What surprises me is that something similar didn't happen sooner.
Not that I'm trying to condone what's happening - far from it - but I'm not surprised by it.
After all, I can't imagine that things would be handled all that much differently if thousands of people had walked up through Central America and were tearing at the fences at the southern border of the United States, or, perhaps, if we were to imagine thousands of people were pouring into England through Wales, whether many on the English side might be calling out for the government to build a great big border fence and stop the tide of humanity getting through it.
One of the main problems is also that, to be guaranteed a future, refugees need to actually be "processed" (for want of a better word) and given papers and an identity so that they can legally get a job or find a home, but certain parts of Europe, mentioning no names, don't have a particularly good record on the whole issue of putting "people" into "camps".
It's one hell of a problem for the whole of humanity, and we need to come up with some answers pretty damned soon.
NB This (short) blog was initially just a few thoughts that I was trying to get down in order to write a longer piece (which I'm probably not going to bother writing now) but, such are the quirks of crashing computers, bad connections, and over-stuffed hard drives, I "accidentally" managed to hit "publish" instead of "save" and it got released into the big bad world before I had a chance to think about the content more. Anyway, in the interests of being damned - or otherwise - by what I was actually thinking, I decided not to do any further editing, but just to leave it as it is.
NB This (short) blog was initially just a few thoughts that I was trying to get down in order to write a longer piece (which I'm probably not going to bother writing now) but, such are the quirks of crashing computers, bad connections, and over-stuffed hard drives, I "accidentally" managed to hit "publish" instead of "save" and it got released into the big bad world before I had a chance to think about the content more. Anyway, in the interests of being damned - or otherwise - by what I was actually thinking, I decided not to do any further editing, but just to leave it as it is.
I too have been appalled by what is happening on the Hungarian borders, and the use of water cannon, while it doesn't actually surprise me, does seem a little over the top. However, looking at the footage shown on the BBC News I can see that they were, and still are, under immense pressure. I don't honestly know what the answer is. What does scare me a lot, is the fact that a few of the "refugees" were waving ISIS flags. I do wonder if we are quietly being invaded, and what will transpire over the coming months and years. Difficult times, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI understand what you're saying, but I hope that fear of the few would never outweigh the humanitarian needs of the many. I also imagine that if the 'few' want to do 'bad things' they'll find a way anyway, but that shouldn't (I hope) stop us from doing the "right" thing...
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