How is it that some people are viewed as lesser because of where they were born? How is it that some people think they have the right to dictate who is and who isn't deserving of respect and civility? I can't imagine the fear and desperation that must lead to trying to cross miles of water on an overcrowded dingy. I can't imagine the state of terror a county's people must be in when miles of derelict train track are seen as sanctuary.
We are all human. Regardless of where and under what nationality we were born. Money shouldn't matter. Status shouldn't matter. Power, citizenship, race, gender, sexuality, religion shouldn't matter. We share this planet as equals. And it shouldn't take a photo of a drowned little boy to remind us of that. There shouldn't be articles demonizing migrants, or saying that the little boy drowning was sad, but "not our fault" (thank the Daily Mail). Opening borders to people shouldn't be a political statement. Our humanity towards each other should be constant and unyielding. Being born on a specific side of the Mediterranean does not make you more deserving of a better life. Being born to a "civil" society makes you nothing more than lucky. People who advocate for the exclusion of migrants and refugees and asylum seekers are only able to do so because they happened to plop out in a country without civil war, political upheaval, or occupying terrorist groups. I cannot imagine having to leave behind everything I know and everyone I care about. I can't imagine having to raise £1,200 for a place under the deck of a boat and be starved and suffocated for hours on end. I can't imagine having to take my child in my arms and take off in the night, not knowing if we would make the journey. I can't imagine being torn from the country I was born in and thrown into a world where I was thought of as little more than a leech and regarded as a number in a headline. I can't imagine the feeling of rejection and humiliation, the burning injustice of it all. I can't imagine sleeping on the deck of a boat or on a railway or in a fenced off camp and genuinely not know if it was going to get better. The passport we have should not determine our worth as a human being. Our spirit should. Our kindness, our generosity, our empathy, our compassion, our humanity. Nobody on this earth should have to risk death for a chance to live.
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Annie LilygreenA collection of ramblings about things that inspire me. Archives
September 2015
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