When I was in Lesbos, it was like my mind was blown open because I saw the kind of things that you saw in that show and met people who were living in those conditions, who had the same stories. 'And I remember thinking, if every person met just one of the people that I met here, who heard just one of the stories or witnessed this, they would have a completely different perspective of what it is to be a refugee.' To take a glimpse into the realities of these camps, you can stream all episodes of Go Back To Where You Came From on Channel 4 now.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Channel 4's sanctimonious moralising is the last gasp of the old, pro-migration regime
Good news: I've just watched the first two instalments of Channel 4's Go Back to Where You Came From, so you won't have to. The publicly-owned broadcaster could have commissioned a thoughtful programme which explored the complexities of illegal migration, challenging both the tendency in human nature to be hostile to strangers and the easy sympathy of those who can't see any limit to our welcome to refugees. Instead it has given us a hectoring documentary seemingly dreamt up with one goal in mind: to convince us that anyone who dissents from its creators' high moral principles is a heartless bigot. The premise is this: six 'ordinary' Brits are dropped in Raqqa and Mogadishu to experience the hardships of life there, and follow the perilous path many take to Britain. Two of the participants are pro-migration, four are anti – in a 'get the Royal Navy to set landmines off Dover beach' kind of way. This quartet begins by declaring they won't change their position, though by the end of episode two, one already has and another is progressing nicely along her journey to redemption. There's no nuance, no measured discussion of the issue. We suspected Channel 4 had an agenda going in: its head of documentaries said that to 'be able to challenge – and wrestle with – these views, we need to be able to air them... Otherwise... we end up with combustible events like last summer's race riots.' It must have been awkward when it emerged the 'anti-racist' participant Bushra Shaikh once posted that European Jews are a 'bunch of lying scumbags' and claimed 'nobody is born gay. It's a choice'. And the inconsistencies don't end there: Shaikh believes a large proportion of people in Britain are 'thick as s---' and 'greedy'. Her fellow pro-migrant confesses she is 'ashamed to be British'. Yet both insist that the world's refugees should come here. The UK is a racist hell-hole – and must be open to all. We live in an era when millions are unavoidably on the move. There are now 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and nearly twice that in Turkey. Around 1 million people in Germany, following Angela Merkel's 'Wir schaffen das', have a Syrian passport. There are close to 300,000 Somali refugees living in Kenya, and more than 250,000 in Ethiopia. It is inconceivable that we could accommodate even a small minority of these unfortunate people without massive and unacceptable changes to our way of life. Since 2018, more than 150,000 have endangered their lives by crossing the Channel in flimsy dinghies. And the costs are potentially astronomical: a University of Amsterdam study estimated that the net lifetime cost of asylum migration to the Netherlands averages around £400,000 per immigrant. Yet the UK's public sector net debt is around 97 per cent of GDP, we haven't balanced the books in more than 20 years, and there are no credible plans to cut government spending. How do we afford it? I felt nothing but sympathy when, during the documentary, we were introduced to a young Somalian refugee living in an internally displaced persons camp with her seven children. But at no stage did Channel 4 seek to answer how the UK could meet the cost of housing, treating and educating those children, nor how doing so might affect existing citizens here, particularly our poorest. Many believe we have an obligation to certain groups – Ukrainians escaping Putin's illegal war or Hong Kongers to whom we made commitments, for instance – and I count myself among them. But news today that six Palestinians successfully claimed asylum under the Ukraine Family Scheme, their rights to a family life under Article 8 of the ECHR trumping the fact they were outside the rules, is a warning that any regime we put in place risks being turned into a backdoor route into Britain. For all the talk of deterrence from our politicians, they too often achieve the opposite. Go Back to Where You Came From will change few minds beyond those of one or two of the participants. If anything, its creators have uncovered the extent to which the debate on illegal migration has moved on. Though they may have believed that viewers could only draw one conclusion, the field of acceptable speech on this issue has widened. Attitudes have shifted. Even Labour is staging anti-illegal migration photo ops. All of which means we can finally begin serious debate over how we best help those living these wretched existences with what limited resources we have – through trade, perhaps, or with a functioning asylum system – and stop the tedious moralising. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Express Tribune
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
UK refugee show sparks outrage
