One of my resolutions of late has been to improve my knowledge of current affairs.I grew up in a household where my father watched the morning and evening news religiously, and then followed it up by listening to the headlines again on the radio. Frankly there is no excuse or explanation for my lapse in following the news, except maybe for the fact that it is sad. The world is sad and it is depressing and listeningto the fact that there are so many people who refuse to do anything about it makes it more so (believe me there is actually a point to this statement other than gratuitous self-expression).
A few months ago I found myself compelled to post and comment briefly on xenophobia, a particular brand of blind prejudice which fomented an outburst of gruesome violence in South Africa, my current home country. I watched as the international community (and indeed many national entities too) condemned this mistreatment of refugees within South Africa's borders as outrageous and unacceptable. I watched as people all over the world reacted in shock at how South Africa, one of the more 'developed' countries in the underdeveloped no man's land that many (wrongfully) consider Africa to be, referenced legal doctrine and policy justifying its inadequate reaction to the refugee crisis affecting it. I watched as we called for action, not words, to address this problem, this blight on our common human conscience.
To an extentthese reactions were just, and necessary, and encouraging in that they indicated a level of interest in the African continent's future that was non-existent in the past, a level of concern characteristic of increasing maturity at the level of international affairs. However these reactions were not enough and they were also not right because what they indicated at a deeper level was a failure to understand the underlying forces that gave rise to these problems to begin with. These reactions masked the fact that at a primal level many of us are still uncomfortable with helping others. We are fiercely nationalistic in the sense that we think of our countries as our homes and we view those who have been forced to leave theirs as intruders in ours instead of understanding their reality as desperate and choice-less. We fail to understand that our own personal and national progress is impossible whilst others face unimaginable suffering and degradation. And we fail to understand that whilst actions are important what we act on are words and if we insist on using the wrong words then it is impossible for our actions to bear the intended fruits.
Without addressing these failures of human consciousness these same problems will recur with increasing frequency and intensity. They will, and in fact they are.This morning breaking news surfaced from Budapest, where thousands ofpeople (labelled as migrants by the European Union) were barred from using the rail system in an effort to enter other European countries like Germany. These people are mostly Syrians, though a number also hail from Eritrea, Somalia, and other nations whose social fabric has been torn apart by violent instability.
Once again, though this time in a completely different locale, relatively 'developed' countries are faced with an influx of people from other nations. And once again the reaction of those in a position to help these populations of desperate people has been to treatthem as intruders, undesirables, and a nuisance. Labelingthese unwanted foreign nationals within their borders as migrants (rather than refugees), EU officials refuse to acknowledge the reality behind the problem. How an entire group of countries can feign ignorance of civil wars and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and how they can pretend not to understand why this would force any human being to leave the home they once cherished in search of safer surroundings is utterly incomprehensible.
This, for me, is one of the most disturbing parts of the current crisis facing refugees. Not only the fact that so many of usrefuse to do anything about the problems which they face, but that we refuse to acknowledge the existence of a problem at all. So yes, the world is sad, weall think this from time to time when pondering the reality which surrounds us. But it cannot be held as a justifying excuse for ignorance because ignorance canquickly lead to apathy, and the only thing more dangerous than caring too much to be able to hear of suffering is not caring enough toacknowledge it, learn about it, and address it.
