Refugees bring the Syrian war to Europe’s door
There are some photographs that speak a million words. Whether it was Raghu Rai’s pictures from Bhopal or Kevin Carter’s picture of a vulture hovering over a starving Sudanese child. These are photographs that tug on the world’s heartstrings. Similarly, the picture by Nilufer Demir of a three-year old Aylan Kurdi lying face down on the beach at the Turkish town of Bodrum with the waves lapping on his lifeless body has come to symbolise the global failure of the refugee crisis enveloping Europe. Aylan Kurdi was not the only one to die, his elder brother and mother perished as well in the hands of profiteering people smugglers. According to news reports, the Kurdi family was trying to make their way to Canada where their relatives were trying to sponsor their travel. The desperation of the family which was trying to escape from the brutal Islamic State terror group is undeniable. And on this front, this is a global failure in tackling the crisis in West Asia, thanks to a combination of apathy and denial about the problems that confront the region. And make no mistakes, this is a crisis of the Western world’s making. A desperation for regime change and to impose a brand of democracy has, instead of making life better for millions living under anti-Western regimes, instead forced millions such as the Kurdi family to risk their lives so as to reach a safer place.
One report had it that over four million people have fled Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011. This from a population that was estimated at 23 million a few years ago. There is no doubt that among the millions of refugees from places such as Iraq and Syria — and there are millions — there are opportunistic economic migrants. News reports have said that migrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh are among the masses from the troubled levant. However, these people are also risking their lives in the hope of a better future. A better future does not equal to a good life in Europe though, as some insensitive anti-immigration politicians and columnists in Europe have hinted. Allowing immigration, through means both legal and illegal, has been the lifeblood of developed nations across the world. A fact people must remember is that Steve Jobs, arguably one of the greatest Americans of the recent past, was born of an immigrant, albeit one that America welcomed with open arms. It is heartening to see that Germany, a nation with a troubled past towards ‘the other’, is welcoming hundreds of thousands of refugees. Yet, the United Kingdom, a nation that gorged itself on the riches of colonialism is using the moat around itself to keep immigrants out. While long term solutions to the troubles in the levant still need to be found, Europe would do well to again follow Germany’s example.