The Refugees at Our Gates

The refugee question in Europe is a bit like the gun question in America. It feels good to call each a “crisis” when its consequences fill the headlines, because crisis implies change, and perhaps a resolution. What’s actually taking place is a series of episodes, awful and familiar, each the foreseeable result of a set of policies. When these policies bring about the deaths of innocents—at Columbine and Sandy Hook, Lampedusa and Bodrum—there is a brief window when it seems like the policy might change. For now, that moment is defined by a Syrian toddler, Aylan Kurdi. His parents had fled Kobani and lived as refugees in Turkey. They hoped eventually to join Aylan’s aunt, in Canada. She had written a letter to her member of Parliament  to ask for help, but the process was slow and uncertain, and her brother decided to arrange for a smuggler to carry his family to Greece by clandestine boat.