Me and my camera back in my home town, my capital city, my london
I can’t help but feel that this entire situation might be dealt with differently if the migrants who are in Calais were a sea of white faces from a European country instead. Would they have been treated the same? It seems doubtful.
I would also question the use of the word ‘migrant’ and its implications. The term would suggest that they are defined by their transitory nature and that they are of a ‘type’. The only thing they have in common is that they are displaced from their country of origin through events beyond their control.
The dictionary defines migrant as “a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions.”
This sounds like they have a choice. They don’t. If they’d had a choice they would have stayed where they were. Would you leave your home with nothing unless you absolutely had to? They only move from one place to another because no-one wants them. They are not travelling for fun. They’re not inter-railing around Europe. They are looking for a home.
I think by calling them ‘migrants’ it allows us to think of them as permanently in motion and therefore it is easier to move them on. They can just ‘migrate’ somewhere else. The terminology allows us to absolve ourselves. But this situation will not go away. It will not ‘migrate’. It will just keep coming back. It will need to be considered with genuine understanding and compassion to find the correct solution. The ‘crisis’ is our lack of empathy. They are not migrants. They are people.