The power of an image .....

[robert blu]

if there is a war anywhere and a family wants to escape from the war and has relatives in a different country ready to help why cannot they reach their own relatives in a legal way?
robert
PS: hopefully a picture like this helps to open a few minds...in Island 10000 people answer the appeal of Mrs. Bjorgvinsdottir ...

 

[Lauffray]

if there is a war anywhere and a family wants to escape from the war and has relatives in a different country ready to help why cannot they reach their own relatives in a legal way?
robert

Because they're desperate. Do you know how long it took my parents to legally immigrate to Canada, in times of peace ? Years of paperwork. You're running away from strife, you have kids, you're hungry, the place you're in doesn't want you, who has time for that ?

Do I condone this ? Not really, but this is what people do.

 

[robert blu]

In the '30s of last century my father at age of 16 had to leave with his family the country (Germany) where he was living, studying, having friend. Maybe this is what makes me sensible to the situations...
robert

 

[emraphoto]

A very sad story. This boy and his family could have gone to Canada as refugees if the Turkish government had recognised them as such. But unfortunately the Turkish government chooses not to officially recognise Syrians as refugees as defined by UNHCR. To officially designate Syrians as refugees would limit Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian civil war, when in fact the Turkish government has taken a decidedly anti-Assad stance.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/news-video/video-they-didnt-deserve-to-die-aunt-of-drowned-syrian-boys-speaks/article26214073/

Thank you for pointing this out. This remains a very big stumbling block that must be addressed.

I urge folks to not jump to the conclusions that the camps in Turkey are 'safe' as this is not true. Many of the major camps lay right on the frontier and it is not uncommon for them to take fire from within Syria. The camps are also staging grounds for many combatants.

 

[Aristophanes]

if there is a war anywhere and a family wants to escape from the war and has relatives in a different country ready to help why cannot they reach their own relatives in a legal way?
robert
PS: hopefully a picture like this helps to open a few minds...in Island 10000 people answer the appeal of Mrs. Bjorgvinsdottir ...

When law and order completely break down in a nation or nations at war with each other or themselves or similar, there is no "legal way" any more.

None.

There is usually no physically possible way to repatriate the displaced.

Once the internal legal framework of a country breaks down in a conflict environment it breaks down the legal means to relocate in affected neighbours or even more far flung areas (boat people, for example). It breaks down the laws of other countries by default, usually irrevocably.

And for most displaced persons fleeing there is likely no return. Ever. That's a constant of history.

 

[Lauffray]

No it isn't. You see the cute kid on the beach (by the way, you ever seen what a drowned body looks like?) and your heart bleeds but that doesn't make it Canada's problem. You can beat your chest about how it's humanity's responsibility but sooner or later you are going to have to wake up and realize that humanity, as you define it, has absolutely nothing to do with it.

It's called blowback and no one in this thread is acting surprised that I am aware of.

So it's everyone's responsibility when it's time to send in warplanes and tanks and military advisors, but no one's problem when it comes to handling the stream of refugees ? How is this not humanity's collective problem ? Why do far away countries send in aid when earthquakes hit or volcanoes erupt ?

I didn't mean any person here, the people in charge seem overwhelmed by the number of those displaced.

 

[Michael Markey]

Some of these people have passed through a number of perfectly safe countries yet continue to place their families at risk in order to reach what they perceive to be the richest ones.

What I don`t understand is why they don`t seek refuge in the wealthy Gulf States.

Whatever happened to Arab unity ?

 

[majid]

Sure, emotions inspired by powerful images can be used to manipulate. These heart-rending images did the opposite - they stopped the vile crescendo of xenophobic rhetoric in the British press (specially the Europhobic usual suspects), using the word "migrant", variously compared to a swarm, a tide or a plague, to dehumanize and vilify refugees and asylum-seekers.

 

[p.giannakis]

Some of these people have passed through a number of perfectly safe countries yet continue to place their families at risk in order to reach what they perceive to be the richest ones.

