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The grassroots response to the refugee crisis should shame our government The grassroots response to the refugee crisis should shame the British government
(about 13 hours later)
It starts round the corner. It always has to, I suppose. I see a new sign about a drop-in centre for refugees. It’s just one day a week of volunteering and they will provide hot meals. I could do something, I think. I write down the name of the organisation and Google it. Oh dear, it’s a Methodist church. “Jesus Christ,” I think. “Get over yourself, woman.” I said that to spare you the effort.It starts round the corner. It always has to, I suppose. I see a new sign about a drop-in centre for refugees. It’s just one day a week of volunteering and they will provide hot meals. I could do something, I think. I write down the name of the organisation and Google it. Oh dear, it’s a Methodist church. “Jesus Christ,” I think. “Get over yourself, woman.” I said that to spare you the effort.
Someone else gets in touch about dropping stuff in Dalston for the camp in Calais. They send me a list of what is needed (trainers, sleeping bags) and what isn’t (suits, women’s clothes). Some vans are going over. They need to use the space well, so I think about what I have that could be of use, and how cold I was in a tent this summer at a festival. I longed for the bath that I knew I would go home to; mostly, I just wanted to go home.Someone else gets in touch about dropping stuff in Dalston for the camp in Calais. They send me a list of what is needed (trainers, sleeping bags) and what isn’t (suits, women’s clothes). Some vans are going over. They need to use the space well, so I think about what I have that could be of use, and how cold I was in a tent this summer at a festival. I longed for the bath that I knew I would go home to; mostly, I just wanted to go home.
Related: Shocking images of drowned Syrian boy show tragic plight of refugeesRelated: Shocking images of drowned Syrian boy show tragic plight of refugees
This is another ridiculous thought – to compare “my festival struggle” to these refugees’ lives. Or the little I can understand of lives suspended. A limbo where crawling into a lorry or over wire designed specifically to shred human flesh is better than where you are and certainly better than where have you have been. To tell you that sorting through some bits and pieces – no, that old sleeping bag with a dodgy zip would be no great help to anyone; yes, that’s a good cooking pot – made me feel better is, of course, to miss the point entirely. Feelings should stay in the right place and never meander over the border. All charity, though, is about advertising one’s own virtue, even if only to oneself. Anyway, I don’t really want to talk about it.This is another ridiculous thought – to compare “my festival struggle” to these refugees’ lives. Or the little I can understand of lives suspended. A limbo where crawling into a lorry or over wire designed specifically to shred human flesh is better than where you are and certainly better than where have you have been. To tell you that sorting through some bits and pieces – no, that old sleeping bag with a dodgy zip would be no great help to anyone; yes, that’s a good cooking pot – made me feel better is, of course, to miss the point entirely. Feelings should stay in the right place and never meander over the border. All charity, though, is about advertising one’s own virtue, even if only to oneself. Anyway, I don’t really want to talk about it.
Except this: trying to offer help also does something else. It is a point of connection and it stops one feeling so powerless. I recommend it.Except this: trying to offer help also does something else. It is a point of connection and it stops one feeling so powerless. I recommend it.
This mass of humanity in transit is the biggest story of our time. It is too big and too awful to dwell on. We draw our own children closer as, not that far away, people push theirs under razor wire. We enter the fifth year of conflict in Syria with half its population displaced, some 10 million people. Some hyper-rationality kicks in that enables the likes of Douglas Carswell, not an unthinking man, to talk about how we can turn into Australia and “stop the boats”. Others insist that the massive camps in Jordan are some sort of way forward.This mass of humanity in transit is the biggest story of our time. It is too big and too awful to dwell on. We draw our own children closer as, not that far away, people push theirs under razor wire. We enter the fifth year of conflict in Syria with half its population displaced, some 10 million people. Some hyper-rationality kicks in that enables the likes of Douglas Carswell, not an unthinking man, to talk about how we can turn into Australia and “stop the boats”. Others insist that the massive camps in Jordan are some sort of way forward.
