Folk like us

Scotsman columnist, Jane Bradley, has offered her personal first-hand point of view on the refugee situation and highlighting some of her observations would not go amiss.

“...Those who fled oppression in search of a better life are accused of being cynical economic migrants, but who among us would not have made the same choice...

...No matter what your political beliefs, these refugees are people: people like you and me. We may not be able to help all of them, but we can feel empathy for their plight, we can try to understand why they are in the situation they are in...

...I met many refugees who were undoubtedly fleeing war and persecution. Death threats and imminent danger to their lives. Their cases appeared, to me, cut and dried: they should be granted asylum, somewhere...

...I met others, however, whose stories were more complicated - who may not have had an imminent threat to their lives, but who wanted a better future for their children.

Some of them lived in situations where their daughters would never be allowed to attend school. Others were not in personal danger right now, but lived in a constant fear of political unrest and violence: families who had no idea when or if it would be their door that would be knocked upon by terroist or insurgent groups in the middle of the night. Maybe it would never happen - but it could. So many times, I have heard people like this, sceptically, called “economic migrants”, but I found it was far more complex than that.In reality, few of the people in this situation are likely to be granted asylum in Europe and for me, some of their stories were even more heartbreaking as a result...

...No-one I met wanted to move to Europe to pocket benefits - they wanted to work. They did not want a bigger house or a better car: indeed, many of them knew their living conditions in Europe, even if they made it that far and were granted asylum, were likely to be economically worse than they had been in their home countries of Iraq, or Afghanistan. For most, the priority was being able to give their children the chance of a decent education. “I just want a future for my children,” was a refrain I heard many, many times...

...No-one I met was a cynical “economic migrant”. They were people: ordinary, flawed people, who had found themselves faced with difficult choices and who had done what they thought was right...Why, when faced with such adversity at home, would they not have taken that chance?...we should not condemn them for trying. "