Migrant near the railway crossing between Hungary and Serbia: photo by Sandor Ujvari/European Pressphoto Agency, 26 August 2015
Through the fields
Along the tracks
Into the makeshift encampments
Always looking back
Anxiously
Always moving onward
Fearfully
Always knowing what they're fleeing from
Never where they're going
A migrant has a destination
A purpose
An end toward which
A refugee
Is merely on the run
A migrant family walk between the rails near Asotthalom, at the Hungarian-Serbian border. By Csaba Segesvari #AFP: image via Christopher Delattre @chrisdelattre7, 26 August 2015
A migrant from Syria carries her child as she walks through a field in Serbia: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 26 August 2015
Up to 3,000 refugees, migrants expected to cross into Macedonia every day: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 26 August 2015
Migrants at a railway crossing on the Hungary-Serbia border. Human rights groups warn that if Hungary completes its border fence, tens of thousands of people may be trapped in squalid conditions in Serbia and Macedonia: photo by Sandor Ujvari/European Pressphoto Agency, 26 August 2015
Refugees rest in a park beside the main railway station after arriving in Belgrade: photo by EPA, 26 August 2015
A mother and child wait near a refugee center in Presevo, Serbia, close to the Macedonian border. More than 9,000 people, mostly Syrian refugees, have entered Serbia in the past three days: photo by Armend Nimani/Agence France-Presse, 26 August 2015
#Hungary volunteers offer aid 2 asylum seekers; gov't builds fence 2 keep them out #refugees: image via Lydia Gall @LydsG, 26 August 2015
A look at migrants and refugees in Greece, Serbia and Hungary: image via NYT Photo @nytimesphoto, 25 August 2015
Syrian refugees near Idomeni, Greece, on their way to the Macedonian border. The United Nations’ refugee agency expects 3,000 people to make the crossing daily: photo by Santi Palacios/Associated Press, 26 August 2015
Why your face is now part of your workout: image via The New York Times @nytimes, 26 August 2015
"Fear the Walking Dead" premiere draws record viewers: image via The New York Times @nytimes, 24 August 2015
How #Trump plans to turn gawkers into hardcore supporters: image via Reuters Politics @ReutersPolitics, 25 August 2015
Trump is offering himself as a problem-solver, not as a man of principle -- and it's working:: image via Reuters Opinion @ReutersOpinion, 25 August 2015
#migrantcrisis - Migrants attempt to enter into Macedonia at Greek border near Gevgelija. By @RAtanasovski #AFP: image via Christopher Delattre @chrisdelattre7, 26 August 2015
Fearfully
Migrants near the railway crossing between Hungary and Serbia: photo by Sandor Ujvari/European Pressphoto Agency, 26 August 2015
This is the single most life rocking picture of the entire refugee
situation I have seen so far. #refugeesGr #Heidenau: image via sesikar
@sesikar, 22 August 2015
Violent riots by Nazis against refugees in German town #Heidenau for the second night in a row. Photo @SPIEGELONLINE: image via Laura Schneider @alauraschneider, 23 August 2015
#Germany vows to fight xenophobia aftr attacks by neoNazis on refugee home @Reuters #Heidenau: image via Yannis Koutsomitis @YanniKouts, 23 August 2015
Violent riots by Nazis against refugees in German town #Heidenau for the second night in a row. Photo @SPIEGELONLINE: image via Laura Schneider @alauraschneider, 23 August 2015
Violent riots by Nazis against refugees in German town #Heidenau for the second night in a row. Photo @SPIEGELONLINE: image via Laura Schneider @alauraschneider, 23 August 2015
Violent riots by Nazis against refugees in German town #Heidenau for the second night in a row. Photo @SPIEGELONLINE: image via Laura Schneider @alauraschneider, 23 August 2015
#Germany: #Heidenau (Saxony) locals & Neo-Nazis trying to stop arriving refugees from reaching their accommodation: image via syndicalist @syndicalisms, 21 August 2015
Merkel, jeered on visit to #refugees, says no to xenophobia #migrantcrisis #Germany @Refugees: image via AlertNet @AlertNet, 26 August 2015
Hungarian soldiers install a wire fence near their country’s border with Serbia. Serbia has been issuing documents to large numbers of refugees, most of whom plan to enter Hungary as a gateway to Europe’s wealthier countries: photo by Tamas Soki/European Pressphoto Agency, 26 August 2015
A
Hungarian border officer patrols the razor wire fence under
construction along the 109-mile frontier with Serbia, near the Serbian
town of Horgos: photo by Darko Vojinovic / Associated Press, 25 August 2015
