Everyone is talking about it. Normally, I don’t get involved with these types of issues, but in light of recent events, I am making an exception.
Similar to some of our generation, I remained generally unaware of the Syrian refugee crisis until the last couple of months. I had heard about it on the news, but it felt far away and generally unrelatable. When I began traveling after arriving in England, I started making a lot of passes through Calais, a ferry port in France that is the bridge from Europe to the UK. I had never been on a boat of any type before, especially not a ferry that carried hundreds of people across in their cars and buses multiple times a day.
The port looks as you would expect any ferry port to look, except surrounding the entire port are tall fences with thick barbed wire looping around the perimeter. And on the other side of that wire, there are people. Families, even. With small children, just trying to survive. This area is known as the New Jungle.
There are approximately 3,000 people on the other side of those fences. Tent after tent my bus drove by until we waited in line to go through immigration back to the UK. All of these refugees were, and most likely still are, waiting for a chance to cross into the UK to start a new life. Around 7:30 p.m., our tour guide told us that if we waited there long enough (usually 8:00 p.m.), we may start seeing refugees attempting to climb the fences in hopes of making it onto the ferry and over to the UK.
This is not uncommon, and there are 13 recorded deaths of refugees attempting to make this journey. In October, seven refugees were pulled out of the English Channel after they had tried to swim to catch a boat. When they were rescued, four were hospitalized for hypothermia. We, fortunately, did not see any attempts, and I am glad. I think it would have broken my heart.
And now, I watch and I wait. Despite speculation, none of the Paris attackers have been identified as Syrian nationals. Yet, I see governors of the United States say that they do not want to accept Syrian refugees. And I see France keep their promise to accept 30,000 immigrants over the next two years, even after the tragedy that struck their capital.
Just last week, the world mourned the deaths of over 100 civilians in Paris and 115,000 people worldwide due to catastrophic events. We grieved along with families who lost and made tributes all over the world for Paris from Berlin to South Korea to Sydney to New York, remembering how precious human life is.
Now, here we are a week later, as if we have almost forgotten what just happened Friday, November 13. I know that there is fear. I, myself am afraid. And I am not going to take a position about whether these governors’ stances are merited or not. But what I will ask is this: where is the love that we showed a week ago? Where is the strong sense of community and humanity that we showed for Paris in tragic times? These refugees are still people, and that is all I ask you to remember.
