#FirstWorldProblems

So… this is not a blog about cosplay this is something aside from that. My hope is not to anger or upset you, this is just my musings on something in the news at the moment. The crisis that has been all over every page, the “migrant crisis” and what people should be doing, what politicians are being asked to do and what I take for granted, I think I would just like to put into perspective how I see it. If you don’t agree I really don’t mind.

I’ve come in from a job, I have had a nice lunch and before I sat down to watch youtube, and other entertainment, I let my cat out in the garden whilst I finished up some laundry. I went to school so I could read and write and I can sit and play on my Xbox or PC games in my own time.

I didn’t go to school under threat of warfare or landmines, I didn’t worry that as a young woman I was going to be kidnapped by terrorists and taken for a free-for-all gang rape. I’m not starving and I can sit here with my friends, chatting about things like movies and television repeats that bore me.

Refugees are not looking at this, they are aspiring to it if someone will give them a chance. “Illegal Immigrants” is also a phrase that, to me, dehumanizes people. They are undocumented people traveling to seek jobs and homes, yes they have done it without the correct procedure but to call someone illegal seeks to make it sound like their very existence is in itself a crime. They aren’t taking up a job as a CEO, they are taking terrible work with little reward where all too often their landlords are the people they work under, that’s not a good life, it’s human trafficking.

In 2014 the UN and World bank have explained that the following countries took in the most refugees per capita – Hungary, Austria, Sweden, Serbia and Kosovo. In that year 220,194 documented cases of people tried to get into the EU countries, a 266% marked increased from the year before. Italy took in 296% more and this tells you something frightening, those people came with nothing but the clothes they owned and they didn’t want a state funding living, they wanted the basics we all take for granted.

This is called a CRISIS not a trend, in Syria I have lost communication with a friend over the civil wars and troubles. I miss talking to him, I miss chatting about what music we were listening too or games we played. For all I know he is now one of the people in a lorry where 71 people died, or he’s currently trying to get into a train that’s been halted from him seeking assistance.

We see examples in the press about people coming to England for the benefits, what benefits? I would say that’s a roof, food and education. Clear running water is something unobtainable in other countries and a safe place for their own children… It’s not even about numbers or costs to the government it’s about the loss of life and the sacred things we have they do not.

England should do more? Maybe or maybe not but here’s the rub, we CAN do more. I am lucky, I am in a country that lets me express these things. I am not entirely blind to how angry being mobbed as a lorry driver is going to make someone, 11 hours trapped in a cabin on the motorway in Operation Stack is going to test the patience of many good people. What I am saying is that are we really that worried about our own comfort when people out there are being washed up on beaches or found dead in lock ups because there are those that would exploit them?

There’s not a clear cut answer, there’s never going to be but I guess before I get mad about something I am not suffering, maybe it’s time I took a look at thought about what they do NOT have.

I don’t know how to summarize my feelings, I don’t know if I am right in looking at this in the way I do. I just know that when I went to work this morning I wanted another ten minutes in bed, I have a bed, I have a car to drive to my job. I have a radio telling me about how a 6 stone sheep was sheared and a kid got done for sending a naked pic of himself… all of these things we can comment on and more but my comments are currently about the crisis for those less fortunate than I.

So I hope that when we sit and read things, when we get down to brass tacks… we should be grateful for what we have and consider if there is a way to offer that to others without anger and without the bias that all they want is £65 odd a week. I’ve donated where I have the money and I hope that if nothing else can come of this post that when you sit down with your evening meal you’re a little more thankful for it.