I've been a long time writing this one. It's been bothering me for a number of days now.
I'm referring to the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe. That news photo of the lifeless body of the little three year old Syrian boy really hit me. The little guy, his Mom and older brother drowned while desperately trying to escape their homeland for a better life in Europe.
Had they survived, their troubles would have just begun. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of refugees are stuck in a political limbo while the world spins around in little circles like everyone has one shoe nailed to the floor!
Here's how I see it.
- The governing Syrian regime is desperately trying to hold onto power during what has become a bloody three year struggle, tearing Syria apart.
- A number of terrorist groups, including ISIS (or ISIL), the Taliban, and others are each trying to carve out their own territory within Turkey, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
- The Kurds also want some kind of recognition in that same area.
- A bunch of Western nations, including Canada are bombing targets in an attempt to stop ISIS from expanding.
- Millions of innocent people are stuck in the middle of all this mess and want out!
- Most appear to want to go to Germany where they hope to find jobs and a safe place to live.
- Hungary, which had its own refugee crisis in 1956, looks like they're treating these refugees like the plague and are just now dealing with this human tsunami.
- The oil-rich Arab nations have not helped out in any way.
- ISIS (or ISIL) stole millions of dollars from banks in the cities they've overrun, but they have not helped out at all either.
- The Canadian Government is pretty much hamstrung by this Marathon election campaign and will have difficulty changing its immigration policies at this point.
- The Canadian election candidates are trying to make the plight of these refugees into an election issue.
Something needs to be done here in Canada. Let's put the election campaign on hold for a day and call representatives from all parties together to put together an emergency plan to help these refugees! I understand many western countries have already done so (but they're probably not in the throws of a gong-show election campaign).
And something needs to be done in those countries I mentioned above. There needs to be an emergency meeting of the United Nations to develop a plan to bring peace and stability back to that part of the world. Then a portion of these refugees might actually want to return home!
