Okay – let’s be ‘the western world’ as a persona, for a minute;What does it say about us when we:Completely deny a ‘refugee’ crisis.Reject attempts toward life, leaving people for dead.Spring to action after a photo surfaces of a dead boy on a beach.

 

Today (8th Sept, 2015) there was a facebook feed about ‘Munich citizens migrant reception’, and there’s been an influx of 'refugee' welcoming in other places too.

There's been a genuine wave of individual and community responses to the dead boy on a beach image and other stimuli. The thing about stimuli though is that there's a whole story and real life behind it. Do we know the difference anymore? 

 

I would never dare to take away from the raw, emotive power that this photo holds. It tells the truth, but it's also a bl**dy travesty that we as ‘the western world’, required enough moving evidence, to go ahead and be human.

 

Now, with iPhones, lights, camera and action, we'll go ahead and prove to ourselves that we’re not so bad for leaving it too long. That all we needed was the right stimulus to get us going.

 

As more arrive, they won’t all smile. Which will inevitably prompt that grotesque 'debt' attitude from the west:

“Are they not grateful? Do they not care? Oh that’s what that president/prime-minister/sovereign was talking about, they’re rude/different/anti-social (etc.)."

 

No, that's not it, let’s anticipate this drama, keeping the ‘free world’ ego in check:

• This is not about us (shock horror) and we need to stop making it about us.

• Many safety-seekers (‘refugees’) will have suffered through trauma unimaginable to ‘us’ – our egos are last on their 'to-do' list. Rightfully so.

• They’re bl**dy tired, wouldn’t you be?

 

Again, if the west was a person, why do we think we need to be entertained? Cowtowed to? Why do we treat the vulnerable like puppets? There for us to be helped as we feel like, there to be reprimanded as we choose...

 

Do we now finally realise how disgusting and damaging this entitled attitude is? That death, help and plight must be justified and presented in a certain way, to stimulate our special favour (human rights) and attention?

 

Yeah, it's true, there exist bully leaders in the ‘free world’, but that doesn’t mean individuals like you and I have to follow their conduct and examples. You and I have encountered our very own bullies in life (in one way or another), and overcome – so why shouldn't we join together and help those who need a voice?

 

The behaviours of the west are abusive. It’s akin to a parent who slaps their child, hugging them after, saying ‘what’s wrong?’ Is that image disturbing? Well, that’s what it is.

 

There’s an eerie, self-gratifying wave of ‘care’ going on right now and I believe that most (if not all) safety-seekers, are oblivious to it. It, being our laws, limitations, rules and excuses. If some aware of it, I’m not sure they’d really care - and I don't blame them. When you want to survive do you really give a damn about where the help is coming from, or why? Nope. You just need it, and that's fair.

 

Even if the help was (and now seems), somewhat self-serving or with agenda, the point is that things are getting done - people are getting seen to. At the end of the day, that's what counts most. But other things still count, like planning, timing, acknowledgement and continuity.

Crisis means emergency. Emergency is about timing, swift action is the difference between life and death.

In emergencies, such as a shark attack, you don’t ask the victim ‘why were you surfing?!’ as they bleed in the water. You don’t ask them their religion and you don’t take down their health insurance number. You just get in the shore with them and pull them to safety. You hold the bleeding wound and call for help. That’s how we need to see this epidemic - an emergency, dependant on swift action. 

 

Surviving is better than dying and there’s been a whole lot of ‘death’ lately, so a western world Jekyll & Hyde reception is still better than death for those arriving, but come on, can’t we do better? Do we really have to be the crazy parent that goes from one extreme (slapping) to another (cuddling)? Can't we just be present? Can't we just take their hands and protect with compassion?

 

Projecting vanity and power plays onto people who are oblivious to it isn’t a demonstration of being selfless, it's being selfish – it’s conscience relief,  disguised as altruism. If we have to advertise our ‘care’ at each interval, is it really for them, or is it for us?

 

Yeah, they’ll smile, wave and give our ‘kindness’ validation, because they’ll learn it’s how they have to survive in the west. Because they'll learn, that they are 'them', and we are 'us'. It’s how they'll survive and get things we take for granted: peace, safety, freedom - sleep.

 

Bottom line; we’re spoiled. If the west was a person, it’s acting petulant right now. And as some rural Australians would put it 'needs a good kick up the a**'. I can't say I disagree.

 

Right now, all we are doing is responding to the results of our very own indifference. Had we of been connected and caring to start, we wouldn't be the overbearing 'stage mums' we've become right now. Cuddling, laughing, smiling, giving teddies, etc. 

 

If we acted, moved, did something when we heard about people dying, there'd  be no dead boy on a beach. But the sad thing about the boy on the beach is that the west needed it, it needed a particularly devastating stimuli to make the emergency real.  And we all know that people who 'don't get' certain things in life, haven't walked it. We're just that lucky and blessed that we haven't had to 'get it', but in death - we are obligated to empathise - because that's our world family out there, that's us...

  

 ‘you’re only as sick as your secrets’.

If the west was a person, its secret would be vanity.

 

We need to remember what it means to help. Not ‘in response to’, and ‘due to’, but, because.

 

Safety-seekers are not the wests little puppets with which 'we do what we like' in some weird power play. If the table was turned (and rest assured it will be one day), how  would you want to be treated when in a position of need? Who would you hope was around? A puppeteer, or a person?

 

Let’s not perpetuate a creepy, Jekyll and Hyde western persona, anymore. It’s not only weird and reminiscent of slave freeing ‘generosities’ (aka basic implementations of human and civil rights), but it's a gigantic step backward for the human conscience.

 

If we just give a sh*t about our brothers and sisters, from the start, we won't need to do this weird, guilt-induced dance after abhorrent scenes play out.

 

If that little boy on the beach moved you so much and you mean it – learn his name: Aylan Kurdis.

 

Learn his name and know that he is one of the thousands of countless victims to our indifference.

 

If you really are moved by what is happening in the world right now, as you read this article, do something:

Volunteer. Petition. Collaborate. Write. Protest. Share. Learn. Connect. Care. Move People

 Do it because you can. Do it because those who need it, can not.

Do it because no-one is allowed to kill life - in fact, we have a duty to maintain it.

 

 

 

 

Written by Abby Kempe for AK Services LTD.