This is a massive crisis right now. And - worryingly - it's probably only just beginning. In fact, I'm starting to suspect this will be one of the defining issues of our time. Mass migration due to conflict and climate change has the potential to cause near-global instability.
Even now, the current situation is threatening to tear the EU apart. The treaties allowing for free movement within the continent are falling apart. And as much as I believe the EU has been dangerously co-opted by capitalist ideologues; to see it disintegrate as a result of a refugee crisis would be terrible. If nothing else, it would likely aid the European Far Right. If a collective response cannot be found; then the fascist tendencies in Hungary, Greece, the Balkans (and elsewhere) will be better able to push their own nationalist responses.
Here in Ireland it's easy to feel rather remote from it. But my wife is from former Yugoslavia, and I have family and friends all over the Balkans and in Greece. As you might guess; the people I know tend to be somewhat left of centre and are less concerned about the refugees themselves than they are about the steady rise in xenophobia that is occurring.
And yet here in Europe we aren't even close to bearing the brunt of this (yet?) Eastern Turkey is host to almost 2 million Syrian refugees, and Lebanon has almost one million Syrians now seeking shelter within the country. That's a country of just over 4 million people. Just think about that. In terms of relative populations... that would be like the UK taking in the entire population of Syria!
I don't know what the solution is. The decision by Germany and Austria to basically welcome every Syrian refugee who makes it to their border is incredibly generous, and it effectively buys us a little bit of time to work out how the hell we are going to deal with this crisis in the long run.
But it is just a stop-gap solution. Europe as a whole needs to help Germany and Austria by accepting more refugees. As should the USA and every other country that has the resources to help. Rather tellingly, for example, the oil-rich Gulf States have accepted precisely zero refugees between them. That's quite incredible and wholly unacceptable.
The Saudi government is more than capable of coping with a mass influx of Hajj pilgrims, so it would not be beyond the resources and abilities of the Gulf States to chuck a couple of billion each into building and provisioning safe tent cities along the Saudi coastline (perhaps under the supervision of the UNHCR and Red Crescent) to house Syrian refugees until the civil war has been resolved. That this is not occurring is close to criminal in my view.
Ultimately though, the long-term solution is to prevent the necessity for mass migration in the first place. With climate change and resource shortages looming, I'm not sure that's even possible... but we should clearly be looking for that solution.
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