OK – I’m back. A wedding in Mayo and a half-marathon in Derry have kinda kept me anchored in the real world. As you’ll see from the pic above, my medal for completing the Waterside(Derry) Half-Marathon is on display which means I DID IT. (Please don’t ask my time) The one being held by my brother-in-law Eamonn is 100% fake and made of chocolate, the one his lovely daughter Barbara is holding (and which I don’t think you can see) is real also, and my truly dearest of sisters Trishy is holding my cap, except it appears to be out of camera as well. Can I express my heart-felt thanks to all the truly generous people who have pushed my online-target of £1,000 for Trocáire to 95% – which means if you haven’t yet crow-barred a few quid from your wallet, you can do it now – the site is still open to donations – and help me smash that 100% target. Please – if you’re reading this and haven’t, think about doing it NOW. Just click here: https://www.justgiving.com/Jude-Collins3/
Because compassion shouldn’t be walled in by photographs of distress. The body of that poor little boy picked up from the beach is a heart-breaker indeed – but he’s only one of hundreds, maybe thousands, who’ve died trying to make the same trip. They deserve our compassion as well, even if there’s no picture to prick our conscience. And it goes on beyond those crossing borders to all the men and women and children of no property and little hope, suffering and starving throughout the world so we can lead comfortable lives, go shopping, go online, swap funny pictures. Every night, 795 million people go to bed hungry, if they’re lucky enough to have a bed, while we agonise about our overweight children and adults. Sooner or later, the deprived section of our world is going to come knocking at our door and demanding to be let in. Maybe the events on the border between Hungary and Austria, and at so many other border points, is the sound of the first fists thudding to demand not luxury – just a life.
Joseph Stalin, of all people, said “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” Except that for every one of the million deaths, for the individual and those who loved them, it is a tragedy beyond tears. I’m afraid I have limited time for those who respond to faraway tragedies with a catch in their voice. If they really cared, wouldn’t they do something?
And the same goes for governments.
well done in the marathon.795 million go to bed hungry,that would include people here as well,
Well done on your half marathon Jude.
The picture of that little boy laying dead on a beach would move any person, whether they are from the two extreme positions of Open Borders or Fortress Europe.
My own position when it comes to the Syrian (and Libyan) refugee crisis is that the neighbouring countries of Turkey, Iran, etc should take ALL of the refugees with the EU and World providing aid, food, money for housing, etc. My position isn’t the most popular. Recently, I’ve even been blocked from facebook pages and branded a “bigot” for offering my own opinion. We live in a democracy, don’t we? I’m not sure, it seems your only allowed to express an opinion if it can be tolerated or reflects the opinion of, what I describe, left wing extremists, who want to accept in all asylum seekers and economic immigrants and have non-existent European borders. I’m sure that will not leave to chaos…..
I want help to go to all asylum seekers, who wouldn’t? But I’m curious to the fact why hundreds of thousands of Syrians are demanding entry to Germany (and the likes of Sweden, the UK, etc) when the likes of Turkey, Hungary, Greece, etc are all peaceful countries? That sounds more like economic migration to me. Am I saying all are economic migrants? No but it sounds to me that a lot are. Its also important to note, according to what I read, that the little boy, his brother and mother who drown and washed up on a beach were in Turkey, not Syria. Again, Turkey is a peaceful country, not war torn. That’s not fleeing war.
I was listening to UKIP Leader Nigel Farage yesterday and he was speaking on a radio show in London called “LBC”. He spoke about the terrible pictures of that little boy on the beach and he warned that more and more people are going to drown if Europe keeps allowing them to stay here because the incentive is there then for people to take terrible risks with their lives to escape third world poverty, etc. I have to say I agreed with him.
Tens of thousands of people in Europe are offering rooms to the Syrian refugees in their own homes. Again this shows generous spirit and can only be praised. But on another topic, there are thousands of homeless (and hundreds of thousands of homeless in Europe) on our streets, why don’t these same people offer their spare rooms to the homeless right here on our own doorstep? Winter is coming in soon and people live out in that weather. Does a person really have to be from Syria or any other country for you to find your heart and to help those who most people cross to the other side of the street in order to ignore their requests for some spare change? (I ask this btw because I worked for a homeless charity for a few years for free)
I have sympathy, great sympathy for those people, not only from Syria but all over the world fleeing war. But allowing millions of Syrians or anyone else to flood Europe isn’t the answer. If it continues then don’t be surprised when the Far right get elected, Le Pen in France is already doing fantastically well, Geert Welders in the Netherlands, etc. The solution to the Syrian refugees is for the neighbouring countries of Syria and also Arab League countries to take in all the refugees and for the rest of the world to provide money, aid, etc.
Congratulations on your medal Jude and on the money you raised for charity.
