Safe harbours needed

No country is an island, not in a world made small by trade and technology. Tell that to Europe, too many of whose states have ignored the lessons of their past amid a refugee crisis of historic scale unfolding on their doorstep and across their continent.

More than 330,000 migrants have flooded Europe so far this year, risking their lives in voyages from the Middle East, Asia and across the Mediterranean from North Africa. Thousands have drowned.

The scale of the disaster came into sharp focus, for the world and Canada, with the gut-wrenching image of a three-year-old Syrian-Kurdish boy found washed up in Turkey, lying face down in the surf.

The boy, his five-year-old brother and their mother died in a failed bid to join relatives in Canada. Basic humanity demands we do better. A generation ago, when another desperate human tide was unleashed on the high seas off Southeast Asia, Canada — with ordinary citizens shouldering much of the burden — welcomed nearly 60,000 so-called Boat People. That’s far more refugees than the federal government has pledged to take from Syria and Iraq, just two of the tumultuous states feeding the exodus to Europe.

We can do better, but need to cast a critical eye eastward. Born of turmoil that made refugees of millions 70 years ago, modern Europe, for all its European Union standards, for too long watched the crisis fester, largely leaving frontline states such as Italy and Greece to deal with the fallout. The continent’s notorious xenophobia and the right-wing politics it attracts, haven’t helped.

Even in a small world, Canada is a distant shore. Europe, far closer, should be a safe harbour, but has proven a fatal shore.