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Midnight migrants, a night time journey on the waves. Migrants aboard a dinghy sail off for the Greek island of Kos from the southern Turkish coastal town of Bodrum. Photo by Osman Orsal: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 12:02 AM 14 August 2015
God protect us from generalizations. There are a great many opinions in this
world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never
been in trouble.
-- Anton Chekhov (1860-1904): from At the Mill (1886)
Migrant women carrying children comfort each other upon reaching the
Greek island of Kos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea between
Turkey and Greece.
Greece sent extra riot police to Kos as tensions mounted over a huge
influx of migrants.: photo by Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP, 13 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants comfort each other after they have reached the Greek island of Kos. By @atzortzinis #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants comfort each other after they have reached the Greek island of Kos. By @atzortzinis #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
GREECE - Children stand on a beach on Kos after arriving on an inflatable boat carrying migrants. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
Afghan migrants arriving on the Greek island of Kos after crossing part of the Aegean Sea. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via Photojournalism @photojournalink, 3 June 2015
GREECE - Migrants get out of an inflatable boat after arriving on the Greek island of Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 11 August 2015
GREECE - Policemen disperse migrants with fire extinguishers during registration procedure in Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 11 August 2015
GREECE - Policemen disperse migrants with fire extinguishers during registration procedure in Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 11 August 2015
Syrian migrants check their mobile phones after getting out of an inflatable boat in Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 12 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants get out of an inflatable boat after arriving on the Greek island of Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 11 August 2015
GREECE - Policemen disperse migrants with fire extinguishers during registration procedure in Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 11 August 2015
GREECE - Policemen disperse migrants with fire extinguishers during registration procedure in Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 11 August 2015
Syrian migrants check their mobile phones after getting out of an inflatable boat in Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 12 August 2015
GREECE - Women migrants and children from Syria take a rest as they arrive on a beach in Lesbos. By @azavallis #AFP photo: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 13 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants get out of inflatable boats with their children on the beach of Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants get out of inflatable boats with their children on the beach of Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants get out of inflatable boats with their children on the beach of Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants get out of inflatable boats with their children on the beach of Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
GREECE - Children stand on a beach on Kos after arriving on an inflatable boat carrying migrants. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
GREECE - Children stand on a beach on Kos after arriving on an inflatable boat carrying migrants. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
GREECE - Children stand on a beach on Kos after arriving on an inflatable boat carrying migrants. By @tzortzinis @AFP photo: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
TURKEY - A migrant runs through the water near Bodrum to take a boat to the Greek island of Kos. By @Kilicbil #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 1:59 AM 14 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants arrive on the island of Lesbos after crossing Aegean sea from Turkey to Greece. By @azavallis #AFP: image via Frederique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants arrive on the island of Lesbos after crossing Aegean sea from Turkey to Greece. By @azavallis #AFP: image via Frederique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants arrive on the island of Lesbos after crossing Aegean sea from Turkey to Greece. By @azavallis #AFP: image via Frederique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 August 2015
GREECE - Migrants comfort each other after they have reached the Greek island of Kos. By @atzortzinis #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 13 August 2015
GREECE - A migrant woman from Syria sits on a beach on the Greek island of Kos. By @tzortzinis @AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 10 August 2015
2 comments:
More proof of the meaninglessness of the European Union. Greece struggles to respond with little or no support from its neighbours. The UK's refusal to take any significant number of people in is particularly shameful.
The Chekhov quote is spot on. There can be no serious take on this refugee crisis (which is what it is) if those terrified souls on the boats have no voice.
For all its trumpeting of its own importance, the now proven utterly irrelevant, likely soon to be defunct pseudo-kingdom of the EU, when it sits down at a comfortable Alpine retreat to compose its memoirs for posterity, won't even be able to claim it ever matched up with, say, the Holy Roman Empire -- no, the comparison would be the League of Nations more like. Pure window dressing on history.
That second photo, the red-eyed women on the beach, their faces plainly showing the terrific stress of the fearful journey and the many sleepless nights, is not easy to displace from one's helplessl, appalled conscience.
There's been little to no sympathy shown nor indication of empathy, even simulated, over here, in regard to the plight of the migrants. If anyone stops to ask the question, why is this happening, I suppose the general supposition would have to do with the destabilization created by ISIS.
That of course would leave out the intense bombing in Syria by the Americans and their Saudi partners, not to mention the vast ferment all across the Muslim world, from North Africa through Asia Minor and beyond, in the chaotic aftermath of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The blithe assumption that this business would have no regional ramifications is the sort of strategic miscalculation which makes American engineering of the world the ongoing disaster it is.
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