This migrant crisis is different from all others
2015 was unquestionably the year of the migrant. The news was dominated for months by pictures of vast crowds shuffling through the borders of yet another European country, being treated with brutality in some places and given a reluctant welcome in others.
When researching a report for radio and television about the migrant phenomenon, it is possible to realize that there was nothing new about it. For many years, waves of displaced and frightened people have broken over Europe again and again and the images have been strikingly similar each time.
In 1945, __________ (1) the ethnic Germans, forced out of their homes in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Russia and obliged to seek shelter in a shattered and divided Germany. More recently, we can see floods of Albanian refugees escaping from the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian forces in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999.
Yet there is one major difference between these waves of migrants in the past and the one we saw in 2015. Professor Alex Betts, director of the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University says that it was the first time Europe faced people coming in from the outside in large numbers as refugees. He explains: "The fact that many are Muslims is perceived as challenging Europe's identity." European societies are changing very fast, indeed, as a result of immigration. In London, for instance, more than 300 languages are now spoken, according to a recent academic study. The influx of migrants reinforces people's sense that their identity is under threat.
But how can the world deal conclusively with the problem? The former UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Sir John Holmes, blames global governance. "Other powers are rising," he says - Syria is an example of this. "And the United States doesn't have the influence it once did, so the problem's not being fixed, no-one's waving the big stick and we're having to pick up the pieces." We have endured an entire century of exile and homelessness and the cause is always the same - conflict and bad government. Unless these are dealt with, the flow of migrants will never be stopped.
Adapted from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-35091772
