Migrants and refugees

I am at a loss really what to say or think about the current situation whereby thousands upon thousands of refugees and economic migrants pour across Africa and the Middle East in search of safety and a better life in Europe.

Having myself left Zimbabwe in the late 1980's for similar but nothing like as desperate reasons, I have huge sympathy and empathy with them. To feel otherwise would be hypocritical in the extreme quite apart from being uncompassionate. 

Who cannot be moved by the dreadfully sad stories and film footage emanating out from the Mediterranean Sea and borders of Hungary? 

However I do also recognise that Europe is not without its own problems and issues. Adding several millions of people who do not for the main part share its history, religious or cultural traditions will pose difficulties. The far right and left of our political parties will feed off of them - and target them with their bigotry and inhumanity. 

I feel that without the West becoming involved militarily and diplomatically in the political carnage that has erupted in the Middle East the horror and awfulness will continue. Russia building bases will not help unless they share and become a part of an agreed solution. Arab nations must take the lead on confronting the religious discrimination and radicalism as well as house the refugees in safety until they can return to rebuild their shattered nations and communities. 

Perhaps Cameron et al are correct: the borders must close - but so too must our nations combine in a military and humanitarian campaign to replace the current evil with compassionate democracies. 

East vs West

Today I visited Barking.

It is a market day there and the road outside of the railway station was filled with stalls and the cries of stall holders. Nothing strange or different in that. 

However, it didn't take me long to notice the price of goods was a throw back to the seventies: a pair of shoes for £5, a watch, battery and strap for £6 ... it went on like that from stall to stall. At the far end, a lone black man was playing church choral music on his stall selling cd's. Another stall was selling items of clothing from cardboard boxes: £2 each or three for a fiver. You could smell the cheap cotton as buyers eagerly sorted through the boxes looking for something that fitted them or their children. 

The coffee shops had their regulars sitting on the pavements - mainly old but both white and black and in the public house nearest the station, old men sat and stared into their pint glasses, ignoring the man sitting opposite and facing them directly from another table. 

You could smell the poverty. With every colour of skin and faith on the street, they seemed bound by a common poverty as much, I suspect, as a mutual fear of each other. Young and old they bustled about the daily grind of the East End. 

Captain Cook was married in the local church and the Abbey was once the second wealthiest in the land before Henry VIII had it dissolved. Glory past, glory gone: I couldn't wait to return to the palpable yet relative richness of Shepherds Bush market in west London.