You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet?

Humans are a strange species. We applaude ourselves for only wanting what is best for ourselves and our families but, as a species, we have an ingrained xenophobia. This might well be a hangover from earlier times, when the possibility of someone taking over of our limited resources and/or importing disease were obvious dangers. Journalist Gaby Hinsliff has provided informed comment on the recent drowning of 27 'immigrants' as they attempted cross from France to England. They were provided, by smugglers, with inflatables that were little better than children's seaside playthings (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/25/channel-crossing-must-be-spur-for-change). Such crossings (even in sea-worthy craft) are exceptionally dangerous, as the English channel/La Manche is the busiest shipping lane in the world. Hinsliff points out that preventing crossings is going to be next to impossible, without providing safer alternatives (such as processing asylum applications on land). A high proportion of the people currently labelled by government and the media as 'economic migrants', are actually fleeing persecution in 'war' zones. Many hail from places like Afganistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Sudan and Syria, where regimes and war are endangering people's lives. They genuinely are asylum seekers. It is unrealistic to expect them to seek asylum, by visiting the British embassy in their country of origin with their family to get visas, before departing on a comfortable airflight to 'freedom'. Remember the Second World War? People escaping the Nazi regime also could rarely use 'official' routes. Its not, however, just the flow of migrants across the channel that should be concerning Europeans. Immigration is clearly being used as a form of destabilising attack on the Belarus-Polish border. One can predict with some certainty, however, that migration will dramatically escalate as global heating climbs. The resulting 'climate crisis' is already causing some areas of the globe to become unliveable. People will have to move. Others will resent that!