LONDON: Britain's newest reality TV show has been slammed as "insensitive", "voyeuristic" and even "nauseating" for recreating with six Britons the often fatal journeys made by thousands of refugees to the UK. Bluntly titled Go Back to Where You Came From, the part-documentary, part-reality TV show by Channel 4 follows the group of six, who hold strong views both for and against immigration. They are divided into two teams, with one dropped into one war-ravaged Raqqa in Syria and the other sent to Mogadishu in Somalia. Over four episodes which launched on February 3, they "experience some of the most perilous parts of the refugee journeys" according to Channel 4 – although they travel largely in armoured vehicles. The outspoken views of some participants, as well as the show's format, have been criticised by viewers, charities and some media. Amnesty International UK called it "deeply disappointing" and "sensational". Participant and chef Dave Marshall, 35, opens the series standing on the cliffs of Dover, calling for immigrants crossing the Channel to be "blown up". Moments later, political commentator Chloe Dobbs, 24, says that unless immigration is reined in "Britain will be a hellhole full of people wearing burqas". In the first episode, the six are taken to markets where they meet families, play football with kids and accompany them as they search through litter for scraps. At one point, when they visit a bombed-out family home in Raqqa, Marshall and two others are invited to stay the night. "Very kind of you for offering your house to us," replied Marshall, the irony perhaps lost on him. "The series explores the varied and sometimes polarised opinions in our society in a fresh way," a series spokesperson said. In upcoming episodes, both groups undertake "challenges", including a boat crossing and trekking through a Libyan desert. There is no winner of the series though. 'Outrageous opinions' The reality TV genre "exists and its success depends on actually performing shocking opinions", said Myria Georgiou, media and communications professor at the London School of Economics. "I'm sure the contestants are competing for that shock element - who is going to be more extreme in their opinions," Georgiou told AFP. Dobbs defended it as a "really fun show that lots of people will tune into". "More so than just some bog-standard, boring documentary," she said. "Go Back to Where You Came From" is based on a popular Australian series which first ran in the early 2010s. At around that time, politicians in Australia were campaigning to "stop the boats" of irregular migrants reaching the country. A decade later, the same catchphrase has been seized upon by politicians opposing asylum seekers crossing the Channel to reach Britain. The timing of the British version did not surprise Georgiou. "You have the political leadership, nationally and globally, that have made the most outrageous opinions mainstream," said Georgiou. "We can see that politics have become entertainment and thus it's no surprise that entertainment has become politics." Some viewers have praised Channel 4 for giving a rare primetime spot to the hot-button immigration debate, with British charity Refugee Council "welcoming" the show's premise. "Television shows have huge potential to highlight the human stories behind the headlines," Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon said. 'Humanitarian tragedy' In one heavily criticised "challenge", the group get into a dinghy in a simulation of the often fatal Channel crossings. For Dobbs, who has previously said small boats were made out to be "fun" by some refugees, getting into a flimsy vessel in the middle of the night was a turning point. "It was that moment for me that it really hit me. Gosh, people must be really desperate to get on these boats," she acknowledged. However, clips of the simulation sparked outrage across the Channel, with French politician Xavier Bertrand calling for the "nauseating" show to be cancelled. "Hundreds of people have died in the Channel in recent years. This situation is a humanitarian tragedy, not the subject of a game," Bertrand said on X. The number of asylum seekers arriving in Britain on small boats after crossing the Channel rose to more than 36,800 in 2024, according to official data. It was also the deadliest year for migrant crossings, with at least 76 deaths recorded. According to Dobbs, the show wanted to do something "different". "Rather than just talking to a migrant about what the boat crossing they did was like, wouldn't it be even better to simulate it and feel all those emotions for yourself?" "And if it makes it more entertaining and more intriguing for the audience and means that more people tune in, I mean, that's a win-win," Dobbs added. afp
Khaleej Times
09-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
'Shocking' UK reality TV show retraces refugee journeys
Britain's newest reality TV show has been slammed as "insensitive", "voyeuristic" and even "nauseating" for recreating with six Britons the often fatal journeys made by thousands of refugees to the UK. Bluntly titled "Go Back to Where You Came From", the part-documentary, part-reality TV show by Channel 4 follows the group of six, who hold strong views both for and against immigration. They are divided into two teams, with one dropped into one war-ravaged Raqqa in Syria and the other sent to Mogadishu in Somalia. Over four episodes which launched on February 3, they "experience some of the most perilous parts of the refugee journeys" according to Channel 4 -- although they travel largely in armoured vehicles. The outspoken views of some participants, as well as the show's format, have been criticised by viewers, charities and some media. Amnesty International UK called it "deeply disappointing" and "sensational". Participant and chef Dave Marshall, 35, opens the series standing on the cliffs of Dover, calling for immigrants crossing the Channel to be "blown up". Moments later, political commentator Chloe Dobbs, 24, says that unless immigration is reined in "Britain will be a hellhole full of people wearing burqas". In the first episode, the six are taken to markets where they meet families, play football with kids and accompany them as they search through litter for scraps. At one point, when they visit a bombed-out family home in Raqqa, Marshall and two others are invited to stay the night. "Very kind of you for offering your house to us," replied Marshall, the irony perhaps lost on him. "The series explores the varied and sometimes polarised opinions in our society in a fresh way," a series spokesperson said. In upcoming episodes, both groups undertake "challenges", including a boat crossing and trekking through a Libyan desert. There is no winner of the series though. The reality TV genre "exists and its success depends on actually performing shocking opinions", said Myria Georgiou, media and communications professor at the London School of Economics. "I'm sure the contestants are competing for that shock element -- who is going to be more extreme in their opinions," Georgiou told AFP. Dobbs defended it as a "really fun show that lots of people will tune into". "More so than just some bog-standard, boring documentary," she said. "Go Back to Where You Came From" is based on a popular Australian series which first ran in the early 2010s. At around that time, politicians in Australia were campaigning to "stop the boats" of irregular migrants reaching the country. A decade later, the same catchphrase has been seized upon by politicians opposing asylum seekers crossing the Channel to reach Britain. The timing of the British version did not surprise Georgiou. "You have the political leadership, nationally and globally, that have made the most outrageous opinions mainstream," said Georgiou. "We can see that politics have become entertainment and thus it's no surprise that entertainment has become politics." Some viewers have praised Channel 4 for giving a rare primetime spot to the hot-button immigration debate, with British charity Refugee Council "welcoming" the show's premise. "Television shows have huge potential to highlight the human stories behind the headlines," Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon said. In one heavily criticised "challenge", the group get into a dinghy in a simulation of the often fatal Channel crossings. For Dobbs, who has previously said small boats were made out to be "fun" by some refugees, getting into a flimsy vessel in the middle of the night was a turning point. "It was that moment for me that it really hit me. Gosh, people must be really desperate to get on these boats," she acknowledged. However, clips of the simulation sparked outrage across the Channel, with French politician Xavier Bertrand calling for the "nauseating" show to be cancelled. "Hundreds of people have died in the Channel in recent years. This situation is a humanitarian tragedy, not the subject of a game," Bertrand said on X. The number of asylum seekers arriving in Britain on small boats after crossing the Channel rose to more than 36,800 in 2024, according to official data. It was also the deadliest year for migrant crossings, with at least 76 deaths recorded. According to Dobbs, the show wanted to do something "different". "Rather than just talking to a migrant about what the boat crossing they did was like, wouldn't it be even better to simulate it and feel all those emotions for yourself?" "And if it makes it more entertaining and more intriguing for the audience and means that more people tune in, I mean, that's a win-win," Dobbs added.
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The week in TV: Go Back to Where You Came From; Mussolini: Son of the Century; Miss Austen
Go Back to Where You Came From (Channel 4) | Son of the Century (Sky Atlantic/Now)Miss Austen (BBC One) | iPlayer Back in the mid-20th-century heyday of behavioural psychology, inventive professors were forever devising new experiments to study volunteers in extreme but revealing roleplay – as torturers, prisoners or prison guards. That's all gone out of academic fashion, but there is one laboratory where a version of it still thrives: Channel 4. is the latest example of the kind of artificially constructed reality TV that doesn't feature unknown celebrities. Instead, it draws on an even scarier sector of society: members of the public. The odd thing is, though, that they never seem like normal people but exactly like the sort of outspoken attention-seekers who are destined to appear on a fish-out-of-water TV show. The idea is characteristically simple. Send two groups of three Britons to a couple of highly unstable, refugee-producing countries: Syria and Somalia. Ensure that in each trio there are two people who are staunchly opposed to illegal migration and one sympathiser, then let the camera capture their responses as they follow well-trodden migrant and people-smuggler routes back home. A note after the credits reassured us that '24/7 security was in place throughout filming'. Was it to protect the participants from the threat of Islamic State and al-Shabaab or from each other? The introduction promised fireworks when Dave, a chef from Mansfield who claimed to represent the white working class and wants to see migrant-carrying boats bombed, observed of the asylum system: 'It's like rats. You leave food