As far as regards the refugee question I would just like to say
1) it’s impossible to separate out the genuine refugees from illegal migrant workers
2) clandestine migration through the Mediterranean picked up momentum at the end of 1990s. Italy and Greece have been begging for EU policy decisions for years while thousands of people died on their coasts, bearing in mind that Italy and Greece are gateways not destinations.This is a problem that has been going on for decades and has only now attracted the attention of the public.
Have a look hear for some info on migratory flows up to a couple of years ago http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/33271/MPC_PB_2014-05.pdf?sequence=1
I’m glad you survived the run , Jude. I might have known you were so busy when you dropped offline for more than twenry four hours !!! Congratulations ,anyway.
My waking poem for the little buy stirred up a bit of a reaction that I hadn’t really expected. We’ve a tendencyhere to compare wounds like that scene in the “Jaws” movie….you know the drill…our homeless are better than your homeless …or what will be the cultural impact on our neat little greedy bigotry….if these refugees/economic migrants all start voting Sinn Fein or DUP…..All I really meant to point out was one father/husband had lost his family in an awful moment, either through foolhardiness or panic. They are gone now.
Zatopeks like yourself, Esteemed Blogmeister, have restored the faith of humanity in running. An activity which has been sullied some by those who run for the money (for themselves).
You weren’t, of course, the only one who was running over the last few days, not to mention the only one who brought a Mayo dimension to proceedings. One refers, of course, to Enda Kenny.
The Prime Minister of the Free Southern Stateen was running on two fronts: one, he was running for re-election and two, as a corollary, he was running off at his mouth, in the service of the first. Only problem is, because his schedule is so taut it leaves little room for thought.
As the headline had it: ‘Eire’s Prime Minister says that the idea that the IRA has gone away is simply not credible. He was addressing an august body in early September called ‘The British-Irish Business Forum’ in County Cambridge. One is not uber sure what this monied organisation will be called once the British project inevitably unravels at the seams.
The Anglo-Irish Business Forum, perhaps?
(Cambridge is so called because it is located on the banks of the river Cam, which in the leprechaun means crooked. Which might explain EK’s decision to mouth off there).
No doubt, he was providing balance and equilibrium to the speech delivered by the British PM’s woman person in Norneverland, Teresa Villiers in Dublin last week. The (unreported) one in which she opined that the idea that the Loyalist Paramilitaries are not gone away is simply credible.
Being a descendant of the Earl of Clarendon she no doubt also paid a reconciliatory visit to Clarendon Street RC church in Dublin, the one called after (erm) St. Teresa. This visit though was no reported, presumably because her diplomatic host, Charlie ‘Je Suis’ Flanagan was anxious not to acquire the sobriquet, Vesper. Turning him into some kind of (gulp) Vesper Flanagan.
Luckily, the FSS Foreign Minister is well disposed towards TV reporting teams and vice versa.
At first glance this example of ping pong diplomacy might not seem to have much to do with the Syrian refugee crisis. Pardon Perkie’s French, but au contraire. The borderlines of Syria, as we know it today, were the brainless child of one Mark Sykes, a British diplomat who supplied the ruler while his French counterpart, Francois George-Picot furnished the red marker to draw up the straight line frontiers of the post-war Syria.
This happened in 1916, halfway through the Great Donkey Derby to end all Donkey Derbies.
It has not been established if Mark Sykes was a descendant of Bill Sykes the bullyboy character in Oliver Twist who used to cudgel manners into his pet bulldog, called Bull’s Eye. Though the fact that the bulldogs of war have been unleashed once again in Syria might seem to indicate he was.
Could be, though, that PM EK’s visit to Cambridge was not entirely wasted in his normal fog of baffling raffle-winning waffle. If one is to judge by his most recent volte face on the number of Syrian refugees the FSS is prepared to accept: from 0.01 percent of the population to a whopping 0.02 percent.
Historians of the past in the future might yet mark down this game-changing journey to Cambridge as Enda’s road to Damascus.
Sadly, no such claim will be made to the Prime M’s visit to Croke Park last Saturday where it was a case of the Sam old Sam old for his native Mayo. A lot of speculation about the Curse of Mayo has appeared in the manipulated / manipulative media in the past week.
To explain their failure to win the All Ireland since 1951. All to do with the return to Moonlit Mayo of their glorious team with Sam aloft.. The speculation invariably featured a local funeral and the refusal of the victorious team to pay due respect to the cortege by refusing to turn down the volume on ‘The Boys of the County Mayo’ from the rear of their bacon-market lorry.
Stuff and n. Not that there is a curse: of course there is. The thing is, the speculators have all been looking in the wrong direction. They ought to have been looking under B for Birth rather under D for Death.
Enda Kenny, of the boyband looks, was, after all, born in (gasp) 1951.
Oh Perkin – I LOVE your version of the Mayo curse. Can I tweet it and claim authorship??
By all means, Esteemed Blogmeister. Agus failte.
On condition that EK is referred to as the PM. Taoiseach means leader and so, implies leadership.
Beir bua !