Yesterday I saw a picture of a drowned 3 year old child in a red tee-shirt and blue shorts on a beach in Turkey.
It made me cry. I have been crying regularly since, just thinking about it.
I have travelled quite a bit during my time on this planet. I have seen a lot of suffering and injustice. It takes a lot to make me cry.
This picture did it at a whim.
To see the child washed up on the beach in a body position so familiar to me (my 4 year old daughter lies exactly like this as she drifts off to sleep) was heart breaking. As are the thoughts of his mum and dad dressing him in his colourful clothes earlier that day to make him feel positive and hopeful (disguising what was probably a terrifying situation for the family). And for it all to end in such tragedy. It truly makes me feel despair.
It does not help that my four year old daughter just started school this week. I am very much in that terrible tug of war of wanting to protect her and wanting to let her grow up. Her beautiful outlook and incredible excitement at going to school tears me in half. In that little boys broken body I imagine how I would feel as his Dad.
It also does not help that as I have got older I have come to be softened by the presence of children. I love their ebullience, innocence, joy at the simplest of things, their endless curiosity, their ability to live in the moment. They truly make you feel more alive just by being who they are.
That has all ended for that poor little soul on Bodrum beach. Aylan Kurdi was the boys name. His 5 year old brother Galip and his mother Rihan also drowned.
His father Abdullah Kurdi survived and my heart goes out to him wherever he is. I just cannot fathom his inconsolable grief. I pray that he is comforted and supported by whomever is around him.
It has prompted me to write this note. I do not know any other way to respond to the tragedy.
Let me start by saying that I think Europe is regressing.
Over the last couple of years during the financial crisis we have seen the worst of Europe. Despite two horrific wars in the last century we seem to have learned nothing. Extreme nationalism is dangerous. European financial policy during the financial crisis has caused terrible hardship to its citizens and has fuelled extreme nationalism to dangerous levels. The obvious solution to the financial crisis was for all of Europe to share the burden of debt write down (by a devaluation of the currency). Instead the austerity route was taken (to protect the wealthier nations) and the citizen was made to pay the debt (which was never their debt in the first place). Ireland is the poster boy case.
One side consequence of all this was a fuelling of nationalistic thinking. The view that we must look after our own before we look after anyone else has risen sharply amongst populations across Europe.
Meanwhile Syria has been torn apart. The initial civil war started as an effort to over throw the Assad regime - a regime that deserved to be overthrown. Procrastination on the part of the international community together with Russian backing for the Assad regime allowed ISIS to garner its resources and become the main Assad opponent. Now the West feels it cannot support either side. As a consequence a full blown war is unfolding in Syria and a mass exodus of its citizens has begun.
Syria has a population of about 23 million. It is estimated that almost 8 million people have been internally displaced in Syria and some 4-5 million of them (well over 50% of them children) have fled the country and are now refugees.
The bulk of the refugees are in the neighbouring countries of Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Iraq. All countries with their own challenges and considerably less resources than Europe.
The European response to the tragedy has been nothing short of pathetic.
Make no mistake. This is an enormous humanitarian disaster - probably the greatest in our life-time. It is going to take enormous effort to resolve it but it can be done. Europe has a population of almost 750 million people. 4-5 million people represents less than 1% of the entire European population. A 1% change in your population in a crisis is manageable by any standards.
So what makes me despair? Despite the absolute horror of the images of little 3 year old Aylan lying dead on the beach all over the social media channels, you only have to scroll through some of the comment feeds to understand that lots of people, (and I mean lots, not just a rogue minority) believe the right response to the disaster is to keep the refugees out of our countries. Why? Because we have enough problems of our own to resolve. Problems like homelessness, unemployment and so.
The trolling, the contempt for people suffering, the ignorance and conceited view that these poor people are sponging western society is chilling to the core. That even the picture of a dead child washed up on a beach is not enough to bring out the compassionate, caring side of our humanity.