What I don`t understand is why they don`t seek refuge in the wealthy Gulf States.

Whatever happened to Arab unity ?

I can answer that. First of all, those people don't wake up one day, pick up the car and decide to go to Europe. They are trafficked there by organized crime - smugglers that put them in a boat and send them across the Mediterranean.
Now regarding why they don't seek asylum in the first safe country. I am not aware about the figures concerning Italy and Turkey but Greece has received 1.5 million immigrants over the last 25 years (total population of Greece is a bit above 12 Million). Greece is over-saturated - if within a week Greece receives 20.000 immigrants, those people will starve to death there. That is why they migrate to other countries, so that they settle and be absorbed on the way to other countries.

 

[majid]

What I don`t understand is why they don`t seek refuge in the wealthy Gulf States.

Saudi Arabia is too busy spending its' $80B annual military budget (third in the world after the US and China) creating a fresh humanitarian crisis in Yemen to bolster the martial credentials of the new king's feckless son. Given how shabbily they have treated Palestinians in the past, the Syrian refugees are perfectly rational in avoiding them like the plague.

 

[Michael Markey]

This is not as yet confirmed but news is breaking that the family in question had been settled in Turkey for three years .

If so I think that we should be circumspect as to motives.

 

[Michael Markey]

Saudi Arabia is too busy spending its' $80B annual military budget (third in the world after the US and China) creating a fresh humanitarian crisis in Yemen to bolster the martial credentials of the new king's feckless son. Given how shabbily they have treated Palestinians in the past, the Syrian refugees are perfectly rational in avoiding them like the plague.

I have no doubt but how does that absolve them of any responsibility .

 

[Antielectrons]

It was not so long ago that Europe's refuges fled overseas to a new country, built entirely of immigrants. That country is the USA.

 

[porktaco]

exactly the image i expected when i clicked

let's hope a great picture of a horrible thing brings about positive change

 

[Antielectrons]

That massive influx sure worked out well for the natives, didn't it?

The Natives were also immigrants.

Immigration is part of human nature.

 

[fireblade]

Good Points indeed !
But as Michael brought up , Arab Unity (?)
I guess not since the few Dominating are wrecking Havoc, killing their fellow Muslim and the rest of the World

Religions in general are the Enemy of Man & God
Now for a Moderator to Delete my Post

As for the Photo posted of the Drowned child.., The Photo did not move me, what moved me was the Story behind it not the visual... Whereas the Photo
of the Vietnamese Girl naked and crying was a much more Potent Photo
It has haunted me since iI first saw it

It's All heart wrenching : war, famine, greed, hate
but in Reality and all thru Time
'Man' is the most Brutal Beast of All... it will always Exist

As for Utopia , its just a state of Mind... Transitiory, ever fleeting
Not Humanely Possible in a World (only in Dreams & Writings)

...........YES.

 

[robert blu]

When law and order completely break down in a nation or nations at war with each other or themselves or similar, there is no "legal way" any more.

None.

Yes, I agree, my was a rhetorical question...

 

[dave lackey]

Bringing up my ancestral native americans and the "damned" Scottish immigrants who married them...wow, we have really strayed from the forum subjects about movies, cameras in the movies, tv and media....😛 Just kidding.

I appreciate the civil discourse so far! Carry on while I work on another line of our family ancestry!:angel: With a fountain pen, of course...

 

[kuuan]

Official Europe has become about money and power only. I hope that this image will make us people change direction, remind us to work and fight for human rights.

 

[dave lackey]

Human rights, Yes!!! Love, yes!! Respect, yes!! We need all of that!😀

But before I go, Keith mentioned the photo by Nick regarding the napalm attack, etc. Can anyone really define that or any single photo that had the most impact on the eventual end of the Vietnam war? I recall numerous other photos as well but being at a young age, Nick's image was the most riveting for me.