Even The Sun, the most right-wing, reactionary newspaper of them all, now says that Britain simply must act to save lives. “Mr Cameron, summer is over…now deal with the the biggest crisis facing Europe since WW2”, says it’s front page headline, above that photograph of a Turkish policeman carrying the dead body of three year old Aylan Kurdi from a Turkish beach, a photograph that surely changes everything.
Many of the national newspapers lead with this desperately upsetting photograph except the Independent which has, arguably, an even more upsetting picture of a young child lying face down on a beach and the Daily Star which leads on a “story” about Channel 5’s Big Brother.
I am going to make a point here which, I promise, is not a party political jibe. In fact, I would very much welcome a bipartisan approach in our country whereby the main political parties get together quickly and work out a common approach between them, but the prime minister’s reaction yesterday was woeful. Either he did not get it, or he was badly advised, perhaps it was both, but I feel strongly that he misread the national mood when he said, “I don’t think there is an answer that can be achieved simply by taking more and more refugees.” I repeat what I said yesterday that no one is suggesting that taking more refugees is an answer to anything, other than assisting some of the most desperate people on earth, some 5000 of whom have drowned in the Med in the last two years. Frankly, Cameron is answering a question that no one asked. The reasons for the mass movement of people are complex and it can be argued with some justification that we, the west, have been complicit in a number of ways and solving them – and whether it is actually possible to solve them – are something else altogether.
Aylan Kurdi is a symbol of our age, a tragic, innocent victim of a world gone mad. I promise you that you will remember that image for the rest of your life and I hope it will represent a tipping point in our attitude to the whole issue of the displacement of people for whatever reason.
Cameron needs to be brave here. Immigration is a touchy subject in this country and no political party has addressed the subject in a calm, considered manner. Not the Tories, not Labour; no one. And the dog whistle politics of the likes of the BNP and Ukip has raised the ante, made people even more fearful and fear is the driving force behind the whole debate. The language used like a “swarm” of people coming to our country. Cameron needs to do better than Nigel Farage, who today qualifies any limited sympathy he has for the desperate refugees by saying our first priority must be to ensure they are not members of ISIS. Now, does little Aylan look like a member of ISIS to you? He died in the killing seas of Europe. I loathe Ukip with a passion and now you know why.
Here’s a suggestion to start the ball rolling. What if Cameron offers to take a substantial number of unaccompanied children into our care? No one is saying we should take every single refugee from every single country, but how about Britain, with its proud humanitarian record, offers to help those who can least care for themselves? The ultimate, innocent, most vulnerable victims of a tragedy that was not of their making.
Downing Street’s response so far today is that we are sending lots of money and we are. And it’s very welcome money, too. But is it enough to simply write a cheque and say, “Right, now you get on with it. We’ve done our bit.”? Money itself does not equal compassion, never forget that. That is compassion Thatcher style. Money solves everything.
Finally, the future. How do we address the growth of islamic state and unstable countries all over the world, especially in the Middle East and parts of Africa? I have ideas about that too and it will involve significant investment in the infrastructures of the countries concerned. Much of it will be around giving people hope, giving people safety, giving people jobs, giving people less reason for moving across the world, whether it is for economic reasons or just to stay alive. All of this will take time, decades, maybe a century, perhaps the genie is so far out of the bottle we will never get it back in again, but this should not detract from the issue at hand.
We need men and women of stature, of courage, possessed of leadership and strength. Cameron has the opportunity to show he is more than another smiling politician who looks good on television. Below the super-smooth salesman he is dressed up to be, lies a real human being, a man who cared for and then tragically lost a badly disabled son. For all his expensive education and his great wealth, Cameron will genuinely feel the pain of loss that we all feel for a little boy who drowned at sea. I do not believe he is a bad person, per se.
Cameron, by performing a necessary U-turn, can set an example to the world today. He can help restore some faith in politicians, he can look around the country he runs and see people saddened, often beyond words, at the death of a little boy. 5000 people have died before little Aylan but if any good can come from his passing – and that requires an enormous leap of faith – then maybe, just maybe we won’t have too many more stories like this. Aylan’s five year old brother and his mother drowned too, trying to get from Turkey to Greece. We have to do better than this and it’s time for the politicians to rise to the occasion. I believe the public is ahead of the game.
FOOTNOTE: I have used a heavily pixelated version of the photos on the internet to accompany this blog piece. I was very upset by the original photographs and I cannot get them out of my mind right now.
