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ONE MAN’S VIEW

Why does it take the appalling image of a normally-clothed, innocent small toddler wearing mini trainers, lying face down and drowned in the lapping waves of a beach, before establishment figures and media even begin to publicly recognise what those of us with conscience have known for months?

As I pointed out in this blog some while ago, most of these desperate people are not migrants at all - least of all the little children.

These people are, purely and simply, refugees who are fleeing from terror.

They have given their last resources to odiously grasping traffickers in order to effect their escape. They now have nothing left and need unconditional immediate help.

Yes, there will be unworthies among them - the troublemakers, the economic migrants and those who perceive the situation as an opportunity to infiltrate with murderous intent. But I believe the majority are genuine folk who are so in fear of the death and suffering in their homeland, that they knowingly take the risk of the only measures available to escape.

Why else would they risk crossing the Mediterranean with their children, in dangerously over-laden open boats - aware that thousands of similar refugees have already drowned?

In the general meaning of terms, the status of 'refugee' must obviously provoke a responsibility for action - whereas the status of 'migrant' clearly does not.

Perhaps then, that is why so many governments are loathe to confer 'refugee' status on these folk and prefer instead, to evade their humanitarian responsibilities by facing them down with misnomer, threat, blame and baton.

I was only a very small child at the end of WW2 but I can remember the post-war DP (displaced persons) camps which still decorated parts of England in the fifties, as a result of that conflict.

I also remember - but more vividly - similar camps being opened following Idi Amin’s exile of Ugandan Asians in 1972.

Why then, as a nation, are we not responding in similar fashion to the current humanitarian catastrophe?

Why do so many view these needy folk as scroungers or economic migrants?

How on earth do we expect the world to move on from conflict and suffering, if we do not first accept our moral responsibility to unconditionally extend friendship and basic help to those in need?

Why can some other governments not adopt the same approach as Germany in taking on their responsibility and welcoming these desperate folk?

I leave it to other-minded governments to ponder these questions and to recognise that there is a fast-growing turn in the many minds of those who care.

I also believe and hope that the blustering and relative inaction of our own leaders will be remembered . . . . . . .

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