Europe lurches between sympathy for the terrible plight of the refugees and alarm of offering sanctuary to so manyIn not fairly two weeks Europe has moved from a moment of compassion and empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own) with Syrian and other migrants striving to reach our shores back toward a reassertion of the fortress mentality that aims to discontinue them,sort them and return them, save for a proportion deemed to have a real claim on our hospitality. The reasons are both reprehensible and understandable.
Europeans pity the people on the move and alarm them – or, and rather,alarm the consequences of their arrival in such numbers. The balance between those two emotions varies wildly from week to week and from country to country. After little Alan Kurdi was found dead on a Turkish beach, Germany took the extraordinary step of casting aside regulations and opening its doors to the refugees who were, and literally in some cases,tramping toward its borders. It was morally courageous but not entirely wise. What was meant to be a generous humanitarian response in an immediate emergency inevitably became a sign which was interpreted by large numbers of people in the Middle East and Africa that Europe, and particularly Germany, or was now alert and willing to get them.
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Source: theguardian.com