Refugees

Ive spent the week watching the media going totally overboard in a feeding frenzy over the refugee migration to Europe. No aspect has been left without coverage, no spokesman left speechless, no pressure group un pressed no historical aspect missed and no politician persecuted to within an inch of the poor sods life and actually having to do something.. It has been as merciless as the wars from which these poor unfortunates flee. I will not concentrate over much on the fact that the media have driven this problem and in no small way caused a very marked escalation in the  mood and probable emergence of fear and violence as they do in every conflict..

It is a great shame for Europe and its European union is riven with fractures both political, national and ethnic and could well do without the press winding it up. The east of Europe will tell you honestly (the Polish, Czech and Hungarian Politicians already have clearly) that they want no truck with Muslim refugees and they east of Europe knows only too well the problems of religious and ethnic divide. Plus the east of Europe now makes up a third of the population of the EU and has a voice.

Thereby hangs the problem. The European Union has not the mandate or the mechanism to sort this problem. It was never created to be a Super State with a single parliament and thus foreign policy capable of handling this and the other problem of forced or economic migration that will haunt it unless it either becomes a super state or respects the self determination of its member states.

Further, it is not for the Germans to tell the EU how many refugees it should take... It is for the UN to request and the UNHCR to oversee by agreement. We have these organisations for a reason, we are a part of them and we must use them for the purpose they were set up for, or indeed make them do their job as they are responsible to us for doing that job and my goodness they cost us enough in donations.

Above all, it is not for the media to create the agenda and drive the debate, they are un-elected at best and riven with private interest at worse. Rebecca Brooks is a case in point!

One last point; Historically it is totally wrong to compare the end of world war two and its mass deportations, migrations and refugee problem with today. For example over 4 million Germans were evicted from Poland and the Czech Republic alone. It took the allies powers almost a decade to sort that problem and to compare the current problem with that is fatuous at best.

We have to learn from history, by all means, but we have to stop running around like a bunch of headless chickens and use the organisations we created to deal with this exact problem and that may well mean telling the press to go away and leave the professionals to it. If we do not then we are in for a very bad century indeed for this problem will increase and if forecasts of climate change and its effects are accurate then God help us.

I remember some years ago when I worked for UNHCR and we were faced with the eviction of the Bosnian Serbs back to Serbia. It was a very hot summer and a line of tractors and trailers as far as the eye could see headed towards the Serbian border with exhausted thousands was dramatic and heart breaking. However, very few camera crews covered that sorry picture. The Serbs were viewed by the media and the west as the bad guys of the conflict and soon to be bombed and so somehow less worthy of our pity. Oddly I never thought of a family prostrate upon a trailer in incredible heat as being bad but the media managed it. But there you have it. Once again you believe what the media can cram into a tv screen sized picture and if your told something often enough then you jump on board. Modern brain washing at its best.

The problem is, it is usually far from the complete picture and in this case the Serbs mainly unreported got on with, put their fire engines on and sprayed the convoys with water as they arrived at the border. They then took the refugees to reception centers and the Serbian Red Cross and UNHCR fed them..

Perhaps, once again, if we got the United Nations to do its job and took the veto away from China and Russia we may be able to sort the wars these people are fleeing from and then they would not have to flee!