The discourse has been that of a natural, not a man-made, disaster, one that we must shore up our walls against – this tsunami of pain and detritus. We are “full up”, we say, as reporters explain what the stench of a lorry packed with dead men, women and children is like.The discourse has been that of a natural, not a man-made, disaster, one that we must shore up our walls against – this tsunami of pain and detritus. We are “full up”, we say, as reporters explain what the stench of a lorry packed with dead men, women and children is like.
So when small blasts of air appear, I gulp them up. Crowds at German football matches holding banners saying they welcome refugees. An old man at Budapest’s Keleti station handing out sweets. Volunteers in Calais. Tealights in the constant gloom of explanations of globalisation, war, climate change, migration, EU policy that somehow result in us seeing those fleeing for their lives as the enemy.So when small blasts of air appear, I gulp them up. Crowds at German football matches holding banners saying they welcome refugees. An old man at Budapest’s Keleti station handing out sweets. Volunteers in Calais. Tealights in the constant gloom of explanations of globalisation, war, climate change, migration, EU policy that somehow result in us seeing those fleeing for their lives as the enemy.
The grassroots campaigns all over Europe should shame our government, whose policy is little more than a noxious and combustible mix of inertia and paranoia. We should act if only out of national self-regard. Where is our common decency? As David Miliband pointed out, our country was instrumental in creating the convention that established legal rights for refugees. Does our self-image matter? Well, it might do when others are making us look meanspirited. Gemany is; Greece is.The grassroots campaigns all over Europe should shame our government, whose policy is little more than a noxious and combustible mix of inertia and paranoia. We should act if only out of national self-regard. Where is our common decency? As David Miliband pointed out, our country was instrumental in creating the convention that established legal rights for refugees. Does our self-image matter? Well, it might do when others are making us look meanspirited. Gemany is; Greece is.
Yet we remain – yes, me especially – laughably self-regarding. Seriously, what level of emotional dissociation is happening when the headlines are about the disruption to Eurostar travel? It’s a bloody nightmare, I imagine. Nineteen-year-olds had to sleep in stations for three hours. Passengers had no air-conditioning. Look, I would complain like hell if it happened to me, but we might maintain some sense of proportion, as tiny limp bodies wash up near places we like to go on holiday.Yet we remain – yes, me especially – laughably self-regarding. Seriously, what level of emotional dissociation is happening when the headlines are about the disruption to Eurostar travel? It’s a bloody nightmare, I imagine. Nineteen-year-olds had to sleep in stations for three hours. Passengers had no air-conditioning. Look, I would complain like hell if it happened to me, but we might maintain some sense of proportion, as tiny limp bodies wash up near places we like to go on holiday.
Related: David Cameron: migration crisis will not be solved by UK taking in more refugeesRelated: David Cameron: migration crisis will not be solved by UK taking in more refugees
The tide washes in, the tide washes out. The compassion fatigue said to have set in when we were shown images of famine is now a permanent motion sickness. Just keep staring straight ahead, don’t look too hard, or you may see something other than detritus out at sea, or sleeping rough, or crowded into stations. You might see a child’s face that reminds you of a child you know. You may wonder what they are chanting (“We want peace”) and you may indeed say that someone, somewhere, should do something, but not us.The tide washes in, the tide washes out. The compassion fatigue said to have set in when we were shown images of famine is now a permanent motion sickness. Just keep staring straight ahead, don’t look too hard, or you may see something other than detritus out at sea, or sleeping rough, or crowded into stations. You might see a child’s face that reminds you of a child you know. You may wonder what they are chanting (“We want peace”) and you may indeed say that someone, somewhere, should do something, but not us.
Or you may, as some are doing, make a small gesture. Your offering will not cut through the impossible statistics nor stem the tide of loathing disguised as logic. It will not stop the panic on every border or the ongoing migration of so many displaced people. It will not stop the posturing of the political class. It will simply connect you to what it is to be human. Right now, that feels almost like hope.Or you may, as some are doing, make a small gesture. Your offering will not cut through the impossible statistics nor stem the tide of loathing disguised as logic. It will not stop the panic on every border or the ongoing migration of so many displaced people. It will not stop the posturing of the political class. It will simply connect you to what it is to be human. Right now, that feels almost like hope.