Shipwrecked

Shipwrecked

The world is on the move
On board are more shipwrecked souls than successful seafarers
Thousands of desperate people die en route, before they can complete the crossing to the promised land, where even the poor are rich and everyone lives in Hollywood.
The illusions of any who manage to arrive do not last long.
Eduardo Galeano

World Refugee Day, June 20, 2019: An unprecedented 70.8 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide, and 37,000 people are forced to flee their homes every day due to conflict or persecution.

... Or because climate change has meant that they have no food where they live. Or maybe there is no drinkable water because it's been fouled by mining companies, or just dried up. Maybe they lost their land because they've been pushed out by the voracious grab of capitalists and corrupt governments and banks who want to take down the trees or put in plantations of cash crops, or have a carbon tax credit. Or maybe, in the midst of increasingly impoverished and lawless cities and towns, gangs are killing them, raping them, robbing them of everything they have, terrorizing them. Or maybe it's the police, or army, or other forms of organized crime. Maybe it's an occupation. Maybe bombing. Maybe armies fighting for oil.

Whatever the case is, we can be sure that people are not leaving their homes, risking their lives in the desperate flight to somewhere else, because they want to. They are forced to move because they can't survive where they are.

And the bitter truth is that almost all of this is because the haves have been busy over so many years exploiting the have nots. With no regard for the well being of Mother Earth and a heavy dose of white supremacy.

And the very people who have caused these exoduses are also busy keeping the refugees from coming to their own countries. In 2018, USA Today reported that there were 77 border walls or fences in the world. People are piling up on borders in camps where they are hungry, cold, crowded, neglected, and so vulnerable. Ai Weiwei's 2017 documentary Human Flow shows some of the suffering people are going through. It will make you cry, especially if you, like myself, are one of the privileged who live in a country that is perpetrating this world-wide crisis.

Tomorrow, Melody and I will fly to Tucson on our way to the Douglas/Agua Prieta border to show up in the midst of the tragedy unfolding there. We'll witness, accompany, and report on what we encounter. We'll offer our hearts and hope.

Ken