This scared, tired-looking man asks you for help. What do you do?
The essential question of the refugee crisis is a personal one. How kind would you be toward a stranger?
A dark worry line bisects his forehead. It’s 2005, and he has just survived a journey from Libya to Lampedusa, Italy. Over the next 11 years the same voyage would kill thousands, their bodies and vessels littering the Mediterranean floor, because no safe evacuation from war and poverty is available to them. Why? Immigration policy and accident of birth. They were born in the wrong country. Now the man hunches with fatigue and shivers with cold and gazes vacantly at the ground near the quay. He’s waiting for Italian officials to shuttle them to a processing facility.
That’s when an Italian photographer named Simone Perolari took the man’s photo. In a room full of desperate people, this one’s thousand-yard stare seemed to tell the story that would define the next decade: a mass migration caused by economic inequality, climate change and conflict.
In the 21st century we’ve failed to live up to the unique gifts of our species. Despite extraordinary faculty for reason and cooperation, we’ve failed to keep each other safe. And even where developed nations have little or no control (though they carry plenty of blame) in the underlying problems, our mote-like immigration systems place lives at risk. We could save thousands of lives just by letting asylum seekers onto airplanes without visas, but since the start of the crisis this small policy change has scarcely been up for discussion.
Hard-liners have their own response: They can get in line. They can apply for visas from home (risking danger while awaiting possible denial) or show up at a refugee camp where millions before them await resettlement (hardly anyone is resettled). People like the man in the picture should figure something else out. They’re not welcome.
The United States recently patted itself on the back for accepting its 10,000th Syrian refugee. U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said she was “pleased.” What kind of dystopia is this? Faced with 4.9 million Syrian refugees, the wealthiest nation in the history of the world is “pleased” with itself for helping 0.2 percent of them. It would be easy to blame Republicans, but plenty of Democrats, including my own hometown representative, a man I used to admire, supported a Republican bill to restrict admissions of Syrian refugees.
Australia’s treatment of refugees is nothing short of inhuman. Brussels has also succumbed to anti-immigrant populism and hired buffer nations to protect Fortress Europe, despite the questionable legality of such agreements.
Occasionally an image snaps us briefly to our senses. First it was Alan Kurdi, who drowned one year ago Friday. Most recently it was Omran Daqneesh, who survived an airstrike but was too shell shocked to cry in an ambulance in Aleppo. The pictures are the equivalent of a man appearing on your doorstep, shivering and scared, seeking food and warmth. To refuse him would be unthinkable to many people, including some of the same people who oppose increasing resettlement of Syrian refugees to their own wealthy countries. At its core, this is an ethical problem related to proximity: People are more altruistic toward those around them than they are toward faraway strangers.
But we’re not animals, driven by blind evolutionary urges to protect our own gene pool at the expense of non-kin competitors. We can choose to recognize the humanity of all people if we want. Many of us do. Plenty of people in Europe still believe in “Welcome Refugees.” But the anti-refugee crowd is louder right now, bolstering nationalist leaders in Hungary, Austria, France, the U.K., the U.S., Australia and elsewhere.
It’s time to push back.
My colleague Stefano and I at Latterly have decided to spread another image—including the African man above—in the hope of snapping more people to their senses. We’ve partnered with a Turkish fashion designer in London named Deniz Erdogan, and she’s created a line of apparel for us called “un/WELCOME” after the title of Perolari’s photography series.
Fifty percent of whatever profit we earn from sales on this line will be donated to the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, to support their refugee operations around the world. We’ll use the other half to increase our coverage of refugee issues. If you’re enjoying our articles on Australia’s offshore refugee detention centers or our many other features on refugees and solutions to the crisis, then this is one way to perpetuate that work.
There’s one problem with the premise of my article: Refugees don’t just show up on your doorstep. We’re many layers removed from the consequences of the decisions of our nations’ policymakers. For most of us, it’s difficult to see a way to actually do something to help refugees. But in fact, we have more power than we realize. We have money to give to the causes that matter to us, we have a vote to kick out leaders who work for special interests instead of the common good and we have a personal sphere of influence to let others know what we believe.
Whatever you do, do something. Don’t leave them in the cold.
Click the color and design you like best, then choose your size and style:
Note: If you become a member for $5 per month, you’ll get a coupon for $5 off apparel. This is the best way to support our work.
