This week, a news article caught my attention, Imagine Dragons Cares about the Refugee Crisis (and you should too), it popped up in my news feed on Facebook. Being a somewhat wary Internet user I rarely click on articles that pop up in my newsfeed, they are usually trying to sell me something. Honestly this one was no different, but instead of trying to sell me fake diet pills or miracle wrinkle cures (yes, Facebook is telling me I’m old), this was trying to sell me compassion.
I’m sure you have read, or at least heard about Europe’s refugee crisis. Over the next few days I found myself being reminded of John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath”. I have to admit that this was a tough novel for me to read, I found it hard to relate to, it was dense and it took me a long time to read. And yet, I found it popping unbidden into my mind for days. Suddenly it began to make sense, I began to understand, Steinbeck was putting a human face to people dispossessed and dehumanised. It’s easy to lose sight of that, and Dan Reynolds puts it articulately in his article “These refugees had to flee their beautiful homes and secure jobs due to war. They had no choice. It was either move or be killed. They wish nothing more than to be back in their homes, but that isn’t an option. These are people who had dedicated their lives to their trade. To their families. Their education. These are lawyers.”
These are lawyers. With those words these refugees suddenly become someone, you can imagine yourself in their shoes, dispossessed of not just your home, or your Nationality, but your profession, and your identity as a person. As a contributing and capable member of society you think, I have a job, therefore I am worthy. In “The Grapes of Wrath” it was the land, their home, their livelihood, and their identity which were all connected with their land, generations raised on farms suddenly dispossessed by large companies seeking profits. It’s not a true comparison, but the loss of identity soon became the loss of humanity in not just their eyes, but the eyes of society and those around them. They found themselves landless, skill-less, irrelevant, unneeded and dehumanised, and that is comparable to the situation of the refugees in Europe.
So, yes, reading has changed me. It’s given me a greater understanding and compassion for other people less fortunate than I am. It’s also given me the ability to look at the world through someone else’s eyes, and isn’t that something we could all benefit from? a little perspective.
J.M
Novel Aspirations 