It was
as if our heartsrings pulled in most gruesome ways to see the image of the
tiny, lifeless body of a drowned Syrian toddler refugee washed up ashore.
This humanity crisis did not stop here. Our heart ached to watch on screen as
thousands of refugees have been soaked in open torrential rain across the
border, hugry and cold with extreme fatigue. It was the children that captured
us the most. Their eyes innocent, their faces tired, confused and scared, clutching
at the arms of their parent. Crying and drenched in rain, they tugged along
their mothers or fathers who continued
to stride ever forward. They kept on marching
only to find their fellow refugees piled
into European train stations and prevented to go further. A video published on
Twitter shows how journalists were filming the scene as police officers were
chasing refugees and trying to contain them.
The plight of these refugees keep flooding our Twitter and
Facebook feeds. We have the update on daily basis from our news channel day and
night. And these images will keep on coming. This is an exodus! People torn by
civil wars to find a safe haven for their families despite the uncertainty of
their fate in the new land. We watch in horror and despair. Our heads bow down
in shame to witness their suffering without being able to lend our hands.
The UN
Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has been overwhelmed with the biggest refugee influx in
decades. It said the world is facing the biggest refugee crisis since World
Ward II, as a staggering 60 million people displaced from their homes, four
million from Syria alone. This
crisis is a worldwide problem since refugees are fleeing countries from Afghanistan
to Nigeria to Myanmar, to reach countries wealthy and poor alike they find safe
from US and Europe to Turkey and Lebanon. On June 2015, UNHCR reported that the
top 5 nationallities arriving by sea in Europe comprises of Syria (34%),
Afghanistan (12%), Eritrea (12%),
Somalia (5%) and Nigeria (5%).
Ironically,
the world has been constantly failed to
tackle this increasing humanity crisis. Our world are mired in a set of myopic,
stingy and cruel politics that give birth to malicious policies towards
refugees. World leaders
have been busy debating whether it's more proper to label them as migrants or
refugees, playing human ping pong policies, reluctant to accept moral responsibilty
to help these displaced people, around half of whom are children.
Certainly
in the midst of prolonged global economic recession, insecurity gives rise to anti
imigration sentiment. People feel economocially insecure as in many do in Western
countries now that might bring a sense of zero-sum competition. More mouth to
feed means a slice reduction from their ratio. Not to mention that people tend
to get suspicious with others who have different color, language, culture and
creed. They find their customs and values alien that might threaten theirs. It’s
easy to love your neighbor but in practise it’s hard to love strangers. There
is thus enormous political demand within these countries for keeping out
migrants and refugees for the sake of the argument that they neither
culturally nor financially are capable to take refugees. Fear is the
sole reason to treat these refugees inhumanely. Fear drives hostile policies
towards the unknown.
However,
despite this bleak reality, we are heartened to see individuals build a
solidarity movement, offering shelters for refugees, providing food, clothes,
and temporary health aid. Regardless of their government’s stance, they
volunteer to help people in dire needs because humanity does not know color,
race, language or creed. Love and compassion is the only universal language
they communicate with these unfortunate refugees. No-one
with even an ordinary measure of compassion can fail to be moved by the plight
of these poor Syrians. If you were in their position you’d try anything to get
out too.
The
sporadic acts of these myriad of volunteers offer a beacon of hope for the
refugees. Their kindness generate warmth and chance for the world to live,
setting an example for others to follow suit. This small movement has grown
bigger and together they could put pressures on government to change their
hostile policies.
In the
end, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European
Commission, in a plea for European generosity towards the 500,000 who had
entered the EU this year, said: “Europe is the baker in Kos who gives
away his bread to hungry and weary souls. Europe is the students in Munich and
in Passau who bring clothes for the new arrivals at the train station. Europe
is the policeman in Austria who welcomes exhausted refugees upon crossing the
border. This is the Europe I want to live in.”.
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