Hopefulness and helping hands.

I promise a Uni related post is pending; the books have arrived, the module site is open and the new notebooks are purchased. Since the module site only opened on Friday though and, as I;ll explain, it's been a bit hectic since then I haven't actually started yet. The whingeing is imminent though, I promise.

Lack of uni work notwithstanding this weekend has definitely been an eventful one.

As North East folks with a Facebook may have noticed a campaign was started recently with the aim of raising funds and gathering donations to take to 'The Jungle' in Calais in an attempt to offer a small amount of support, solidarity and compassion to the people currently stranded there as they await an opportunity to finish their journey. The group is based on this Facebook group and as I'm writing this I've just had a check and seen they're in excess of 7,00 members, it's an amazing campaign and one that thoroughly deserves all the support they've had.
As you can probably tell from the membership number this campaign to offer a small amount of solidarity has appropriately expanded beyond what I think even the organisers could have envisioned and spiraled into a giant campaign of thousands of people throughout the North East donating, fundraising and offering support. So much so that this Saturday the amazingly efficient organising team behind the campaign had arranged for (correct me if I'm wrong on this) five 'Sorting Days' throughout the region to tame the every growing mountain of donations into arranged, sorted and labelled aid to be sent to Calais (and I believe in the future other refugee camps throughout Europe, although as with anything like this I'm assuming this is dependent on how the situation in Europe progresses).

The fact that I'm not able to really financially support campaigns like this as much as I'd ideally like to (ie. at all really) combined with the absolute sense of outrage I get every time I read an article/Facebook post/Tweet about the appalling way Europe have neglected millions of people in their time of need means that I obviously had to sign up to help.

As with anything that involves walking into a room (possibly) full of people there was some major anxiety at play. The only thing more worrying than having to walk into a room full of people (late, as always) was the nagging worry that I could be walking into a room not full of people. That despite the huge outpouring of online support and donations the Daily Mail theory of 'Slacktivism' would win out in the end.

I could not have physically been more wrong.

I can only talk about my experience at the South Shields sorting day but from what I've seen online the response was pretty much the same at all the locations.

The room for sorting had been kindly loaned by the local mosque and it was packed. From the enormous pile of donations in the centre of the room, the tables of organising supplies (well done to the geniuses who thought of the sharpies and cable ties) to most importantly the wall to wall bodies of volunteers. There was not a space in that room, every section of floor not covered in boxes of donations had a volunteer stood in. And not just a volunteer but a cheerful, enthusiastic volunteer, determined to help as much as they could in the time they had.
I was there for a few hours and saw people arrive, frantically run around helping for a few hours and reluctantly leave as well as people who arrived before I did, worked constantly and were still buzzing around when I left. The atmosphere of that room was amazing and something I'm struggling to put into accurate words.

More than anything else it felt hopeful, people were there for their own individual reasons of course but the uniting factor was the desire to help. To not be stood by aimlessly while fellow humans suffer. To be able to go to sleep that night knowing that 'no, I maybe cant change the world, but at least today I helped improve it slightly for a few people'.

Watching a room full of people from all background and of all ages (children included) transform a pile of assorted donations into boxed and labelled stacks so efficiently that we then got extra donations sent over to sort was amazing. The only thing more reassuring than that was taking a trip to the warehouse the donations are being stored at once sorted to drop a few boxes off. That place is huge (as in, you could park several buses inside and still have a football game) and it's absolute stacked up with boxes and bags. The piles go so much higher than I could have reached and are stacked so far off the wall it's unbelievable. The generosity is amazing and seeing it happen is was an absolute honour.

Not only was my Saturday spent seeing the amazing folks of the North East show how truly generous and caring they are but my Sunday was spent learning pretty similar lesson but in a considerably more painful way. My fourth Great North Run was another amazing chance to see how excellent people can be.
Running 13.1 (cant forget the .1) miles is awful. Doing it in the sun is even worse. But somehow doing it with 56,999 other people is amazing. The determination of all those people to make it through either in an amazing time, a personal best or just plain make it to the end is genuinely inspiring. And equally amazing are the literally thousands of people who turn out to watch, to cheer everyone on, to offer up ice pops when it's too hot and jelly babies when you're starting to run out of energy.
There is literally nothing you get for turning up to watch this run except the satisfaction of making someones run that bit easier, making someone smile even through their horrific muscle cramps, and knowing that when people are thinking about stopping you might be the thing that keeps then going those extra few steps.

I think that's really been the whole theme of my weekend: watching amazing people do brilliant things just for the sheer satisfaction of helping each other.
There' a really cliched phrase that I'm going to use anyway because it sums it all up so perfectly:

"Be the change you want to see in the world"

That literally is what I've seen all weekend. People who refuse to sit around and complain about whats happening in the world and have realised that they have the power to change it.
I've never felt so proud to be from the North East as I was this weekend, watching people set out to change the world.

