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| The Roman Hadrian's Wall taken from English Heritage |
There is news that makes you think. The following article is by a forensic pathologist. Who questioned the fate of the immigrants who die as the result of fleeing their countries. In cheap boats they are packed in, their money taken by callous men, and when these overloaded boats founder and sink, it is only luck that they are saved by a passing ship.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jun/03/a-question-of-dignity-the-pathologist-identifying-migrants-drowned-in-the-med
She asked a simple question, how do you record and name these people when they are dead and so she has started tracking down those minute pieces of evidence that will give shape and form to an identity. Mostly young men, but men that have mothers and fathers, girl friends and wives. We are shocked by the body of a little girl who lies on a beach, thrown up as so much flotsam, yet countless young lives in hope of a better life are shattered, death is the final outcome.
I think in this country we have a callous indifference to them, illegal immigrants (already I am naming and shaming with my words) face a tough time in detention centres. Our attitude to them says they are a nuisance, send them back to the countries where they came from. Economic migrants say others, just after our jobs, though weirdly enough we are experiencing too many jobs and not enough people to fill them at the moment.
The answer of course does not lie in people fleeing their countries because of corrupt and brutal regimes, and politically this is what we have to address. Contemplate those coffins, think of the hopes, dreams, ambitions of those that lie there. As she says in the article many of these immigrants have the same sort of stuff in their pockets as our teenage children.
How will it all end? Hadrian built a wall to keep the tribes at bay, the trouble is today we can't build walls against prejudice and corruption. We have only our actions to negate the corruption in this world.
Interestingly the following book article shows that the Hadrian Wall was built by people from Syria, Iraq and Algiers. The Romans conquered by force and of course by persuasion and coercion, but they definitely got the hang of living with others.
Coincidentally I was at Hadrian's wall this week - could very well have walked past that photo location!
ReplyDeleteThere you are, it has a fascinating history the wall, the Antonine Wall less so. Built some might say to keep idle hands busy, in this case the soldiers but now it is nothing but a pleasant walk and completely useless as a defence.
DeleteYou could have walked past my son and his friend too, as they were walking the Wall from Newcastle end.
DeleteBush, Cameron, Blair - they have a lot to answer for.
ReplyDeleteYes though it is us that put them in power. Sadly war is also used to divert us from the conspiracies that lie under the surface.
DeleteTragedy, east, west, north, south, and that is just my country.
ReplyDeleteI need to read so much more on America Joanne, think I am going to get Nomadland on Audible as well.
DeleteThe body of a Syrian merchant was found in a stone coffin just outside the walls of Roman Bath. There really used to be a global Britain in those days. I wonder if they show those photographs of rows of coffins to the would-be immigrants on the other side of the Channel, and if they did would it weaken their resolve? I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteYes hope is the prerogative of the young. Interesting about the Syrian merchant, I was always amazed by the Roman villas around Bath, such immigrants colonised our country, though I think when the 'end' came for the Roman Empire many people were killed.
ReplyDelete