The migration and refugee crises

NOT since World War II have so many persons been displaced and hounded out from the lands of their birth. The figures in 2015 are higher than they were in WWII, according to the Associated Press. The United Nations Refugee Agency reports that, in 2015, there were 63.5 million people displaced from their homes by conflict or persecution. Many are also displaced within their own countries, and 21.3 million are considered refugees.

This crisis of persons being persecuted within their own countries brings disruption to the affected country’s stability; those being uprooted and seeking refuge in other countries, although the situation is not of their making, are causing an impact on host countries. One of the major reasons Britain and Wales voted in June to leave the European Union (EU) was the fear that ‘foreigners’ were moving into their countries and changing their lives in ways that discomfited them. The result was a blow to Britain’s Prime Minister David Patterson, who subsequently resigned after calling for the referendum and urging the British public to stay in the EU.

Voters sent a similar signal to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party on Monday; it came second to the centre-left Socialist Democrats. Merkel’s compassionate refugee and migrant policy is not in accord with sections of the German population, though she vowed to continue it nonetheless.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is also hearing grumblings from Canadians, who feel that authorities are giving preferential treatment to migrants and refugees — such as free housing — while home-grown citizens are encountering difficulties to acquire their own homes.

In the Caribbean, there is the situation of Haiti. This country had, in 2010, suffered a devastating earthquake which brought serious dislocation and hardship to the people. Outside of lending support to their Caribbean Community (CARICOM) counterpart in terms of providing supplies etc, Regional governments did not come with a refugee/migrant policy to support those affected or wanting to leave.

When United States (U.S.) President Barack Obama announced that that country would be accepting Syrian refugees, that announcement was met with a public backlash in the form of resistance from Republican members of Congress and from Governors.

Insularity and xenophobia are shaping approaches to handling the crisis, and this is impacting on political leadership. And though some of this is driven by ignorance or fear of the unknown, it is also being stoked for political expediency. In the U.S. presidential election the refugee and migrant issue is a central theme in the campaign. Republican candidate Donald Trump has campaigned on a commitment to build a wall on the Mexican border to keep out Mexicans, and has said that Mexicans will pay for erection of that wall. He has also called for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., and monitoring those who reside in the U.S. Such rhetoric won him the nod to run for the presidency.

His Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton, has taken a compassionate approach to the issue.

Prior to the United Nations’ (UN) Refugee and Migrant Summit on Monday, the Obama government committed US$149M more to the Syrian refugee crisis, bringing the figure to $4.5B since the crisis started in 2011. At the summit, Obama said: “This crisis is one of the most urgent tests of our time,” According to him, “just as failure to act in the past — for example, by turning away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany — is a stain on our collective conscience, I believe history will judge us harshly if we do not rise to this moment.”

Via the media – social and mainstream – many around the globe are observing the sad consequences befalling persons, and the risks they will take in fleeing from conditions they find unbearable. President David Granger, in his address to the UN on this matter, noted that the situation “if left unattended or unresolved, can escalate into regional and even global crises, which can threaten the existence of larger numbers of persons in wider areas, even beyond their country’s borders.” He has, at the UN, committed Guyana to be part of the global solution, in that “we intend to ensure that the root causes of conflict are eliminated, and that peace will prevail in the world”.

Where crises of such nature continue, citizens of the world are questioning why leaders and governments are allowing conflicts to escalate, knowing the dire consequences. The cases in Syria, Haiti and elsewhere are troubling. There is a crisis on the world’s hand, and it behooves governments to work within with their citizens, and between and among themselves to find less confrontational approaches to resolve conflicts. The first place to start is by respecting the human rights of citizens, even as they encourage same for their fellow men.

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