Europe's refugee crisis; nationalism and a lack of empathy.

I thought about posting this on Facebook, I actually had most of it written out and then I realised that (apart from the fact that this blog and my Facebook have a similar readership of about 4) a Facebook seems to have something flippant about it.
It's similar to an off the cuff tweet, sort of impulsive and emotional and something you do without thinking and I want there to be no doubt that this is an issue I think about. A lot.
It's an issue I cry over. A lot. An issue that raises so many moral questions about my life that it could be considered obtrusive.
The overall issue is that of living in a world so divided by Nationalism and the overwhelming need to succeed in capitalist society that we happily throw each other under the metaphorical bus every day for the sole purpose of 'furthering' ourselves in the bizarre system we've created.
In this context though it's very specific: the crisis facing millions of refugees as the attempt to safely enter Europe.

I should point out right now that I fully understand the millions of displaced people do not come from Syria alone. There are many other nations that have suffered and where it is no longer safe for these people to continue there lives, such as Afghanistan and Eritrea, but for the purpose of this rant, and in keeping with the tabloid obsession with forcing everyone into a 'National' box based on their first country of residence I may end up saying 'Syrian' more than I'd like. Just a heads up that it's not me being ignorant, it's just purely the way the data and legislation is presented.

This whole rant came about when I seen a link to what I assumed was a parody article entitled "Syrian child refugees 'to be deported at 18'" (1). Surely this was some kind of joke, possible one at the expense of the policy making geniuses over at Britain First? Maybe a Daily Mail parody?
Sadly not. It's a legitimate article from today's Independent about a policy that Britain as a country genuinely seems to support. Not only that, the policy isn't even some ridiculous kneejerk reaction put in place in line with Cameron begrudgingly allowing a tiny amount of refugees through the UK it's am existing policy (2). 
The wording is set up to allow a modicum of discretion but in the age of endless cut backs and austerity the message to local authorities is clear: once these children turn 18 they're not your problem. And that really just seems to emphasise the way we think about people and in particular people who had the misfortune to be born in an oil laden part of the world requiring American authorised 'freedom'.

When an unknown amount of people died attempting to cross into the UK from Calais (3) as a country we sat and watched.
Some of us watched horrified.
Some couldn't watch anymore and started putting together plans to help
But the overwhelming majority just sat and watched.
Not to mention the intolerably hateful people who not only watched but actively objected.
Actively wished ill on fellow human beings for having the sheer audacity to strive towards a safe life for themselves and their families.

When photos of a handful of children showed up on Facebook. Children in nappies and pigtails washed up on an unnamed beach.
Those of us who seen them were horrified.
But for the vast majority those haunting photo's passed them by and they went about as normal.

Then Aylan Kurdi's short, tragic life ended. It ended in an unspeakably terrifying way, in a situation no-one should ever be in. And, in what is bizarrely imperative to the British public, it ended in a way which was able to be widely circulated in social and traditional media.

I feel like right here is where I need to point out how devastating those photos are, seeing that small child cradled on the beach is heart wrenching and I don't want to in anyway seem to be belittling the tragedy. My point isn't about that individual tragedy. It's about the wider attitude Britain seems to have towards refugees.

When we saw those photos there was an immediate response, people wanted action and demanded refugees be allowed to safely enter and it was absolutely amazing. The strength of emotion and outpouring of support for those trying to make it to safety was incredible.

But then, as usual, nationalist thinking prevailed.

Because as a society we don't want to see children hurt, our instincts tell us they must be protected and cherished and the majority of the time we will do all we can to ensure that happens.
Once they're not children though? Well that's a different story.

It would seem that we live in a country that will happily welcome children, show them the peace and safety of life in the UK and then send them to the very country they originally fled from once they're old enough to fully partake in the society they've spent their childhoods immersed in.

It's hard not to draw a parallel with the 'Pro-life' movement of the US. It's the same basic principle, invest as much time and effort as possible in making sure the focus of your concern (in their case fetus', in this case children) is safe from any possible harm and then once your limited period of concern has expired, leave them with nothing.

Helping children escape from the horrifying conditions of war and terror is without a doubt something we need to focus as much of our effort and resources as possible on but it cant just stop there.
Parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends, regardless of age deserve the same.

The idea that being born in a specific part of the world, through nothing other than sheer fluke luck, entitles any of us to a greater quality of life than the refugees currently stranded in Calais, Kos, and Hungary (among others) is toxic.

Before we can congratulate ourselves for having the basic human compassion to be upset by the suffering of others we need to prevent so many conditions being imposed on that compassion.
We need to stop demanding the best for our 'Country' and start demanding the best for our world.
We need to hold the lives of all children to the standards we expect for our own.
We need to ensure the same basic rights we expect for ourselves are expected for all people.