This is not an either/or argument. Of course we have to help the most vulnerable in our communities. Our governments right across Europe have forced this poverty on our shoulders and they are the ones to blame for these injustices. However, the people fleeing the Syrian civil war are fleeing for their lives. In many occasions they have had to gather their families and a few meagre possessions together and leave their homes to try to escape the ravages of the war raging unhindered in their country. These are citizens like you and I, with families, jobs, houses and dreams and suddenly find themselves fleeing their homeland.
Europe has an obligation to help the people of Syria in their time of need.
That is not the view shared by a significant percentage of Europeans. People have taken the view that looking after their ‘own’ is more important. What they all seem to forget is that a simple accident of where you were born decides your nationality. Very few people have to work to truly earn their nationality (except, ironically, those who have to leave their country as refugees or migrants). We all come into this world as human and leave it the same way. Nobody owns anyone, any nationality or any place. Nationality ownership is an artificial construct designed to protect the powerful and alienate the weak.
Europe went through two world wars last century and has constructed political machinery to avoid that ever happening again. At the heart of the European ideal is that sense of equality of all people - the belief that everyone has basic human rights. Europe is supposed to be a shining light of equality and freedom to the world.
In my opinion I believe Europe is losing its soul.
In the vain attempt to just protect what we have and ignore the plight of others we are behaving no differently to a more primitive version of ourselves that found themselves forming warring tribes and clans to just survive.
In the absence of any higher goal other than to look out for ourselves in a selfish short term way, we are doomed to societies of reckless consumption that ultimately will self destruct. And to be honest that would be no bad thing. A fresh start might just be what is required.
We live on a planet that we have plundered for resources. We have wiped out species of animal and plant on the basis that we believe humans can do what they like. Our financial models are built on infinite growth models that are not sustainable. We have an energy crisis, an ageing population crisis and a climate crisis, the latter of which may bring the wake up call that humanity needs. We genuinely are on the brink so what are we trying to hold onto?
The correct response to this humanitarian disaster begins with compassion. Help as many people as we possibly can. Even if it hurts. That is what will help solve and dispel this nightmare. Our brothers and sisters in Syria will benefit from this response, so will Europe and so will humanity.
In my opinion how we respond collectively to this crisis will define Europe and by extension us as a species. I for one want to be part of a humanity that responds compassionately (even if it hurts) to a crisis like this. Its the world I want for my children.
We are a long way from living in that world it seems.
Aylan and his family are a chilling reminder of that.
So here is what I propose. There are between 4 and 5 million people currently feeling Syria. That is less than 1% of the population of Europe. Each country takes 1% of their population as refugees. That would mean Ireland opens its doors to 45,000 refugees.
Lets put it into context. That is half of a Croke park all Ireland final attendance.
Lets take these 45,000 people and distribute them across our island (in the same way that we hosted people for the Special Olympics). Lets open our schools, our medical and social services and our communities to the families. Lets have extra seats at our dinner tables. Lets get our voluntary organisations to involve them in their activities. In short, lets welcome them with open arms and prove that even if our political structures have failed us, our communities can prevail.
This would be difficult financially but I am sure we could apply to Europe for help. If they so wished they could write the debt off. How ironic would that be?
In the same way that the obvious solution to the financial crisis was a collective sharing of the burden so too is it the obvious solution in this crisis.
Were Europe to do this it would stand a chance of saving itself. It would send out a message to the world that there is hope for humanity. It would also send a message to the aggressors in the war, the perpetrators of evil and oppression, the extremists wanting to bring us back to the dark ages that western society built around principles of equality and compassion works. It would lay bare the ignorance of their ideology and not a bullet would be fired or a bomb dropped.
Compassion should be the guiding principle for how we build our future. I really don't care how much wealth we create, how many billionaires there are in the world, how much growth there is in our economy if we are not acting compassionately. I do care that people who are disadvantaged, people who are frail or people who are in crisis are cared for. We all feel compassion. Let it be our guide.
Many years ago a famous picture showing a naked child running from a Napalm explosion effectively started the movement that stopped the Vietnam war.
Aylan Kurdi's picture on Bodrum beach is our picture.
