There they are again. Every time I see them I feel sick to my stomach. I scroll past them as fast as I can, but its unavoidable, every day there are more. They are horrifying, they instill in me a feeling of dread. Of panic.
Photographs of dead migrants. Dead refugees. Dead people. Dead children. Tiny bodies, so like my own little boy who at this second is tucked up safe in his warm bed, that it makes my skin crawl to look at them.
My little boy has never known war. Never known true hunger. Never known what it feels to be cold, terrified, homeless. I hope to god he never does. As I look at these people I cant help think of him, and what I would do myself to save him from that horror.
These people are desperate, running from war and death that we as a nation have imposed upon them. As America and the UK trot hand in hand through the Middle East, ripping it apart through greed. As we force our imperialism around the globe, as we ravage and decimate countries for profit, we scatter these people to… where? Anywhere. Anywhere that’s safe. The desperation is etched into their faces. They will go anywhere. Anywhere they can protect and care for their children.
All our leaders care about is how much money they can make. They let their own people starve and die, they certainly are not going to be concerned about these foreigners. They are directly responsible. This crisis is a direct result of capitalism. Of the perverse obsession with profit. Born of the notion that people are only worth what they can produce, what they can be bought for. Or what can be taken from them.
And what do we do, as we watch them? 73 dead in the back of a lorry. Boats capsizing at sea, children’s bodies washed up on Turkish beaches. What do we do? We tell ourselves they are after our houses, our jobs and our benefits. What sort of logical human being can honestly believe, that people would risk the lives of their families for a measly £30 odd a week – not even enough to live on, if it were safe to stay where they were?
As people in countries like Germany and Iceland open up their homes to these refugees, victims of an evil imposed by our government on a daily basis, as they give aid and shelter to them in their thousands, we have so far allowed into Britain a pathetic 216.**
Less than the number it takes to fill one tube train.
As we profit from their oil, from waging illegal wars on their soil, we are displacing them from their own land and forcing them to seek refuge wherever it may be found. And we offer none.
This is the greatest humanitarian crisis since the second world war, and we as a nation are doing nothing. I am utterly embarrassed and ashamed to be English under this tyrannical government.
These pictures make me sick, and I dont want to see them. But wether I see them or not, they are there. The grim reality remains. And so they must be seen.
So look at those pictures. Look at those dead children, and know that this IS your responsibility. It is mine, it is Britain’s. Look at these pictures and imagine an England blown to pieces, you and your children on a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean, and no help to be found. Look at these pictures and know that something must be done.
This system that ravages the poorest nations, that sends to their death thousands of families as the world watches on – this media machine that has instilled in us for years the fear of immigrants, coming here to steal our lives. This great evil lie that we have been sold, it must be stopped. We cannot afford to sit idly by while these people die at our borders, just because we were lucky enough to be born in the land of the warmongers. They are no different from us, we are no better, they are worth no less.
This entire corrupt and diseased system must be dismantled, brick by brick. We cannot continue to enslave the many for the good of the few. We cannot allow this terrorism to continue in our name.
Look at those pictures, and know that it can be done. There is a better way, a way which can afford each and every human being their human rights, safety and security. We cuddle our children close and think how awful it looks, while they can scarcely bury theirs.
Look at those pictures, and have a fucking heart.
**accurate at time of writing
redraskova.wordpress.com 