Courage vs Desperation

We've all seen the photos in the media. Of the refugee crisis developing across Europe and the world. We've heard the pros and cons of allowing a mass influx of people whose ideologies, colour, creed, culture may be different than our own. What if we are letting a number of terrorists through the borders into the west (because of course there aren't any born and bred here right)? What if along with those who can really be called refugees, we are also extending welcome to economic migrants who, like many of us, just want a better life. How will our economies cope? Why should we fund them? What about our own homeless people? Or our veterans for that matter? Shouldn't we take care of our own first?

I'm not gong to lie about it, I've wrestled with these issues myself for years. I'm a social pragmatist but I still haven't settled it in my own mind and I don't know the answers. How do we balance doing what's best for our own people (which despite many charities and much legislation around social services and government funding, nations still have not been able to resolve) with doing what we can for humanity. Are we really that different?

Social pragmatist I may be, but I am also a mother. I constantly ask myself how truly desperate these refugee parents must be to leave their war-torn countries behind (the devil they know) to endanger the lives of their children by crossing the sea in freezing temperatures, some without lifejackets (or with faulty lifejackets purchased at exhorbitant prices from opportunists), in rickety, overcrowded boats to face the the devil they don't know. Paradise? I don't think so.

Reaching the shores of a Greek island may seem like heaven when war is at your back, but it's really only the first very small step in a very long, exhausting, dangerous journey to reach other countries where you may or may not have friends or family to help you navigate unknown waters. Counting on luck, on governments, on each other, on countless volunteers, NGOs, aid agencies - counting on the help of complete strangers to feed and clothe your babies when you have nothing left to give them yourself - I can't imagine it.

The shame and desperation they must feel being unable to care for their own children, is heartbreaking. We've seen some parents so desperate to save their children that they throw them through departing train windows, into the arms of people they don't know, hoping against hope that they will be cared for by someone. Even fully aware that the children will be vulnerable to predators, violence and starvation, taking the chance that their children, at least, will have a better life, even without them. That is true sacrifice, true desperation and true courage.

I have always had this theory about courage. When people get to know me and occasionally ask me about my life and some of the adventures I've had (yes, I do have what is euphemistically known as a 'checkered' past) they tell me how 'courageous' I've been. I always look at them in confusion... I'm not courageous, in fact I'm a bit of a scaredy cat, but I have been forced at times into a life of 'feel the fear and do it anyway', so I did. I wasn't courageous, I was desperate. Courage didn't even come into it.

My theory about courage is this... Courage is indirectly proportional to how desperate you are. Therefore, the more desperate you are, the less actual courage it takes. You don't 'think' - you just 'do'. Because desperate times call for desperate actions. Courage is a luxury, something we may recognise in retrospect. True heroes don't think they're courageous. They do what has to be done. And live with the consequences, hoping that tomorrow will be a better day.

#Syrianrefugeecrisis #Greece