I have not been blogging much in the last couple of weeks as I have been working on my book. But I have been reading coverage of the refugee crisis as well as some great opinion pieces by Zeynep Tufekci (I highly recommend following her on Twitter). There have been many heart wrenching images and stories that likely only scratch the surface of the human suffering and tragedy that is unfolding.
While there will be a time to discuss long term solutions addressed at the origins we have to act now to relief the immediate suffering. One thing to do is to donate and here is one list of organizations that help. Susan and I have chosen to support Refugees Welcome, which is an initiative out of Berlin that let’s individuals volunteer to host refugees. This is exactly the kind of bottom up initiative that we believe in and we hope that large housing/apartment sharing sites such as AirBnB and others will wind up supporting this or other efforts like it.
We also need to reach out to our elected representatives and let them know that our countries cannot stand by and let this happen on the theory that it is someone else’s problem or, worse yet, that maybe fewer people will try to escape their circumstances. No matter what our individual or collective fears about immigrants might be, nothing can justify the suffering. We all bear responsibility and we all need to act.