out, they'll keep coming.' Dave cried after meeting young kids scavenging. Jess wept because she didn't like the way the local people looked at her There was a lot of this kind of talk that felt induced and shaming for all concerned. Yet the first episode was surprisingly free of major confrontations. Nathan, a large tattooed man who runs a haulage company and fears his children will be 'going to work on a fucking camel', and Jess, a lesbian sports coach from Wales – 'I think the people coming over here are rapists and paedophiles' – flew to Mogadishu with Mathilda, a young journalist and podcaster who had worked with refugees and counted many as her friends. When informed by a female Somali church worker of the near universal application of female genital mutilation and the widespread practice of young girls being forced into marriage, Jess argued that Somali men coming to the UK would think it normal to marry girls at 13. Mathilda didn't discuss that possibility but cautioned against generalising. In Syria, Bushra, a small business owner from Surrey, was happy to generalise, at least when it came to her fellow Britons. 'There is a large portion in Britain who I just think are thick as shit,' she said, making clear her sympathies with refugees, her disgust for Islamophobia and how she valued human empathy. Yet it has emerged that she recently tweeted that European Jews – the survivors of the greatest genocide in history – are 'the biggest charlatans on this planet. Bunch of lying scumbags.' And questioned 'everything we're told about Jewish history'. Channel 4 duly distanced itself from these statements, but they raised an inconvenient human truth. People who make the most noise about their humanity often turn out to harbour deep hatreds of some or other group (and not infrequently Jews). It points not just to rank hypocrisy but human complexity. And unfortunately, migration and asylum are far more complex than any contributor here allowed. The animating question of Go Back to Where You Came From is whether the change of scene from comfy armchair to war-torn streets leads to a change of heart. We saw Dave crying after meeting a couple of young kids scavenging for plastic in a wrecked and crumbling Raqqa. But tears are an unreliable guide – Jess wept because she didn't like the way the local people looked at her in Mogadishu. There are two arguments heard about this kind of endeavour. One is that it's just another version of white saviourism, although the people who say this tend to be most in favour of asylum, which could be seen as another example of white saviourism. After all, why does Norway take in more Somali refugees than the much closer and larger Saudi Arabia? And the other position is that it's better to air unpalatable opinions than let them fester in the dark. That may be true, but the debate on migration could do with moving on from the point-scoring mirror accusations of racism and wokeness that currently frame it, and begin to address the global inequalities and insecurities that drive it. (Sky Atlantic/Now) is likely to attract a much smaller audience than Go Back to Where You Came From, which is a shame because they make for instructive companion pieces. The Somalia Governorate was part of the dictator's short-lived Italian East Africa colony (which briefly included British Somaliland – the British empire's fingerprints were light but lasting). Atonement/Darkest Hour director Joe Wright's strange, heavily stylised but theatrically compelling take on Il Duce's rise and fall relies on Luca Marinelli's virtuoso lead performance for most of its dramatic force. He struts through almost every scene, chin out, eyes bulging, furiously declaiming on the irrational lure of fascism: 'Our only doctrine is action!' 'A time always comes when a lost populace turns to simple ideas,' he conspiratorially informs the camera. There are, inevitably, many contemporary echoes, and it's hard not to detect some notes of Donald Trump in Marinelli's (far more eloquent) Mussolini speeches, especially when he extemporises on his own heroism. What's obvious is that the Italian benefited from a popular weariness, bordering on contempt, for liberal democracy. All it took was this disillusionment and his own egomaniacal lust for power to plunge Italy into a brutal fantasy that left it in ruins and Mussolini's corpse hanging upside down in a suburban Milanese square. There must be a lesson for us somewhere in there. Whereas there was little to take away from the week's other costume drama, (BBC One), except that using old correspondence as a means of flashbacks is always a little tortuous. This adaptation of Gill Hornby's novel has all the familiar Austen components – creepy clergyman, spiteful in-law, yearning young lovers – except sharp wit. But at least no one could possibly be offended, which is probably a major commissioning plus these days. Star ratings (out of five)Go Back to Where You Came From ★★★Mussolini: Son of the Century ★★★★Miss Austen ★★ (BBC Two/iPlayer) Part travelogue, part reportage, this documentary moves from deserted, ravaged villages to idyllic coastlines with disorientating haste. Tip for travellers and investors: mineral-rich Albania is about to go large. (iPlayer) Martin Scorsese's great 2005 two-part Bob Dylan documentary is essential viewing for anyone enthused by the terrific James Mangold biopic in cinemas now. (Channel 5) A weird amalgam of retail history with a portrait of an alleged serial rapist, not helped by contributors who sound more alarmed by Mohamed Al Fayed's aesthetic tastes than his conduct.
