Few
weeks ago, Aylan Kurdi became the face of the unfolding human suffering.
It
took a horror story about a
truck full of corpses in Austria, and a poignant
photo of a drowned child-
Aylan Kurdi, to raise the pity of the world.
Who
could not have been moved by the picture of this little boy whose father risked
his life and the lives of his family, in search of a better life somewhere in
Europe? The Kurdis were not sure how, but they needed to leave Bodrum, Turkey,
and get to Kos, Greece, with its promise of a life free of war.
Unfortunately,
that was not to be. Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body washed up onto the shore of one
of Turkey’s fashionable beaches as a grim reminder of how unjust and ephemeral
life truly is.
For
the past months, the refugee crisis has been building in Europe and European
Union leaders have seemed divided and at a loss as to how to deal with it. Not
since World War II has the world seen such a movement of people in search of
safety. The International Organization for Migration has been consistently
calling for those fleeing war-zones, dictatorship and devastation to be treated
with dignity and within the bounds of international law. Yet, there is very
little dignity when men, women and children risk their lives to cross the
Mediterranean in search of a home and die in rickety boats operated by ruthless
smugglers. Images of men and women being numbered as they reach Lampedusa,
Italy, show the stark reality of life as a modern-day refugee or asylum-seeker;
the loss of a name and identity, only the number, marking one out as someone
‘processed’ and ‘captured’ by a system which seems to be buckling under
political, social and financial pressure.
