In recent history we've seen so many examples of wars and the flood of people fleeing their own homes in fear for their lives. Notably we've seen the European Union struggling following the conflict in Syria, Libya and other countries around their region.
However, in the wake of recent violent attacks on civilians in Europe I've noticed some disturbing comments appearing on social media, comments along the lines of "This is why an open borders policy is a bad idea." I think this is symptomatic of how fear can lead us to irrational decisions. I think fearfully closing our borders would directly and adversely affect vulnerable refugees who need our help.
Refugees are defined by international law as "...persons fleeing armed conflict or persecution." according to the UNCHR they recorded 21.3 million refugees in 2015. With this magnitude of people seeking asylum in other countries this has to be engaged with as a global issue.
Unfortunately (see same link above) we often use the term migrant and refugee interchangeably, this tendency often can confuse issues however it also underscores why isolationist and anti-immigration views can often catch refugees in the crossfire.
Given the large number of refugees, what are our own countries doing to help refugees? In a brief look at Australia's policy on refugee intake I was pretty disappointed, we need to do a lot more.
According to the Australian Human Rights Commission:
The Australian Government has indicated that in the 2014-15 financial year, it intends to provide 13,750 places in the Humanitarian Program.
13,750 permanent refugees is very far short of the challenge currently facing the globe. This tiny number is so pitiful, in a hypothetical situation in which we allocate an equal number of 2015's 21.3 million refugees to each country we should all receive over 100,000 people!
Australia's current policy only accepts ~13% of this simplistic distribution of refugees, which considering Australia's land mass and economy surely we should be taking on more than many other countries. Come on Australia we need to pick up our game!
Given this great number of people in need I think it is a big and important issue and this is why I find it disturbing when I hear people advocated limiting the intake of refugees. When arguments against open borders for refugees turn to drawing on fear I become concerned that we might indulge the fear and make regrettable decisions. Refugees are by definition fleeing the atrocities of war, and social oppression.
They're not trying to steal jobs, they're fleeing violence and oppression, and they need our help. I speculate that if we had been more proactive in accepting refugees previously we wouldn't be in this current situation, if we can change our practices around refugees maybe we won't look back on the 2010's and think the same thing.
Sam Gillespie is a postgraduate research student at the University of New South Wales.
Sam Gillespie's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/sam-gillespie.html