We may be preoccupied at present with the refugee crisis that has brought so many thousands across the Mediterranean and across Europe, displaced by war in Africa and the Middle East. But looking back over the decades, this is really nothing new.
In 1936, refugees were escaping from flooding in Shantung, in China, and were fed and housed by the provisional government in Tsinan.
In the USA, the Dust Bowl and resulting drought forced tens of thousands of families to abandon their farms. Many migrated to California in the hope of finding better conditions. Meanwhile in Europe, the Spanish Civil War led many to flee, often heading across the border into France, which proved only a temporary haven, and in Germany Jews who had been subjected to anti-semitic legislation were taking whatever opportunities they could to leave before things got worse. CARA (under the name of the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning) was working to find posts in British universities for academics thrown out of their posts at institutions in Germany.
1946 saw displacement on a massive scale, across most of Europe. Germans were forcibly expelled from the territories that had been occupied during the war and now fell under the Soviet remit.
Many citizens of Eastern European countries were desperately trying to stay in the West. And the survivors of the concentration camps were making their way to the homes they had once known, or waiting for the possibility of passage to Palestine, or the US.
In 1956 the brutal Soviet suppression of the uprising in Hungary led to around 200,000 people fleeing the country, initially to Austria and West Germany.
In 1966 Vietnamese were fleeing ahead of the Vietcong advance. The New York Times reported that nearly half of the 10,000 inhabitants of the An Lao valley had chosen to leave, pleading desperately with withdrawing US troops for help.
In 1976 in Lebanon the civil war created a wave of refugees, around 900,000, or about one-fifth of the population. On 12 August 1976, supported by Syria, Maronite forces managed to overwhelm the Palestinian and leftist militias defending the Tel al-Zaatar refugee camp in East Beirut, and 1,000-1,500 civilians were massacred.
In 1986 the ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka generated thousands of internally displaced people as well as refugees, mostly Tamils. Many fled to neighbouring India and western countries such as Canada, France, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
In 1996, the refugee crisis in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide became increasingly unstable. Hutu militants in the camps were now well organised, and led attacks into Rwanda and eastern Zaire. In what became known as the First Congo War, around half a million people were herded by the militants into the border areas, and subsequently fled back into Rwanda, or further into Zaire. Tens of thousands were killed, or died of exposure or starvation.
Ten years ago, refugees came primarily from Sudan, DRC, Somalia and CAR, as they do currently. In addition, Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia generated significant numbers of refugees following their civil wars, and the ongoing crisis in the Great Lakes area added Burundi and Rwanda to the list.
2016 – more than 1,200 people have died of starvation and illness at an aid camp in north-east Nigeria that houses people fleeing the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, according to the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières.
It goes on, and it always will. There will always be wars, and rumours of wars. There will be, increasingly, natural disasters as a result of climate change. There will be persecution and oppression and terrorism. People will leave because they have to, because home is the mouth of a shark. And we will have to find better ways of helping them, we must be braver, more generous, more open. Today of all days that seems a forlorn hope. But we must hang on to it, nonetheless.
Migration Matters Festival
Friday 24th June
To Walk in Your Shoes, by Rachael Munro-Fawcett
10.30am-6pm
Exhibition.
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The Scar Test, by Untold
5.30pm-6.15pm
“I came to England, scarred for life.”
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Deaths by Rescue, by SYMAAG with Dr Simon Parker
6.30pm-9pm
Film & discussion on the refugee crisis.
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Iftar with Open Kitchen
9pm
Food and conversation!
Passing Time 