Syrian migrants cross under a fence into Hungary at the border with Serbia, near Roszke, on Wednesday. Hungary’s government has started to construct a 175-km-long (110-mile-long) fence on its border with Serbia in order to halt a massive flow of migrants who enter the EU via Hungary and head to western Europe: photo by Laszlo Balogh/Reuters, 26 August 2015
Syrian migrants cross under a fence into Hungary at the border with Serbia, near Roszke, on Wednesday. Hungary’s government has started to construct a 175-km-long (110-mile-long) fence on its border with Serbia in order to halt a massive flow of migrants who enter the EU via Hungary and head to western Europe: photo by Laszlo Balogh/Reuters, 26 August 2015
Kurdish women and children from Syria at a Turkish military checkpoint near Kobani, a Syrian town badly damaged by the war last year: photo by Bryan Denton for The New York Times, 1 July 2015
Kurdish women and children from Syria at a Turkish military checkpoint near Kobani, a Syrian town badly damaged by the war last year: photo by Bryan Denton for The New York Times, 1 July 2015
Hassan Elwahabi arrived to Hungary w/ his disabled son. He`s looking for his sons in #Sweden. Pls RT. #migrantcrisis: image via Marietta Le, @lemarietta, 26 August 2015
#migrantcrisis - - A child rests on the knees of a woman in a refugee center in Presevo, #serbia. By Armend Nimani #AFP: image via Christopher Delattre @chrisdelattre7, 26 August 2015
Great poem Tom, heartbreaking images
ReplyDeleteVery powerful - although suddenly seeing Trump on all of this was frightening. I put this up on Facebook, also responding to the new Trail of Tears:
ReplyDeleteThe world is afraid and on the move.
Thousands fleeing war and poverty tramp across Europe, drift across the Mediterranean, push against borders, thousands of kids work their way to the US to flee the violence, across the Gulf of Bengal to escape massacres, crossing rivers to find themselves adrift, thirsty, famished, waiting for help.
And the monuments follow after them, all of Palmyra, statues and temples, pick themselves up and rumble toward France and Germany, fleeing the nightmare of humans with sledgehammers, the Pyramids and the Parthenon are watching, wary, ready to go.
All the words of all the languages flow into a tub floating across the Caribbean, music wanders off into space, dreams escape through blowholes in the sky, the past is smashed into dust, the Trail of Tears gets repeated day after day, the only thing getting bigger is the desperation, and the bloated stomachs of children.
And those in California and other safe places feel even safer - until the waters rise and the earth turns to dust and we too need to hit the road, grabbing our bags, walking to some place wet but not too wet and not too hot and free of guns, someplace that will take us in along with our redwoods.
Everyone who sits will some day have to stand, everyone who stands will have to move, will have to flee what we have done, and find someplace else, somewhere that has not been ruined by the violence people inflict on ourselves and our planet.
Unless you have a better idea.
Tom, did you see this clip on BBC where a man jumps on shore from a packed dinghy and as he takes his first steps in 'Europe' exclaims, breathlessly, desperately and passionately, "Now I'm a human being"?
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to refugees sod the human rights, "our" standard of living cannot be compromised! I think Arendt was right, all those years ago..without the backing of the state are we just 'bare, forked animals?
A migrant has a destination
ReplyDeleteA purpose
An end toward which
A refugee
Is merely on the run
A distinction that doesn't figure in public discourse much.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/27/migrants-found-dead-inside-lorry-in-austria
ReplyDelete"The terrible smell of death as we passed"
It seems Lindsey Hulsum and the Channel Four newsteam had just happened to be be driving past when... that nasty smell.
ReplyDeleteThough everyone remotely concerned has sworn up and down that the big chicken processing company had sold off the death van a few years back, curiously they could not recall the buyer, nor admit to any knowledge of anything at all.
The Finance Minister owning the big chicken processing company, another odd factoid.
The big chicken processing company running a TV ad campaign based on the xenophobic cartoon concept "HYZA vs Immigrants", yet another twist.
Just saying.
Not that it isn't a wonderfully big-hearted continent and all... but just wondering, how many of the Northern EU states are currently ruing the day the Balkan states were allowed to crash the party, do you suppose?
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